If her captors had avoided traveling along the major highway entirely, it was possible that no trace of her would be found, not along the highway itself. Which, she suspected, meant that there would be no one riding to her rescue … or at least that she couldn’t count on her family arriving to save her.
She was going to have to save herself.
The thought shook her. Adventures weren’t her forte. She left such things to Heather, and even more Angelica; she, in contrast, was the quiet sister. The middle sister. The one who played the pianoforte and harp like an angel, and actually loved to embroider.
But if she wanted to escape — and she was quite sure she did — she would have to act, by herself, for herself.
Drawing in a deeper breath, she forced her lids open and carefully looked at her companions.
It was the first time she’d had a chance to study them in daylight; they usually noticed she was awakening and quickly drugged her again. The female guard — the one she’d originally taken for a dresser — she now suspected was a nurse-companion, the sort wealthy ton families hired to look after ageing relatives. The woman was neat, efficient, well spoken, and in appearance well presented. Her bountiful dark hair was drawn back in a severe bun at her nape; her pale face and features suggested she was perhaps gentry-born but had fallen on hard times.
There was definitely a hardness in the lines of her face, and even more in her eyes.
The nurse was, Eliza judged, of similar height and build to herself — on the tall side of average height, middling to slender build — and perhaps a few years older. However, being a nurse, the other woman was significantly stronger.
Eliza shifted her gaze to the man who throughout the journey had remained seated opposite her. She’d seen him at closer quarters several times, when he’d held her so the nurse could drug her. He wasn’t the mysterious laird; she’d recalled the description Breckenridge had gathered of that elusive nobleman: “a face like hewn granite and eyes like ice.”
While the man sitting opposite had clean-cut features, they weren’t especially rugged or chiseled, and his eyes settled the matter; they were dark brown.
“She’s awake again.” It was the nurse who’d noticed.
The man had been looking out of the window. He swung his gaze to Eliza.
“Do you want to drug her again?” the nurse asked.
The man caught and held Eliza’s gaze.
She looked back at him and said nothing.
The man tilted his head, considering. After a long moment, he replied, “No.”
Eliza surreptitiously exhaled. She’d had more than enough of being drugged.
The man shifted, rearranging his limbs, then looked at the nurse. “We need her in her customary excellent health by the time we reach Edinburgh, so we’d better cease drugging her from now.”
Edinburgh?
Lifting her head, straightening her slumped shoulders, then settling back against the coach’s padded seat, Eliza openly and rather haughtily studied the man. “And you are?”
Her voice was hoarse, still weak.
The man met her gaze, then his lips quirked, and he inclined his head. “Scrope. Victor Scrope.” His gaze shifted to the nurse. “And this is Genevieve.” Looking back at Eliza, Scrope continued, “Genevieve and I, and our coachman-guard, have been sent by your guardian to fetch you back from wicked London, to which you had fled from his isolated estate.”
Eliza listened as he outlined essentially the same tale Heather’s kidnappers had used to ensure Heather’s compliance.
“I’ve been told,” Scrope continued, “that you are, as your sister was before you, intelligent enough to comprehend that, given our tale, any attempt to attract attention and plead your cause to anyone en route will only result in you irretrievably damaging your own reputation.”
When he arched a brow at her and waited, Eliza curtly nodded. “Yes. I understand.”
Her voice was still weak, soft, but its strength was returning.
“Excellent,” Scrope said. “I should add that we will shortly be crossing into Scotland, where any attempt to gain help will be even more futile. And in case you were too incapacitated to notice, we’ve avoided traveling on the Great North Road. Even if your famous family search up and down its length, they’ll find no trace of your passing.” Scrope caught her gaze, held it. “So there’s no likelihood of rescue from that quarter. The next few days will be much easier for us all if you accept that you are my captive and that I will not be releasing you until I give you into my employer’s hands.”
His calm, cold confidence brought to mind an iron cage.
Eliza nodded again, but her mind was, somewhat to her surprise, already reviewing, assessing, searching for some way out. Scrope’s reference to Heather confirmed that his employer was indeed the same mysterious laird believed to be behind Heather’s kidnapping, and Eliza was perfectly sure she didn’t want to be handed over to him. Waiting to escape until after she was in the laird’s hands might well be akin to waiting to drop from the frying pan into the fire before reacting to the heat. So … if she couldn’t count on any help from her family, how was she to escape?
Turning her head, she looked out at the passing scenery; in the distance, beyond rocky cliffs, she could see the sea glimmering under the weak sun. If they’d passed through York this morning … she wasn’t sure, but she suspected that whatever coach road they were on, they would have to pass through at least one major town before the border.
She didn’t want to wait until after crossing the border to do whatever she was going to do; as Scrope had intimated, being in Scotland would only further reduce her prospects for rescue.
And it was rescue she needed. With her captors’ tale at the ready, attempting to directly free herself would only lead to social disaster.
Like Heather, she needed her hero to appear and whisk her out of danger.
Heather had got Breckenridge. Who would come for her?
No one, because no one had any idea where she was.
Breckenridge had seen Heather kidnapped; he’d followed her from the start. No one, Eliza felt certain, had any idea where she’d gone.
If she wanted someone to rescue her, she was going to have to do something to make that happen.
She wished she had Angelica with her; her younger sister would be bursting with ideas, jigging with enthusiasm to try them out. Eliza, in contrast, couldn’t think of any clever plan beyond the obvious one of exploiting the single loophole in her captors’ tale of fetching her for her guardian.
If she could attract the attention of someone who knew her, someone of the ton, then her captors’ tale would never stand. And given her family’s wealth and influence, there was every chance that the shocking fact of her being in her captors’ hands for days and nights could subsequently be buried.
But any such rescue would have to occur this side of the border; once in Scotland, her chances of sighting anyone who knew her, and their ability to talk her out of her captors’ custody, would be greatly reduced.
Shifting back into her corner of the coach, she trained her gaze forward, scanning the occasional vehicles traveling toward her. If she saw anyone likely …
In this far distant corner of England, she knew only two families well — the Variseys at Wolverstone, and the Percys at Alnwick. But if her captors continued to avoid the Great North Road, her chances of sighting any member of those households wouldn’t be high.
Looking at Scrope, she asked, “How long before we cross the border?” She managed to make the question sound idle enough.
Scrope glanced outside, then pulled out a fob-watch and consulted it. “It’s just after midday, so we should be in Scotland by late afternoon.” Tucking the watch back into his pocket, he glanced at Genevieve. “We’ll halt at Jedburgh for the night, as planned, then go on to Edinburgh tomorrow morning.”
Eliza looked outside again, staring out at the road. She’d been to Edinburgh twice. If they left Jedburgh in the morni
ng, they’d be in the Scottish capital by midday, and from what Scrope had let fall, that was where they planned to hand her to the laird.
But if they weren’t going to cross the border until late afternoon, and it was just after midday now, she was fairly certain that the coastal road they were on would take them through Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, the nearest major town to both Wolverstone and Alnwick, and, if she remembered correctly, the coach would have to traverse the entire breadth of the town to pick up the road to Jedburgh.
If it was market day, or even if it wasn’t, rolling slowly through Newcastle-Upon-Tyne would be her best chance to attract the attention of someone she knew, in a town where that someone could readily command the support of the authorities.
Adventure might not be her forte, but she could do this. She could manage this.
Relaxing against the squabs, she gazed out at the road and waited for the roofs of Newcastle to appear.
The sun broke through the clouds and beamed down; the warmth made her sleepy, but she fought off the temptation. She wriggled, straightened, stretched, then settled back. The glare off the next section of road, wet after a passing spring shower, hurt her eyes.
She closed them, had to, just for a moment. Just until the stinging eased.
Eliza woke with a jolt. For a second she didn’t remember … then she did. She recalled what she’d been waiting for, glanced at the window, and realized that more than an hour had to have passed.
They were crossing a reasonable-sized bridge; the different sound of the wheels on the wooden planks had woken her.
Heart pounding, she sat up and looked out to see houses lining the road. Relief poured through her. They must be heading into Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. She hadn’t missed her moment.
Wriggling on the seat, she eased her shoulders and back, then, spine now straight, settled to once again stare out of the window.
Willing someone she knew to be there, walking the pavements of the town. Perhaps Minerva, Duchess of Wolverstone, might be there shopping.
Preferably with her husband.
Eliza couldn’t think of anyone more able to effect her rescue than Royce, Duke of Wolverstone.
She felt Scrope’s watchful gaze on her face but paid him no heed. She had to keep her eyes peeled. Once she saw someone, she would act, and it would be too late for Scrope to stop her.
Only … the further they went, the houses thinned, then finally ceased altogether.
She’d woken only as they’d left the town, not, as she’d thought, as they’d rolled into it.
She’d missed her chance.
Her best, and very likely last, chance to attract the attention of someone who knew her.
For the first time in her life, she actually felt her heart sink.
All the way to the pit of her stomach.
She swallowed; slowly, she eased back against the seat.
Her mind in turmoil, she didn’t look at Scrope, but sensed when he looked away, when he relaxed his vigilance.
He knew there was little likelihood she could do anything to upset his plans now.
“That,” Scrope said, ostensibly speaking to Genevieve, “was the last large town before the border. It’s mostly open country between here and Jedburgh — Taylor should have us there well before dusk.”
Genevieve made a humming sound in acknowledgment.
Eliza wondered if Scrope could read her mind. If his purpose was to deflate and deject her, he’d succeeded.
She continued looking out of the window, staring out even though she’d lost all hope. This was definitely not the Great North Road; she’d traveled the stretch from Newcastle to Aln wick several times. She’d never traveled this way before, but fields already bordered the ditches. What roofs she spied belonged to cottages and farmhouses.
The coach bowled steadily on, carrying her further north, its wheels rumbling in a constant, unrelenting rhythm. Now and again, another conveyance rolled by, mostly farm carts.
Gradually, the road narrowed. Every time the coach encountered another vehicle going the opposite way, both had to slow and ease past.
Eliza blinked. She didn’t straighten, instead counseling herself to remain relaxed — dejected. To give no sign that might trigger Scrope’s watchfulness.
If by any chance at all someone useful might happen along, in a carriage, gig, or cart driving south to New castle … she was sitting on the right side of the coach to attract that person’s attention.
Her situation was desperate. Even if she saw a country squire — any gentry at all — she had to be prepared to seize the moment and scream for help. As matters stood, her family wouldn’t know where she was being taken. Even if the person she alerted did nothing more than write to someone in London, that would be enough. Someone would tell her parents.
She had to believe that.
She had to alert someone, and this stretch before the border was her very last chance.
If an opportunity presented, any opportunity at all, she had to seize it.
Gaze fixed, apparently unseeing, on the road ahead, she vowed she would. She might not possess Heather’s stubborn determination, she might not have Angelica’s reckless lack of fear, but she’d be damned if she’d allow herself to be handed over to some Scottish laird without making even one bid for freedom.
She might be the quiet one; that didn’t mean she was meek.
Jeremy Carling tooled his curricle around a sharp bend, then settled to a steady pace heading south on the first leg of his long journey back to London.
He’d left Wolverstone Castle at midday, but instead of heading east via Rothbury and Pauperhaugh to join the road to Morpeth and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, the route he had, as usual, used to reach the castle, he’d elected to take the westerly route along the northern edges of the Harwood Forest, joining the lesser road to Newcastle just south of Otterburn.
He enjoyed seeing fresh fields, as it were, and although the less-traveled way over the hills had slowed him, the views had more than compensated.
With a better surfaced road beneath his curricle’s wheels, he let his latest acquisition, a high-bred black he’d named Jasper, stretch his legs. About him the afternoon was waning, but he would still reach Newcastle and the inn he usually patronized well before dark. Freed from the need to think about anything practical, his mind drifted, as it usually did, to the contemplation of ancient hieroglyphics, the study of hieroglyphics being the cornerstone of his life.
He’d first become fascinated with the esoteric word-pictures when, on the death of their parents, he and his sister Leonora had gone to live with their widower uncle, Sir Humphrey Carling. Jeremy had been twelve at the time and insatiably curious, a trait that hadn’t waned. Humphrey had, even then, been widely recognized as the foremost authority on ancient languages, especially Mesopotamian and Sumerian scripts; his house had been littered with scrolls and musty tomes, with papyrus bundles and inscribed cylinders.
Easing Jasper around a bend, Jeremy thought back to those long-ago days and smiled.
The ancient texts, the languages, the hieroglyphics, had captured him from the instant he’d first set eyes on them. Translating them, unlocking their secrets, had rapidly become a passion. While other gentlemen’s sons went to Eton and Harrow, he, established from an early age as an able and impatient scholar, had had private tutors and Humphrey, a remarkable scholar himself, as his mentors. Where other gentlemen his age had old school friends, he had old colleagues.
And that life had suited him to the ground; he’d taken to it like the proverbial fish to water.
As both Humphrey and he were independently wealthy, in his case via a sizeable inheritance from his parents, he and his uncle had happily immersed themselves, elbow to elbow, in their ancient tomes, largely to the exclusion of polite society and, indeed, most company other than that of like-minded scholars.
Had matters allowed, they would probably have continued in comfortable seclusion for the rest of both their lives, but Jeremy’s assumption seve
ral years ago of the mantle Humphrey had for decades carried had coincided with an explosion of public interest in all things ancient. That in turn had led to frequent requests for consultations from private institutions and wealthy families attempting to verify the authenticity and standing of tomes discovered in their collections. Although Humphrey still consulted occasionally, he’d grown frail with the years, so running the increasingly businesslike enterprise of consulting on matters ancient for society at large fell mostly on Jeremy’s shoulders.
His reputation was now such that owners of ancient manuscripts frequently offered outrageous sums to secure his opinion. In certain circles it had become all the rage to be able to state that one’s ancient Mesopotamian scroll had been verified by none other than the highly respected Jeremy Carling.
Jeremy’s lips twitched at the thought. And the one that followed; the wives of the men who sought his opinion were every bit as keen to have him visit, to be able to claim the cachet of having entertained the famous, yet so-reclusive, scholar.
In social terms, his eschewing of society had rebounded on him. Given he was well born, well connected, well respected, reassuringly wealthy, and tantalizingly elusive, to many hostesses his very reclusiveness made him a major prize; the machinations to which some had gone to attempt to socially ensnare him and keep him a permanent captive had amazed even him.
None had succeeded, and none would; he liked his quiet life.
Although consulting for wider society was lucrative and often satisfying, by choice he spent most of his time buried in his library translating, studying, and publishing on works that either found their way into his hands or were brought to him, as a renowned scholar and collector, by the various august public institutions presently engaged in the serious research of ancient civilizations.
Such academic studies and contributions would form the bulk, the meat, of his scholar’s legacy; that sphere would always remain his principal interest.