Caroline looked up at Roland Ffalkes’s chin above the folds of his black coat and cravat. There was a tuft of whiskers he’d missed shaving. He was holding her close and she felt the smooth motion of the horse beneath her. She’d lost and she felt the return of the terror she’d felt when he’d first walked into her breakfast room.
She said very slowly, her voice and brain still slurred from the fumes from the soaked handkerchief, “Where are you taking me?”
“Ah, awake, are you? Hello, Caroline. No protector for you now, my dear. Just your dear soon-to-be husband and a very harsh young individual who won’t be as kind to you as I am if provoked, so I beg you to remember your manners.”
“When you’re through admiring the sound of your own voice, tell me where you’re taking me.”
“Still so mouthy, so full of swagger so unbecoming the gentle sex. I’ve never understood where you got this flippancy of yours. Your father was a quiet man, albeit a man of many moods. All he needed to make him content was a cause; anything would do: the corn laws, for example, the deportation of a miserable lout who stole a loaf of bread. He loved to smash his head against what couldn’t ever be changed, all in the name of justice, which has never meant anything at all. As for your mother… that’s it, that’s where you get this damnable smart mouth of yours. She always said just what she wanted to say. But she never jested, not like you do. She could hurt a man just speaking her mind. Once, she went too far and I was just showing her how much I admired her, but… Ah, you needn’t know what she was really like. Odd, isn’t it? I tried to keep you alone, isolated, if you will, after you so cleverly got yourself away from the young ladies’ academy. Mrs. Tailstrop was the most witless female of the appropriate level of quality I could find to live with you and be your chaperon. I believed you’d take to Owen because there was simply no one else. But you didn’t. As for this pathetic jesting of yours, Caroline, you will get over the woeful tendency once you’ve been my wife for a while. I suggest that you try now for a bit of conciliation. I am perfectly willing to wed you before I take you to bed and relieve you of your precious virginity. Well?”
“Where are you taking me?”
He struck her cheek with his gloved hand.
“’Ey, guv! No need to belt the little bite!”
“Shut your face, Trimmer. Now, Caroline, will you wed me now or shall I rape you until you’re with child?”
“I will never marry you, Mr. Ffalkes. You’re old and ugly and a thoroughly bad man.” He’d loosened his hold on her when he’d slapped her. Without thought to consequences, she raised her arm and struck him as hard as she could with the side of her hand into his throat. She shoved at him, trying to unseat him. He was frantically trying to slow the horse, trying to keep her securely held, trying to catch his breath, for he couldn’t seem to suck in enough air, and that was frightening. Caroline didn’t stop fighting. She struck him again on his ear and she knew the pain was bad, but still he held on to her and to the horse. He couldn’t yet speak, just made furious gurgling noises.
“’Ey, missie! Ye can’t do that, no ye can’t!”
And now she had to contend with Trimmer. She yelled at him, “I will pay you more than this miserable old man! He has nothing, indeed, he’ll probably kill you rather than pay you. That’s why he wants me to marry him, he—”
The butt end of the pistol struck her left temple and she crumpled inward against him.
“Did ye kill ’er, guv?”
“No, naturally not. Jesus, it hurts to talk, the damned little bitch. She’ll pay for that. It’s nearly dark. I have to get her to that cottage. It’s just through that patch of woods there.”
“She’s a lady born,” said Trimmer. “I do wonder where she learned to do that. Fair to poked the edge of ’er hand through yer gullet, guv.”
Suddenly, a deep, very smooth voice said from behind them, “I believe I will have the pleasure of finishing the job Caroline began, Ffalkes. No, gentlemen, I suggest that neither of you move a single knuckle of any finger. Mr. Ffalkes, you will very slowly dismount and lay Caroline on the ground over there on the grass. As for you, Trimmer, throw your gun and knife on the ground—surely a creature of your ilk would have a knife. Yes, of course you do.”
“Now, listen, guv, there’s things to speak about ’ere, don’t ye think that—”
North very calmly fired, hitting Trimmer’s right wrist as he brought up the gun, gleaming silver and stark in the dull evening light, and all primed to fire. “Do as I tell you or the next bullet will be through your bloody head. Yes, that’s very good. Stop yowling, Trimmer, you’ll live, if you’re not stupid. Now, Ffalkes, it’s your turn. Slowly, man, or I’ll make you very sorry.”
North felt Ffalkes’s rage, his utter frustration, and it pleased him no end. He held his dueling pistol directly at Ffalkes’s head as he dismounted clumsily, Caroline still unconscious in his arms.
“Ease her down gently, Ffalkes.”
“I’ll kill you for this, Chilton.”
“I hope you may try, you dishonorable bastard. I’ve been picturing your wrinkled throat between my hands for the past hour.”
“My neck isn’t wrinkled.”
North merely smiled coldly at him.
Once Caroline was on the ground, North said, “Now, Ffalkes, you and I are going to a very small, very smelly, and rodent-filled gaol in Goonbell.”
“Look here, Chilton, it’s your word against mine. You can’t do a thing to me.”
“You think not? Perhaps I forgot to mention that I’m the local magistrate. I rather believed transportation to Botany Bay might be just the thing for you. Might give you some character, though you’re probably too bloody old to change.”
“Damn you, I’m not old! I’ll have her. If you think anyone will believe her, you must be mad. She’s only a female. No one believes a female. I will simply say she became hysterical, that she begged me to elope with her and I—”
North interrupted smoothly, his voice deeper, darker now, but his rage well contained. “Trimmer, ride away now, and you’ll wake up in your own bed with just a bandage around your scrawny wrist. Never let me see your face again.”
But Trimmer didn’t move. He was holding his bloody wrist, and he was still as a fence post. “I don’t think so, guv,” he said finally, and he was looking behind North.
“Please, Trimmer, not that old sharper’s trick.”
“Ain’t no trick, m’lord. Now then, ye lay that popper o’ yers on the ground. Ye be all right, Mr. Ffalkes?”
Another man. The third set of tracks. North felt fury at himself for his own stupidity. He hadn’t taken sufficient care. He’d underestimated Ffalkes. He had scouted for the other tracks when he’d heard them talking, but he hadn’t seen them. Hell and damnation.
“I’m quite pleased to see you, Treffek,” Ffalkes said, rubbing his hands together. “Now, my lord, do as he says, put your gun on the ground. Excellent. Now, let me see to my little pigeon here.”
At that moment, Caroline moaned. North was off Treetop’s back in an instant and on his knees beside her, drawing her up into his arms. He lowered his face until his forehead was touching hers, and said very quietly, “Caroline, I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
She just looked up at him, trying to clear her head, then she smiled and lifted her fingers to touch his mouth, his jaw, his nose, and he jerked back. “North,” she said, and pressed her face against his chest.
“Thank you, my lord,” Ffalkes said. “You have just given me the perfect lever. I always forget how very stubborn she is, but now it won’t matter. Treffek, tie up his lordship’s wrists. Trimmer, stop your moaning. When Chilton is taken care of, we’ll wrap your wrist in a handkerchief. Stop your damned whining, you gutless coward.”
North had no choice. He set Caroline away from him, watched her trying desperately to gain control, but he knew the blow Ffalkes had dealt her must hurt a great deal.
“You wonder, don’t you, my lord,” Ffalkes said,
as Treffek bound North’s wrists. “You wonder where he was. Well, he was guarding the cottage and we’re very nearly there. The gunshot brought him. Good man, Treffek. I’ll see you well rewarded for this once the bitch here is married to me.
“Now, let’s get to the cottage. Is the vicar there, Treffek?”
“Aye, sir, old Mr. Barhold arrived on the meanest little donkey I’ve ever seen, all ’uffin’ and wheezin’, and complainin’ louder than a stoat gettin’ its throat chopped, not that he can even put one together properly—but those guineas you put in his shiny black pocket will keep his mouth saying the marriage lines.”
“I won’t marry you,” Caroline said. “Nothing you do to me will make me marry you.”
He laughed, hauled her to her feet, and threw her over his shoulder. She fainted from the pain in her head.
* * *
Caroline opened her eyes to find herself not on the ground, not in North’s arms, but in a small mean room, lying on a narrow filthy cot. An elderly man with a high shrill voice was speaking to Ffalkes, or trying to, his stammer worsening as his voice rose. North was bound to a chair in a shadowed corner opposite her. The two villains were standing by the door, their guns now both pointed at North.
“S-see here,” the small elderly man was saying, “this is more than h-highly ir-r-regular, sir, this is im-impossible. The young lady is u-u-unconscious! She can’t even s-say her lines. This s-special li-li-license is surely in order and a pretty pence you paid the Arch-arch-archbishop of Canterbury for it, b-but the wo-woman must respond, sh-she—”
“She will,” Ffalkes said, striding over to the narrow, quite smelly mattress where she was lying on her back, her eyes now tightly closed. “Caroline.” He lightly slapped her cheeks. “Come on now, my dear, wake up. You don’t want to miss your own wedding, now do you?”
She opened her eyes, felt more clear in her thinking than she had before, knew she could bear the pain, and said quite clearly, “I won’t marry you, Mr. Ffalkes. Let me go.”
“It sim-sim-simply w-won’t d-do,” the small elderly man said.
“Shush, Caroline. That is the vicar, Mr. Barhold. You wouldn’t want him to get the wrong impression.” Before she could yell to the vicar, Ffalkes lightly lay his finger over her lips. “Look over there in the corner, my dear. It’s Lord Chilton, and he doesn’t look any too happy, does he? Now, here is the bargain I am offering you. If you wed me, I won’t kill him. If you continue refusing me, I’ll have Treffek put a bullet right through his mouth. And Treffek would, Caroline. He’s the biggest knave I’ve ever met, and believe me, I’ve met many in my life. Just look at those black eyes of his, all dead and empty and colder than a winter in the Highlands of Scotland. Aye, he’ll do anything for a groat.”
North said quite clearly, “Whatever he’s telling you, Caroline, it doesn’t matter. Spit in his face.”
Without hesitation, she spit in Ffalkes’s face.
Ffalkes drew back, so furious he wanted to kill her. He raised his fist, his eyes glittering, then slowly, slowly, he lowered his arm. “No, I shan’t let you goad me, not now, not when it is nearly done.” Then he smiled and rose from the narrow bed. “Trimmer, take Mr. Barhold outside for just a moment. It isn’t raining and the moon is shining quite in a very romantic fashion. I’ll call you when we are ready for the ceremony.”
“Mr. F-Ffalkes, I-I’m n-not certain—”
“Go, Mr. Barhold. My betrothed simply doesn’t quite yet understand the complete extent of her good fortune. She will, very shortly.”
Ffalkes waited until Trimmer and Mr. Barhold had closed the very old and flimsy front cottage door behind them.
He looked from North back to Caroline, even as he wiped his handkerchief over his cheek. “Now, Caroline, if you willingly wed with me, Lord Chilton here goes back to Mount Hawke and to his own pursuits. If you don’t willingly wed me, Treffek will kill him here and we’ll bury him so he’ll never be found. Didn’t someone kill your dear aunt? In Lord Chilton’s case, there won’t even be a body for anyone to find. Don’t doubt me, Caroline. I need your money badly. I will do anything to get it. Now, will you have me for your husband in exchange for Lord Chilton’s life?”
She looked at North, tears filling her eyes. She said clearly, with no hesitation, “I will marry you, but first I want to see Lord Chilton freed and away from here.”
“Oh no, I don’t trust you enough for that, my dear girl. You will just have to have faith in me.”
Then she smiled and it was a mean, very malicious smile. “Very well, Mr. Ffalkes. I will marry you. If Lord Chilton isn’t freed, unharmed, you will believe that I will kill you. It won’t matter if I hang for it. It certainly won’t matter to you because you’ll be dead and rotting, the flesh falling from your old bones. Don’t think Owen will cry over your worthless carcass, because he won’t.”
Ffalkes wanted to say something amusing perhaps, something to let her believe he didn’t believe her for an instant, because, after all, she was only a girl. He thought of that exquisitely painful hack of her hand against his throat, he thought of that blow of hers to his groin. Would she kill him if he harmed her lover? Yes, he knew in that instant that she would, and yes, he knew Chilton was her lover as well. As for Owen, certainly his son would cry over him, but not for many years, yes, long into the future, when he would finally die in his bed, all comfortable and ready. He said, “So, you’ve moved very quickly, Lord Chilton. You met my betrothed just weeks ago and she is already your mistress. No, I didn’t believe you’d taken her at that inn in Dorchester, though you did make me doubt for a while. But since she’s arrived here, things have changed, and you have nestled between her legs, haven’t you? Evidently you’ve done it well, for her devotion to you is quite charming, don’t you think? And a surprise, I must admit. She’s a deceitful little piece, all full of pride and that damnable arrogance and an independent streak that isn’t at all proper, yet she seems willing to give any and everything for you. Yes, it’s touching.”
North couldn’t believe his ears. He said nothing, he was simply too stunned by what she’d said and by Ffalkes’s conclusions.
Ffalkes said now to Caroline, “It doesn’t appear that his lordship shares your tender feelings, my dear, but no matter, they’re all one-sided; it is women, you know, who spout all that romantic drivel. Men aren’t touched by such nonsense, thank the wise Lord. They do what they have to do to have a woman part her legs, but after they’ve relieved themselves, they then return to what’s important to them. Now, let’s have the ceremony.”
Trimmer brought in Mr. Barhold, who was very quiet now, his head bowed.
“You call yourself a man of God?” Caroline shouted at him. “You’re naught but a sniveling pathetic excuse for a worm! You’re a fraud!”
Very swiftly, and with a smile on his face, Ffalkes backhanded her. “No more, my dear. No more. Treffek, move a bit closer to his lordship. Show my lovely betrothed just how close to his divine maker his lordship is if she doesn’t cooperate and keep her mouth properly shut.”
“You will surely pay for that, Ffalkes,” North said, his voice very low and deep.
Caroline was very afraid, not for herself, but for North. But he would be all right. She knew Ffalkes believed her. If he dared harm North, she would kill him, oh indeed she would. It occurred to her then to wonder how much longer she would be a wife before Mr. Ffalkes made himself a widower. He simply couldn’t afford to let her live, could he? There should have been irony there, but she couldn’t find it.
“All right,” she said, swinging her legs to the floor and standing.
“Ho, guv,” Trimmer said from the door. “Lookee who’s ’ere! It’s yer dear little boy wot was sick but is all full of piss now and—”
Trimmer dropped where he’d stood, falling forward into the cottage. Owen came in behind him, a gun in his hand.
“No, Father, don’t start screaming at me again. You won’t do any forcing with Caroline. It’s over, all over. I won??
?t let this continue.”
“Owen,” his father said, walking toward his son, but Owen knew his father well. He quickly moved to stand behind the vicar. “Don’t try it, Father, else I’ll shoot the vicar, then there won’t be anyone to force Caroline to marry you.”
“I-I’m a rec-rector,” Mr. Barhold managed, “n-not a vicar. The bishop d-didn’t think I c-could be a-a v-vicar with my ve-ve-very slight s-s-stammer.”
“Now, lookee ’ere, boy, I got his shooter on ’is lordship and—”
“Shut up, you damned fool,” Caroline shouted. She was on her feet now, weaving a bit, but she was walking quickly toward North, her eyes pinning Treffek. “Don’t you dare hurt him, you bloody ass. It’s all over. If you have a single brain in that ugly head of yours, you’ll take Trimmer and leave.”
“But me shooter, and the guv there promised me five guineas! Five guineas is more than enuf money fer four pints a night fer six months!”
“I’ll give you six guineas, good for at least eight months. You may accompany me back to Scrilady Hall and I will give you six guineas tonight, no waiting, no killing anyone, no nothing.”
“I’ll make it seven, Treffek! Keep the gun against his lordship’s mouth, do you hear me? Don’t listen to this idiot girl here, don’t listen to my idiot son, don’t—”
“Very well,” North said. “Now, Treffek, if you don’t put down your shooter, if you don’t release me, I swear to you that not a single pint of Mrs. Freely’s best Goonbell ale will swill down your throat ever again.”
Treffek looked closely at North. He sighed then and let the gun hang loosely at his side. “Sorry, guv,” he said to Ffalkes, “but it do seem that all be against ye. Even yer son, and the good Lord knows a son is the last to defect from ’is pa. Meybe yer not such a lovin’ pa and that’s the trouble. Meybe yer even a bad man like the little bite said.”
“Shut up, you bloody coward!”