Page 40 of A Whisper Of Desire (The Disgraced Lords #4)

Chapter Seventeen

“ J ust get in the carriage, Arend. We can’t interrogate him in his own club. Angelo has too many men around to force information from him.” Maitland was just as frustrated as Arend, but they had pushed Angelo as far as they could tonight, given that Angelo was surrounded by his henchmen.

“Fuck. He knows!” Arend punched the side of the carriage. “He bloody knows who this woman is. He all but admitted it to us.”

Hadley squeezed Arend’s shoulder, and without a word entered the carriage. Maitland remained outside, standing silently, waiting for Arend to calm down.

Arend cursed again. “We are going to have to write to Grayson.”

“You can’t be serious. You know what Angelo wants from him. He wants his pride and his soul.”

Maitland couldn’t believe Arend expected his friend to comply with that degrading demand.

“Don’t be ridiculous. However, if he comes to London we could perhaps draw Angelo into a trap.”

“I doubt it, Angelo’s anything but stupid.”

“Hey, I say, chaps, there’s a young lad asleep in here. And it’s not Marisa.” Hadley called through the carriage window.

Blood froze in his veins. She’d bloody gone for the boys. “Is Marisa in the carriage?” His stomach twisted. He already knew the answer Hadley would give him.

“No. I thought it was her asleep on the squab, but it’s not.”

“Stay with the lad. Arend, come with me,” Maitland said, and headed back into the club.

“What’s going on?” Arend asked, as they entered the club. For some reason there were no men guarding the door. Maitland’s pulse sped up.

“Marisa has it in her head to save the young lad she stowed in my carriage, along with his elder brother. I assume she’s here looking for Clarence.” Maitland indicated right. “Let’s split up. If you find her, I give you permission to put her over your shoulder and drag her out of here.”

Ten minutes passed and he’d searched all the ground floor thoroughly. He couldn’t find any sign of her or Clarence, and fear had a painful grip on his innards.

He made his way toward the stairs where Arend had gone, only to find Arend coming down; his face was dark as thunder and he was pulling Clarence along by his ear.

“Angelo’s dead. Shot. I found no sign of Marisa, but the boy here says he saw her taken.”

Maitland wanted to scream, but no sound could get through the knot in his throat.

“Angelo wasn’t clever enough. Our enemy must have found out he’d discovered her identity.”

Their villainess had Marisa. Murder leaped into Maitland’s eyes as he struggled to comprehend the danger Marisa was in.

“You have to help her.” The quietly spoken words from Clarence made him pull himself together. The panic was still roaring through him, but he called on all his years of control to think logically and calmly. Fear was the enemy.

“You saw who took her?”

Clarence nodded to confirm his words. “I came up to warn Her Grace that Angelo was on the prowl. I saw a woman, dressed like a man, fire a pistol at Angelo as he exited the room. Then she disappeared. When Her Grace came out to help him, a man who was most definitely with the woman grabbed her and pressed a cloth to her face, and then she simply fainted into his arms.”

She’d been drugged. “Did you see where they took her?”

“They carried her to a carriage in the alleyway behind the club. I saw the carriage turn north toward Smithfield. I didn’t know what to do, follow further or find you.”

Hadley beckoned with his hand. “Stop chatting out there and get in; we need to start a pursuit.” With that, Hadley pulled Clarence into the carriage. Maitland and Arend piled in after him.

“Do we follow now or get fresh horses?” Arend said.

“Horses would be faster, this carriage is too slow with all of us in it,” Hadley responded.

“Plus, I have to drop the boys at home. We cannot endanger them, Marisa would tear my flesh off with her scolding.”

Everyone looked at Maitland.

“They want her alive or else they would have killed her at the same time they killed Angelo.”

“True.” Arend’s words did little to calm his inner beast, even though he knew them to be true.

They dropped the boys at his townhouse. Priscilla took them in and would see to their needs until they got back. Once they had saddled their horses, Maitland gathered up more of his men and the posse rode north toward Smithfield.

Every few miles they stopped to ask anyone they saw if they had seen a large black carriage with gold-painted-trim wheel spokes.

Clarence had given them a good description.

The carriage was quite distinctive, thank God, so it was quite easy to follow.

They were soon out of the city limits, still traveling north toward Cambridgeshire.

“We will reach her before she is hurt. They want her found, you know that, don’t you?”

Never had Maitland been so grateful for Arend’s cool demeanor. His words helped reel Maitland back from the edge of mindless fury. “They are making it too easy for us to follow,” he said coolly. “For some reason our villainess wants us to rescue her.”

“Is it a trap for all of us? She must know Maitland won’t come alone,” Hadley added.

“Perhaps she wants a trade,” Maitland suggested. “If so, she can have one.” He shut his eyes briefly, struggling to sort out what to do, given the chaotic fury pounding in his temples.

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that. If we can catch the carriage before they get to some form of cover, I like our chances.”

Maitland shook his head. “We do nothing that places Marisa in danger.” He looked at Arend, already seeing Hadley vigorously nodding in agreement out of the corner of his eye. “Arend, I will have your word.”

A growl, as deep as a lion’s, filled the air as the horses pounded north. “Fine. I doubt our enemy is in the carriage, especially if she wants us to follow it.”

As Marisa opened her eyes, the first thing that made sense was the bile filling her mouth. Her stomach recoiled as if she were on a ship out at sea. It took her a few minutes to understand the movement was that of a carriage. She was in a fast-moving carriage, but it wasn’t Maitland’s.

Fear gripped her as she remembered what had happened. Someone had shot Angelo, and she had an idea of who that was and why their enemy would kidnap her. She had to escape before Maitland came after her.

She turned her head and waited for the dizziness to fade. She wasn’t alone in the carriage. There was a lady across from her, asleep, or perhaps, like her, drugged.

She wished her head didn’t hurt so much. Was this a trap? Could this woman, the young woman across from her, be the villainess pretending to be captured too?

The inside of the carriage was too dark for her to see the woman clearly.

The two of them were alone in the carriage. Good. Marisa felt capable of handling one woman.

Perfect. Time to escape, then. She tried to rise, but through her drug-induced haze it suddenly dawned on her that her hands and feet were bound. Damn.

Think, girl.

The young lady across from her stirred.

“Are you awake?” Marisa asked, her voice soft enough not to be heard by those above.

“Yes. We’ve been kidnapped, haven’t we?”

“Yes. Did you see who took you?”

“No. Did you?”

Marisa fumed because she hadn’t seen anyone, but she was pretty sure it was the villainess behind her capture. “No. I didn’t see who took me. My name is Marisa, Marisa Spencer, Duchess of Lyttleton.”

“Marisa, I didn’t recognize you in men’s clothing. I thought you a young lad. It’s me, Lady Isobel.”

Lady Isobel Thompson, Earl of Northumberland’s daughter. Relief seeped into her dry throat. Marisa didn’t for one moment believe Isobel was their villainess. She’d known Isobel most of her life.

Isobel was a sensible girl who was a year older than Marisa, but Isobel’s father died eighteen months ago and she’d been in mourning until the beginning of this season. Isobel’s stepmother had brought her to town for her first season two months or so ago.

“Do you know why you’ve been kidnapped?”

Isobel’s voice cracked. “No. Tonight, I was at Lord Marbury’s ball and I received a note to meet my stepmother at our carriage, but when I got outside somebody grabbed me.”

This didn’t make sense. Why would their enemy kidnap Isobel? She had nothing to do with the Libertine Scholars.

Marisa pulled her thoughts away from that puzzle and back onto their current situation. “We need to get free and make our escape.”

“My hands and feet are bound.”

An idea came to mind. If she could use her teeth to undo Isobel’s bindings to free her hands, then they could help each other.

The only problem was how to reach her. She decided the best idea would be to roll off the squab and onto the floor. Then Isobel could roll over until her hands were hanging over the edge of the seat.

“Can you turn to face the back of the squab and let me study your bindings?” Isobel did as she requested. “They don’t look too tight. I might be able to loosen them with my teeth.”

Before Isobel could respond she rolled onto the floor. Unable to use her hands to cushion the fall, the impact jarred her already sore head. “Can you move your hands closer to the edge of the squab?”

When Isobel complied, Marisa strained her neck upward and set about using her teeth to try and pull the knots undone. To her surprise the knots were not tied as tightly as she’d thought. Still, the muscles in her neck and cheeks were screaming by the time she’d managed to free Isobel’s hands.

In a flash Isobel pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned forward to tackle the bindings round her ankles. Before she could free her feet, there was a huge cracking sound. The carriage began to shudder and shake, then on a roar the carriage tipped sideways and crashed to the ground.

The panicked horses tried to bolt and the carriage was racing over gravel and dirt that flew into the carriage through the broken window. Thank goodness she’d worn men’s hardened shoes this evening. Marisa could feel them scraping along the dirt road through the broken window.