Page 37 of Marrying a Marquess (Widows of Mayfair #3)

S omething awoke Priscilla. A noise, a smell, the wind, she didn’t know.

All she knew was she lay in bed, on her back with the coverlet up to her chin.

She tried not to breathe. The sound came again.

Footsteps outside her room. Was it Nick, even though he said he wouldn’t come tonight?

No, no. It couldn’t be Nick. There was more than one set of footsteps, and when Nick came before, he was silent.

More shallow breathing as she waited, only this time, her heart pounded, causing her to hear it inside her ears.

Who could it be? It was like she was a little girl again, and the monsters living in the forest were coming for her.

Frozen in fear, she heard the creak of her door opening slowly and closing again.

Two sets of footsteps shuffled on the thick Aubusson rug.

If she didn’t make a sound, would they leave believing the room was empty?

No, Priscilla, they will not. Get up and run and scream!

Now, do it now! Before she had the chance, a shadowed figure pinned her to the bed.

Another person forced her mouth open and poured something vile tasting down her throat.

She tried not to swallow it, but her mouth was held shut.

As the liquid slid down her throat, she recognized it as laudanum.

But why? Who would do that? One of the assailants stuffed her mouth with a foul-tasting cloth, flipped her face down on the bed, forcing the air from her lungs to disperse out her nose.

Large hands held her tightly as the other tied her arms behind her back and her feet together at the ankles with rough rope.

Strong arms reached out, and she tried to move away, but all she managed was to move her head away from him.

Her skin crawled in disgust and her heart beat so fast, she thought it would burst and she would die.

Perhaps dying would be preferable to what these blackguards had planned for her.

Nick’s face flashed in her mind and she fought back tears. She took a deep breath in through her nose and fought to get up on her knees. She sagged back down, exhausted and defeated. Without the use of her arms it was pointless. She was at their mercy.

Deep rumbles of laughter reached her ears. “Are ye done fightin’, girly?”

Suddenly, she found herself in the air and then dropped back on the bed on her back none too gently, which forced a strangled cry from her, though it was muffled by the cloth in her mouth.

The arms came for her again. She was hauled up and slung her over a shoulder so her head hung down her assailant’s back and her feet dangled down his chest and her mind screamed, “Nick!”

Her head tingled from being upside down.

Or from the laudanum. Or both. They made their way through Avery Manor and out the servants’ entrance as if they’d been there before.

They ran down the street, her body bouncing and jarring against unforgivable bone and muscle.

She fought not to cast up her accounts every time her stomach made contact with shoulder bone. Dear God, would her agony ever end?

They stopped abruptly, and her body sagged in relief, then she was dumped inside a small hackney.

The door closed, leaving her alone in the dark, on the floor at an odd angle.

The carriage lurched forward and settled at a fast clip sending pain lancing throughout her entire body as she was jostled around repeatedly.

Dressed only in a night rail, which was bunched around her knees, the top draped off one shoulder, had her shivering and wishing she could bring her arms and knees together to hug herself and ward off the chilly night air.

She exhaled through her nose and suddenly didn’t care anymore. Ah, the laudanum.

The pain ceased troubling her.

The muscles in her body liquified.

Her heart slowed, and her eyelids became so heavy she had to close her eyes as the effort to keep them open became too much.

And then nothing.

*

The first thing Priscilla noticed when she came to was that her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Dry. Her mouth was dry as sand and tasted foul.

The second thing she noticed was that she lay on a bed in a cold, dark, and stale-smelling room.

When she tried to lift her head, dizziness and nausea hit her.

“Ahhh, she is awake,” a voice belonging to a female spoke from across the room. Priscilla turned her head to the side gently so as not to disrupt her equilibrium and saw a lady, small in stature, draped in a black cloak with a hood. Her face was hidden, so she didn’t know if she knew the person.

Moving her tongue around the inside of her mouth, she prepared to speak. “Wh... who are you?”

“You may call me Esmeralda.”

She had heard that name before, but where? The throbbing inside her head was relentless, making it difficult to focus. “Why am I here?”

Esmeralda paced the room in small strides. “You have interfered in my plans.”

“H-how?”

“You need not concern yourself with the particulars. Just be quiet and do as I say, and everything will be fine.”

How could the woman say that? She had been drugged and taken in the dead of night, and everything would be fine ?

What world did she live in? Nothing good happened when someone was kidnapped.

Priscilla had led a modestly dull life compared to most young ladies of the aristocracy.

What could she possibly have done to thwart this person’s plans?

“I will return soon. If I were you, I would sleep off the laudanum, so your head and stomach will feel normal when you awaken next time.”

A door opened and closed somewhere in the room, and the sound of a lock clicking resonated loudly in the dark room.

Priscilla didn’t want to sleep. She was too frightened to sleep.

But her drugged body and mind had other ideas, and she drifted off into a sleep full of distorted faces and figures that chased her through London’s dark, deserted streets.

*

Hughes, accompanied by a footman, knocked and entered Nick’s chambers the following morning as they did every morning to open the curtains, bring fresh water and towels for washing, bring a breakfast tray with coffee, and assist him in dressing.

Last night wasn’t the satisfying sleep he had hoped for.

His head was foggy, and his body was fatigued.

He’d had strange dreams involving Priscilla last night.

“A note arrived for you just now, my lord. It’s on the breakfast tray,” Hughes said.

“Thank you. That’ll be all for now.” He reached over to the night table and picked the cup of coffee off the tray.

Finding it warm, he drank every drop. Then he stared at the folded paper resting on the tray.

It was addressed to him in an unfamiliar handwriting.

Inhaling, he climbed out of the warm bed, put on his trousers from last night, picked up the note, turned it over and frowned at the Avery seal.

It meant one of only three people could have sent it.

Breaking the seal and unfolding the paper, he read:

Nicholas,

What have you done with my daughter? Where is she?

No one in this household has seen her since she retired to her chambers after you returned her home last night.

I pray she is with you and not among the missing.

I have sent word to the Duchess of Blackstone, the Duchess of Greenville, and Lady Langford.

She is not off at one of her meetings. His Grace and I are worried and are awaiting your reply.

The Duchess of Avery

Eyes wide, heart pounding, he quickly scanned the note a second time, not believing what he read. It slipped from his hands as he hurried to his wardrobe, dressed in riding clothes as fast as he could, and bellowing for Hughes, who never strayed far when he was in his chambers.

“My lord?”

“Help me with my boots and have Bandit brought around.” Once presentable—or at least dressed—he ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, and paced the entry hall while awaiting his horse.

The coffee he had drunk sloshed around inside his stomach, and every muscle in his body constricted.

Where the bloody hell was Priscilla? Had she ever disappeared without telling anyone her whereabouts before?

Perhaps she had gone for a ride in the park?

No. She would have needed a groom’s help to prepare her horse and to accompany her, and the duchess said no one had seen her.

“Your horse is ready, my lord,” Robbins said, opening the door.

Nick hurried down the steps, mounted his horse, and took off for Avery Manor. When he arrived, he jumped out of the saddle before his horse had fully stopped and threw the reins to a footman standing sentinel at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Keep my horse ready.”

He jumped the stairs, skipping half of them, and almost fell into the house when the butler opened the door as he was about to knock.

“This way, my lord.”

Nick followed the butler, whose name slipped his mind because, bloody hell, his mind refused to think of anything but Priscilla, and followed him to the duke’s study. The duke sat behind his desk, a worried look on his face, and the duchess stood shrunk into herself, looking out a window.

“I came as soon as I read your note.”

A loud moan escaped the duchess, and her head fell forward. “So she is not with you then?”

“I haven’t seen or heard from her since I returned her home after the Blackstone dinner.”

His Grace stood and joined his wife at the window, his hand resting on her shoulder. “We will find her. And if God forbid, someone took her, and they want a ransom, we will give them anything they want.”

“Do you think she was kidnapped?” Nick asked as he fought down the coffee trying to reappear. Kidnapping wealthy children of the ton for ransom did happen. However, they were usually young children or babies.