Page 69 of One Night with a Rake

Someone had abducted her mistress.

She’d ought to run screaming back down the lane to the hansom Lady Georgette had hired for the day. She ought to raise a hue and cry to search for the well-bred lady to whom she owed so much.

But she couldn’t leave Reuben’s side. Not till the big lummock opened his eyes so she could tell him how angry she was with him. How stupid he was to let someone whack him from behind like that.

How hopeless her life would be if he didn’t wake up so she could continue to bedevil him.

“Bring a blanket. We need to put him to bed,” Mercy said, taking charge of things, just like Lady Georgette would have done if she were there. The women rolled Reuben onto the heavy wool and, between five of them, managed to cart him up the stairs to one of the bedchambers.

No one lifted a finger to tend to the bully who was still slumped in the corner of the common room. Evidently Mr. Duggins hadn’t endeared himself to any of the girls he was supposedly there to protect.

Mercy still had her mistress’s coin purse. She could pay a doctor if one could be found and persuaded to come. In the meantime, she wet a cloth and cradled it under the lump on the back of Reuben’s head.

“Where’s that doctor?”

She fretted with the sheet, tucking it around him as if that would help somehow. She growled so at the others, the rest of the girls scurried out of the room, leaving her alone with the unconscious footman. Mercy picked up one of his limp hands and brought it to her lips.

“Oh, Reuben,” she whispered. “Don’t ye dare leave me like this. I’ll never forgive ye an’ ye do.”

Twenty-six

“This is monstrous!” Georgette protested as her assailant carried her bum first out of the House of Pleasure and down the cobbled street. She seemed destined to be transported from the crooked lane in this undignified manner with alarming frequency. If the situation weren’t so deadly serious, she’d have laughed.

Her captor had looped a stout length of rope around her waist after he covered her head with the burlap bag. Her arms were pinned to her sides, so she couldn’t pummel him as he deserved.

Georgette could, however, kick with all her might and she landed a few solid digs of her pointy toes into the man’s thighs. But when he delivered a stinging smack to her buttocks, she was shocked into holding still. That didn’t stop her from shrieking for help, however.

Where was Reuben? Where was Mercy? For pity’s sake, was there no one to come to the aid of a woman being abducted in broad daylight?

Not on Lackaday Lane, evidently.

She was rudely deposited into some kind of a conveyance. After she heard the door slam, the vehicle lurched forward.

Georgette couldn’t see him, but she knew her captor was there on the opposite squab. She could hear him breathing.

“I hope you know,” she said, trying mightily to keep her tone even, “that the law frowns on the abduction of the daughter of a marquis. You’ll be fortunate if you don’t hang.”

He didn’t answer. He hadn’t said a word to her, not even to order her to be quiet.

His silence was more unnerving than a threat.

The burlap bag allowed in a little light but was woven too thickly for her see anything but vague shadows through it. The strong fibrous hemp smell masked all other scents.

“If it’s a ransom you seek, no doubt my family will pay,” she said. “Though I warn you that you will likely be caught and be unable to spend any of the money.”

There was only silence.

The seat on which she’d been deposited was reasonably soft. When she clutched at the upholstery, short bristles of velvet rubbed her gloved palms. She was in a private carriage then instead of a hired cab. Her abductor had means.

Money was not his motive.

“This can only end badly for you,” she said. “However, there is still time to salvage matters. If you release me now, I promise not to breathe a word to anyone of this unfortunate incident.”

The man said nothing.

Her thoughts darted like a swarm of midges, too many crowding to the forefront for her to focus on one for very long. Finally, she settled on the fact that just because she was riding in a gentleman’s equipage, it did not signify that the man with her was the owner of the carriage. More likely he was a hired lackey, and therefore perhaps susceptible to a higher offer.

“Whatever you are being paid for this, I will double the amount if you release me now,” she said.