Font Size:  

The next morning, Mary and Paddy attended early Mass at St. Bridget’s, then waited for the priest outside the sacristy.That we’re holding hands should give the priest some idea of our intentions, Paddy hoped.

But when Father Muldoon emerged from the sacristy, he was all in a dither. Muttering to himself and shaking his head, the priest barely stopped to talk to them.

“No, I can’t talk with you now!” he admonished them. “Poor Mrs. Thompson is on her deathbed—I’m needed over there. Dying in childbirth, and she with four other little ones who’ll now be motherless—why don’t you come and see me tomorrow morning, that will be much better.”

So Paddy had another day and night at Clover House. While he was glad to see so much of Mary, and he appreciated how well His Grace’s household was taking care of him, he was worried.

Will Lady Josephine be all right? I’ll be back two days later than I had expected.Then he comforted himself with the recollection that Charley was in Worthington Town, keeping a good eye on Lady Josephine.

* * *

The very same day that Paddy and Mary sat down to plan their wedding with the priest, Lady Josephine was again kidnapped. Although she did not realize it, there were several parties of men combing Worthington to learn her whereabouts, each answering to a different master. Perhaps it was inevitable that, sooner or later, one of those gangs would locate her.

It was right after lunch. She was walking up the street toward the church to meet with Charley. They both had been wondering what was taking Paddy so long to return from London with the money. Lady Josephine wanted to be on the road to Cornwall as soon as possible, with Paddy and Charley by her side.

As she walked, a man stepped out casually from an alleyway between buildings, and he put his left arm around her shoulder. “Come now, my dear,” he said in a pretense of friendship to fool passersby. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

Lady Josephine could feel the end of a pistol in the man’s right hand, pressed into her side as if he were embracing her. He pulled her into the alley. Then, with help from two other men she did not recognize, he gagged her and tied her hands.

There was an unmarked carriage right at the other end of the alleyway. They pushed her into it in an instant. They blindfolded her, too, so she could not tell where they were heading.

They drove for a couple of hours. Lady Josephine was shaking with fear all that time. The Earl had found her again. What would he do to her this time, to punish her for escaping?

When the carriage stopped, they ushered her indoors and prodded her up a staircase and into a room. They pulled off her blindfold and gag, although they left her hands tied.

The man she saw sitting there, with a cordial, insincere smile on his face, was not the Earl.

“Welcome to Rosterbrook, my dear,” said her cousin, Lord Alfred, the Baron of Roster. “Goodness, whatever have you done to your hair? You look terrible.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like