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CHAPTERTWO
“He will not pay a ransom for my release,” Evie informed her kidnappers when there had been no response to the ransom note they’d had her write. They’d delivered it to Lincoln Grange a week ago.
Evie had been shocked and dismayed when, within minutes of her leaving Lincoln Grange, these men had swarmed out of the woods to stop her carriage and take her and the groom into their custody. The latter had received something of a beating before he surrendered. He had then been tied up and dragged through the woods with them. One of their kidnappers had driven the carriage through the rough terrain to their camp rather than leave it to be found abandoned on the side of the road.
That carriage now stood a short distance away, the horses that had pulled it tethered to a rope tied between two trees.
The groom, still bruised and battered, had been the one chosen to deliver the ransom note to his employer a week ago, after first having been blindfolded and then released close to the Lincoln estate.
To their credit, the men who had waylaid them had not attempted to do Evie any harm since her capture. But she had no idea how long that restraint would last if the duke continued to ignore their demand for money.
Especially when Evie did not have a shadow of a doubt her words would prove to be truthful ones. The duke had not bothered himself with her for the past five years, so why should he trouble himself to do so now? Not that she could blame him for his neglect, under the circumstances.
Evie had been five years old when her mother had introduced her to the man she was to call Uncle Silas during the frequent visits he paid to their cottage for the next four years. To Evie, he had appeared a tall, handsome man with a touch of auburn in his gray hair. A man who was always kind to her and often brought her presents.
It had been years later that she had learned, through the taunts of the local children, that her Uncle Silas was actually Silas St. John, the Duke of Lincoln, and her mother was his mistress. The duke was already married, with a son and heir who was fully grown.
Evie had run home in floods of tears, demanding that her mother deny the accusations. Instead, her mother had admitted it was all true, but with the added comment that she loved the duke and he loved her, but that it was impossible for the two of them to be together because of his legal wife and son.
There was no doubting her mother’s heartbreak when the duke died, or the proof of the duke’s love for them by his having left provision for them both in his will.
Evie had been devastated when her mother died five years later. That devastation was added to when she was informed that the guardianship of her had now passed to Hunter St. John, the present Duke of Lincoln, and the son of the man Evie had only ever called Uncle Silas.
If she had been heartbroken, then Hunter St. John, at their first and only meeting just weeks later, had been cold and haughty as he announced she was to travel to Yorkshire with a companion of his choosing, and that she was to remain there until or unless he decided otherwise.
He never had.
Five years later, Evie genuinely believed the duke had forgotten her very existence. Or, at least, he had sent her so far away so as not to impinge in the slightest on a single aspect of his life.
Quite what Evie had thought she was doing when she had thought to travel to London and demand he acknowledge her existence, she had no idea.
Because the duke’s lack of response to the ransom note had to be irrefutable proof that he had absolutely no interest in whether she lived or died.
* * *
Hunter read the ransom note again. He was sure from its contents and neatness, and the fact it did not contain a single misspelling, that an educated hand had written this note and not some ruffian in the habit of kidnapping young ladies from their carriage.
Hunter glanced up at Lady Margaret. “Can this possibly be the handwriting of my ward?”
“It is, yes.”
“Do you not think that strange?”
“Do I not think it strange that the lower classes are kept poor and uneducated and so have never learned to read or write?” The elderly lady huffed. “No, I believethatomission to be an ignorance on the part of the educated and wealthy. As such, I do not find it in the least odd that Evie was forced to write her own ransom note.”
“Then you believe this note to be genuine?”
She looked incredulous. “What else could it be?”
He shrugged. “As you seem convinced she has not eloped, then perhaps this is a hoax, possibly a game, on Evelyn’s part? In order to elicit a thousand pounds from me.”
Lady Margaret fixed her pale blue gaze on him. “Evelyn is headstrong and a little impetuous, but she is not money-grasping, nor is she duplicitous.”
Having deliberately not so much as set eyes on the young lady for all these years, Hunter had no idea if that was true or merely wishful thinking on behalf of her companion. After learning exactly who Evelyn Gardener was, Hunter had not cared to learn anything further about either the mother or the daughter. As a consequence, he had no idea if the provision for the two of them in his father’s will had been done out of love for the lady or because Jane Gardener had somehow blackmailed his father into it.
“Moreover, it would be the height of folly on her part to hide whilst waiting for the ransom money to be paid, even somewhere close to the house,” Lady Margaret defended. “She would be completely alone and thus unprotected.”
Hunter smiled slightly. “You are fond of your charge.”
