Lessons in Love (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 3) Page 2

“Not at the moment, sir,” said Lucinda candidly. “I shall probably be very frightened when the novelty wears off.”

  “I should think being kidnapped is a novelty,” he said, sounding amused.

  “Not so much the kidnapping, sir,” said Lucinda cautiously. “It is only that being out in the world for the first time is interesting and exciting.”

  “Do you mean you have never left home before?”

  “No, I have never been farther than the boundaries of the estate.”

  “But that gown of yours is of the first stare. Surely you go to London for your clothes!”

  “My measurements are sent to London,” said Lucinda, “and a dressmaker known to Papa sends the clothes by the carrier.”

  “A lonely life.”

  “Perhaps. Are you not afraid of being hanged?”

  “No. Your father will not know which of the many men he has cheated in his lifetime has taken his daughter. I left the ransom note, unsigned, at White’s. He was due to play cards there just about the time I entered your room. He has been instructed to leave one thousand guineas in a hollow oak at the junction of the London and Baxtable roads if he wants to see you again.”

  “Captain Charteris,” mused Lucinda. “Why are you not fighting for your country?”

  “I was invalided home from the Low Countries with a raging fever,” he said, as the smell of frying ham began to fill the little room. “I am clever at cards and decided to earn myself some money before rejoining my regiment. I met your father at White’s, not knowing his reputation. He said he was tired of playing in clubs and suggested we repair to his town house for our game. Like a fool, I went. Had I insisted on staying in the club, then he would have been obliged to pay me. The reason for this revenge is because he not only refused to pay me, but had his servants throw me out.”

  “I hope you get your money, sir,” said Lucinda. “But what if you do not?”

  “He cannot be that unnatural a father.”

  “Oh, he is, I assure you,” said Lucinda.

  “Even if he does not appear to care for you, he could not tolerate the scandal of it being known that he had failed to make any push to rescue his only daughter.”

  “But it may not become known! All he has to do is read the note, burn it, and not tell anyone.”

  “My dear child, I refuse to believe that! You are prodigious cynical for your years. Take a chair at the table and I shall serve you.”

  Lucinda studied him covertly as she ate her breakfast. He had very thick, curling black hair, white skin, and heavy-lidded black eyes. In the light of day, Lucinda thought he might be even older than she had first imagined. Perhaps even as old as twenty-two!

  “How did you manage to find my bedroom?” she asked.

  “One of your father’s former grooms, one of the ones he had horsewhipped, was happy to draw me a plan. I found him by discreetly asking questions in the neighborhood of Partletts. No one likes your father, I can assure you. Have you no female relative to keep you company?”

  Lucinda shook her small head. “He routed them all. I have an aunt who bravely calls from time to time, but she is not allowed to stay above a quarter hour. The only one who ever gave back to Papa as good as she got was Grandmama.”

  “That must be the late Countess of Sotheran’s mother.”

  “Oh, no. She is Papa’s mother.”

  “She must be very old. Your father is in his fifties. Who is she?”

  “Grandmama is the Dowager Countess of Lemmington.”

  “Then why is your father not the Earl of Lemmington?”

  “It is all very complicated. The earldom went to Uncle Charles, Papa’s elder brother, on Grandpapa’s death. Papa was made an earl by King George.”

  “And why was such an honor conferred upon him?”

  Lucinda wrinkled her brow. “Grandmama said it was because His Majesty was raving mad at the time, but perhaps I should not say things like that.”

  “Not these days,” he said, suppressing a smile. “Not with so many being arrested for sedition. But tell me about the dowager countess. Does she not call anymore?”

  “Alas, no. I have not seen her for three years. She has since sent me presents on my birthday, but Papa had them returned. You see, she told him he was a disgusting creature when Papa was in his cups and he tried to hit her. She took her stick and brought it down on his head with such force that she knocked him unconscious. Since that day, she has been forbidden the house. I hope she sends me something on my next birthday, even though Papa will return it. It is a sign she is still alive, you see, and I am most fond of her.”

  “Quite,” he said gruffly. “If you have finished, you may go to bed.”

  “I have not any nightclothes.”

  “I bought you some things,” he said, and then was annoyed to find himself turning red with embarrassment under her clear gaze. “I did not realize you were quite so small and thin. They will all be a trifle large for you, but as you will not be leaving this apartment until the ransom is paid, it does not matter.”

  “I feel rather like that bird over there,” said Lucinda, rising and going to the window. “Except, of course, I am accustomed to a much larger cage.”

  “Go to sleep,” he said gently. “I shall not harm you.”

  “Unless I try to escape?”

  “Unless you try to escape.”

  Chapter Two

  Lucinda awoke early in the afternoon after sleeping heavily. At first she did not know where she was, and then, as she looked about the narrow bedchamber, she suddenly remembered. She was the prisoner of Captain Peter Charteris.

  She crossed to a rickety toilet table in the corner and splashed her face with cold water from a china jug. She opened a closet in the corner and studied the three dresses hanging there, finally choosing a blue cotton gown with a frilled yoke. She gazed down at herself, pleased with the childish dress, and decided to wear her hair down. Having completed her toilet, she tried to open the bedroom door. It gave a little, and then stuck.

  She tried harder. There came the sounds of movement from the other side followed by the sound of a piece of furniture being dragged away, and then the door opened and the captain stood blinking down at her.

  It was evident to Lucinda that her captor had been sleeping in an armchair against her bedroom door. He was coat-less and his thin cambric shirt was open at the neck to reveal the powerful column of his neck. He was wearing the black breeches of the night before tied with strings at the knee. He was in his stockinged-feet.

  He looked at Lucinda and found himself wishing she were once more the quaintly adult figure of the morning. With the childish blue dress on and her black hair brushed down on her shoulders, she looked small and vulnerable. He felt like a monster.

  “When will you know when the ransom has been delivered?” asked Lucinda.

  “Tomorrow,” he said curtly. “I told him to leave it in the oak by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  Sounds came from the apartment above.

  “Who else lives here?” asked Lucinda.

  “My accomplices,” he lied.

  “You will not have much of the thousand guineas left,” said Lucinda, “if you have to pay all these people.”

  “I assure you, madam, they are cutthroats who would kill for much less than one guinea.”

  Lucinda shuddered. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her he had been lying, and yet he dared not. If she called for help, then he would be tried and hanged. He wished heartily he had never thought of this mad revenge. Better to have kidnapped the horrible earl himself and kept him until he paid up.

  “How do I pass the time?” asked Lucinda. “There is nothing to do.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Perhaps you could purchase me a Latin grammar. I am learning my verbs.”

  “Very well. There is a bookseller close by.”

  “And paper and ink?” added Lucinda eagerly.

  He shook his head. She might not have believed his
tale about accomplices and he did not want her sliding notes under the door.

  Lucinda sat by the fire while he shaved and tied his cravat, shrugged on his coat and pulled on his boots. She waited until he had gone out and locked her in and then she ran to the window and gazed hopefully at the building opposite. The linnet was silent in its cage. The window opposite was open but there was no sign of life.

  Lucinda’s ever-present imaginary friend, Mary, said, “If you could find a way to get rid of him early this evening, that might be the time when that girl takes the bird in for the night. Perhaps you could attract her attention.”

  “I will try, Mary,” said Lucinda. “But I must not make it seem as if I am trying to get rid of him.”

  But there turned out to be no reason to find a way to get rid of the captain. After Lucinda and the captain had eaten an early dinner at four o’clock, Captain Charteris was only too eager to leave his captive and seek solace in a tavern. She barely spoke during the meal, and her fragile youth and silence fairly screamed reproaches at him. He decided that if the ransom were not in the oak tree on the morrow, he would take her under cover of darkness back to her home and consider he had had a very lucky escape.

  By six o’clock, he had had enough of his own guilty conscience and said he was going out. He warned her to stay quietly by the fire and study her Latin.

  Lucinda nodded obediently, and as soon as he had gone she took up her position by the window. The glass was dirty, so she found a cloth and polished the panes till they shone.

  She had just finished when the girl appeared at the window opposite. She reached out and lifted the cage. Lucinda jumped up and down and waved and waved. The movement caught the girl’s eye. She smiled and waved back. Lucinda waved even more frantically. The girl hesitated, the cage in her hand.

  Then a man appeared behind her, a rough, uncouth-looking fellow. He kissed the back of the girl’s neck. One large, hairy hand crept round and fondled her bosom. The slatternly looking girl giggled, pushed him away, lifted the bird onto a table in the room, and then pressed herself against the man. The couple exchanged a long, lascivious kiss.

  Lucinda walked away and sat down by the fire, her legs trembling.

  Disgusting!

  The whole world was disgusting, full of sweating, groping human bodies. She remembered the stories told her by her father’s mistresses and shuddered. All at once, she was very much afraid of Captain Charteris. Up until that point, she had looked forward to her escape, confident she could manage it, strangely sure the captain would not harm her. But he was a man! A fact that she had almost forgotten. If only she had ink and paper, she could write a note and drop it down into the street.

  She miserably turned the pages of the Latin grammar he had bought her. The end papers of the book were blank. An idea began to form in Lucinda’s brain.

  Forcing herself to become calm, she took a deep breath and went into the bedroom. She pulled back the sheet and tore a small hole in the thin mattress covering. Searching around with her fingers, she extracted the largest feather she could find. Now for that sharp knife he had used to cut the ham.

  As she lifted the knife from the kitchen table, she considered for only a moment hiding behind the door and stabbing him on his return. But she quickly realized she would not have the courage to do it.

  She sharpened the end of the feather into a miniature quill pen. Now for some ink.

  She found an onion and cut a slice and pounded it in a cup and then dipped her “pen” into the juice and began to write. “I am Lady Lucinda Esmond,” she wrote. “I am being held Prisoner in the Building opposite the …” She went to the window and looked down, and then returned to her writing. “… Mason, the butcher. Captain Peter Charteris has Kidnapped me. HELP!”

  The white onion juice did not show on the paper, but her grandmother had taught her this invisible writing trick, so she knew what to do. She held the page in front of the fire until brown letters began to appear on the page as the onion juice “cooked.”

  She went back to the bedroom and pulled a piece of wool from the knitted cover on the bed. Back to the kitchen, where she rummaged feverishly in a drawer. She did not want to tie the note to something too heavy for fear of injuring a passerby. At last, she chose a wooden spoon and bound the note to it.

  If she broke a pane of glass in the living-room window, the captain would be sure to notice it. She went into the bedroom and looked down from the window there. It overlooked a side street. There was a large pane of glass in the lower half of the window and four smaller panes at the top. She fetched the poker from the living-room fireplace and carried a chair into the bedroom and stood on it. She gently rapped at the upper left-hand pane until it cracked. Covering her hand with a handkerchief, she gently pushed. A small section of glass gave way and fell into the street below. She stood, shivering, waiting for someone to cry out and alert the captain’s accomplices. She stayed by the window for what seemed to her a very long time, but there was no shout from the street below. She tapped the rest of the glass and carefully began to pull the broken pieces, bit by bit, into the room.

  When the hole in the glass was large enough, she sent up a prayer and pushed the wooden spoon with the note attached through it just as two women were passing on the other side of the street.

  One gave an exclamation, and she and her companion crossed the street until they were out of sight below the window.

  “What’s this, then?” Lucinda heard one say.

  “It’s a spoon” came the other voice.

  “Do me fine,” said the first. “There’s a bit o’ paper tied to it.”

  “Funny thing,” said the other voice. “Tied wi’ a bit of wool what’s come loose. Throw it away.”

  “I’ll throw the paper away and keep the spoon.”

  The voices grew fainter as the two women moved down the street.

  Lucinda felt depressed and sick. All that effort for nothing! She should have tied the note to a large cinder or something equally useless.

  She drew the curtains to conceal the broken glass. Perhaps she might try again in the morning.

  She put the pieces of glass under the bed and carried the chair back to the kitchen. Just in time. A moment later, she heard the sound of the key in the lock as Captain Charteris returned.

  He looked at the small figure huddled in the chair. She turned wide, terrified eyes up to his.

  “What has happened?” he demanded. “I swear you were not afraid of me before.”

  “I am now,” said Lucinda, through chattering teeth.

  “Oh, the devil with it!” he said “Why now?”

  “Even if you get the money,” said Lucinda, “you can never let me go home. I know who you are. You will kill me.”

  “I shall not kill you, Lucinda. In fact, the whole thing is madness. I am not going to wait for the ransom. When night falls, I shall take you home if you give me your word you will not give anyone a description of your kidnapper.”

  “I promise,” said Lucinda shakily.

  He bent suddenly and kissed her on the cheek. She sat very still. That kiss had been strangely reassuring. Her fear left her.

  “Do you really mean it, sir?” she said. “Do you really mean to take me home?”

  “Yes, on my honor.”

  “Well, I call that handsome of you,” said Lucinda.

  “I have some things to think about and do not wish to talk any longer. We have only a few hours to wait until darkness falls.”

  Lucinda sighed with relief. But after an hour of waiting, she began to remember what her home life was like. Her brutish father would rail at her and question her for hours on end about her kidnapper. Lucinda’s lips folded in a firm line. She would give the captain another name and describe another man. That gross-looking fellow who had been making love to the girl opposite would do splendidly for a description of the kidnapper. For the moment, she had forgotten all about the note.

  In another part of the town, the illiterate
woman who had found Lucinda’s note had not thrown it away but had left it on her kitchen table. Chance had it that, as neither she nor her large family had been attending church, shortly after her arrival home, the curate came to call. The woman was called Mrs. Battersby and was a coarse, noisy female. The curate was timid but conscientious. He said his piece about church attendance, and as he talked, he fiddled nervously with Lucinda’s note, then finally opened it and glanced down at the contents.

  “Where did you get this, Mrs. Battersby?” he exclaimed.

  Mrs. Battersby explained with many cries to God to be her witness that she was an honest woman and that the spoon and the bit of paper had been thrown away.

  The curate said nothing further but took his leave, and took the note with him. He carried it straight to the nearest magistrate who called in the parish constable and the captain of the local militia. They debated whether to wait until they managed to contact the Earl of Sotheran who, by dint of looking in the peerage, they discovered to be Lady Lucinda’s father. But the curate, Mr. Venables, had not had such excitement in all his life. He suggested he should question people in the buildings around Mason, the butcher, and see if they had seen a man with a young lady.

  So it was that he came to the small apartment where the slattern dwelled. Her lover had left and she was half asleep, but she said there had been a little miss waving to her and pointed to the apartment window opposite her own.

  The owner of the building was contacted and revealed he had rented rooms for a month to a certain Captain Peter Charteris. The captain was a gentleman and had paid his shot in advance. He had told the landlord he would be living there for a short time with his little sister who was poorly and who would be mostly confined to her bedchamber.

  As Lucinda tried to read her grammar and her kidnapper turned over ways in which he might still get his revenge on the earl, soldiers began to gather in the street outside.

  There was a shuffling on the staircase, but the captain was too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice and Lucinda wondered if the noises came from his accomplices and whether the captain had told them of his plans to take her home.