“Don’t move, Harris,” Sybil instructed. Had the man forgotten who paid his wages? “You can play escort while I fetch a constable. Great Marlborough Street is the closest office.”
“No!” Mr Daventry barked. “I’d no more trust a constable than I would these filthy rogues. If you want to be of help, search the boot for a length of rope.”
Sybil glanced at the empty box seat.
“The driver is unconscious and is no threat. But be quick.”
Slightly alarmed, but pleased to be of use, Sybil climbed up to the box seat. The driver lay sprawled across the footboard, blood seeping from the bullet wound, staining the arm of his coat. With one eye trained on the lifeless rogue, she rummaged around in the skeleton boot until she found the rope.
Mr Daventry used his blade to shear the rope in two, and with the help of her butler bound the thugs’ wrists.
Straightening, Mr Daventry turned his attention to her. In a voice surprisingly warm and brimming with concern, he said, “If you wish to be of further help, I ask that you wait indoors. I shall meet you there—you have my word—and then we shall decide how best to tackle our problem.”
Perhaps it was the way he asked or his choice of words that called to her sense of reason. “My father trusted you, Mr Daventry, and so I shall afford you the same courtesy.” She glanced at the thugs wrestling against their restraints. Despite knowing the gentleman could handle himself in a brawl and that the men were no longer a threat, she said, “Please be careful.”
The muscle in his cheek twitched. She couldn’t read the fleeting emotion in his eyes, but he inclined his head and reiterated his earlier instruction for Harris to guard her front door.
Once inside the house, Mrs Goodhope arranged for tea. It came as no shock to the housekeeper that Blake possessed a hunting knife or that he was more than capable of brandishing the weapon.
“Your father hired Mr Blake because of his military background.” Mrs Goodhope poured the tea as Sybil watched the scene outside from her drawing room window.
“Strange that he never told me.” Sybil took her tea from the trestle table and hurried back to her snooping spot. “I presumed he had always been in service.” Blake had replaced the ageing Hanley mere months before her father’s death.
“He was in service before coming here, in service to Mr Daventry.”
“Mr Daventry?” Sybil whipped around to face the housekeeper, spilling her tea onto the saucer. “And no one thought to mention the fact?”
Mrs Goodhope’s brown eyes widened. “I would have mentioned it, ma’am, if I’d known it was important.”
For a year, Sybil had been living with a spy. A spy! Her disloyal butler had been feeding Mr Daventry no end of tales. That’s how he knew about the broken kitchen window. That’s how he knew of her morning rituals.
Had she discovered this news before two thugs had bundled her into a carriage, both Blake and Mr Daventry would have felt the sharp edge of her tongue. Now, beneath the simmering anger at being treated like a child, she felt nothing but gratitude.
“It’s of no consequence. I just wish my father would have had a little more faith in me,” she muttered almost to herself.
Sybil turned her attention back to the window. Surely Mr Daventry had tortured the information from the rogues by now. The carriage had rocked so violently it was liable to snap a spring.
What the devil was keeping him?
As if prompted by her thoughts, the carriage door swung open, and Blake and Mr Daventry jumped to the ground. They lifted the driver down from the box and deposited him inside the carriage. Mr Daventry climbed inside and moments later handed Blake the driver’s coat.
“What on earth are they up to?” Curiosity kept Sybil pinned to the window as Blake shrugged into the blood-stained garment. He snatched the coachman’s hat from the footboard and thrust it onto his head.
Mrs Goodhope moved to stand at Sybil’s side. “It looks like Mr Blake is sitting atop the box. Yes, he’s taking the reins.”
“Good Lord! That means he’s going to drive.”
Blake flicked the reins, and the kidnapper’s carriage jerked forward, picked up speed and disappeared into the night.
“Well!” Sybil clenched her teeth. “The lying toad.”
She wasn’t sure what concerned her most. That Mr Daventry had broken his promise or that the gentleman was alone in the carriage with three violent criminals. What if they mounted a surprise attack?
“Ma’am, I’m sure Mr Blake has a good reason for darting off like that and forgetting his duties.” Mrs Goodhope sounded just as panicked.
“I was speaking of Mr Daventry, not Mr Blake.”
The rumble of a carriage outside kept Sybil at the window. Mr Daventry’s plush carriage rolled to a halt outside the house. Bower, his butler, opened the door and alighted first. He assisted Miriam to the pavement, spoke to the other occupants, then escorted the maid to the iron railings and opened the gate leading down to the servants’ entrance.