&nbs
p; “Sorry,” he said, stepping back from her. “I must contrive to remember I’m a gentleman and a gentleman doesn’t take advantage of a lady.”
Caroline stared up at him in blank surprise. She touched her fingertips to her mouth, now looking thoughtful. “ Actually, you just took me by surprise. Perhaps you could do that again? I think it might be very nice. It might be more to my advantage than to yours.”
“Stop it. Come, let’s ride northward and I’ll show you a hidden walkway down to the beach.”
Roland Ffalkes knocked on the immense griffin-head brass knocker of Scrilady Hall at six o’clock the following evening.
Caroline was quite alone, save for two servants and Mrs. Trebaw, the housekeeper. It was Mrs. Trebaw who appeared in the doorway of the small breakfast room where Caroline was eating her dinner in isolated splendor, Bennett having ridden to Goonbell to drink himself into a stupor at Mrs. Freely’s Pilchard Head Inn.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Caroline, but a Mr. Roland Ffalkes is here. He said he was your guardian and sort of your cousin and uncle, and he’s most anxious to see you. Shall I show him in?”
But she didn’t have to, for he’d followed her, now standing behind Mrs. Trebaw, looking confident, hale, and hearty as a stoat.
Caroline knew a moment of sheer terror. Then she slowly rose from her chair. “Mrs. Trebaw, listen to me carefully. I want you to have Robin fetch Lord Chilton right now. Don’t tarry.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, Mrs. Trebaw,” Mr. Ffalkes said easily, coming into the breakfast room now, a comfortable smile on his mouth. “You see, dear ma’am, my ward and I have had a disagreement. I am here to mend fences, so to speak.”
“How do you manage to dredge up a smile? It nearly looks sincere. Never mind. Do it, Mrs. Trebaw. This man is a criminal. He is not my guardian. Have Lord Chilton fetched immediately.”
Mrs. Trebaw, looking perplexed and just a bit frightened, hurried away.
“It won’t matter, Caroline,” Roland Ffalkes said, looking briefly after the fleeing housekeeper. “If Lord Chilton even bothers to tear himself away from his own amusements at Mount Hawke, he will arrive only to find you gone. Are you ready, my dear?”
“Go to the devil, Mr. Ffalkes. This is my home. You will leave now. I have nothing to say to you. My solicitor will be in touch with you. You are no longer my guardian. You are nothing to me, nothing at all. No, I take that back. You are a thoroughly wretched memory. Now, get out.”
He laughed and walked to the rectangular table, after quietly closing the door behind him. The room was small and square and there was no other exit. She picked up a knife from beside her plate. “Keep your distance, sir, or I’ll skewer you, and enjoy it immensely.”
“I doubt it, Caroline. You caught me by surprise last time, but not again. Be easy, my dear. Accept me, for you really have no other choice.”
She watched him calmly pull a large white handkerchief from his pocket. From his other pocket he withdrew a vial of clear liquid. She watched him liberally douse the handkerchief with the clear liquid.
She stared at that vial, the liquid within as clear as water. “What is that?”
He merely smiled at her and came around the table. “Put the knife down, Caroline.”
“No, I won’t. I’m not going to faint or weep. Believe me, Mr. Ffalkes, I’ll stab you and I don’t care if the knife isn’t all that sharp. I’m very strong, I’ll get it shoved in you nice and deep and then I’ll turn it. Such a pity I left my pistol upstairs in my bedchamber, but this will gullet you just as well. I mean it, Mr. Ffalkes, go away from here.”
He was six feet from her. He didn’t pause in his confident stride toward her, the soaked handkerchief held toward her in his right hand. Suddenly, he tilted one of the heavy mahogany chairs and shoved it hard and fast, so it teetered madly, right at her. She tried to move out of the way, but it struck her arm. She grabbed her arm because the pain was numbing. In the next instant, he was on her, slamming the wet handkerchief against her face with one hand, his other hand clutching the nape of her neck, holding her still.
She felt his hot breath on her face. “That’s it, my dear, struggle like a wild thing, it will go all that much faster.” She tried to stab him with the knife, but the fumes, strangely sweet, were filling her nostrils, her throat, her brain. She felt herself growing faint and weak, all her coordination falling away from her. She felt floppy, her muscles lax and useless. She raised the knife, only to feel her fingers release it. She heard it drop to the wooden floor. She tried to free herself, but she couldn’t. The last thing she saw was his face hard with satisfaction above hers. “Yes, that’s it, Caroline. Breathe deeply. It’s chloroform and it will keep you quiet for a very long time.”
She tried one last time to twist away from him, but she couldn’t. His face blurred above hers. She saw his smile, heard him say from a great distance, “I did wonder how long it would take before I got you alone. Not long at all.”
She heard him laugh. Then she didn’t hear or see anything at all.
North couldn’t remember being so frightened before in his life. Treetop ate up the ground between Mount Hawke and Scrilady Hall, but he knew in his gut that Ffalkes had come because he’d been watching and had known she’d be alone, without even that idiot Bennett Penrose there to give her protection, and Penrose had been told never to leave her side if other men weren’t about, namely him. He’d wanted to dine with her this evening, but one of his mares was foaling and she was having a hard time of it and he was fond of Spring Rain and so he’d remained to help her. And now this, dammit.
Caroline was tough, she was resourceful. For a girl, she was strong. He knew that, just as he knew she wouldn’t faint helplessly away in the face of adversity, but he also knew that Ffalkes wouldn’t take any chances with her, not this time he wouldn’t. No, he’d arrived prepared and North knew in his gut that he’d succeed. His blood ran cold.
He outstripped poor Robin in a matter of minutes, his body bent low over Treetop’s neck, urging his bay to go faster and faster. When he arrived at Scrilady Hall, Mrs. Trebaw was standing in the open door, wringing her hands on her black bombazine skirts, pale as a hoary frost of November.
“He took her, my lord! Beyond wicked, he is. I never would have believed it, but he came in and took her. Oh dear, oh dear, I couldn’t stop him and I tried. He just shoved me out of the way.”
North pulled Treetop next to the Scrilady Hall steps, but he didn’t dismount. “How did he take her?”
“She could have been dead, my lord. He was carrying her and her head was flopping back over his arm. He had a carriage. I tried to stop him, my lord, please, I swear that I did, but as I said, he just pushed me away and said it was none of my business. The two maids were of no help at all, hysterical, both of the silly girls. He had a man driving the carriage. They went northward, toward Newquay.”