"We will await an opportunity, then make our escape," she said with more bravado than faith. Weak as she was, it would have to be one wing-ding of an opportunity for them to escape.
Bessie either had more faith in Charlie than she deserved, or was too polite to show her doubt.
She said nothing as she shifted from the floor to sit on the bench seat opposite her mistress.
"What news?" Beth asked anxiously as the three men finally returned.
"Nothing," Radcliffe admitted unhappily. "We" He paused as a carriage rolled quickly past, the clip-clop of the horses' hooves too loud to talk over.
Surrounded by the three men, Beth peered toward the carriage through an inch of space between Tom and Radcliffe, then clutched at her husband's arm, a choked gasp slipping from her throat.
"What is it?" Tom asked worriedly.
"Charlie," she breathed, staring after the carriage. It was heading north.
The only direction the men had not yet checked. "I saw Charlie in that carriage,"
she explained, then frowned. "She looked ill. She was terribly pale."
Turning soundlessly, Radcliffe was after the carriage like a shot. Tomas hesitated long enough to glance toward the stables. "Trade our horses for new ones and have them harnessed to the carriage, Beth. Then follow us," he instructed, only to frown when he turned to glance at his wife and found she was gone, running down the street behind Radcliffe, her pert little behind jiggling with each step she took in the tight breeches.
"I shall take care of it, my lord."
"What?" Tom glanced at Stokes blankly, then blinked and nodded. "Oh oh, fine.
Good. Do that. Thanks." Then he was gone, too, chasing after his wife's jiggling behind.
"M'lady?"
Charlie blinked her eyes open weakly, startled to find that she had fallen asleep again, and sitting up! How on earth could she sleep at a time like this?
The answer was simple enough, she realized unhappily. Nearly two days of heaving with no water or food being offered could do that to a body. Her gaze slid to Bessie's worried face and she sighed. "Never fear, Bessie, once they realize that you are not Beth, they will let you go."
Biting her lip, Bessie shook her head. " 'Tis not me I am worried about, m'lady."
All Charlie could manage was a grunt at that. Then she turned and peered out the window to the inn they had stopped before. The inn where her uncle and Carland waited, no doubt, she thought with despair. It was beginning to look as if she would be marrying the brutal bastard after all, and she shuddered at the thought of the wedding night ahead. She imagined Carland touching her as Radcliffe hadNay. Not like Radcliffe. Carland had no gentleness in him. He would touch her in the same places, but in a far different manner.
Maybe she would be lucky and he would beat her to death early on in the marriage, she thought fatalistically. If she had been feeling better, Charlie would have been ashamed of such thoughts, but she wasn't feeling better.
She felt half-dead. She was weak, exhausted, dry asdust. She also felt terribly sorry for herself. And to think she had been furious just the morning before that Radcliffe had wanted to marry her out of pity and guilt. That morning and her arrogance now seemed a lifetime away. Today, she would have taken him had she had to pay him. Come to that, she'd pay the nearest farmer to allow her to marry one of his pigs to avoid marrying Carland.
Raised voices drew her gaze to the man who had approached the inn. He was returning with another man, this one still in his night rail. Charlie recognized him at once as Symes, her uncle's man of affairs.
"Put your veil back on, Bessie," she murmured as they drew near. She would keep the girl with her as long as she could.
Charlie had never had much use for Symes, having witnessed several of the petty cruelties he had inflicted on the rest of the staff over the years, so she did not bother greeting him when he peered through the carriage window. His glance slid swiftly over Bessie in her veil and gown, then stopped on Charlie, eyes widening at her male garb, then narrowing on her pale face and sunken eyes.
Pulling his head back out, he turned on the men. "What the deuce did you do to her? She looks half-dead!"
"She don'ttravel well," one of the men snapped. "Now, where's our money?"
"You will have to wait until His Lordship wakes up."
"What?"
Charlie nearly laughed at the dismay on her kidnappers' faces as they heard that. It seemed they didn't know the sort of man they had done this dirty deed for, or perhaps they worked for the blackmailer and were just picking up the payment for goods delivered. Aye, that made sense, she guessed.
Otherwise the men would have realized that Henry liked his pleasures to excess. He drank, ate, and gambled to excess. He also slept to excess and had been known to take his riding crop to anyone foolish enough to by to disturb his sleep for any reason.
Even a matter like the arrival of his runaway niece and the need to pay off her kidnappers would never be allowed to intrude on his rest.
Uncle Henry never got up before noon and it was barely dawn now. He had probably only been abed for an hour. Charlie supposed that meant that she had several more hours of freedom left Unless Carland was an early riser. She hoped not.
She fervently hoped that he had caroused with Henry throughout the night and would rise just as late.
"You heard what I said," Symes said shortly. "You will have to wait until he awakens."
"The devil take that!" the big-nosed man snarled furiously. "Go wake the bugger up."
"I am not waking him up. And I strongly suggest that you do not either,"
Symes added sharply as the beefy man turned determinedly toward the inn. "Not if you wish to get paid."
That brought the man up short. Whirling back, he eyed Symes narrowly.
"Yer damn right I want to get paid. We've brought the girls and he'll pay for them."
"You brought the girls late" Symes collected pompously. "You were supposed to arrive at least six hours ago. He was up then and would have taken them off your hands and paid you gladly for them then."
"That one was sick. She kept leaping off the carriage to puke by the side of the road," the man complained. "It slowed us down."
Symes shrugged. "That is your problem. Now, you will have to wait."
"Well, what in Hades are we suppose to do with her until he gets up?"
"That is your problem, too. But I strongly suggest you don't lose her."
Turning on those dry words, Symes returned to the inn and hisbed.
Chapter Seventeen
"There it is," Tom said as he came to a halt beside Radcliffe.
Their being on foot, it had taken them several minutes to catch up to the carriage. Radcliffe had cursed himself for a fool a dozen times a minute as he had raced along. He should have kept the horses harnessed, then they could have followed right behind them. But he had expected to arrive after his quarry not before.
This explained why they had not heard news of the other carriage during the last day of their travels. They had questioned people each time they stopped to change horses, hoping to learn if they were gaining on them, but had learned nothing. No one had matched the descriptions they had given with that of any group that had passed through. Radcliffe had thought they were merely choosing different inns to stop at to trade horses. Now, he realized that they may have been doing that at first, but somewhere along the way, they had ridden right by them.
His gaze slid over the three men standing by the carriage and talking. He had stopped quite a distance from the carriage and the inn it sat before, not wanting to alert the kidnappers to his presence. But he was close enough to tell that the three men were agitated about something.
"Have they taken her in yet, do you think?"
Radcliffe frowned. "I do not know. I thought I saw someone entering the inn as it came into view, but I could not tell who it was or if they were alone."
"Well, if they have not, we could rush them when they do."
"Aye. That may be the best idea," he agreed, glancing around as Beth joined them. With his longer strides, Tom had passed her some distance back.
"Where is Stokes?"
Beth shook her head breathlessly and Tom answered the question. "He was to follow with the carriage and Mrs." He paused as the hack rattled into view.
Stokes and Mrs. Haitshair shared the driver's bench while her children both hung out the windows, helping to keep an eye out for them.
Stepping into the street, Radcliffe raised his arms over his head and waved until he was sure Stokes had spotted him, then gestured for Beth and Tom to follow as he walked to meet the carriage.
Bessie raised her head and opened her eyes. She had been sending up another prayer. Just in case the first five hunched or so had been misheard.
Now, she glanced worriedly at Lady Charlie, taking in her pallor, the smudges under her eyes, and the dead slumber she was in. Her mistress needed sustenance, as Bessie had told their captors after the nasty man had gone back into the inn, but they had ignored her pleas even for water. She supposed they were too annoyed at having to cool their heels to care about Lady Charlie's welfare.
"Surely the women are not still inside the carriage, Radcliffe? They must have taken them inside the inn as soon as they arrived."
"Aye." Radcliffe sighed unhappily at Tom's words. The seven of them had sat cramped inside the carriage for well over an hour. He, Mrs. Hartshair, and Stokes were wedged on the bench seat on one side, and Tomas, Beth, and the two children crowded onto the other. They had been watching the three men play dice beside the carriage for the entire time. Not one of the men had even glanced at the carriage. Charlie and Bessie must already be inside. Which merely made things more difficult.
"What are we going to do, my lord?" Beth asked anxiously.
"We will have to find out where they are and get them out."
"They will be guarded," Beth murmured. "And that guard would most likely be Symes." At their questioning glances, she explained, "Symes is my uncle's man of affairs. He is only about my size, but he is a dead shot and he is never without his flintlocks. He probably sleeps with them under his pillow."
"Then there are Carland and Seguin to consider," Tom said. "And Lord knows how many men they may have brought with them."
"What are you suggesting?" Radcliffe snapped furiously. "That we give up?
Just leave Charlie to Carland?"
"Nay. Of course not," Tom assured him. "We just need a plan. We shall get her out and save her."
"We may not need to get her out to save her," Beth murmured. When Radcliffe turned on her questioningly, she added, "I was recalling on the way here how Charlie and I used to switch places all the time. Most often it was just for fun, but sometimes it was to get out of doing something we did not wish to do."
"I do not see how that is relevant here, Beth," Tom said gently.
She turned to peer closely at Radcliffe. "You said in London that the two of you were to be married?"
Radcliffe winced as he recalled his arrogance while making the announcement to Charles, but nodded.
"Well, if you were married to her, Carland could not do so."
"Exactly. So we must get her out" he began, pausing when she shook her head.
"Not if we made the switch again."
"Now hold on!" Tom cried in dismay. "The idea here isn't to get Charlie out of danger and put you into it."
"I would not be in danger," Beth assured him calmly.
"You had best explain," Radcliffe said, feeling as confused as Tom looked.
"You could marry me" Beth began, but Tom's head nearly hit the roof of the carriage as he sprang upright in his seat.
"The devil you say! I will do many things tosave your sister, but giving you up is not one of them. You are my wife."
"Aye, but if he married me as"
"As Charlie" she had meant to say, but Tomas didn't give her the chance before interrupting irately. "Now see here, I have heard just about enough of this talk. You are married to me,and that is that!"
"Er my lords, I believe you may be misunderstanding what Lady Elizabeth is trying to say," Stokes said quietly.
"Misunderstanding?" Mrs. Haitshair snorted in disgust, then took it upon herself to explain the matter. "She's saying she could marry His Lordship as Lady Charlie."
When Tomas and Radcliffe stared at the cook blankly, she shook her head. "Look at her. She is wearing the same clothes as Lady Charlie. She looks like Lady Charlie. She even sounds like Lady Charlie. She could pretend to be Lady Charlie while you. Lord Radcliffe, marry her. She can say 'I do, sign her name"
Pausing, she glanced worriedly at Beth. "You can copy her signature?"
When Beth nodded, she relaxed and continued, "Then, once the ceremony is over, you can walk straight into the inn and demand your wife back' "My God." Tomas sank back on the seat, wonder on his face. "It may work."
"I do not know." Radcliffe frowned, then shook his head. "Nay. They already have Charlie, and the wedding will be registered with today's date. They will know that she could not have married me."
"That will not matter if she is me," Beth pointed out, and both men immediately looked confused again. Realizing that they had not quite grasped the concept of switching, she explained patiently. "If after the wedding, I continue to pretend to be Charlie and we confront Uncle Henry claiming that Charlie is me, Beth, it will work."
"Oh, I see!" Tomas exclaimed. "We will tell them that Charlie is you, and since you and I married four days ago, they cannot force her to marry Carland.
And since Charlie, whom you will be playing, will have just married Radcliffe, they cannot force you to many Carland either. You will both be safe."
"Exactly!" Beth smiled at him widely.
Though his head was spinning, Radcliffe was hopeful. "Will Charlie know to pretend to be you?"