After the Abduction Read online

  SABRINA JEFFRIES

  After The Abduction

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Lady Juliet Laverick tried to ignore the pounding of her…

  Chapter 2

  “That’s impossible!”

  Chapter 3

  Only after the sound of footsteps along the corridor faded…

  Chapter 4

  An hour after dinner was over, Juliet approached Lord Templemore’s…

  Chapter 5

  Sebastian knew he was in trouble when he awakened the…

  Chapter 6

  Drat it all, she’d made an enormous tactical error. When…

  Chapter 7

  Sebastian led Juliet toward the drawing room, certain that he’d…

  Chapter 8

  My bones melt? Juliet thought in a panic, as Sebastian…

  Chapter 9

  The sun had just poked its nose above the horizon…

  Chapter 10

  “You simply must see Lucinda’s favorite sitting room,” Mr. Pryce said…

  Chapter 11

  Sebastian stepped into the room, her words ringing in his…

  Chapter 12

  Sebastian’s eyes shot open when he heard the peculiar note…

  Chapter 13

  A week later, Juliet paced her bedchamber, tired of plying…

  Chapter 14

  With mixed feelings, Sebastian watched her stroll out into the…

  Chapter 15

  Juliet gaped at him, certain that she’d misheard. “You mean—”

  Chapter 16

  As Juliet sat up and clutched the sheet about her…

  Chapter 17

  Sebastian’s blood curdled at those words. “What kind of problem?”

  Chapter 18

  Juliet had ridden halfway back to Charnwood when she heard…

  Chapter 19

  Midmorning on the second day after Juliet’s departure, Sebastian stood…

  Chapter 20

  Juliet sighed when she entered Lord Feathering’s palatial mansion for…

  Chapter 21

  Not long after her dance with Lord Havering, Juliet returned…

  Chapter 22

  For five days, Sebastian watched as Juliet made her brilliant…

  Chapter 23

  The Duke of Montfort emerged from the shadows where he’d…

  Chapter 24

  As the Knighton carriage rolled off, Rosalind resolved to keep…

  Chapter 25

  Sebastian stood in Wimbledon Common with his valet in the…

  Epilogue

  When the mail came at Charnwood Hall, Juliet squealed to…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Sabrina Jeffries

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Shropshire

  February 1818

  Immortal locks fell forward from the lord’s deathless head, and he made great Olympus to tremble.

  Homer’s Iliad, embroidered by Juliet Laverick on a pillowcase

  L ady Juliet Laverick tried to ignore the pounding of her heart. Tried to blot out the thunder of horse’s hooves on frozen earth, carrying her closer and closer to a confrontation with her past. Tried to pretend her hands were icy from traveling in winter, and not from her raw nerves.

  But she couldn’t. After more than two years, she was finally going to set her past to rest and see justice done. So how could she possibly remain calm, with Charnwood estate only a few miles away?

  “That Llanbrooke inn was dreadful,” came her sister’s voice from across the carriage. Rosalind sat beside her husband Griff Knighton with a tambour in her lap that she was pointedly ignoring.

  Juliet leaped at any excuse to keep her mind off the appointment at hand. “I’ve never seen cobwebs on top of a mantel before. Underneath it, perhaps, but on top? And that tankard sitting on the table—did you see the scum in it? That innkeeper ought to be drawn and quartered for keeping such a filthy common room.”

  “I wouldn’t give him quite so harsh a punishment, dearest,” Rosalind retorted, “but then I’m not attuned to domestic matters the way you are.”

  “I assure you,” Juliet said, “attuned to domestic matters or not, you’ll be ordering the same punishment after a night spent among the bugs under soiled linens. I dearly hope we can avoid returning there.”

  “It will depend on what the baron reveals this afternoon.” Griff stared out the window, scanning the quiet Shropshire forest with the wary eye of a man used to trouble. “If Lord Templemore proves uncooperative, we may find ourselves back at the Peacock’s Eye until we finish questioning the townspeople.”

  Juliet grimaced at the thought.

  “Surely his lordship won’t continue to shield his ward once he hears what Pryce did to Juliet,” Rosalind protested.

  They both glanced to her, faces full of their usual sympathy and concern. It made her want to scream. She hated being treated as if she might break under the least strain.

  But that came of being the youngest of three sisters, the only one not yet married. And the only one foolish enough to run off with a scoundrel like Morgan Pryce at eighteen, endangering herself and her family after he turned out to be kidnapping her, not eloping with her.

  Pasting a blithe smile to her lips, she said to Griff, “Didn’t the innkeeper say that Morgan doesn’t reside with the baron?”

  “Yes. But that was as much as I could discover. No one will identify the man in Helena’s sketch as his lordship’s ward.”

  Helena was Juliet’s oldest sister and gifted with a paintbrush. She, too, had cause to see Morgan brought to justice, but with her first baby’s arrival imminent, neither she nor her husband, Daniel, had dared journey to Shropshire.

  Griff went on, “Templemore’s father might have tarnished the family name and run the estate into the ground, but Templemore himself has an unassailable reputation as a worthy gentleman. So no one in town would speak of him or Pryce to a stranger.”

  “But you’re sure that Morgan and Lord Templemore’s ward are one and the same,” Juliet said.

  “I’m sure. The Bow Street runner’s evidence proved it incontrovertibly.”

  “Still, it’s odd that a man with such lofty connections would stoop to kidnapping.”

  “It’s Pryce’s lofty connections that make me suspect we’ve hit on the truth,” Griff said. “Everyone described your kidnapper as a man of refinement and education, who acted and talked like a gentleman.”

  He didn’t kiss like a gentleman. Juliet roundly chastised herself for the aberrant thought. Why was Morgan’s most annoying characteristic also the one that stuck in her brain? The impudent wretch! After all his wicked behavior, he’d had no business pressing a dark, shattering kiss on her before riding off into the mist like some careless knight of the road, leaving her behind.

  Not that she’d wanted to go with him, after the way he’d deceived her. No, indeed! A man like that, untrustworthy and treacherous…

  So what if he’d turned noble in the end, refusing to hand her over to the smugglers he’d kidnapped her for in the first place? So what if he’d fought his way out of the lion’s den with her, then left her to her family? He was still a devil for kidnapping her. Even if he had asked her to go with him after all that—and he hadn’t—doing so would have been disaster. Who knew what he really was, beneath his gentlemanly veneer?

  She’d seen how well he wielded a pistol. She had no illusions about him now, despite his handsome appearance and deft kissing.

  Drat it all, she must stop dwelling on that infernal kiss. “Do you think the baron will tell you where Morgan’s hiding?” Juliet asked.

  “He’d better,�
� Griff said, “or I’ll see that he answers for it. And once he does, I intend to hunt Pryce down and punish him to the fullest extent.”

  Juliet tensed. “Now see here, you will hold to your promise, won’t you?”

  When Griff kept silent, Rosalind asked, “What promise?”

  Griff looked a jot uncomfortable, not a good sign at all. Juliet glared at him. “Griff swore not to duel with Morgan or drag him back to London for a trial.”

  “He won’t do either of those,” Rosalind said easily. “Both would create a scandal that would ruin you, dearest, and Griff would never risk that.”

  “Griff?” she prodded.

  “Damnation, Juliet, you know I won’t do anything to shame you or your sisters,” he grumbled. “But I will see that scoundrel pay.”

  “As long as you don’t challenge him,” Juliet said, “I don’t care what you do.”

  Her brother-in-law forced a smile. “Challenging him would be the height of foolishness, anyway. I don’t suppose either of you have ever heard of the Templemore cartridge?”

  The women looked at him blankly.

  “It’s a device for pistols that combines gunpowder, ball, and priming in one unit. The baron invented it. When he demonstrated its use in London six months ago for the Royal Society, he hit every target dead center. Since Pryce probably learned from his benefactor how to shoot, I’m not such a fool as to challenge him.”

  “I’m sure Griff will handle the matter with discretion and gentlemanly calm,” Rosalind remarked, patting her husband’s hand.

  Juliet caught Griff narrowing his eyes, and groaned. She wanted justice, but she’d already put her family through hell once. And though they’d covered up her mortifying elopement/kidnapping without a word of scandal two years ago, as long as Morgan remained free her reputation, and thus all her hope for future happiness, would never be safe.

  That had become painfully clear a month ago, when out of the blue whispers had begun circulating among the wags in London. Hints that she’d once been “illicitly involved” with a man. “I don’t understand why Morgan had to start spreading tales and dredging up the past after all this time.”

  “No one has actually attributed the rumors to him,” Rosalind said.

  “But who else, other than us, knows the truth?” This latest betrayal wounded her even more than his initial one, rubbing salt in a wound already well salted. How could she have been so very wrong about him? “No, it’s Morgan, all right. And when I get my hands on him, I’ll make him tell me why. I shall make him stop!”

  Griff laughed harshly. “How do you propose to do that? Beat him with a duster? Poke him in the eye with an embroidery needle?”

  Her brother-in-law’s condescension made Juliet grit her teeth. She cast him her loftiest look. “I realize that you think I’ll take one look at Morgan and melt into a puddle the way I did before—”

  “He doesn’t think that at all,” Rosalind broke in.

  “—but I learned my lesson very well two years ago.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Rosalind said softly. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Her sister’s compassionate look made Juliet wince, then glance away. At eighteen, she hadn’t minded her family’s smothering so much, but now that she was twenty it was near to suffocating her. Undoubtedly, they worried that she’d run off with some other scoundrel if they didn’t hover over her. For goodness sake, she’d learned a few things about men in the past two years.

  Before Morgan came along, she’d believed in the essential goodness of people. That if you treated them well, they would reward your kindness with good behavior.

  Before Morgan came along, she’d been a fool. Kept in blissful innocence at her family’s estate, Swan Park, she’d never realized how devious and hurtful and betraying some people could be. It was the one good thing Morgan had taught her.

  Two years in society had finished her education. Watching badly matched couples parade through London had constantly reminded her how close she’d come to disaster by believing in Morgan’s good character. And seeing the games everyone played had forced her to sharpen her wits for fear she’d say or do something again to shame her family.

  She was wiser now, more careful whom she trusted. She tried hard not to let her naturally tender heart get her into trouble, even if sometimes she missed the innocent part of herself that had died two years ago.

  Rosalind apparently caught her scowling, for she said gently, “You mustn’t fret so. It’ll all be fine, I’m sure.” Then she tapped her neglected tambour. “Why don’t you help me with this? It will take your mind off this sordid business. Besides, I’m at a complete loss as to how to proceed.”

  “What a shock,” Griff said dryly.

  Rosalind glared at her husband. “I do have some domestic ability, you know.”

  His smile turned wicked. “You do indeed. But my favorite is not your needleworking skills, my darling.”

  With a roll of her eyes, Rosalind held the tambour out to Juliet. “All the same, I’d like to expand my repertoire.”

  Fighting a blush, Juliet took up the tambour. Griff and Rosalind could be so very…blatant at times. Determined to ignore their meaningful glances, she examined the puckered fabric, then pointed to some crooked stitches. “Here’s where you’ve gone wrong. This is supposed to be flames in a forge to represent the God of Fire. But you’ve made it black pudding.”

  “Not black pudding,” Rosalind protested. “It’s supposed to be Olympus. I know you sketched the design as Hephaestus working his forge while Aphrodite stood by. But the God of Fire is ugly, so I changed it to Zeus and Hera. It’s supposed to represent me and Griff, after all.”

  Juliet raised an eyebrow. “You can’t change designs midstream. It mucks everything up. No wonder you’re having trouble.” She began pulling out stitches, no small feat in the weak afternoon light with the chill air stiffening her fingers. “Besides, Zeus was a tyrant and Hera a nagging witch. Surely that’s no better.”

  “But Zeus and Hera had children,” Rosalind snapped. “Hephaestus and Aphrodite did not.”

  Juliet glanced up from the tambour. “What does that signify?”

  Griff looked suddenly stony-faced, and Rosalind inexplicably blushed and glanced away. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

  How very odd. What was going on between those two? “I can’t salvage this mess now. I’ll sketch a new design with Zeus and Hera later, and you can start again.”

  With a nod, Rosalind took back the tambour and stared glumly down at it. “I honestly don’t know how you can bear to do needlework. I find it tedious and annoying.”

  “Which is exactly how I find that Shakespeare you both enjoy so much. But I do like working with my hands. It soothes me.”

  And took her mind off Morgan.

  Drat it all, there he went again, intruding in her thoughts.

  They turned off the main road onto a smoother one. “Apparently, we’ve reached Charnwood estate.” Griff frowned. “I don’t see a house anywhere close; it must be larger than I’d realized. It’s difficult to obtain accurate information on a man who buries himself in the country and never comes into society.”

  As they trundled along mile after mile, Juliet’s heart sank. Bad enough that the baron had the respect of his peers. Must he own half the land in the shire as well? This didn’t bode well for forcing him into revealing anything about his ward.

  “There’s plenty of room here to hide Morgan,” Griff remarked.

  “Plenty of room to hide him and plenty of wealth to feed him, clothe him, and keep him warm for a decade,” Juliet grumbled. “I thought you said Lord Templemore’s father ran the estate into the ground.”

  “That’s what I’d heard. Apparently somebody resurrected it. Though it must have taken a fortune.”

  An understatement, to be sure. Thick stands of pine and oak stood sentinel to the busy efforts of workmen spreading compass on ice-crusted fields. Quaint, immaculately kept dairy buildings gave w
ay to neat, half-timbered tenant cottages. Why, the man probably had his own tannery and smithy and goodness knew what else.

  “Consorting with smugglers and acquiring fortunes go hand in hand,” Rosalind quipped. “Since Morgan was connected to those smugglers somehow, perhaps Templemore is, too. He might have come by his wealth the same way you did originally, darling—by dealing in smugglers’ goods.”

  “Very amusing,” Griff muttered. “But if he did, why hadn’t any of the smugglers questioned by the runner ever heard of him? They only knew Morgan, and some of them didn’t even know him. If Morgan was ever a smuggler himself, he wasn’t one for long.”

  Soon they began an ascent up a low, wooded hill. When they shot out of the tree-bordered road onto a long, forbidding drive, Juliet tensed.

  Worse and worse. Charnwood’s grounds were ten times grander than Swan Park’s. The coldly elegant lawns seemed to stretch on forever beneath the wintry gray skies. The formal gardens were tediously beautiful, with gravel paths and dainty bridges knitting together newly turned flower beds and manmade ponds. There was an impressive knot garden and hedge maze, too, just to emphasize that the baron was a man of consequence.

  As if Charnwood Hall wasn’t enough to prove that. My oh my oh my. Only a dead woman could remain unimpressed by the sprawling ancient edifice of claret-hued brick. Compared to this stately matron, Swan Park was an upstart at her coming out.

  Charnwood was the kind of eclectic great house Juliet had fallen in love with on trips to house parties. Pieces had been added here and there—a Jacobean wing stuck onto the Elizabethan core on one end, a Palladian orangery on the other. Dutch gables gilded the somber brick, and ornate cupolas perched atop the clifflike towers at each corner of the core. Every generation had stamped its own time upon the building, so harmoniously that, taken altogether, Charnwood Hall both enchanted and intimidated the viewer.