The Undoing of a Lady...
Chapter 1
It was a beautiful night for
an abduction.
The moon sailed
high and bright in a starlit sky. The warm breeze sighed in the treetops,
stirring the scents of pine and hot grass. Deep in the heart of the wood an
owl called, a long, throaty hoot that hung on the night air.
Lady Elizabeth Scarlet sat
by the window, watching for the shadow, waiting to hear the step on the path
outside. She knew Nat Waterhouse would come. He always came when she called.
He would be annoyed of course – what man would not be irritated to be called
away from his carousing on the night before his wedding – but he would still
be there. He was so responsible; he would not ignore her cry for help. She
knew exactly how he would respond. She knew him so well.
Her fingertips beat an
impatient tattoo on the stone window ledge. She checked the watch she had
purloined earlier from her brother. It felt as though she had been waiting
for hours but she was surprised to see that it was only eight minutes since
she had last looked. She felt nervous, which surprised her. She knew Nat
would be angry but she was acting for his own good. The wedding had to be
stopped. He would thank her for it one day.
From across the fields came
the faint chime of the church bell. Midnight. There was the crunch of
footsteps on the path. He was precisely on time. Of course he would be.
She sat still as a mouse as
he opened the door of the folly. She had left the hallway in darkness but
there was a candle burning in the room above. If she had calculated
correctly he would go up the spiral stair and into the chamber, giving her
time to lock the outer door behind him and hide the key. There was no other
way out. Her half-brother, Sir Montague Fortune, had had the folly built to
the design of a miniature fort with arrow slits and windows too small to
allow a man to pass. He had thought it a great joke to build a folly in a
village called Fortune’s Folly. That, Lizzie thought, was Monty’s idea of
amusement, that and dreaming up new taxes with which to torment the
populace.
“Lizzie!”
She jumped. Nat was right
outside the door of the guardroom. He sounded impatient. She held her
breath.
“Lizzie? Where are you?”
He took the spiral stair two
steps at a time and she slid like a wraith out of the tiny guardroom to turn
the key in the heavy oaken door. Her fingers were shaking and slipped on the
cold iron. She knew what her friend Alice Vickery would say if she were here
now:
“Not another of your
hare-brained schemes, Lizzie! Stop now, before it is too late!”
But it was already too late.
She could not allow herself time to think about this or she would lose her
nerve. She ran back into the guardroom and stole a hand through one of the
arrow slits. There was a nail on the wall outside. The key clinked softly
against the stone. There. Nat could not escape until she willed it. She
smiled to herself, well pleased. She had known there was no need to involve
anyone else in the plan. She could handle an abduction unaided. It was easy.
She went out into the hall.
Nat was standing at the top of the stairs, the candle in his hand. The
flickering light threw a tall shadow. He looked huge, menacing and angry.
Actually, Lizzie thought, he
was huge, menacing and angry, but he would never hurt her. Nat would
never, ever hurt her. She knew exactly how he would behave. She knew him
like a brother.
“Lizzie? What the hell’s
going on?”
He was drunk as well, Lizzie
thought. Not drunk enough to be even remotely incapacitated but drunk enough
to swear in front of a lady, which was something that Nat would normally
never do. But then, if she were marrying Miss Flora Minchin the next
morning, she would be swearing too. And she would have drunk herself into a
stupor. Which brought her back to the point. For Nat would not be
marrying Miss Minchin. Not in the morning. Not ever. She was here to make
sure of it. She was here to save him.
