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Lady Leominster was almost right. The previous evening, George Wychwood, Viscount Darlington, had offered for Miss Amelia Western and been accepted. He had spoken to her father and received his blessing earlier in the day and had come to Leominster House solely to propose to her.
As usual, she had that dowdy goody of hers in tow. Well, she wouldn’t be needing a duenna when she was his wife, as she surely would be soon, and the dowdy goody could be given her notice, move on either to be some old trot’s companion or to shepherd some other innocent young woman and make sure that the wolves didn’t get at her before the honest men did.
And speaking of wolves, wasn’t that Ben Wolfe in earnest conversation with their host? George Darlington frowned. He had mentioned Ben Wolfe’s name to his father, the Earl of Babbacombe, earlier that day, and the Earl had made a wry face and said, ‘You would do well to avoid him like the plague. His father was a wretch, and like father, like son, I always say—although there were rumours that he was not Charles Wolfe’s son at all, just some by-blow brought in when Wolfe’s own son died at birth. I thought that he had gone off to India—enlisted as a private in that skimble-skamble Company army. What can he be doing in decent society?’
Uninterested, George had shrugged. ‘Made a fortune there, they say. Became a Nabob, no less. Been put up for White’s and accepted.’
He had little time for his father’s follies and foibles, having too many of his own to worry about.
‘Money,’ said his father disgustedly. ‘Whitewashes everything.’
His tone was bitter. There were few to know that the Wychwood family was on its beam-ends and desperately needed the marriage which George was about to make. Lady Leominster had been wrong in her assumption that money was about to marry money.
Certainly George had no knowledge of how near his father was to drowning in the River Tick and, if he had, would have thought Ben Wolfe a useful man to ask for advice on matters financial, not someone to despise.
As it was, he passed him by and concentrated on looking for pretty Amelia, whom he found sitting in a corner, her companion by her side. He ignored the companion and asked Amelia to partner him in the next dance.
‘After that,’ he said, ‘I have something particular to say to you, if Miss—’ and he looked enquiringly at the companion ‘—will allow you to walk on the terrace with me—alone. It is most particular,’ he added with a meaningful smile.
‘Oh, Miss Beverly,’ said Amelia, ‘I’m sure that you will allow me to accompany George on the terrace alone if what he has to say to me is most particular. After all, we have known one another since childhood.’
Susanna, who had been Amelia Western’s companion and somewhat youthful duenna since her previous employer, Miss Stanton, had suddenly died, knew perfectly well what it was that George Darlington wished to say to her charge. She also knew that, although she and George had met several times, and even conversed, he would not have known her had he met her in the street. He had twice been told her name, but it had made no impression on him.
She rose to answer him and, as it chanced, stood on George’s left. He had Amelia on his right. At that very moment, Ben Wolfe, who was looking across the room at them, asked Lord Leominster, who had just been joined by his lady, ‘Is that George Darlington over there?’
It was Lady Leominster who answered him eagerly, ‘Oh, indeed.’ She leaned forward confidentially, saying, ‘He is speaking to Amelia Western, the great heiress. I am sure that he is about to propose to her tonight.’
‘He is?’ Ben looked at them again, and asked, apparently idly, ‘I see that he has two young ladies with him. Which is the heiress?’
Never loath to pass on information, Lady Leominster answered, ‘Oh, the young woman on his left.’
She was, of course, wrong—but then, she had never known her right from her left—but before Lord Leominster could open his mouth to correct her, she had seized Ben Wolfe’s arm and exclaimed, ‘Oh, do come and be introduced to Lady Camelford, she has two beautiful daughters, both unmarried, and both, I am assured, well endowed for marriage’—so the mistake went uncorrected.
She was never to know that her careless remark would profoundly alter the course of several lives.
Ben had no further opportunity to see George Darlington or his future bride together, but later in the evening, as he was about to leave, Miss Western suddenly came out of one of the ballrooms. He was able to step back and inspect her briefly at close range.
She was modestly dressed, to be sure, but in quiet good taste in a dress of plain cream silk. She sported no other jewellery than a string of small pearls around her neck. She was no great beauty, either, but that was true of many heiresses, and he could only commend those who were responsible for her appearance in not succumbing to the desire to deck her about with the King’s ransom which she undoubtedly owned.
Susanna, on her way back to the ballroom, was aware of his close scrutiny. She had seen him once or twice during the evening and his appearance had intrigued her. One of the other companions, to whom she had chatted while the musicians were playing and their charges were enjoying themselves in the dance, had told her who he was and that he was nicknamed the Wolf.
She thought that the name suited him. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a trim waist and narrow hips—in that, he was like many of the younger men present. But few had a face such as his. It was, she thought, a lived-in face, still tanned from the Indian sun, with a dominant jutting nose, a strong chin, a long firm mouth—and the coldest grey eyes which she had ever seen. His hair was jet-black, already slightly silvered although he was still in his early thirties.
Susanna had read that wolves bayed at the moon and that they were merciless with their prey. Well, the merciless bit fitted his face, so perhaps he bayed at the moon as well—although she couldn’t imagine it.
Her mouth turned up at the corners as she thought this and the action transformed her own apparently undistinguished face, giving it both charm and character, which Ben Wolfe registered for a fleeting moment before she passed him.
So that was the young woman who was going to revive Babbacombe’s flagging fortunes. He had seen prettier, but then, money gilded everything, even looks, as he knew only too well. He laughed soundlessly to himself. Oh, but Amelia Western’s fortune was never going to gild Lord Babbacombe’s empty coffers—as he would soon find out.
If Susanna could have read Ben Wolfe’s most secret thoughts she would have known exactly how accurate his nickname was and how much he was truly to be feared. As it was she returned to the ballroom feeling, not for the first time, cheated of life: a duenna soon to reach her last prayers, doomed to spinsterhood because of the callous behaviour of a careless young man.
Francis Sylvester had never returned to England. He had taken up residence in Naples and seemed set to stay there for life.
Susanna shivered, but not with cold. She wanted to be a child again, home in bed, all her life before her. After she had been jilted, everyone had praised her coolness, the courage with which she had faced life, but once she had ceased to be a nine days’ wonder she had been forgotten. When Miss Stanton died and she had returned to society as Amelia Western’s companion, there were few who remembered her.
She was perpetually doomed to sit at the back of the room, unconsidered and overlooked. She had visited her old home, but her mother and stepfather had made it plain that they had no wish for her company, even though the scandal surrounding her was long dead. There was no place for her there, now.
‘You’re quiet tonight, Miss Beverly, are you feeling a trifle overset?’ asked one of her fellow companions kindly.
‘Oh, no,’ replied Susanna briskly. She had made a resolution long ago never to repine, always to put a brave face on things. ‘It’s just that, sometimes, one does not feel in the mood for idle chatter.’
‘I know that feeling,’ said her friend softly. ‘You would prefer a quiet room and a good book, no doubt, to being here.’
And someone kind and charming to dance with, thought Susanna rebelliously, not simply to sit mumchance and watch other young women dance with kind and charming young men.
But she said nothing, merely smiled and watched Ben Wolfe bearded again by Lady Leominster and handed over to Charlotte Cavender, one of the Season’s crop of young beauties and young heiresses. For a big man who was rumoured to have few social graces he was a good dancer, remarkably light on his feet—as so many big men were, Susanna had already noticed.
She sometimes thought it a pity that her common sense, her understanding of the world and men and women, honed by her opportunities for ceaseless observation would never be put to good use.
Stop that! she told herself sternly, just at the moment that the patterns of the dance brought Ben Wolfe swinging past her. To her astonishment, he gave her a nod of the head and a small secret smile.
Now, whatever could that mean?
Probably nothing at all. He must have meant it for his partner, but she had gone by him before she had had time to receive it. Susanna watched him disappear into the crowd of dancers, and then she never saw him again.
It was a trick of the light, perhaps, or of her own brain which was demanding that someone acknowledge that she still lived other than as an appendage to Amelia, who, having been proposed to by young Darlington, would shortly not be needing her services any more.
Which would mean turning up at Miss Shanks’s Employment Bureau off Oxford Street to discover whether she had any suitable posts as governess, companion or duenna for which she might apply.
The prospect did not appeal.
Now, if only she were a young man, similarly placed, there were a thousand things she could do. Ship herself off to India, perhaps, and make a fortune—like Ben Wolfe, for example.
Drat the man! Why was he haunting her? She had never looked at a man other than in loathing since Francis’s betrayal and now she could not stop thinking about someone who, rumour said, was even more dubious than Francis.
And he wasn’t even good-looking and she hadn’t so much as spoken to him! She must be going mad with boredom—yes, that was it.
Fortunately, at this point, Amelia returned and said excitedly, ‘Oh, Miss Beverly, I feel so happy now that George has finally proposed. It will mean that once I’m married I shall be my own mistress, do as I please, go where I wish, and not be everlastingly told how a young lady ought to behave.’
Susanna could not prevent herself from saying, ‘You are not worried, then, that George might demand some say in where you go and what you do?’
‘Oh, no.’ Amelia was all charming eagerness. ‘By no means. We have already agreed that we shall live our own lives—particularly after I have provided him with an heir. That is understood these days, is it not?’
And all this worldly wisdom between future husband and wife as to their married life had been agreed in less than an hour after the proposal!
‘Of course,’ said Amelia. ‘It will mean that I shall not be needing a duenna after the wedding ceremony. But then, you knew that would be the case when you undertook the post. It’s what duennas must expect, George says.’
Amelia’s pretty face was all aglow at the prospect of the delights of being a married woman. She was a little surprised that Susanna wasn’t sharing her pleasure.
‘He’s promised to drive me in the Park tomorrow and he’s going to insist to Mama that I go without you now that it’s understood that we are to marry. You can have the afternoon off to look for a post, George says. He’s very considerate that way.’
Susanna could have thought of another word to describe him, but decided not to say it.
‘If your mama agrees,’ she said.
‘Oh, of course she will,’ exclaimed Amelia. ‘Why ever not?’
And, of course, Mrs. Western did.
She also agreed with her daughter that Susanna should—as a great concession—take the afternoon off to visit Miss Shanks about another post. ‘I would not like you to think us inconsiderate,’ she finished.
She must have been talking to George Darlington was Susanna’s sardonic inward comment. But, again, she said nothing, which was the common fate of duennas, she had discovered, when faced with the unacceptable and the impossibility of remarking on it.
Fortunately for both Amelia and Susanna the afternoon was a fine one. The sun was out, but it was not impossibly hot, and after Susanna had seen that Amelia was as spick and span as a young engaged girl ought to be, she dressed herself in her most dull and proper outfit in order to impress Miss Shanks with her severe suitability and set off for Oxford Street—on her own.
It never failed to amuse her that although Amelia, only a few years younger than herself, was never allowed to go out without someone accompanying her, it was always assumed that it was perfectly safe for Susanna to do so. Who, indeed, would wish to assault a plainish and badly dressed young woman who was visibly too old for a nighthouse and too poor to be kidnapped for her inheritance?
So it was that, enjoying the fine afternoon, the passing show and the freedom from needing to accommodate herself to the whims of others, Susanna almost skipped along with no thought as to her safety or otherwise.
Nor did she notice when she had reached Oxford Street that she had been followed from Piccadilly by a closed carriage driven at a slow speed and with two burly men inside, so that when she turned into the small side street and the carriage and men followed her, she thought nothing of it until one of the men, looking around him to see that no one was about, acted violently and immediately.
He caught Susanna from behind, threw a blanket over her head and, helped by his companion, bundled her into the carriage, which drove off at twice its previous speed in the direction of the Great North Road.
Chapter Two
Susanna started to scream—and then changed her mind. She only knew that she was inside a carriage and had been snatched off the street by two men. Best, perhaps, not to provoke them. She was about to try to remove the restraining blanket from her head when one of the men removed it for her.
She found herself inside a luxuriously appointed chaise whose window blinds were down so that she had no notion of where she was, or where she might be going. Facing her, on the opposite seat, were two large men, both well dressed, not at all like the kind of persons one might think went about kidnapping young women.
She said, trying not to let her voice betray her fear, ‘Let me out, at once! At once, do you hear me! I cannot imagine why you should wish to kidnap me. There must be some mistake.’
The larger of the two men shook his head. ‘No mistake, Miss Western. We had express orders to kidnap you and no one else. And there is no need to be frightened. No harm will come to you. I do assure you.’
Somehow the fact that he was well dressed and decently spoken made the whole business worse. And what did he mean by calling her Miss Western?
Her fright as well as her anger now plain in her voice Susanna exclaimed, ‘You are quite mistaken. I am not Miss Western, so you may let me out at once. In any case, why should you wish to kidnap Miss Western?’
‘Come, come, missy,’ said the second man, whose speech was coarser and more familiar than that of the first, ‘Don’t waste your time trying to flummox us. Sit back and enjoy the ride. This ’ere carriage ’as the finest springs on the market.’
Susanna’s voice soared. ‘Enjoy the ride, indeed! I can’t see a thing, and I have urgent business to attend to this afternoon. You have made a dreadful mistake, but if you let me go at once I shall not inform the Runners of what you have done, which I promise you I surely will once I am free again.’
Number One drawled, ‘That’s enough. You’re a lively piece and no mistake, but we have a job to do and no tricks of yours will prevent us from doing it, so my advice to you is to behave yourself.’
‘Indeed I won’t!’ Susanna leaned forward and began to tug at the window blind with one hand whilst trying to open the carriage door with the other. ‘I have no intention of behaving myself,’ she shouted at him as he caught her round the waist and pulled her back into her seat.
He laughed and said, rueful admiration written on his face, ‘Oh, my employer is going to enjoy taming your spirit, I’m sure, but I haven’t time to argue with you. I shall have to tie your hands if you continue to try to escape. Sit quiet and do as you’re bid without any more nonsense, or I’ll tie your ankles together and gag you as well. Even if I was ordered to handle you gently, you’re leaving me no choice.’
He spoke quietly, even deferentially to her, but Susanna had no doubt that he would carry out his threats. She sank sullenly back into her seat and tried to put a brave face on things.
They thought that she was Amelia—if so, the reason why they would want to kidnap her was plain. Amelia Western was a noted heiress and it would not be the first time that a man wanting money had carried off an heiress and married her. It was a risky business since the penalty for such an act was death or transportation if the parents or guardians of the girl pursued the matter. Some did not, preferring to accept the forced marriage, if the man were reasonably respectable, rather than have the girl’s reputation destroyed.
Equally plainly they had mistaken her for Amelia—and how they had come to do so was a mystery. A further mystery was who could Amelia have possibly met in the recent past who was capable of carrying out such a criminal act? None of the men who had surrounded her since her entrance into society seemed likely candidates—or had Amelia been privately meeting an unknown lover and they had arranged this between them?
If so, why had she been snatched off the street? For, if Amelia had been conspiring with someone, it would have been simpler for her to have manufactured some excuse to meet him in secret to save him from risking exposure by kidnapping her in broad daylight.
Not that any of this speculation was of the slightest use when each yard the chaise travelled was carrying her further away from Oxford Street, Piccadilly and her temporary home there, and into the unknown.
And what in the world would be awaiting her at her journey’s end?
She was not to know for some time. They changed horses at a posthouse on the edge of London where Number One put a hand over her mouth to prevent her from calling for help while Number Two made all the necessary arrangements at their stop—which included taking on board a hamper of food.
Number One unpacked the hamper and offered her a cooked chicken leg, which she refused indignantly.
‘Don’t like chicken, eh? How about this, then?’ and he held out a ham sandwich. She shook her head so he gifted Number Two with the chicken and the sandwich before rummaging around in the hamper and fishing out of it a roll filled with cold roast beef, saying, ‘Beef, perhaps?’
She waved it away with as much hauteur as she could summon, announcing rebelliously, ‘I don’t want to eat. Under the circumstances it would choke me.’
‘Suit yourself, my dear. No skin off my nose. More for us, eh, Tozzy? My employer will be most disappointed. He particularly wanted you to be properly fed on the way home.’
‘How very gracious of him,’ Susanna snapped back. ‘Even more gracious of you if you turned the chaise round and took me back to Oxford Street.’
‘Can’t do that, I’m afraid,’ said Number One indistinctly since his mouth was full of the beef sandwich which she had rejected. ‘How about some pound cake? No?’
It might be childish of her, but Susanna found that the only way to demonstrate her displeasure at what was happening to her was to turn her back on him and sniff loudly, like the cook in the Westerns’ kitchen when something had happened to cause her aggravation—an event which occurred at least five times a day.
Eating over, silence fell.
Susanna resumed a more normal position, folded her arms, leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes. She felt as exhausted as though she were a child again and had been running and jumping all afternoon with her cousin William—and whatever had happened to him? He had disappeared from her life when her mother had married again. And what a time to think of him!
The lack of light and the swaying of the chaise lulled her so that she was on the verge of dozing.
Number Two said softly to Number One, ‘She’s a good plucked ’un and no mistake. She’ll be a match for ’im, that’s for sure.’
‘Oh, I doubt that very much,’ yawned Number One. ‘Never met anyone who was a match for him in all the years I’ve been with him. Pass a bottle of wine over, Tozzy, kidnapping’s thirsty work.’
Even through her half-sleep Susanna heard what he said and was fired with indignation. Just let this journey be over so that she could tell their employer—whoever he might be—exactly what she thought of him for arranging a kidnapping at all, let alone one in which the wrong woman had been carried off!
Ben Wolfe was looking out of the window in the library of his great house in Buckinghamshire which had been known as The Den ever since six generations of Wolfes had lived there. Before that it had simply been called the Hall. It had been left derelict when his father had died and he had gone to India, but since his return he had spared no expense in returning it to its former glory.
He looked at his fob watch. If everything had gone as he had ordered—and he assumed that it had since Jess Fitzroy had never botched a job for him yet—it should not be long before the chaise turned into the sweep before the front of the house. He could then begin to take his revenge for the wrongs which had destroyed not only his family’s wealth, but had driven his father into an early grave.
It was a pity that the girl was not particularly beautiful, but then, one could not have everything. He smiled as he thought of Babbacombe’s anger when the splendid match for his son fell through and he was left penniless, ruin staring him in the face. He was absolutely sure that, even though he had carried their daughter off in order to marry her, the Westerns would find him an even more suitable husband for her than Darlington—once they had discovered the astonishing extent of his wealth and the Wychwood family’s lack of it, that was, for he would take good care to let them know of it.
Even acquiring an Earl’s title would not make up for that lack. Especially since someone as rich as Ben was—and with an old name into the bargain—would almost certainly be a candidate for a title of his own before very long.
Not that Ben cared about titles and all that flimflam, but the Westerns did.
He had just reached this point in his musings when the chaise turned into the sweep. As he had hoped, Jess had successfully carried out yet another task for him—and would be suitably rewarded. He had given orders for Miss Western, soon to be Mrs Ben Wolfe, to be taken initially to her suite of rooms on the first floor so that she might refresh herself after the journey.
