He didn't respond, except to crack the whip again so his horses surged forward onto the common with a final spurt.
The wind whipped across the snowy heath, bending the gnarled, leaf-bare trees and whistling through the sere brown bracken. The rutted road wound ahead, ice glittering in the hard, dry ridges, cracking under the pounding hooves.
Chloe shivered, dreadful apprehension prickling her scalp, lifting the fine hair on her arms. Then she saw the post-chaise up ahead, pulled to the side of the road under a stand of trees. A postilion, muffled to the ears in his cloak, stood beside the leaders.
The last time she'd seen a post-chaise waiting in such sinister fashion had been on the road to Manchester with Crispin. But on that occasion she'd been riding a swift horse and had her escape in her own hands.
"What's happening?" Her voice was barely a whisper as the nameless dread crept up her spine. "Hell and the devil, Denis, what's happening?"
Without answering, he drew rein as the curricle came abreast of the chaise. The horses panted and wheezed, sweat glistening on their glossy necks. Denis leapt down just as the postilion jumped into the curricle in his place.
Chloe struggled as Denis hauled her to the ground, but she was no match for his strength. Though she kicked and punched with the blind force of desperation, he lifted her off the ground and bundled her into the chaise as the door swung open.
She fell to her hands and knees on the floor as Denis leapt in behind her. A whip cracked and the vehicle surged forward with a violent jolt that sent her sprawling again as she struggled upright. Someone laughed. It was a familiar laugh.
Pushing backward, she righted herself so that she was kneeling. She looked up at the three men, two of whom were regarding her with varying degrees of amusement. Denis, on the other hand, bore the satisfied, slightly smug air of a man who has accomplished a singularly demanding task. What in the name of all that was good connected Denis to Jasper?
"Why?" she asked him. "Why, Denis?"
"You'll discover soon enough," Jasper said. "Sit up on the seat." His pale eyes, flat and expressionless, skidded over her face.
A wild rage abruptly overtook her, banishing the fear that had been born earlier out of uncertainty. If this was the enemy, she knew it… or thought she did.
She sprang at her brother, moving from her knees to a flying body of fury in one neat movement. She had no idea what she hoped to achieve, or even if she expected to achieve anything. Her gloved hands reached for those flat eyes that seemed to contain no soul, and her knee came up into his chest.
The next minute she was reeling as his open palm cracked viciously against her cheek. Her ears rang and she fell backward across Crispin on the opposite seat. Still she struggled, feet and arms flailing, making what destructive contact she could with the three bodies sharing the confined space with her.
Denis grabbed her ankle and she kicked viciously into his belly.
"Leave her to me. She's mine now." A rich certainty infused Crispin's voice. Denis released his hold, watching through narrowed eyes.
Crispin wrestled Chloe's slight frame facedown across his lap, wrenching her arms behind her as he held her. Jasper pulled off his cravat and tied her wrists. Then he picked her up and dumped her into the corner of the carriage next to Crispin.
"You've a great many lessons to learn, little sister," he said, breathing rather heavily. "Fortunately, I make a good teacher… maybe a little short on patience, but you'll learn all the quicker, I imagine."
Chloe was too stunned to reply. Her face throbbed, her wrenched arms were beginning to ache, and the cravat was uncomfortably tight around her wrists. Instinctively, she pressed backward into her corner, in no doubt as to the reason behind this abduction.
Her eyes slid sideways to Crispin. He was smiling in the way he had when he'd pulled the wings off butterflies as a child. She had once said to Hugo that Jasper couldn't force her to many Crispin. But then she hadn't fully understood the meaning of force.
The chaise jolted in another pothole and she fell sideways, unable to balance herself with her bound hands. Crispin pushed her upright again. She huddled backward into her corner again and closed her eyes to shut out the three pairs regarding her with the predatory interest of hunters who've finally snared their prey.
Where was Hugo? But what difference did it matter where he was? Never in a millennium would he connect Denis DeLacy with Jasper.
Vv here's Chloe, Dolly?" Hugo entered the drawing room before dinner, a somewhat mournful Dante on his heels.
"Why, goodness me, I thought she was with you." Lady Smallwood put down her embroidery and blinked at her cousin. "I haven't seen her since nuncheon."
"What!" Hugo impatiently pushed Dante's wet nose away from his thigh. "How could you not have seen her? Is she in her room?"
"I assumed she was with you," Dolly repeated. "I'm not usually told when you and she go off together." There was a hint of self-righteous grievance in the statement.
Hugo spun on his heel and ran down to the hall, yelling for Samuel.
"Eh, what's up now?" Samuel appeared from the kitchen, wiping his mouth with his table napkin. "In the middle of me dinner, I am."
"Where's Chloe?"
" 'Ow should I know? I 'aven't seen 'ide nor 'air of the lass since nuncheon. Thought she was wi' you." Sensing Hugo's agitation, he looked perplexed. "You mean she's not?"
"No, she's not. I haven't seen her since early this afternoon." Hugo forced himself to think clearly, to order his thoughts. Could she have had plans for the evening she'd forgotten to impart… or perhaps chosen not to? Like the Billingsgate affair.
It was not impossible. But it was unlikely. Chloe was an uncomfortable and incompetent liar. Her mischievous but generally purposeful schemes were never intended to be kept secret for any length of time.
She'd been going for a drive with Denis DeLacy. Had there been an accident? The curricle overturned? A stumbling horse? A lost shoe? Highwaymen?
But it was eight o'clock. Chloe had gone driving with DeLacy at two. Six hours! No ordinary accident could have happened in that time. Usually, if she went for a drive in the early afternoon, she'd be home by five o'clock at the latest. If there'd been an accident, then they had three hours leeway in which to deliver a message of some kind. Unless she was lying with a broken
neck beneath the wheels of DeLacy's curricle… how well did the damn youth drive? Was he reckless? All young men were reckless.
He thought of his own youth… of the number of times he'd driven a team when he couldn't see straight… of the times when he'd snatched the reins of a stagecoach from the hapless driver and careened down the road with screaming passengers, waving a bottle of burgundy over his head and shooting his pistol in the air.
Dear God in heaven! How chickens came home to roost.
"I'm going to Curzon Street," he said, taking the stairs three at a time. A few minutes later he was back, drawing on his gloves, a caped overcoat hanging from his shoulders.
Samuel, who had discarded his napkin and abandoned his dinner, was in the hall, buttoning up his own coat. "So what's at Curzon Street'"
"DeLacy's mother's house," Hugo said shortly, opening the door. "I can't think of anywhere else to start." He set off down the street almost at a run, Samuel panting along behind him.
"Go around to the mews and see if there's a pair of grays and a curricle in the stable," Hugo ordered as they reached the DeLacy mansion. Samuel went off and Hugo banged the knocker.
The butler opened the door and bowed. "The family are at dinner, sir. May I take your card?"