Netherby Halls

He rode up to her, but he wasn’t alone. Miss Sallstone’s husband was with him, and before she knew what he was doing, he had her reins!

“Sorry, love, but you pose too much of a threat,” James said softly.

She was too shocked to move for just one instant, but only one instant. In the next she grabbed her horse’s mane. After one hard yank, the cob pulled frantically away, tore loose from the doctor’s hold, and bolted.

Sassy gathered the reins as they galloped through the darkness, but no sooner did she get control than the horse nearly stopped in his tracks and reared. In front of her was the Tangiers man in the turban!

The man spread out his hands, but the cob was in a full spook. It swerved to the right and then reared again, and Sassy, who had lost her stirrups, went flying backwards. When she landed, the wind knocked was out of her. Before she could regain her position, he was on her, roughly shoving her over, to tie her wrists at her back.

He pulled her up, and she saw a coach coming towards them She screamed out, “Help!” She tried to touch her ring, but he had her wrists crossed in such a way that she couldn’t quite connect.

She would have to find a way to call on her magic without her ring. Could she do it?

* * *

Once he was sure Mr. Dobbs had immediate matters in hand, the marquis hurried to the door to the adjoining anteroom. Sassy would have overheard what had just transpired, so now she surely understood he was not hiring young girls to service him.

Percy was hot on his heels as he opened the door and found her gone. He closed his eyes. “She doesn’t know. She must have left as soon as I put her in here.”

“What is going on? Why was she here?”

“Come on, Percy. We haven’t time! Get your pistol, for I do believe we shall have a few blackguards to confront!”

“Aye then, but I want an explanation. Why was Miss Winthrop here? You didn’t force her, did you?”

“Don’t be a fool!” The marquis rushed out of the anteroom and across the study, took his pistol from the cabinet and stuffed it into his breeches, picked up his riding cloak, and stopped before the Bow Street Runner. “You have things under control here?”

“Yes, mean to take her to the guardian I set up at the lodgings you prepared. Don’t want anything that may look improper, so I’ll hand her over to Maude and then join you at the ship, where we’ll round up the scoundrels behind all of this ugliness.”

The marquis strode out with Percy looking grim at his back, and he turned to throw him a solemn smile and announce, “You were right, Percy—I am hopelessly besotted. She probably went back to Netherby, so we’ll head straight for the school.”

They mounted up and hadn’t gone very far when they came across a riderless horse calming himself by eating the grass along the roadside.

The marquis stopped his gelding and took a moment to think. “They have her, Percy—they have my Sassy!”

“Hell and fire, where would they take her?”

They regarded one another and said as one, “The ship!”

* * *

Winded, but not unconscious, Sassy was shoved into the coach opposite Bianca Sallstone and her husband, Tom Wheeler.

“You don’t know what you are doing,” Sassy said. “This will not go well for you. Too many mistakes to clean up.”

“Shut her up,” Bianca said angrily, and Tom Wheeler took a filthy rag and shoved it in her mouth.

At her back, Sassy tried to loosen the ties at her wrists and reach her ring. She had never really used strong magic without it. Could she? Could she call on a spell without the aid of her mother’s ring?

“She be a pretty mort,” said Bianca’s husband, reaching for Sassy’s cloak and throwing it aside to view her figure. “Aye, I could do with a piece of that.”

Oddly enough, Sassy was saved by Bianca, who slapped his hand away. “Don’t you dare touch her. I hate her and don’t want her scent all over you.” She turned to Sassy and hit her hard on her shoulder, which sent her reeling to the narrow floor of the coach.

Wheeler laughed and took a hold of her bodice to pick her up. “Ye be on m’feet—don’t mind if ye be at m’feet but not on ’em, darling.”

She yanked away from his touch and felt something sharp catch her ring finger just as he cursed and pulled her up to throw her back on the seat. Her ring! Her ring had fallen to the floor, and her blood was all over it from the nail catching her finger. No, oh no!

“What’s this?” Bianca bent and retrieved the gold ring with the unusual stone in the center. “Ah … pretty.” She gave Sassy a hard smile. “You won’t be needing it,” she said and slipped it on her finger.