Robby frowned. “What’s that you say, Miss Maddy? A ride? Did they perhaps go into town to shop?”
“No, she would have told me to delay tea if she thought they would be so late.” She started to whimper, and it was obvious that she was highly agitated.
The earl told her to go in and calm herself with a strong cup of tea. “That’s right, Maddy m’darlin’, there is naught to worry yerself aboot. I’m certain the ladies will walk in any moment now.”
It was at that precise moment the door burst open. Donna, her hat askew, her lovely pale green riding ensemble covered in dust, her hair a flyaway, windblown mess, entered the hallway and with eyes wide, said, “There is no time to lose!”
The earl’s heart pumped harder than it ever had before. Fear flooded through his mind and banished all equanimity. He was filled with sudden terror because not only was Bess absent from the scene, but her closest friend appeared terrified. He asked sharply, “Donna, what is it—where is Lady Bess?”
Robby, still unaware that something was seriously wrong, said, “What happened to you, love? You look a—”
“No time—need fresh horses, must hurry … hurry, for there is no saying that she will keep her promise to me, and they are horrible, awful villains.”
“What is this, wife?” Robby was now moved to frown. “What is this about villains? And where is Bess?”
A strangled sound came out of the earl. “My lass—where did ye leave Bess?”
“You are wasting time with questions. We have to get fresh horses—I will explain on the way!”
“Oh dear, oh no, Donna, dearest Donna, only tell me my sweet girl is safe?” Maddy was now taking Donna’s hands.
Donna hugged her. “Yes, Maddy, she is well and safe, but I must hurry back to her, and we will explain upon our return. Don’t worry. All will be well.”
A few moments later, fresh mounts under them, they were cutting through the fields, Donna in the lead.
She had maintained a vigilant silence at the stables, cau
tioning them not to ask any questions in front of the grooms; she’d only whispered that they all needed to be armed.
Her husband’s eyebrows went up, and the earl looked grim, but as they started out, Robby rode up to her and asked her to slow down and tell him what the deuce was towards.
“No time. I don’t trust her to keep her promise to me. Come on—I know a shortcut,” Donna said. “I found it on the way here. There is no time to lose.”
“Stop!” the earl demanded, ignoring Robby’s questions. “Ye will tell me now before we go any further, Donna, what the devil has happened.”
“We met Mary Russell and that horrible Holland fellow when we went for our ride. Mary told us that her uncle’s ten-year-old ward, which in as frank a term as I can tell you, is his er … by blow—”
“Donna, I say,” objected her husband.
“Well, there you are, no time to hem and haw about it—the boy is ten, and he is missing. Apparently his father had decided to adopt him and leave him everything. At any rate, we don’t know if it is for ransom or some other devious reason, but the boy was abducted. Wouldn’t you know, it was the boy Bess has been telling us she saw in the Gypsy wagon.” She paused, took a breath, and then put up a hand to stall their questions. “Mary Russell showed us a miniature. Never mind all that. We tracked him from the carnival. They have him—they do, just as Bess suspected. The Gypsy that Bess saw at the Red Lion has him, and she wouldn’t come back with me. Said she meant to watch them, but knowing Bess … the Lord only knows what she will get up to.”
“Lead the way,” the earl said darkly.
* * *
Bess was getting stiff crouched down and leaning over her knees. She stood up, stretched, and then hurriedly crouched down again. It felt like the longest two hours she had ever spent in her life while she waited for an opportunity to do what she had planned out in her mind.
She knew young Thomas’s life depended on her freeing him as soon as she could.
She had watched as the Gypsy man paced and talked to his mother. He appeared worried. He had killed his fair share of men, he told her, but never a child. He didn’t like it.
She told him they had no choice.
So there would be no help there, Bess thought.
“Dashed if I’ll wait another day for our blunt, Mama. I’m off to the tavern to meet with ’im, I am, and mean to do whot ye told me. I’ll tell ’im I’ll let the boy go if he don’t hand over the blunt, as we’ll be wanting to pack up and hurry off soon as the deed is done. I’ll tell ’im that, I will.”
His mother grunted. “Aye, Raphael, ye be a good boy—ye tell the flash covey whatever ye need to tell him, but don’t ye leave him alive if he doesn’t hand over the ready!”