Kitty

‘Do you realise that you have brought me away without a stitch to wear besides this gown?’

The blue gaze travelled briefly down her person and returned to the road. ‘Beats me why you’d want the thing! Where did you get it? You look like the farmer’s daughter in her Sunday best.’

‘How hateful of you to say so! I know it is not fashionable, but—’

‘If you take my advice, you’ll burn it.’

‘Burn it!’ shrieked Kitty, outraged. ‘It cost me three whole shillings!’

He looked round again, a critical frown between his fair brows. ‘You were robbed. Mind you, I can’t think why you didn’t provide yourself at least with a cloak. Featherbrained, that’s what you are, young Kate.’

Kitty glared at him. ‘Why should I take a cloak merely for a trip to the shops on the Green on a day like this?’

But Claud was not attending. It had been borne in upon him that his idiotic cousin was shivering. Why she must need escape without proper preparation, he was at a loss to understand. Silly chit hadn’t a brain in her head. Thank the Lord he had held steadfast against marrying the wench!

He slowed the carriage, and called over his shoulder to the groom. ‘Docking, is there a blanket in this thing?’

‘Under the seat, me lord.’

Kitty, who had been lost in the realisation that everything she owned was at the Seminary, came to herself as the carriage was pulled up. Her abductor was rummaging under the seat, and Kitty briefly thought of taking a chance and jumping down. Only he would be bound to come after her, and would have no difficulty in catching her. Besides, how in the world would she manage, left in the middle of the highway, with no notion where she was and no means of getting herself back to Paddington?

Claud straightened, and shaking out the blanket he had found, slung it carelessly around Kitty’s shoulders.

‘Wrap yourself in this.’

Regretfully abandoning the opportunity for escape, Kitty huddled herself into the new warmth. Gratitude swept through her, and without thinking, she smiled at Claud for the first time in this nightmare journey.

‘Thank you.’

For a moment, Claud stared at his cousin’s features, oddly troubled by the look that accompanied the smile. It vanished abruptly.

‘Oh, Lord! What in the world will the Duck say when she finds me gone?’

‘Duck? What duck?’ demanded Claud, bewildered. ‘What the devil has a duck to say to anything?’

But Kitty, reminded by the idea of Paddington, had realised that in all the horror of her capture, she had forgotten Mrs Duxford. She was supposed in the afternoon to mind the pupils who were practising the pianoforte. When it was found that she had been missing throughout, the Duck was bound to think she was up to mischief. What if it was discovered that she had left the village in company with a strange man? Suppose someone had seen him forcing her into his curricle? She would be utterly ruined.

Almost the thought of Mrs Duxford’s inevitable rage made her wish she might never go back. Only the apprehension of what might be awaiting her in the immediate future was worse. If indeed, this abominable Claud’s cousin Kate was so very much her image. It must be her family! She had longed to find out the truth of her background—believing all these years that it had been kept from her deliberately. But now that the opportunity had arisen, she was more afraid than she had thought possible. They had not wanted her. How would they react if she were thrust upon them?

The curricle had been on the move again for some while, and Kitty sat silent, from time to time contemplating the profile of the perpetrator of the evils that were gathering about her. What would he say and do when he discovered his mistake? Worse, what would these unknown relatives say?

Time began to have no meaning, and Kitty could not have said how long she had been travelling when she noticed that the passing scenery had begun to change, the rural aspect of the country giving way to an urban feel. The traffic became steadily heavier, with more people shifting on the roadside. They must be approaching the capital.

‘Where are we?’

‘Coming up to Tyburn Gate.’

‘Then we are almost in London!’

Despite the invidious nature of her situation and the horrid uncertainty of her future, Kitty was conscious of a burgeoning excitement. How she had longed to come here! What dreams she’d had of the soirées and balls she would attend; the masquerades and theatres; and the fashionable Bond Street shops!

She gazed about her with new interest, drinking in the sight of persons of all description trotting to and fro. Here a liveried servant, hastening with a message perhaps. There a female in clogs with a yoke about her neck, crying wares which Kitty could not identify. Red-coated soldiers stood about a tavern at the roadside, and several official-looking men were to be seen hurrying into a building, while a fellow in rough garments, with a straw in his mouth, leaned against a wall.

The noise grew to a din. Rumbling wheels, cries from the street, and the yapping of dogs mingled with a clattering and hammering that came at Kitty from all directions. She almost put her hands over her ears. But she was distracted by a series of emanating aromas that assailed her nostrils one after the other. Strongest amongst these was the ordure from the many horses, swept to one side by an industrious boy. But through that, Kitty identified the smell of manly sweat here, and there that of fresh baked bread. Confusion swamped her.

Huddling in her blanket, she felt altogether inadequate, and ill equipped for this great city. Without realising what she did, she drew nearer to the man at her side. Despite his horrid conduct, he was her only hope of succour. She had no clothes, no money, and no prospect of remedy. And at any minute, she would be facing the consequences of her abductor’s rash actions.

At last, the curricle entered a less noisome part of the town, coming into a tree-lined avenue that ran beside a large park. She pointed.

‘What is that, please?’

Claud started out of a reverie. ‘Eh?’

‘Is it Hyde Park, perhaps?’

Irritation shook him once again. ‘Thank the Lord we’re almost there! If I had to take much more, young Kate, I couldn’t answer for the consequences.’

He found himself under scrutiny from his cousin’s brown eyes, a disconcerting expression in them.

‘Where are you taking me?’

Claud sighed. ‘To the Haymarket, of course. Where else should I take you but to your own home? Unless my aunt has already gone to the Countess in Grosvenor Square. In which case, we’ll have to concoct some tale to account for your absence. Though I’m hanged if I can think what!’

He glanced at her again as he spoke, and the oddest sensation came to him. For a flicker of time, he wondered if the chit was indeed someone else. Then he shook off the moment. It was just what she wanted him to think, he dared say. And the moment he admitted he had a doubt, Kate would laugh him out of court.

‘Still beats me why you did this, young Kate. What did you hope to gain?’

Kitty had no answer. Since he would not accept the truth—and showed an alarming tendency to brutishness in anger!—she judged it prudent to evade the question.

‘I know you will come to regret your actions this day, sir,’ she said instead. ‘Only I hope you will be gentleman enough not to blame me for it in the end.’

‘Still at it, eh? Well, I’ve done. We’ll see how you persist when my aunt has an attack of the vapours!’

If anyone deserved to have the vapours, it was herself, Kitty decided. For as they drew nearer and nearer to the destination he had outlined, the thought of what she might discover at the other end all but crushed her.

The house at which the curricle drew up at length was very fine. A tall building of grey stone, with a narrow porticoed entrance, one of a row that had been built in much the same design.

Kitty’s heartbeat became flurried again as the groom leaped from his perch and ran first to the great front door, where he tugged on a bell hanging to one side. As he returned to go to the horses’ heads, she was impelled to make one last appeal before Claud could alight.

‘Sir, pray listen to me!’

His head turned, but his manner was impatient. ‘What’s to do, Kate? Let’s get in and get this over with.’

He was still holding the reins and his whip, and Kitty reached out an unconscious hand to grasp his arm.

‘You are making a grave mistake,’ she said tensely. ‘I very much fear that you may be opening a closet in which I will be found to be the skeleton.’

Claud cast up his eyes. ‘Will you have done?’