“Aldrich, you’ve got to eat something,” Cozette urged. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”
Aldrich paced to the other side of the drawing room. “No one’s seen her, I don’t understand it. And where are these blasted friends of yours, Crumpet?”
Cozette eased herself into a chair. She was tired, he could tell. “Duncan is still searching for them.”
He sat, snatched a scone off a trya and sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“It’s only been dark a few hours, maybe she is with one of the tenants?”
“Barnes and I questioned them already. No one has seen her.”
“Probably because none of them knows what she looks like. You’ve … commandeered most of her time since her arrival, Aldrich.”
He glanced at her and sighed. “So I did.”
“You are in love with her.”
He smiled faintly. “So I am.”
She smiled back but said nothing.
“You should retire,” he said. “I only returned to the house to see if perhaps Tory had come back.”
“Did you question the villagers?”
“The stable master and one of the footmen did. They had nothing to report. Oh and one of your tenants was going into labor when Barnes and I were about our business, but stay here. Please.”
She nodded in understanding. “I will. I’m sure Mrs. Pembroke will send one of her children for the midwife. I usually visit after a baby is born.”
He stood. “Thank you. I want you here if she shows up.”
“Aldrich, our friends the …” she swallowed. “…MacDonald’s can find her easily enough.”
He frowned. “If they were here, which they are not.”
“Trust me, they will be.”
No sooner had she said it, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming up the grand hall. Duncan appeared first, followed by a tall, broad man and a beautiful woman.
Aldrich knew this had to be the MacDonalds. He made straight for them. “You! Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
The big man glanced at his wife and back. “Ye needn’t fash yerself, sir. She canna have gone far.”
A Scotsman, he thought and turned to Duncan. “You’ve heard?”
“Yes, we ran across one of my tenants on our way here. He said you were searching for Miss Phelps. What happened?”
“I don’t know.” He hoped the couple before him had nothing to do with Tory’s disappearance. “When she didn’t come down to tea I sent Becky to fetch her. That’s when we discovered she was missing.” Another man Aldrich had never seen before stood behind the newcomers. He’d entered unnoticed, which only served to make Aldrich more suspicious. He looked the three over carefully. The woman was petite, beautiful and studied Aldrich with interest, her bright green eyes roamed over him in a peculiar way. Her husband, on the other hand, eyed him casually, as if waiting. It was then he noticed the pair had the same bright color to their eyes. Odd. Odder still was the sense that something was passing between them. He could feel it.
Aldrich shook it off and narrowed his gaze at the thin man standing behind them.
“Ah, yes, I believe introductions are in order,” Duncan said. “Aldrich, may I present Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald and their associate, Lany Mosgofian.”
“I’m bloody well aware of who they are,” he said with a wave at the couple. “And I don’t care who this other man is unless he can help find Tory.”
Mr. Mosgofian glanced at his larger counterpart, who shrugged in response. Mosgofian shrugged back. “We can help you look for her,” he said. “But first we need to clarify something.”
Aldrich watched him step around the couple and stand in front of them. “His Grace has informed us that he’s told you,” he tossed a dagger of a glare at Duncan. “More than he should. We want your word, Sir Aldrich, that you’ll tell no one of this.”
“My word?! And when were you planning on telling me, or Miss Phelps for that matter, about all of this? She’s out there somewhere, in a world she doesn’t know and you’re asking me for promises?”
“Promises mean protection,” Mr. Mosgofian said. “Yours and hers.”
“And ours,” Mr. MacDonald put in. “Anonymity is imperative in this business.”
And what business would that be, Mr. MacDonald?” Aldrich spat and closed the distance between them. The big Scot was a good head taller than him and broader, but he didn’t care. He met the man’s gaze and then some.
“We’re in the business of saving lives, if ye want to know. Yours and Tory’s are but two in the larger scheme o’ things. Now, if ye dinna mind, we’d like to get on with it.”
Aldrich stared at him a moment, before taking a step back. He was tired, angry and wanted to hit the man. But what good would that do? A fight would waste valuable time. What if Tory was in danger? “How do you plan to look for her?” he asked.
“In our usual way,” the Scot answered.
Aldrich noted Mosgofian cringe and was about to comment when Barnes rushed into the drawing room. “You Grace, Joseph Pembroke is here to see you. He says it’s about Miss Phelps.”
Mosgofian sighed, glanced at the ceiling and mouthed a relieved, “Thank you.”
He ignored the skinny man’s prayerful response, reached Barnes in two strides and took him by the arm. “Where is he?”
“In the kitchen, sir. He’s in a dither over his wife. She’s …”
Aldrich shot out of the drawing room and into the grand hall.
“ … in labor, you know,” Barnes finished lamely. He gave Duncan and Cozette a helpless shrug.
“Did he tell ye where the lass is?” Dallan asked.
“Yes,” Barnes said. “Apparently, she’s been arrested.
* * *
Arrested! What on earth for? Aldrich asked himself as he spurred his horse toward the village. Thank heaven there was a full moon to see by, or it’d be much slower going.
He crested a small rise and the dim lights of the village came into view. He’d have to manage this carefully and not lose his temper, or Tory might suffer the consequences. He knew the current magistrate hadn’t held the office for long. Aldrich didn’t even know the man’s name. All he knew was that he’d taken over for the old magistrate after he died last year. Who knew what kind of man he was? Aldrich hoped not the type to stir up trouble where there was none and go on a witch-hunt.
“Bugger,” he said at the thought and kicked his horse into a gallop. Riding fast was dangerous, even with the bright moonlight to guide him. But he had to get to Tory! Considering the way she talked, her mannerisms, her boldness … no wonder she got arrested! If he’d been smart, he’d have gone to the village himself to look.
But a man or woman getting arrested during a carnival was common. Drunkenness and brawling the usual charge. Depending on whom the stable master and other servant asked, they might get several different accounts of such arrests, or none at all. Blast. Even Aldrich had to admit it would be next to impossible to question every person who attended the carnival that day. He should be thankful he knew where Tory was and concentrate on that.
Those were his last thoughts as he approached the magistrate’s office and public jail. Aldrich reined his horse to a stop, jumped off and without bothering to tether the animal, went to bang on the door.
* * *
Tory ached all over. Being shackled and chained to a large iron ring in a prison wagon and gagged to boot didn’t help. She was furious and scared at the same time. Her earlier teetering between whether or not she was in another century was stilled by her current circumstances. Who, in her own time, would dare treat her this way? Not to mention she hadn’t heard a single car on the road they traveled. Saw no power lines silhouetted against the moon light through the tiny barred windows of the wagon. Nor had she caught the sound of airplanes cutting their way across the sky. Except for the constant clip-clop of horse’s hooves, the jangle of harness and rattlings from the wagon, there were no other sounds.
Unless one counted the complaining coming from the wagon’s driver’s seat. The magistrate had brought someone along, but it wasn’t his son. And from the sounds of it, they were arguing over money.
“Half is what I’ll take for helpin’ ye, Hughes and not a ha’ penny less,” spouted the stranger.
“You’ll get what I promised and no more. Stop trying to take more than you deserve.”
“Deserve? Like you deserve to collect the whole reward, do ye? I’d wager His Grace would be interested to hear that. Ye no tellin’ ‘im first what yer doin’ wi’ his governess.”
“She’s a traitor and I’ve got the proof. No one will argue the fact, including the duke. I’m doing him a favor.”
“Yer doin’ yerself the favor!” the stranger laughed. “Ye greedy dolcop! That’s no dribble-drabble ye’ve got trussed up back there.”
“Then you should take a closer look!”
“Maybe I will!”
And on it went. Tory rolled her eyes as she pulled at her shackled wrists for the umpteenth time. Gagged as she was, she couldn’t call for help very well and try as she might, couldn’t free herself either. She was at the magistrate’s mercy and judging from the men’s conversation, he wasn’t serving any that day. He was after money, any sort of money he could get for turning her in. She had no idea how much that was, but obviously enough to risk the duke’s wrath when he found out. Which, Hughes was doing his darn best to make sure didn’t happen until it was too late.
The fact they were carting her off to London after dark only added to her suspicion that Hughes didn’t want the duke or duchess to find out what he was up to. This meant his son would probably deny knowing where his father went. She could hear it now. “Prisoner? What prisoner? As you can see we’ve no prisoners here …”
Shivers went up her spine, despite the warm summer night. She was in a fix, a bad one. The law was different here and, like Hughes said, they hanged traitors. Even she knew that. But counterfeiters? No sentenced to twenty only to get out in ten on good behavior?
Tory went cold. Nope. Not in this century.
She pulled and twisted her wrists against the shackles again. How far was it to London? Would anyone know where to look for her? Not likely. The thought made her heart sink and her stomach roll. No matter how she looked at it, if no one found out where she was and came to her rescue, she was a goner.
* * *
“Where’s Aldrich?” Duncan asked and paced the library.
Dallan sniffed at the brandy in his glass, raised an appreciative eyebrow and took a small sip. “He’s gone after her of course.”
“Yes, but where?” Duncan asked and tossed his arms in the air. “He’s blind out there. He has no idea where she is!”
“Do you?” Dallan asked.
“You know I don’t!”
“Yer over reacting, Yer Grace.”
“Of course I’m over reacting. We have no idea what’s going on! For all we know that mad ring leader Lany told me about has her.”
“Nay, he hasna. He’s no due in the vicinity for another week or so, according to our sources. Everything’s going as planned.”
“Planned?” Duncan said, eyebrows raised. “Do you know where Miss Phelps is?”
“Of course.”
“Then why aren’t you doing something!”
Dallan smiled. “I am.”
“What?”
“I’m staying out of it. Ye ken the lad has to win her on his own, d’ye no?”
“Win her? What do you mean …” then he understood. “Oh yes, win her.”
“Sir Aldrich is a knight and a gallant rescue goes a long way, Your Grace. You ought to know that.”
“Yes, but in my case, Cozette rescued me. Well, she helped at any rate.”
“Aye and her actions made ye fall more deeply in love with her, did they no?”
Duncan blew out a long sigh. “Yes. They did.”
“Tory needs the lad to do this. He needs it. I’ll not interfere unless his warrior’s blood becomes too hot.”
Duncan plopped into his favorite chair. “Aldrich wouldn’t kill anyone … but you know best.” He picked at the brass studs of the armrest. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me anything more about how this all works? The blood lines of your wife.” He looked at him. “Of mine?”
“Our women are special, ye ken. Not of this world. We had little choice, you and I. We were destined for them. We could no more stop our pairings than stop the sun from rising. But Aldrich and Tory, they must battle as all humans do while falling in love. The doubt, the fear, the risk…”
Duncan ran a hand through his hair. He almost died while courting Cozette. He felt as if he couldn’t live without her. That if she died, he would soon follow and vice-versa. If that wasn’t a reason to marry her he didn’t know what was. Besides, it was the truth.
But Aldrich and Tory were both human, things were different for them. They didn’t have death looming over them if they didn’t join and become one. This whole scheme could still fall apart as far as he was concerned.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he suddenly blurted. “What if they don’t marry and have children? What’s the worst that can happen?”
Dallan glanced at the glass in his hand and sighed. “Then my wife and I will be the last ones with the ability to travel through time. For if Sir Aldrich Wolfe and Tory Phelps dinna marry and sire a son, there will be no one to come after us to keep the world in balance. To do that, ye have to clean up a lot of messes left behind by bad people throughout the centuries, ye ken.”
Duncan could only stare. “Dallan, what are you saying?”
“That if they fail, there will be no one to stop men like the ones who want to see them dead. Men who have wreaked havoc upon the world through time and are out to either rule it, or destroy it. And then, move on to others.”
Duncan fell back in his chair. “Now you tell me this?!”
Dallan shrugged. “What can I say? Yer no different than I was when first dragged into this ‘save the world business.’”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Duncan demanded.
Dallan smiled. “That this is much bigger than ye can possibly imagine, Your Grace.”