By the time she spotted the modest dwelling where they were headed, her fingers were cramped, her legs aching, and her bum sorer than she remembered her backside being since her father’s last thrashing. At least this time, she was suffering for a good end.
Or so she hoped.
They’d just passed a mile marker that indicated the distance to Brighton was less than ten miles. Their last stop at a local inn confirmed the tollkeeper’s cottage, along with the toll and weighing station, stood at the juncture between the well-maintained turnpike road to Brighton and the private road that veered off in the direction of the hunting lodge. They were headed there, now.
Asquith, a few yards ahead of Millie, turned back.
She lifted a hand in acknowledgement, unsure if he could see her in the fading light or not. Then, she adjusted the scarf across her face. The wind had been brutal and the road surprisingly crowded.
Both she and Asquith were competent riders, and Asquith’s horses were of the best stock, still, the animals could only be pushed so far. They’d covered thirty-seven miles in five hours. And, for the last hour, had had to rely on lamplight from the carriages riding along side of them to see the road.
Through every brutal second of their journey, she’d seen the irony of her situation with increasing, piercing clarity. If something happened to Neville, she’d be respectable, and unattached. Following an appropriate period of mourning, as a widow, she’d have every possible social freedom, far more than she could have had as a spinster in the country.
In short, everything she’d thought she’d desired. But Neville—the husband she’dneverwanted—had become her deepest need.
When had that happened? Sometime during the rare intimacy they’d shared, intimacy they’d only just begun to explore? Or had they been connected from the start—two hurling bodies, destined to collide much like they had collided last summer in the maze?
No matter what the answer, she and Neville were now connected. And she knew with fanatic fervor that if Willard killed Neville, he’d have to kill her, too.
If she didn’t take him down first.
She spotted the lights of the tollkeeper’s cottage through the gloom, and she and Asquith both turned into the courtyard.
At first, she let Asquith do the talking. But when Mr. Dixon himself emerged from the cottage, she requested the tollkeeper allow her and Asquith a private audience with the Runner. In response, the tollkeeper agreed to brush down, blanket, and water the horses while she and Asquith conferred with the Runner and then led away the animals.
A quarter hour later, she, as “Manny,” and Asquith were seated at the tollkeeper’s table. She’d no doubt the Runner knewshe was not a man, but Dixon did not challenge her when she introduced herself, thereby ensuring they were able to speak freely of topics that would not have been considered fit for a lady’s ears.
Mr. Dixon, a man of middling age whose kindly, round face was at odds with his incisive brown eyes, laid out the information he’d been able to glean. Millie listened to the conversation, while also glancing through the toll book.
“If his lordship is being held here,” Mr. Dixon said, “I don’t think he’s being held in the main house.”
“Why?” Asquith asked.
“First of all, there are at least two other men down from London. A gent might participate in the debauchery Willard offers without fear of reprisal, but I’m doubtful anyone would be part to the abduction of an earl. That’s a hanging offense.”
“Rape is a felony, too,” Millie replied.
“Though a dammed difficult one to prove,” Dixon said. “The women may have been brought to the lodge against their will but, from what I understand, they move freely about the property.”
“He has some hold on them,” she replied.
Dixon nodded.
Millie shivered involuntarily. Were it not for Neville, Sarah, and her own initiative, she could have been one of them.
“How many are there?”
“At least three,” Dixon said.
Asquith’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “The devil,” he murmured.
“The crime of rape is more than likely,” Dixon continued. “But convicting Willard is a different story. The last peer to be charged with a rape was Lord Castlehaven, and that was almost two hundred years ago.”
“And”—Asquith cleared his throat—“the cause included other accusations. The only time the peerage holds the peerage accountable is when the peerage itself is threatened.”
“But Willard is not a peer,” Millie reminded. “Not yet at least. His is a courtesy title.”
“He is Eltenham’s son and heir,” Asquith reminded.