A Porcelain Viscountess by Hazel Linwood
Chapter 27
Francis was dreaming, there was someone in his room. He rolled over in the bed, trying to peer through the darkness and ascertain to himself that it truly was a dream. Then something moved toward him, shadowed in the moonlight coming through the window.
Something was lifted into the air, a chair perhaps, ready to be brought down on Francis’ head.
“No!” Francis bellowed the word and rolled away, narrowly missing the chair striking his head. He fell onto the floor the other side of the bed and reached for his bag.
In the bottom of the bag, he’d brought something he hoped he would never have to use – his pistol. Yet as his hand reached for the pistol, he heard the person in his room lift the chair again. Unable to have the time to grab the weapon, Francis rolled away for a second time and jumped to his feet.
This time, the chair shattered across the floor into pieces, giving Francis the brief moment that he needed to jump away. He grabbed one of the pieces from the floor and hurled it at his attacker, who promptly squealed and reared back.
Francis rushed to the window and flung back the curtains entirely, in the full moonlight he had a perfect view of his attacker, with the same ponytail on his head that he had observed the night he had chased someone out of his estate who had then struck him.
“Lord Ridlington,” Francis said with fury in his tone as the Viscount snatched another piece of the broken chair off the floor. Francis didn’t have time to say anymore, as the wood was thrown at him, and he had to dodge it. He rounded the small settee that had been in his room and ran for the door, but as he flung it open, he heard the click of a pistol.
The sound was something he knew well enough after all these years and he froze in position in the doorway.
“Do not move, or I shoot,” the Viscount said. Francis did as he was told, the only movement he allowed himself was heavy breathing. Slowly, Lord Ridlington walked toward him, before prodding him in the back with the pistol. “Walk forward.”
Francis followed the instruction, walking out into the landing to see the candles were still lit, basking the small inn with orbs of orange light. He glanced between the doorways that led to other rooms, cursing the inn’s emptiness that night. As they were the only guests, there was no one to come to their aid.
“Further,” the Viscount ordered, pushing Francis in the back another time. He hesitated a little when he passed the doorway to Josiah’s and Diana’s chamber, seeing it open with the bedding half on the floor, suggesting they had clambered out of the bed as quickly as he himself had done.
“To the stairs.”
Francis turned in the corridor and made his way to the landing, breathing so heavily in his anger that his nostrils flared.
“Where is she?” he asked at last, knowing he didn’t need to say Phoebe’s name for the Viscount to know who they were talking of. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing. Yet.” The words made Francis rear round, ready to strike the Viscount. “Ah! Stop there.” Lord Ridlington raised the pistol higher, pointing directly at Francis’ face in warning. “Down the stairs.”
Slowly, still breathing heavily, Francis took the first step on the staircase, turning to see that at the bottom of the stairs were Josiah and Diana, both equally under dressed. They were being kept in position by a man wearing a footman’s clothes, possibly the same man that Francis had seen driving the carriage that was following them when Diana and Josiah came to stay with him. This man had a blade outstretched, warning the two of them off from making any attempt to flee.
“The Duke that took my wife from me,” the Viscount muttered. His voice made Josiah and Diana turn to look up at Francis. “Did you make her your whore as well?”
Francis let out a string of insults hurled at the Viscount, not afraid to hold back with what he thought of Lord Ridlington, or to restrain at the swear words.
“At least I have never stolen another man’s wife,” the Viscount said and prodded Francis in the back with the pistol.
“I never stole her,” he said with feeling, “but I happily would have taken her from you.” The words were ill chosen, for there was a grunt of anger from behind him and a sharp kick to his lower back. Francis was unprepared for it and the sheer strength of that kick sent him flying down the stairs. He rolled across each step, the nosing pushing into his ribs and arms as he cascaded down, unable to stop his fall.
When Francis collided with the bottom of the stairs, face flat to the floorboards, he felt winded, the air taken from him completely.
“Francis!” Diana’s voice was nearby, panicked.
Yet a stronger set of hands took hold of Francis’ arms and helped move him to his knees. Francis looked up to see Josiah was helping him. Just like Francis, Josiah was dressed in nothing more than his trousers and his shirt, with his hair mussed. Behind him, Diana was standing in the middle of the entrance hall of the inn, both hands on her face, wearing her dressing gown with her hair falling past her shoulders.
“Get up.” Lord Ridlington’s voice ordered. Francis stumbled to his feet with Josiah aiding him, then turned to look up the stairs.
The inn was hardly the biggest of places, but from this position Francis could see just why it had hurt so much to fall so far down the steep steps. Lord Ridlington was walking down those steps with the pistol hanging loose in his hand, down by his side.
“Where is she?” Francis said, managing to ask through the pain. Halfway down the steps, Lord Ridlington lifted the pistol and pointed it directly at Francis.
“No!” Diana yelped.
Josiah took hold of Francis’ shoulder and dragged him backward, a little further away from the pistol.
“Where my wife is, is no concern of yours,” Lord Ridlington spat with the words.
“Then let’s try another,” Francis said, unwilling to back down. “Where are the innkeeper and his wife?”
“In there,” Lord Ridlington pointed to a sitting room nearby where the door was closed. “Tied up.” Diana took a step toward the door, but he sharply moved the pistol so that it was aimed at her. “Do not move toward them.”
She retreated instantly and Josiah pulled her behind him, shielding her from the gun fire.
“I…do not understand,” Francis said between panting breaths as he tried to move past the new bruises that were quickly developing across his body. “How did you find us?”
“You obviously do not pay your groom enough,” Lord Ridlington said with a smile. “A few coins and he was happy to tell me where you had gone.”
Francis cursed loudly.
“How about before?” Josiah called to the Viscount. “How did you know we had gone to Hayward’s house?”
“That was quite by chance.” He descended the last of the steps with a small smile in his face. “That sniveling little lawyer you persuaded my wife to hire has thieves that like to hang around his doorstep.”
Francis winced at the recollection – the thief that had accosted him and Phoebe in the street had looked straight at Phoebe and could well have seen that she was a woman dressed as a boy.
“One thief was only too happy to talk about the people he’d seen going in and out of Mr Preston’s office, including a woman dressed as a boy, on the arm of a duke. The same duke your carriage went to later that day.”
Francis cursed again. He had been so certain that they had managed to lose the man that followed them through the streets, clearly, they had not been careful enough.
He took a step forward, away from Josiah and Diana.
“Where is Phoebe?” he said with an insistent tone.
“That is none of your business.”
“It is my business! It is the point of my being now.” Francis shouted the words, not caring that they echoed back at him off the walls of the inn. “I will not let you take her away!”
“Really? You think you can stop me?” Lord Ridlington said with a smirk of derision as he turned the pistol back to Francis.
* * *
“No, no, this cannot be possible,” Phoebe said as the man before her released his hand from her mouth. “Father? What are you doing here?”
The last time she had seen him was at the assembly where she had decided to flee her husband’s house and hide within Hayward’s home. Her father had been uninterested in her even that night, not caring for her beyond insulting her. Now he was here? Having crept into her chamber at an inn in the countryside?
“What is there not to understand? Stupid girl,” he said with venom and took hold of her wrists, dragging her out of the bed. She half fell out, landing on her knees in such a way that she yelped in pain. “You have betrayed the name of your family, betrayed your husband. You went on the run and have been hiding with a duke? Did you think I would never find out?”
“I did not care if you found out!” she cried in truth. “I do not want to stay married to Graham –”
She was cut off from saying anymore as he used his grasp on her wrists to drag her to her feet. In the darkness around them, she couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, nor the tightened skin around his face, but she could see his slicked hair was coming undone in his wildness.
“Do you think you remotely have a choice in the matter?” he said, spitting with the words. “You are going home. Now.”
“No!” She fought against him, trying to be free, but he didn’t let her escape and he was too strong. It didn’t matter how much she fought against that grasp, the pincer like grip around her wrists was unrelenting, pinning her in place. “I will not go back to him, Father. Why would you take me back there? Why are you helping him? I am miserable there!”
“I agreed you were to marry him. You cannot undo that promise and suddenly decide you do not want to be married to him anymore.”
“I never wanted to marry him in the first place.”
He lifted a hand as though he would strike her, but she squealed and cowered away, making him stop from landing the hit. With one hand still on one of her wrists, he moved her toward the door, heaving her to it. She grabbed first at the bed, trying desperately to stay where she was, but his strength outmatched hers, and she was soon dragged through the door, kicking and screaming all the way.
“Let me go, Father!” she ranted and railed, but he ignored everything she said. Out in the corridor, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her high into the air, so that her feet could no longer try to escape him either. She scraped her fingernails against his arms, trying to be released, but he wouldn’t let her go. “No! Release me! Francis!” She heard herself calling Francis’ name before she had realized she had done it.
“Phoebe!?” His cry of fear came back to her, but it was further away than she had anticipated, not from his room at all.
When her father reached the stairs, he tackled her down it, even when she tried to grab the banister to stop him from taking her any further.
“Let her go,” Francis bellowed.
Phoebe snapped her head round to see Francis was standing in the entrance hall, in front of Lord and Lady Dodge, all in their night things. In front of Francis was Graham, with a pistol outstretched in his hand, and the barrel pointing straight at Francis’ chest.
“Who is that?” Francis said, pointing up at her father.
“This is Gerard Lewis, Baron Notley. My wife’s father,” Graham answered before Phoebe could. Francis’ face stiffened even more, his angry glare turning away from Graham and onto her father.
“You would manhandle your daughter in such a way and take her back to a man that beats her?” he accosted her father with the words, shouting them so loudly that Phoebe even felt her father flinch around the grasp he had on her, just as they reached the bottom step.
“They are married. If she runs from him, she destroys my reputation as well as hers. What else do you expect me to do?” her father said with a sneer as he released her.
Phoebe wavered on her feet, nearly falling over before she stepped forward. She was hurrying toward Francis, intent on reaching him as he moved to her, then something moved in their way. It was Graham.
Phoebe felt the firm strike across her cheek before she had seen it coming. It made her rear back on her feet, and this time fall over completely, landing on the floor in a heap.
“You…” Francis swore, rushing toward Graham, but there was a click of a pistol and Graham turned round, pointing it directly at Francis’ chest another time.
“I will use it,” Graham said in a warning tone. “Do not think I wouldn’t.”
“You are going to kill a duke?” Lord Dodge said with incredulity. “You’d be strung up in court within a week, hanging from the gallows less than a day after that!”
“Unless there were no witnesses,” Graham said, turning his head to Lord and Lady Dodge.
Phoebe looked up from where she was cradling her cheek on the floor, realizing with horror just what he meant. Moving past the stinging in her cheek, she shifted to her knees and looked between her friends that she loved like family.
Lady Dodge who was hiding behind her husband with tears on her cheeks, the woman who had encouraged her that she deserved a better life. Lord Dodge who had tried to help her obtain a divorce in every way, even finding her a lawyer. Lastly, Francis, whom she loved more than anyone else in the world. She couldn’t see any of them hurt because of her.
“Graham, please,” she said, calling up to him with a soft tone. He angled his head toward her, showing he was listening. “I will come with you.”
