She is safe. Nate bounded up the stairs of the rooming house next door, having given the landlady such a generous bribe she would probably have sold him half the tenants, and not just access to the roof. The fear and anger that had driven him across London still roiled in his gut, a hollow burning ache.
She is safe, he thought again as he stepped out onto the roof and she walked into his arms, filling the emptiness. “I have never been more frightened in my life,” he murmured in her ear.
“I knew you would come to rescue me,” she replied, snuggling in as if she wanted him to absorb her, lifting her mouth to his.
He met her lips partway, lingering over a kiss that heated him to the core, transmuting what remained of his distress into a different kind of passion. He caught at the shreds of his self-control and reminded her, “You rescued yourself.”
Another kiss. He felt the urgency in her response; understood that it mirrored his own. But a roof in the slums was no place to celebrate her survival, especially when one of the duke’s men had followed him up and was leaning over the edge of the roof, signalling to the group below.
“I have a phaeton below. Let us go home.” He released her reluctantly, but took her hand to lead her down the narrow stairs. “Your sister will be beside herself.”
“The place next door is a brothel, I think,” Sarah told him. “The bawd ordered my kidnap, or Charlotte’s rather.”
“Yes, the Wilton woman told us.” Nate looked back over his shoulder and grinned. “Aldridge has an inventive line in threats and your uncle is plain scary. He and his men are waiting for you to be safely away and for the constables to arrive, and then the bawd and her brawn will be arrested.”
“It was an abduction to order. A gentleman, the bawd said. One who wanted to marry Charlotte. One of her bully boys called him ‘his grace’. Nate, I think it must be Richport. He made an offer for Charlotte earlier this year.”
Nate stopped on one of the landings for another kiss, needing the reassurance of her presence in his arms. “How did they react when they found they had you, instead?”
She shuddered. “Not well. They were waiting to find out if ‘the gentleman’ would accept me in Charlotte’s place. Easy to make me a widow, they said.” Her voice broke on the last sentence, and he kissed her again, until the duke’s man cleared his throat. He was standing above them on the stair, studiously examining the ceiling.
Nate squeezed his arms around Sarah and released her. “They reckoned without my brave wife. You rescued yourself, and now let us tell your uncle what you’ve told me, and then I will take you home.”
Nate had Sarah’s reticule in the phaeton, and she was able to comb her hair and fix it into a simple roll with her remaining hair pins. Enough to keep it under the bonnet that he had also retrieved from Wilton’s workshop.
She had replaced her stockings and shoes and tidied her clothes while waiting for Nate. She probably still looked ruffled and untidy, but not enough to draw attention as they crossed town.
Nate lifted her up into the phaeton—Aldridge’s, apparently. The marquis and Drew had gone into the brothel to keep the bawd and her men distracted until the arrival of the constables Uncle James had sent for.
She and Nate passed them as they drove away. Two of Uncle James’s fierce retainers accompanied a group of perhaps half a dozen, Bow Street Horse Patrol men by their red waistcoats. The guardsmen grinned at Sarah and exchanged acknowledgements with the two guardsmen who had been sent to escort her and Nate back across London.
As they drove, Nate told her how Aldridge had brought the warning, and she asked him about the footman and Yahzak. But most of the trip was taken in silence, Sarah with her hand tucked around Nate’s arm, leaning against him to feel his strength and his warmth.
As the streets grew wider and the houses larger and more fashionable, she began to see people she knew. Nate kept the phaeton to as fast a pace as possible, while Sarah returned any greetings with nothing more than a wave or a nod, though the nods became harder and harder to manage as her headache built, until it throbbed with every bump in the road, swam with every sway around a corner.
At last, they turned into the mews behind Winshire House. Several grooms rushed for the horses, and Barker, the head groom, appeared on her side of the phaeton himself, ready to help her down. “Thank God you are safe, my lady,” he said. She swallowed her nausea, braced against the pain, and smiled at him.
The sentiment was repeated over and over, as she entered the house clinging to Nate’s arm. They made their way through a throng of servants to the parlour where, or so Grosvenor the butler said, Charlotte was waiting.
Two men stood as they entered—David Wakefield and another, whom she recognised after a moment, even as Nate started forward with a cry of recognition. “Cousin Arthur!”
Sarah braced herself again, smiling at the room, wondering how long she needed to stay before she could seek her bed.
“You look as if you could do with a cup of tea,” Charlotte said, as the two men exchanged delighted greetings, and tried to compress seven years of news into a few exclamations.
“I could murder for a cup of tea,” Sarah agreed. She sat beside Charlotte, who was looking pale, but better than this morning. She removed her bonnet and her hair tumbled down. “Oh dear. Perhaps I should go up and make myself tidy.”
Nate interrupted his conversation to turn to her. “Darling, what am I thinking! Gentlemen, can we continue this another time? I need to see to my wife. Charlotte, could we put my cousin up in a guest room? Sweetheart, how is your head?
“Your father,” she reminded him. “We were going to take Elias to see your father.”
“I’ll let my father know that we have to postpone, and I’ll talk to Elias. You are going up to bed, my love.”
Bed sounded wonderful. Gratefully, Sarah let her husband coddle her.
Nate fussed over the scrapes and cuts on Sarah’s wrists, the bruises she’d accumulated when she was being manhandled. Wilson had ordered up a hot bath, and he insisted on staying while she undressed so that he could inspect all of her wounds.
Since she was a small girl, Sarah had only ever been unclothed in front of two other people—and that rarely—her maid, when in her bath, and her husband, in the dark and under the sheets on the three nights—four now—she had spent in bed with him. Stripping in front of him in full daylight had her blushing like a young maiden, which she had not been for seven years.
He set her at ease with his manner: crisp and matter-of-fact, focused on checking that her injuries were no worse than she said. He finished by taking her gently in his arms and pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “Now have a long soak, my love.” He stepped back and held out his hand to help her into the water. The scrapes stung as she lowered herself, but once she was immersed, the heat felt wonderful.
Nate knelt beside the tub, so his head was close to hers. “Wilson is bringing you a soothing herbal tea. If you will permit, dearest heart, I shall go up to see Elias. I daresay some of today’s doings might have reached the nursery, though I hope his nursemaid will have had enough sense to keep it from him. If not, I will be able to reassure him that you are home and well.”
A swift knock at the door was followed by Wilson’s entrance, with a tea tray. She could smell some of Cook’s delicious drop scones, and suddenly realised that she was hungry.
“Go, of course,” she told him. “Tell him I shall be up to see him later.”
“After you have had a sleep,” Nate told her, firmly. “I shall be back by the time the water cools, and shall dress those cuts, then tuck you into bed. Drink the willow bark tea first, my love, and then the other. Wilson, stay with your mistress and make sure she doesn’t go to sleep in her bath.”
It had always annoyed Sarah when other people made decisions for her, but she had seen the shadow of Nate’s fear still lurking in his eyes. He needed to take care of her. He needed to nag her gently, because he loved her to distraction and had suffered when she was taken. Her hero.
Sarah obediently downed the willow bark concoction, which had mercifully been sweetened with honey. Then she sat back in the bath, her tea in one hand and a scone in the other, sipping and nibbling by turns, while her mind drifted from Cousin Arthur’s arrival, to the coming meeting with Lord Lechton, to musing about their future. They had not discussed where they might live. Would Nate come home to the dower house in Oxfordshire with her and Elias?
She could not see him choosing to live with his father, whom he did not like above half, and Sarah was very much afraid that if she lived with Lady Lechton, she would soon find herself managing the entire household and Lady Lechton, too. Which would not be at all fair to the poor little mouse.
They would work something out. She and Nate. Something that suited their family.