Secrets of a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

the search. Thank everyone for their hard work and send one of the footmen round to Bow Street. It looks as though someone’s taken Colin.”
     
    Colin’s head felt as though someone had been jumping on it. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was blackness, which was funny, because Laura always made sure the night-light was lit.
    He turned his head. Something wet and scratchy rubbed against his face. It seemed to be draped over him or wrapped round him. It didn’t feel like a bedsheet or even a blanket. The floor beneath him seemed to keep shifting and jolting, only it was hard to tell because his head was spinning so badly.
    Memory jabbed at him, sharp as the pain in his head. Rough hands, harsh voices, a fist smashing into his face. He tried to sit up and found he couldn’t. His feet and hands were tied. He let out a scream into the rough stuff that covered his face.
    “Oh, Christ.” A voice cut through the blackness. “He’s awake. Pull over, Jack.”
    Colin heard a muffled curse, felt a quick, sideways jerk, and then all of a sudden the floor beneath him stopped moving. He heard a horse whicker. He wasn’t in a room, he must be in a carriage or cart or something.
    He drew a deep breath. Daddy always told him to breathe when he was frightened.
    The boards creaked as though someone had climbed into the back of the cart. “Don’t scream, lad, or we’ll have to clout you again.” It was a woman’s voice. There’d been a woman before, in the kitchen. He remembered now.
    The scratchy stuff was jerked off his head. He didn’t scream, not because of the warning so much as because his throat had gone tight and all his fear seemed to be bottled up inside him. Raindrops spattered against his face. He found himself staring at a triangular face set beneath a dark felt cap. It was a man’s cap, but it was a woman’s face. Long strands of hair hung from beneath the cap, glinting red in the faint glow of the moon. Her eyes were dark and set wide apart. Her mouth was full and looked as if it could smile. It wasn’t the sort of face that went with hitting.
    “That’s more like it.” The woman pulled a flask from her pocket and unscrewed the top. “Drink this down, there’s a good boy.”
    The flask had a funny, sickly smell. Colin stared at it. He wasn’t sure he could have managed to drink it if he wanted to, and he knew he didn’t want to.
    “Don’t be balky, boy. There’s no time for it.” She grabbed him by the shoulders and tilted his head back. Pain lanced through his temples. He gave a cry that got clogged in his throat.
    “Drink it,” the woman said again. She put the flask to his lips. “It won’t hurt, it’ll just make you fall asleep. Better than Jack hitting you again.”
    The memory of Jack hitting him was enough. She tipped the flask, and Colin tried to swallow. The stuff tasted even more sickly than it smelled. He gagged, but he managed to choke some of it down.
    “All right, that should do it.” The lady took the flask away. She laid him back down in the cart and pushed something under his head that felt like straw.
    “Not a peep out of you, mind.” She laid the rough stuff—a burlap bag—on top of him but didn’t pull it over his face. “You’ll soon be asleep.”
    He looked up at her. “Couldn’t I go home, please? I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”
    The woman got to her feet and shook her head. “Sorry, lad. That would make a right mess of everything.”
    The boards creaked. The lady must have climbed back onto the box.
    “All right?” A man’s voice, low and rough, rose above the stillness. It had a funny lilt to it, sort of like Daddy’s but not quite.
    “He’s had enough laudanum to put him out till we’re safe settled. I couldn’t risk you hitting him again or our job’d have been over before it was begun.”
    “You told me to keep him quiet. What the hell’d you expect?” The cart lurched forward. “Anyway, what’s it matter if we get our money? You