Page 50 of A Stolen Heart

“Alexandra? What’s the matter?” a woman’s voice trumpeted from the hall.

The man turned and scooped Alexandra up. He flung her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a child and strode to the window. He swung his leg out and onto the ladder propped beneath the window. With one arm wrapped around Alexandra to steady her weight, he backed out of the window just as Aunt Hortense hurried into the room.

Aunt Hortense gasped, staring, as the man started down the ladder, Alexandra over his shoulder. She let out a scream and ran to the window.

“Help! Stop him!” Aunt Hortense leaned out of the window. The man was at the foot of the ladder. “Help!”

A footman, the butler and a maid came rushing into the room and stopped, goggling at the sight of the two bodies on the floor and Hortense leaning out the window.

Aunt Hortense whirled to face them. “Stop him, you fools! He’s got Alexandra!”

She turned to the window just in time to see the man disappear around the house, Alexandra dangling over his shoulder.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FOOTMAN AND BUTLER STARED FOR A moment longer at Aunt Hortense before the message sank in, then they turned and pelted down the stairs. Aunt Hortense hurried to Rhea and knelt beside her, lowering her head to Rhea’s face.

“She’s still breathing, thank God. Here, don’t just stand there, girls, help me get her into her bed.”

Her words jolted the maids from their trance, and they scurried to help Hortense lift Rhea and put her in the bed. She went to Nancy next and bent over her. It wasn’t hard to see that she had been knocked unconscious. A bruise was already forming on the side of her face. She, too, was breathing, her pulse steady, and the three women carried her to the cot.

Aunt Hortense wet a cloth in the washbasin and went to Rhea, bidding the maids to take care of Nancy. She washed Rhea’s face, hoping to revive her, but Rhea did not waken. If it had not been for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Aunt Hortense would have said she was dead.

“That brute must have choked her!” she exclaimed, leaning over to examine the red marks ringing her sister-in-law’s throat. “This is a mad country! I’ve never seen the likes of it.”

And what could have happened to Alexandra?

The footman entered the room on the run, followed by the rest of the servants. “He was gone, miss. We looked up and down the street and couldn’t find anyone.”

“Damn and blast!” Aunt Hortense shouted, using one of her brother’s favorite oaths. “The world has gone mad!”

She looked at her servants, and they all stared unhelpfully at her. She had always been a strong woman, but at the moment, she felt close to panic. She was alone in a strange country, her sister-in-law and Nancy unconscious and her niece kidnapped.

“What am I to do?” she asked, raising a hand to her whirling head.

“Shall I fetch a magistrate?” the butler asked.

“Yes. Get a doctor, too. And…” She hesitated. Alexandra would not like it, but Aunt Hortense could think of only one person she knew who could help. “And fetch Lord Thorpe, too.”

SEBASTIAN FOLLOWED THE FOOTMAN into Alexandra’s house, a scowl on his face. He had not been able to make head nor tail of the man’s story; he had come with him only because the man’s obvious anxiety had raised his own. When he strode into the house, the first sight that met his eyes was Alexandra’s aunt pacing up and down the entry hall. She whirled with relief at his entrance.

“Lord Thorpe! Thank God you’re here. What took so long?”

“I was asleep,” he replied acidly. “My valet was—rightfully—reluctant to awaken me because of the babbling of some footman. What the devil is going on? If this is some scheme of Alexandra’s to—”

“Oh, hush,” Aunt Hortense snapped, causing the footman’s eyes to nearly start out of his head. Americans, he was convinced, had no sense of correct behavior. Either of the Misses Ward would tell the Prince Regent himself to shut up if they felt like it. “This is a far graver matter than your loss of sleep. Someone has taken Alexandra.”

Thorpe felt as if a shard of ice had plunged into his chest. “What? I don’t believe it. Who? Why?”

“I don’t know that,” Aunt Hortense replied testily. “If I did, I would have gone after her. I don’t know where to turn, who to go to for help. You were the only one I could think of.”

“What happened?”

“Come here. I’ll show you.” Aunt Hortense motioned for him to follow her and started up the stairs. She led him into Rhea’s bedroom. Rhea, pale as a corpse, was stretched out on her bed, still unconscious. Nancy, looking little better, lay on her cot against the wall. Her eyes were open and she was moaning. A maid sat beside each bed.

Both maids bobbed curtseys when they walked in, and the one beside Nancy said, “She’s awake now, miss. She sicked up something terrible, but at least she can talk.”

“I found both of them on the floor, unconscious,” Aunt Hortense explained to Thorpe, pointing to the carpet where they had lain. “And a man was climbing out the window.” She swung her hand to point toward the open window. “He had Alexandra slung over his shoulder.”