Chapter 27

It must be George Talbot!

Dorothy quickly turned and fled back the way she had come before he could reach the top of the staircase and spot her.

"Lauren?" he called again, now more urgently, maybe sensing danger.

Dorothy tried another door in that corridor and found it locked. Thankfully, the second door she tried opened immediately, and she rushed inside and closed it, hearing the thumping of the man's footsteps behind her.

The windows in this room were not locked. There was even a small balcony outside a set of French windows, with a large brass standing telescope, presumably another relic of the unfortunate Admiral Bigelowe. Dorothy hurried out onto the balcony and thrust an old walking stick she found out there through the handles of the window-door after her.

"Lauren?!" the man's voice sounded yet again. "Are you in there?"

"Help!" Dorothy shouted down from the balcony, spotting some people now on the road that passed in front of the house. "Help me! They've kidnapped me! I'm being held against my will! Call the constables!"

George Talbot let out a roar of anger in the room behind Dorothy and rattled the doors of the balcony, finding them blocked by the stick.

"Help me!!" Dorothy shouted again, encouraged to see that two men had stopped and were now pointing up at her as she waved to them. "Help!"

George was now rattling the balcony doors more violently and cursing loudly as he did so. Dorothy cast about in desperation for her next move. They were on the second floor of the house, and there was only one way off the balcony. As the stick in the door handles began to crack, she backed away to the inner corner edge of the parapet.

With a loud crash, the balcony doors burst open a few moments later, the pieces of the old stick clattering to the ground.

"Get back in here!" George shouted. "What in Hades do you think you're doing, you madwoman?!"

Dorothy did not stop to answer him or even look in his direction. Having climbed over the side of the balcony, she was edging along a tiny ridge towards a cast iron drainpipe, her hands seeking whatever purchase they could find on walls and window ledges.

She knew that as a girl, she had climbed up and down trees higher than the second floor of this house and tried to reassure herself with this fact now. However, back then, she had not been pursued by a ruthless man who meant her harm if not utter ruin…

"Just come back to the balcony, and no one will hurt you, Your Grace," George called, now belatedly attempting to reason with her. "You're going to fall and injure yourself out there, and that's good for no one, is it?"

Dorothy was now at the drainpipe. One floor down and slightly to the right lay another small balcony. If she could reach that balcony, she could call again to the people on the street. Surely someone must come to help her soon?

Ignoring George Talbot's unconvincing coaxing as much as his previous angry demands, Dorothy gripped the iron pipe with her hands and feet and began to shin down it, fervently wishing that she was once again in short skirts rather than a torn and wrinkled evening dress.

It felt like forever but could only have been a matter of moments before she reached the first-floor window ledge and once again edged herself onto a balcony. Sweat was beading on her brow as she hauled herself over the parapet of the second balcony, as much from fear as from effort.

Gripping the stone, Dorothy again looked down into the street, encouraged to see that a small crowd had now gathered, although they were perhaps too far away to hear her clearly. Some carriages were even stopping and their occupants getting out to see what was happening…

How long would she have before George came downstairs to the first floor? Was it possible to reach the ground from this balcony?

"Help!" she began to call out again, before glancing upwards and gasping in shock to see George following her path onto the drainpipe.

She had expected him to rush down the inside staircase in his pursuit of her, but perhaps he did not know the layout of the house or have keys to all the locked rooms. In the present case, she might have only seconds before she was recaptured. It was impossible to take the drainpipe down again while he was on it and bound to catch her at the bottom.

"Help!" Dorothy shrieked as loudly as she could.

Her cries were drowned out a moment later by an even louder groan of bending metal and the sound of screws popping from the wall as the pipe came away and began to bend perilously over the garden below.

While the drainpipe had held Dorothy, George's greater weight had been too much for it, and he now found himself dangling precariously in mid-air. With a flurry of curse words, the man flung out an arm towards the upper balcony structure and managed to pull himself back up there from the bent pipe.

Dorothy looked up to see him regarding her furiously after his narrow escape, even shaking his fist in her direction. Like his sister, he was slim with fair hair and finely drawn features, although his expression was wild at that moment.

"Wait until I get hold of you, you…"

She didn't wait to hear whatever insult or term of abuse he threw at her, turning instead to the watchers in the street. To her relief, a number of them seemed now to be marching up the garden path towards the house, led by a tall, broad-shouldered figure with dark hair and a familiar determined gait.

Aaron?!

Her heart leaped at the sight. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

"Aaron!!" she cried out. "I'm up here! Lauren and George Talbot have taken me prisoner!"

Could he even hear her? From below, she could only make out the sound of loud pounding on the door and an angry exchange of voices, presumably with the Talbots' various footmen on guard at the main door.

It was the clearer conversation from the floor above that disturbed her a moment later.

"How did you let her get down there, you fool?!" Lauren's voice hissed. "Half the street is watching. Someone is even ringing the doorbell."

"You're the one who let her out of the room!" her brother protested. "I said we should have tied her up, didn't I? Now what the hell are we meant to do?"

"Capture her, damn it all! She knocked me out, stole the key, and locked me in, but luckily I had the key to the other door too."

Looking up, Dorothy saw Lauren with a bloodied head, regarding her with the vicious eyes of a predatory animal.

"But the door," George persisted. "What if they come in? How in God's name do we explain everything?"

"Let Simmonds deal with whoever is at the door. We simply tell the neighbors or anyone else that our weak-minded cousin is staying until her parents can arrange proper nurses for her mental affliction."

"We do need some damned nurses or wardens. Real ones from Bedlam with manacles, ropes, and truncheons!"

Dorothy tried the balcony doors and found them unlocked. If only the connecting room's door was unlocked too, perhaps she could get downstairs and past that footman to reach Aaron.

"Never mind your Bedlam fantasies now, George," Lauren ordered smartly, likely catching on Dorothy's intent and vanishing from the upper balcony as soon as Dorothy stepped towards the inner doors. "We can't let her escape!"

Dorothy barely even looked around the room that lay beyond the lower balcony once her eyes landed on the door.

"No!" she almost sobbed as she pulled at the handle and found that, like several of the upstairs rooms, it was locked. "I have to get out of here!"

"Are you in distress, my dear young lady?" a voice asked, and Dorothy spun around in surprise to see an elderly man slowly rising from a small table by the far window. "May I be of assistance, perhaps?"

He wore a full naval uniform that hung loosely on his thin frame, his bushy white hair visible as he removed his hat and bowed his head towards her.

"Admirable Gerald Bigelowe of His Majesty's Navy at your service, Miss…?"

"I am Dorothy Clark, Duchess of Dawford, and I am in great danger, Admiral," she blurted out. "As you must be if you are here. My husband is downstairs, and I must reach him before the Talbots can ruin our good name, one way or another."

"Those blackguards!" the Admiral snapped. "I must return to my ship, and yet they keep me in this house against my will. It is my house, whatever they say, and I will sign nothing more! But my ship will sail without me. If only I still had my sword or my dueling pistols, I'd call the man out…"

"How long have they been keeping you locked in this room?" Dorothy asked, even while realizing that the man was perhaps as confused as her mother-in-law.

"Oh, I am not locked in here, dear lady," the Admiral corrected her and produced a key from his uniform jacket. "I am keeping those fiends locked out. I only let Maisie in here to bring my food. They might have planted their own guards at the doors downstairs, but at least they shall not burden me with their company and importunity."

"You must let me out," Dorothy pleaded. "My husband will free us both if I can get to him. I promise you, Admiral. If you help me, he will protect you from the Talbots too. The Duke of Dawford is a good man, and he has defeated them before."

"Dawford, Dawford, I knew a Dawford once. Excellent man, lovely wife, but no children, sadly…" he began to muse, and Dorothy couldn't hold back a sob of frustration. "Haven't seen him in years."

"Please, Admiral, please concentrate. Let me out of here now, before they come for me. Please!"

"But of course." Bigelowe bowed again, shuffling to the door and producing his key. "Godspeed, Your Grace…"

In lieu of further conversation, Dorothy kissed the old man's cheek quickly in thanks and then fled down the corridor in the direction of the increasingly combative shouting she could now hear rising from the ground floor, Aaron's voice low and forceful beneath all the others.

She longed for the strength and safety of her husband's arms now in a way that went far beyond the joys he had shown her in his bedroom. If only she could reach him, they would both be saved.

"There she is," George Talbot cried out triumphantly, emerging from the opposite corridor to intercept her at the landing. "I've got her!"

Reaching out, the red-faced man had seized hold of a handful of her dress at the shoulder. Without hesitation, Dorothy shoved him away from her with all her might, sending him tumbling down the carpeted steps into the hallway with a series of thuds and pained cries.

Her torn dress now falling from one shoulder in addition to the ripped sleeve on the other arm and a missing sash, Dorothy made to rush down the stairs towards the voices before George might recover himself. It was too much to hope that Lauren's brother might have broken his neck in the fall…

"Aaron!" she shouted urgently. "I'm here."

"Dorothy!" he called back. "We're coming!"

"Oh no, you don't!" a harsh feminine voice said before Dorothy had managed more than three or four steps down towards Aaron.

A strong arm came around her throat as another twisted her arm behind her back forcefully enough to make her cry out in pain.

"Dorothy!" Aaron's voice sounded again, and he came into view in the hallway below at the same time that a uniformed footman went flying backwards and hit a wall. "Get out of my way! Dorothy, are you hurt?"

Looking up, he saw her on the stairs, being held back by Lauren Talbot. Around him, six men Dorothy recognized from their own household brandished sticks and fierce expressions at the Talbots' uniformed manservants. Two rather familiar-looking young boys also hung back behind the Dawford men by the front door.

"No, I am unharmed," Dorothy called back as Lauren slackened the pressure on her arm a little. "But Lauren is strong."

"Release my wife," Aaron growled, the intensity of his expression at that moment terrifying even to Dorothy. "Now."

"You really want her back, do you, Aaron?" Lauren laughed, somehow immune to his fury. "She really must be spectacular in the bedroom… Ever asked yourself why that should be? Some men really are as foolish as the day they were born."

Dorothy shifted uneasily at this remark, and Lauren tightened her grip on her throat. At the bottom of the stairs, George was rising gingerly to his feet, groaning pathetically but sadly without any evidence of broken limbs.

"I said, release my wife," Aaron repeated. "The constables will arrive here shortly, and you will have to give an account of your actions before the law."

"As will you, Your Grace, and dear little Dorothy here. Imagine how it will look when the whole of London learns that this is where she has been meeting George in secret, both before and after your marriage."

"No!" Dorothy gasped, appalled at such blatant falsehood spoken before this audience.

"Look at the disheveled state of the two of them right now," Lauren continued with high amusement. "Who wouldn't believe me? I'm willing to swear that your Duchess regularly visits this house to disport herself freely with George, and perhaps other men too, in the most lascivious manner. As is George, aren't you, Brother?"

"I am," George answered, picking up on his sister's line of attack and composing himself. "I will swear that I have enjoyed this lady most thoroughly in this house on numerous occasions both before and after she became the Duchess of Dawford. As have several of my good friends."

"If the dates work out, it might even cast doubt over the paternity of your firstborn, might it not?" Lauren added.

The woman's arm now half choking the breath from her body, Dorothy could only shake her head in frantic denial. Aaron must not believe a word of such calumny. Surely he couldn't? He must know that she loved him, that she had only ever loved him… But then why was he so silent and his face so concerned and distracted in the face of Lauren's evil words?

"Slander!" another voice shouted suddenly on the landing behind Dorothy and Lauren. "I will not stand by and hear my house nor this innocent young lady slandered further by these foul criminals!"

As Lauren twisted around, Dorothy also had the chance to see what had really captured Aaron's attention while Lauren had been spinning her web. It was Admiral Bigelowe standing there in his full uniform, his aged but determined face almost as angry as Aaron's , wielding an old blunderbuss in his hands.

"This house belongs to Admiral Bigelowe," Dorothy managed to cry out while Lauren was taking in the sight of the old man. "The Talbots have stolen it and kept him prisoner here."

"My father bought this house lawfully," George insisted. "We even allowed this ungrateful old man to remain here, as he had nowhere else to go."

"More slander!" the white-haired naval officer exclaimed. "I've sold nothing to this family of vipers."

"No one will believe your word over ours, you old dotard," Lauren hissed. "You still imagine you're going away to sea when you left the navy before most of us here were born. We'll send you to the workhouse if you're not careful. Or maybe Bedlam would be the better choice."

"He's telling the truth!" the red-haired, young maid blurted out, emerging from behind a pillar in the hallway. "I'll stand up in any court of law and swear that. They've treated the Admiral abominably, and I've seen it all. I couldn't go and leave him here alone, even though all the other servants left when our wages were cut."

"So, a mindless old fool and an illiterate maid?" Lauren sneered once again. "Good luck with convincing any court with such an absurd story from the likes of you."

In response, the old man made another sound of rage and brandished his weapon with more purpose.

"Be careful with that gun, Admiral Bigelowe," Aaron warned with authority and the careful courtesy anyone of sense gave to an unknown man in possession of an unpredictable weapon. "Remember that the Duchess of Dawford is right there next to Miss Talbot…"

He had been unobtrusively making his way towards the stairs as Lauren and the old man argued. Dorothy's eyes sought and found her husband's deep blue gaze once more, relieved by the reassurance and concern she saw there. Aaron had not believed a word of Lauren's lies. He knew that Dorothy was his and always had been. He would not let anything happen to her now.

"Oh, I would never shoot a lady, even that blonde dose of poison over there," Bigelowe assured him, raising the blunderbuss high above the heads of both ladies. "But her damned brother is fair game, wouldn't you say?"

Several things happened in quick succession then. There was a loud explosion as the blunderbuss fired and the sound of smashing glass as the shot-shredded cord of a chandelier gave way, its body plummeting down close to where George had been standing a moment earlier, before the sound of the shot made him jump aside.

Maisie screamed loudly, and amidst all the ruckus, George tried to make a break up the stairs towards his sister. Dorothy briefly saw Aaron's fist connect with George's face before he picked the man up bodily and hurled him across the hallway in the same manner he had previously handled the footman. Then, he bounded up the stairs towards her.

"I do believe I could break her pretty little neck," Lauren snarled before he could reach them, having kept her hold on Dorothy throughout the carnage of the previous seconds, diabolically composed under the circumstances. "Do not come any closer, Aaron Clark, or we'll find out if I'm right."

"Let go of her now," Aaron said, but he held up his hands and halted his progress. "This is over, Lauren. Admit defeat. You should leave and salvage your life as best you can."

"I'll leave on my own terms, not yours!" Lauren hurled back. "Dorothy is coming with me out of this house, and I'll release her when I'm ready."

"No, you'll release her now," Aaron insisted.

"I'm taking her with me, and you can't stop me. You won't fight a woman any more than the Admiral would," Lauren snarled. "Gentlemen are often weak in that way—Aaargh!"

Abruptly, her hold on Dorothy slackened as two small boys threw themselves at her, Jack kicking at her shins while Toby bit her hand. Dorothy stumbled down the stairs and was caught by Aaron's powerful arms before she could fall.

"Yes, that's it, boys! Have at her!" The Admiral chortled, clapping his hands as Lauren struggled against the boys.

"Enough," Aaron called, pulling Dorothy behind him after hugging her tight. "Jack, Toby."

Obediently, the children fell back beside Dorothy, just as a group of constables from Bow Street came rushing in through the open front door, truncheons in hand.