Chapter Six

"W hat have you done?" Never in her life had Liddy felt such anger and disgust at her father.

"I have done what is best for you and our family."

Liddy glared across the length of her father's study to where he sat, perfectly composed, behind his desk.

"Family?" she questioned. "We ceased to be a family when Mama died."

"Do not bring your mother into this conversation."

"Why should I not? Is it a feeling of guilt because you know that she would never condone what you have done... what you are doing?"

"I am ensuring the future of a girl who has proven herself to be silly and flighty, flirting outrageously with a man so far below her in wealth and station it borders on the ridiculous."

Liddy twitched her skirts before she strode across the room and set her fists on the front of her father's desk. "When I was young, Mama used to tell me how her match with you was one of love. Am I to be denied that? Am I nothing more than a commodity to be traded for the betterment of your business interests?"

"What know you of business?" Her father scoffed. "Do not overstep yourself, miss!"

Liddy continued to stare him down, refusing to give in, but inside she quaked with fear. When she had received no invitation to the Baker-Whites on Sunday, she had at first assumed that something had come up. However, on the following day when she and Phoebe stopped by Alec's bookshop, they were greeted only by his assistant, who informed Liddy that Alec was away for the day. She had wanted to insist on knowing his whereabouts, but when she glanced up and saw her father's valet lurking outside the shop, Liddy began to believe there was more to this current situation than she suspected.

Now her eyes narrowed on her father. "What do I know of business? Who do you think keeps the accounts of this household? Who keeps this home and our home in the country running smoothly so you have time away from your shipping business to play the gentleman of leisure?"

"Bah!" He snapped his fingers as if what she said mattered not at all. "I have found you a husband worthy of your status. Joining our fortunes will secure our family's legacy among the most prominent families in the Carolinas."

Liddy leaned closer. "Your betrothal arrangement is not a marriage, and while I have breath in my body it will remain that way!"

She spun on her heel to storm from the room when her father's next words halted her.

"Have your maid begin packing your bags. We are returning to the country."

"Papa, you cannot! We have barely even returned to town. Invitations to our own ball have already been sent."

"Invitations can be cancelled, due to your unfortunate illness. One that necessitates your return to the country. While I may not stay there, you will."

It was all she could do not to slam the door behind her. But she had already given her father too much ammunition. Liddy hurried to her sitting room to write a note to Phoebe. However, when she folded the note to give to her maid, the girl's eyes widened in fright.

"I am sorry, Miss Lydia. We have all been told we are not to carry any notes for you, not even to Miss Phoebe. I must return upstairs to continue packing."

"This is absurd!" Liddy swung around and stalked to her bedroom window which overlooked a spacious yard and garden that ended in a brick wall along Market Street. Perhaps there was some way to get word to Alec. Yet if her father had frightened the servants to the point they would not take a note even to Phoebe, she had no hope at all that any of them might take a note to Alec.

She had warned him she might need him to rescue her. What had been at the time only a slight concern was now horrible reality. Iain MacGill must either have something her father wanted or know something her father did not wish to become general knowledge. Whatever the case might be, she had to find some way around them, some way to get a message to Alec.

Later in the day, Liddy attempted to get outside in order to find a stable boy to convey her note, but she was thwarted when her father insisted on accompanying her. Liddy tried once again to dissuade him from the betrothal with MacGill, but to no avail. All it garnered her was an order to return to her room.

So she bided her time. Their coachman was a cousin to the butler at Phoebe's house. Once the sun had set and darkness settled thickly around the large brick house she now thought of more as a prison than a home, Liddy pleaded a headache and asked to be left alone in her room so she might sleep off the ache. Truth be told, she was beginning to feel the actual stab of pain behind her eyes.

When all was quiet, she threw a cloak on over her nightdress and robe and slipped the hood over her hair. With her note in hand, she crept silently down the back staircase to the servants' door. There was still a faint glow of light in the stable. No doubt they were preparing for the journey northwest to the Fennell's country home.

Liddy crept quietly ahead. This would only work if Daniel, their coachman, was the one up and working in the stable. He was never one to be cowed by her father, though he was always polite to his employer. She peered through a crack in the door.

Daniel was checking the harness, oiling as he went. Liddy had often heard him explaining to the boys who worked in the barn how important it was to protect the leather from the drying effects of the salt air. His care and concern might just be the thing that saved her.

Seeing no one else about, Liddy slipped through the door, shutting it quietly behind her.

Daniel looked up, his brown eyes narrowed. "Miss Liddy, you are out and about rather late, and I would guess without your papa's knowledge."

She sighed. "I need your help. He wants me to marry that awful Iain MacGill, Daniel."

The coachman tilted his head. "You have your heart set elsewhere?"

"I do, though I am not sure how much my feelings are returned. But I cannot leave tomorrow without trying to let someone know—Phoebe at the very least—that what is happening is not my wish."

"And what would you ask of me?" Daniel's gaze held only mild curiosity. He was never one to get upset or be in a hurry. Some assumed he was not too bright, but that was far from the truth. Daniel saw much more than anyone probably guessed.

Liddy slipped along the wall until she sat on a low bench she had sometimes seen the blacksmith use while working on the horses' hooves. She reached into her pocket and produced her note.

"I hoped you might be able to get this to your cousin and then to Miss Phoebe."

He paused in his work. "You know your papa has sent word that he will thrash anyone who helps you."

While his words might be disheartening, Liddy had known Daniel since she was just a young girl and had spent many hours tagging along behind him in the stables. It wasn't what he said that mattered, but how he said it. She eased forward, placing the note in the broad, roughened palm he presented her. His lean fingers closed around it.

"I will deliver it before we leave, but child, I don't think there's a way to stop your leaving. Best you can hope for is the right person gets wind of it and finds a way to help you before your betrothal becomes a wedding."

"I won't do it. He's an awful man. And he's old!"

Daniel's mouth curved in a rare smile. "I will help. Now you get yourself back in that house before anyone sees you."

Impulsively, Liddy gave Daniel a quick hug and then hurried from the barn.

*

"So she's gone so soon?" Alec returned to straightening the books on the table in the reading area of his shop.

Phoebe stomped her foot. "I thought you cared about her!"

Alec's jaw tightened as he once again turned his gaze on her. "She made her choice."

"There is no choice in it!" Phoebe thrust a piece of paper at him. "Read this, you dolt. I thought you were going to talk to her Sunday afternoon."

Alec took the paper. "Hard to do that when all I received was a note from her father telling me she no longer wanted to see me. Since he could only have found out I was at the Baker-Whites' from Liddy, it seemed pointless to pursue it."

"Read the note." Phoebe crossed her arms over her chest.

Alec arched a brow at her then bent his gaze to the paper.

Dearest Phoebe,

I am hoping that Daniel has been successful and this note reaches you. Papa has finalized my betrothal to Iain MacGill without my permission and is making me return to the country. I have told him I will not marry that awful man, but I am afraid I might end up with little choice once we are away from Wilmington. Papa has terrorized all the servants to the point they will do nothing to gainsay him. Only Daniel could help.

I don't know what Alec must think when I didn't meet him yesterday. I never received an invitation to the Baker-Whites', but it doesn't signify. Papa would not let me leave the house. I must find some way to get away, but at the moment I have no idea how.

There were a few more lines, but Alec ignored those as he raised his gaze to study Liddy's friend. "Where is her father's country home?"

"It's a good day's ride to the northwest," Phoebe said with a slight frown on her face. "I haven't been there in a long time. I believe it's somewhere around Moore's Creek."

"Who might be able to give me more exact directions and keep their mouth shut about it?"

For all that Phoebe appeared to be silly and flighty, there was a practicality at her core that Alec had often sensed, although she tried to keep it hidden for whatever reason of her own. It came to the fore now.

"Our butler. He's kin to Daniel, the Fennells' coachman. He'd be able to tell you." She glanced around the shop. "If I were to buy something that needed to be delivered to me later this afternoon, I'm sure he could meet you at the door when you delivered it and provide you with payment."

"Might that payment be sealed within a note?"

Phoebe smiled. "Why, of course."

A quarter hour later, she was leaving the shop, leaving Alec holding a book of poetry he was to deliver late that afternoon. His fingers tightened on the volume, and he pressed his lips together in anger and frustration.

What he really wanted to know was why Liddy's father was in so much haste to marry her off to MacGill. Certainly that could have been done earlier if he'd intended to negotiate such a match. After all, MacGill was no spring chicken, and Liddy was over twenty-one.

That was a factor he would use in his favor.