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And April...

He cried out at the top of his lungs, a howl of rage and frustration and agony that actually frightened him. It didn’t appear to disturb anyone else, for the world settled back into silence as he leaned, panting, against the wall.

Gradually, as his breathing settled, he realized the silence wasn’t complete. A dog barked in the distance. Even more faintly, male voices shouted. A cackle of raucous laughter. He possessed acute hearing and he barely distinguished these sounds. Surely they would never hear him.

There had to be a reason he was here. Alone. If the men in the carriage had attacked him, where were they? What did they want? If they’d troubled to put him here, they would surely be back.

When? I have no time; I have to go home!

There had to be a way. There always was.

Already his eyes had grown used to the dark. They could just distinguish the different shades of blackness that were the four walls surrounding him. He slid down the wall into a sitting position, forcing himself to relax and think.

And then he heard it. Footsteps. They didn’t sound like outside footsteps and they were coming nearer. Was that a light, glowing so faintly around the narrow cracks that framed the door?

Piers pushed to his feet, his heart drumming once more. Whoever this was, whatever their purpose, he could not let them go past.

“Hello!”

“Awake then, are you?” a rough, slightly high-pitched voice replied, and so weakened was Piers’s state, he almost wept with relief. “Have to ask you to stand right back, away from the door. Otherwise, I’ll shoot you right through it.”

Not the Samaritan he had hoped for then.

Obediently, he edged further along the wall away from the door. A small flash of light took him by surprise, then vanished. He realized there must be a spyhole, one he had not even noticed in his exploration.

“Suppose that’s far enough,” said the voice.

Bolts were drawn back. They ran smoothly but sounded heavy. There were three of them. The door opened. The glow of his candle showed a man with short, brown hair, a none too clean white shirt and brown, working man’s trousers. In one strong hand, he carried a tray bearing a candle, a basin and a cup. In the other, he held a large, double-barrelled pistol pointed unwaveringly at Piers’s middle.

The man crouched, setting his tray on the floor. He glanced up at Piers and his lips twitched with what looked like genuine amusement.

“You should sit. You’ll feel less dizzy and less silly.”

Only then did Piers recall that he was confronting his enemy in his drawers. Very aware of the steady pistol, he sat. By luck, he seemed to land on a blanket.

His captor nodded approval. “I need to take a look at your head. You got a nasty bump —don’t want it festering.”

The voice was still rough, a little high; the accent was vaguely east London, though mingled with something else, in the manner of sailors or soldiers or others who travelled or lived among different accents.

“God forbid,” Piers said politely. “Why did you hit me in the first place?”

The man picked up the bowl from the tray and came toward him, the gun still aimed. “Well, didn’t expect you to come quietly. But I might just have hit you too hard.”

“Why am I here?”

The man crouched down at his side, facing him. Still the pistol never wavered. “Readies, of course. Dibs. Blunt. Money. Bend your head.”

“Ransom,” Piers said, waiting for his moment. The pistol was cocked, so he would have to be fast. And accurate, for the gun could be fired twice. “You know, I’m not that rich. Unless you can wait for me to sell the London house and the odd bits of unentailed land still in my possession? Difficult from here.”

The man’s fingers moved in his hair, making Piers’s flesh crawl, though he was surprisingly gentle. “Oh, your little wife and man of business can manage the matter between them. Besides, I ain’t greedy. Riches is relative, my lord.”

April...

The mouth of the pistol rested almost negligently against his neck. He could feel the cold metal through the folds of his cravat. He kept his eyes on the trigger finger. One twitch, one moment of inattention could set it off and that would be that.

His sweat ran cold. He could rely on no one else to care for April. And their child, should it live.

Still using only one hand, his captor squeezed out the cloth in the bowl and began to clean the wound on his head. Piers made a point of not wincing.