Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,56
knew you’d want to hear straight away.”
“News?” Prescott walked around his desk and sat down. “What news?”
Lloyd gestured to the two men who stood by the hearth. “A spectacular escape, Hibbert—”
“Near Cannock Chase in Staffordshire a few days ago,” Eaton put in. “These two marshalmen were part of it.”
“A pair of criminals were being transported here for trial,” Lloyd continued, “when they killed two of their guards and escaped into the Chase. These two brave marshalmen barely escaped with their lives. The entire Old Bailey’s been abuzz about it since they arrived this afternoon.”
“Gentlemen, I’m sure this will all make thrilling fodder for the newspapers, but Staffordshire is not my district,” Prescott pointed out, not understanding his friends’ excitement over such a mundane matter. “I really don’t see why you—”
“One of the fugitives was a woman, Hibbert.”
“And we think she might just be someone you know.” Eaton turned to the two marshalmen and summoned them forward. “Come, my good man. Tell Magistrate Hibbert what you told us.”
“Well, Squire,” the fat one began, gingerly holding his arm, “we put up a heroic struggle, we did. Dangerous pair, these two. One’s a footpad by the name of Jasper Norwell, a big hulking bloke, and he turned out to be a tricky sort. Nasty cove. We had him shackled to the lass, but ‘twas all fer naught—”
“Yes, yes, enough about him,” Lloyd said impatiently. “Get to the part about the girl. Tell him about the girl.”
“Oh, aye, the girl. She was... well... she was...” He seemed to struggle to find words.
“Extraordinary,” the lad said at last, turning his hat round and round in his hands. “The most perfect beauty, sir. With golden hair, and eyes of gold. I’ve never seen a woman like her. She didn’t look like she belonged in gaol at all. A real lady, she was.”
Eyes of gold. Prescott’s hand tightened around his brandy glass. It couldn’t be. Samantha? Alive?
“Tell him how old she was,” Lloyd urged.
“I would say about twenty-two or twenty-three,” the lad guessed, turning to his companion, who nodded in agreement.
“We thought at once of your long-lost niece, Hibbert,” Eaton said excitedly.
“She disappeared five years ago, wasn’t it?” Lloyd asked.
“Six,” Prescott corrected, his mind racing. “She was sixteen at the time.”
Samantha alive and in Staffordshire? He couldn’t believe it, barely heard the rest of the conversation that continued around him. Despite all the lovelies he enjoyed at his club, he had never quite forgotten his beautiful, troublesome niece. The one female—the only one he’d encountered in his entire life—that he hadn’t been able to bend to his will.
He had tried numerous times. Had actually come quite close on that last occasion... but he had never gotten the opportunity to sample her. She had refused him. She had defied him.
She had tried to kill him.
“... Which would make this girl just the right age,” Eaton was saying.
“Yes,” Prescott choked out. “Yes, but I haven’t seen her since the night she left here. This girl sounds like my Samantha, but there’s no way to be sure.”
It was impossible. A girl like Samantha could not have survived on her own! A gently bred, naive innocent, without a guinea to her name or a practical skill in the world, with no man to protect her?
She had been doomed from the moment she set foot outside his door. He had tried for a year to track her down, even calling upon the resources of the procurers from his club, but she had vanished.
Eaton turned to the marshalmen with a triumphant smile. “Tell him what else you remember about her.”
“Yes, speak up,” Prescott said impatiently. “There’s a reward in it for both of you, if this is indeed my missing niece.”
The portly lawman’s face lit up at the mention of money. “She was arrested for thieving, sir. Stole some silver from a lady’s house during an assembly—and when the lady turned her in, she said the girl’s name was Miss Delafield. Miss Samantha Delafield.”
Prescott almost dropped his glass. It was too good to be true. What had he been thinking earlier tonight? That life couldn’t possibly get any better?
Well it had just improved, beyond even his dreams. After six years, he might finally have a chance to get his hands on Samantha. A chance to pay her back for the trouble she had caused him. To exact revenge for the attempt she had made on his life.
A revenge that would be beyond anything she could possibly imagine.