Sally James by Fortune at Stake

class he would never have attempted to abduct her. Julian deduced that Everard would most likely take Susannah to his own house, Monkswood, which was not many miles away, and he determined to follow them as soon as possible.
    Meanwhile, a short distance from where the coach had been stopped, Lord Chalford, for it was indeed he, had halted and forced Susannah into a chaise which was partly concealed behind a clump of holly bushes. Paying no heed to her furious protests, he shut the door and immediately the postillion set the chaise in motion, Lord Chalford riding close beside it, and soon the other two men caught up with them to ride at the other side.
    Susannah sat inside, fuming with anger. The chaise was going too fast for her to risk jumping out of it and in any case Lord Chalford would catch her again if she did. She could tell him who she was, but she somehow doubted whether he would believe her. And even if he did she could not be sure he would release her. Indeed she might be in even more danger, for if he knew she was a considerable heiress he might think it a good plan to compromise her and so force her to marry him. It was not unknown for such plans to be made, and as many of Julian’s other cronies were impecunious young men, wild to a fault, Lord Chalford might well be the same and have such a scheme in mind. She would have to rely on her own wits to save her again.
    She looked about the chaise. There were holsters at the side and she found, to her delight, that there were pistols inside. Even better, they were loaded. Susannah’s father had taught her to shoot and she had no fear of firearms, so she quickly transferred one of the pistols to the pocket of her cloak. She had but the one pocket and both pistols could not fit into it. Since she had no means of concealing the second she reluctantly had to leave it in the holster.
    She considered shooting Lord Chalford as he rode alongside the chaise, but there were the two other men, beside the postillion, and they would overpower her. She had to wait until they were alone.
    It was therefore with a disdainful, calm air that she descended from the chaise when it drew up before an old, rambling Elizabethan mansion an hour later. Lord Chalford, who had been prepared to deal with tears and hysterics, looked at her in surprised approval. This girl was decidedly unusual, he concluded, and would amply repay the efforts he had been forced to make to capture her. When he moved to take her arm she turned aside, avoiding him, and walked composedly through the huge oak door which a manservant had opened.
    ‘I do not require your assistance,’ she said coldly. ‘When do you propose to return me to my guardians?’
    ‘Come, my dear, we have much to discuss. Time to talk of such matters when we have dined.’
    ‘I am in no condition to sit at table,’ Susannah replied calmly. ‘Pray order one of your maids to conduct me to a bedchamber so that I may tidy myself.’
    Amused, he beckoned to a maidservant who was hovering in the background, and gave orders, watching Susannah mount the stairs, her head held high, before turning himself, a smile on his lips, to talk with the butler waiting stolidly behind him.
    Susannah was conducted to a large, pleasant room, low ceilinged, with white walls and a beautifully embroidered set of hangings, old but exquisite. She went straight to the window and from it could see the stable yard, behind a wall that joined the house a few feet below her window.
    ‘What luck!’ she whispered and turned to the maid to smile sweetly and beg her to find a comb, since her hair was in sad disarray. The moment the girl had left the room, Susannah swung open the window, scrambled over the wide sill and eased herself down onto the wall.
    It was a much longer drop down into the stable yard, but she lowered herself as far as she could and then jumped, to roll over as she landed, fortunately unhurt.
    Picking herself up she looked round. The black horse her