Candace Camp - A Stolen Heart

“Alexandra! Child! What happened?” Aunt Hortense wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Did that Englishman attack you?”

Alexandra smiled a little at her aunt’s warlike expression. “No, Auntie. That is, I suspect it must have been an Englishman, but not the Englishman you mean.”

“What happened? You’re all a mess.” Aunt Hortense led her into the house. “Your cheek is scratched.”

“I’m not surprised. Someone jumped out at me.” Alexandra shivered a little, suddenly cold in the aftermath of the excitement. Her nerves were jangled, and she felt stunned and rather fuzzy. Her cheek was beginning to sting, and she felt sore all up and down the front of her body where she had landed so hard on the pavement. Her dress was torn and dirty. She drew in a straggly breath and blinked away the tears that were threatening to pour out.

“Jumped out at you! Exactly where was that man who took you away from here?”

“You make it sound as if he abducted me.”

“I assumed, when he escorted you from your home, that he would return you safe and sound, not abandon you to be set upon by thieves.”

Aunt Hortense steered her into the nearest room, the formal drawing room, leading her toward the blue couch.

“He didn’t abandon me,” Alexandra retorted with irritation. “He had to leave, and I was bored, so I came home by myself. It was only a few blocks. I could easily walk it.”

“Ha! You obviously couldn’t,” her aunt pointed out. “I’d like to know what kind of man would just walk off and leave you at a party! Well, never mind that now,” she went on as Alexandra drew breath to argue. “Sit down here on the sofa. What you need is a stiff shot of brandy.”

Aunt Hortense looked around and caught sight of the clot of servants standing just outside the drawing room door. “You, there, what do you think you’re doing, standing about like a gapeseed? Go fetch your mistress a glass of brandy. The rest of you, take some lanterns and go check the street—make sure that scoundrel isn’t still out there.”

The servants scattered at her words. Aunt Hortense sighed. “No sense, the lot of them.”

There was a gasp at the door, and they turned toward it. Alexandra’s mother stood in the doorway, staring in horror at Alexandra.

“My baby!” she wailed. “What happened? Did they get you, too? Are they attacking us?”

She rushed into the room and dropped on her knees beside Alexandra. Tears gushed down her face as she patted ineffectually at Alexandra’s hair and arm and tried to wipe some of the dirt from her skirts. “Oh, my dear, oh, my dear,” she repeated over and over.

“Mother, it’s all right. No one is attacking us,” Alexandra said, trying to keep her voice soothing. Her mother’s light, frantic touch and words jarred her already frazzled nerves. “Really. It’s all right. It was just an accident. I fell.”

“No. No. They’re coming here. I know it. We have to flee. Get the carriage.”

Alexandra’s breath caught in her throat. The light in her mother’s eyes was alarming. She looked almost mad. “Mother, it’s all right. No one is coming to get us. We are fine. There are plenty of servants, and we are inside the house.”

“You don’t know! You don’t know!” Rhea’s voice rose in panic. “The servants will turn against us! We’ll be helpless!”

“Mama!” Alexandra gripped her mother’s arms. “It’s all right!”

Nancy, her mother’s companion, came hurrying into the room, her feet bare and her voluminous white cotton nightgown billowing around her. “Miz Rhea! There you are! I’m sorry.” Nancy cast an apologetic glance at Alexandra and Aunt Hortense. “I didn’t know she was up.”

She bent over Rhea Ward and pulled the hysterical woman to her feet, wrapping her arms around her in a hug that was both comforting and restraining. “There, there. Nothing’s going to happen to you or to any of us.”

“It’s not?” Rhea turned toward the other woman, hope dispelling some of the panic in her voice. “Truly?”

“I promise you. You know I wouldn’t let anybody hurt you.”

“But the mob—” She cast an eye agitatedly toward the front window.

“There’s no mob out there, ma’am. Listen. Do you hear a mob?”

Rhea paused, her head cocked, listening. “No.” A tremulous smile broke across her face. “You are right. They must have turned and gone somewhere else.”

“That’s it,” Nancy agreed soothingly. “Now, let’s you and I go back to bed.”

Rhea nodded and went along with her docilely.

“Nancy,” Aunt Hortense said as the two of them reached the door, “perhaps it would be best if you slept in Mrs. Ward’s room tonight.”

“Just what I was thinking, Miss Hortense. I’ll have someone set up a cot for me.”

Alexandra watched her mother leave with the servant, and tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Mother,” she breathed. She looked at her aunt. “What is the matter with her? What should we do?”

“She’ll be all right in the morning,” Aunt Hortense told her matter-of-factly. “You’ll see. The noise woke her up, and she got scared. Probably heard all the servants jabbering and running around.”

“But what was she talking about? Why did she think there was a mob?”

“Oh, that. She used to do that a lot when you were little. You just don’t remember. She would wake up from nightmares, terrified and talking about the mob coming to get her and you. It was that thing she went through in France, I think. That revolution, with all those people rioting and running around with torches pulling people out of their houses. Rhea never wanted to talk about it, but I think it scared her to death. She was afraid they were going to try to kill her and you, too—mistake you for aristocrats or something, I guess.”

“But why now?”

“Oh, I doubt it was anything but being jerked out of her sleep and seeing the servants acting scared. She probably heard you screaming. It scared me, I’ll tell you. She was confused. Ah, there’s that brandy.” Her aunt turned as the butler entered the room, wearing a dressing gown over his nightshirt, a nightcap on his head, and carrying a silver tray with a bottle of brandy and two snifters on it.

Alexandra subsided, a troubled expression on her face, as her aunt bustled to the small table where the butler set the tray and began to pour her a healthy dose of brandy.

“Here, you’ll feel much better after this.”

Alexandra took the snifter from her with both hands, surprised to find that she was trembling too much to hold it with one, and took a gulp. The liquor burned like fire all the way down to her stomach, making her eyes water. She coughed and tried to hand the glass to her aunt, but Hortense crossed her arms and told her to finish the liquor.

“Brandy was always Father’s cure for a case of the nerves—and anything else that ailed you, actually. And he lived to be eighty-six, so he must have gotten something right.”

“All right.” Alexandra tried not to breathe and took another gulp. A shiver ran through her, and her stomach felt as if it had burst into flames, but she could feel relaxation stealing through her.

“Good God, you fool, let go of me!” A man’s angry voice came ringing down the hall. “What the devil is going on?”

“Thorpe!” Alexandra surged to her feet just as Thorpe stalked into the room, shaking off the restraining hand of one of the footmen. The sudden movement made her feel dizzy, and she swayed.

“Alexandra!” he exclaimed, taking in her disheveled condition in a glance, as well as her wobbliness, and he crossed the room in two quick strides, then caught her in his arms. “My God, what happened to you? And why is your front door open and all the servants prowling about with lanterns?”