Free Always a Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

I’m just relieved he didn’t survive long enough to be drawn and quartered.”
    “I don’t think anyone will be, if you want the truth,” Barbara said. “The culprits are too high-placed. Can you imagine what would happen if they had to try a dozen aristocrats for treason?”
    Kate looked up, her stomach taking an unexpected dive. “What do you mean? You think that they’ll just…disappear?”
    Schroeder didn’t even blink.
    Well, that certainly gave Kate something to take her mind off her escape. “Do you think it was the Lions who shot my uncle, or the government?”
    “I think we’ll probably never know.”
    Kate took in a slow breath. “I imagine I should thank Harry for merely kidnapping me. I have no doubt that he would have much rather shot me and been done with it.”
     
    * * *
    Barbara stayed another hour, but neither woman learned anything new. At least it kept Kate busy. She had been right about those hours she had to wait. They stretched out like a desert road, wearing on her patience and testing her composure. As the house settled around her and all the voices stilled, she changed into the sturdiest dress she had, a dark blue kerseymere gown. Sadly, she hadn’t thought to bring hiking shoes to a wedding, so she settled for the strongest slippers she had. Then she waited until she could hear no more voices or movement outside her door. There were rustlings in the walls and weird creaks in the corners, but Kate knew that to be the betrayals of old age and disuse. She would wait another thirty minutes or so, and then she would test the shutters.
    She had just gotten to her feet when she heard the most curious sound. It sounded exactly as if someone was tapping on the shutters. Three stories above the ground.
    She froze, her heart in her throat. It came again. She jumped to her feet. “Who is it?” she whispered.
    The answer came in a dearly familiar Cockney accent, “’Oo d’ya think, Y’r Graciousness?”
    “Thrasher!”
    Without another thought, she wrapped her hands around the shutter and pulled. The agonized screech of hinges should have woken the dead. She stopped, eyes closed, and tested the silence. When she heard no new movement, she finished the job.
    It only took two more good tugs to pull the hinge away from the wall. Swinging the whole apparatus to the side, she unlocked the window and shoved it up a few inches.
    And there was that tousled blond head hovering just above the sash. “It is you,” she whispered, grinning as she reached out a hand. “What are you doing here?”
    Shoving aside the help, Thrasher rolled over the window sash like a tumbler, landing on the floor with barely a sound. “Whattya think?” he asked, giving her a big cheeky grin up from the floor. “Savin’ you.”
    She didn’t care how uncomfortable it made him. She dragged the skinny young reprobate to his feet and gave him a crushing hug. “You devil. How dare you risk your life on that wall?”
    “Risk?” he retorted, pulling away before she could kiss him. “Wit’ all that ivy? Cor, it were like hikin’ up a easy hill, which is good, ’cause we gotta go down the same way.” With that, he unwound a rope from around his waist and began tying it to the big four-poster.
    Kate grinned, flushed with triumph. “Actually, you caught me just getting ready to go out.” Gathering her things, she pulled on her cloak and gloves. “How did you find me?”
    “Don’t be daft,” he chastised without looking up. “Never lost ya. That cove what run off wiff ya ’as ’air as red as a Runner’s vest.”
    “Aitches, Thrasher.”
    He looked up with a cheeky grin. “ Has. Hair ,” he corrected himself, giving the rope a test tug. “Orangest hair I ever seen. Was dead easy ta follow. I jus’ jumped up on me perch and ’ung on.”
    “You didn’t come here alone, did you?” she objected.
    His laugh was breathy. “Nah. Stopped by y’r ’ouse and got t’ others.”
    “Others?” she asked,