The Captain's Kidnapped Beauty. Mary Nichols

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       It was several minutes before Charlotte realised she was not being taken to Piccadilly.

      The chairmen had turned down a dark alley and were trotting at a pace that was bone-shaking. She put her head outside and commanded them to stop. They ignored her; if anything their pace increased. She shouted at them again, but it soon became evident that they had no intention of obeying her. Now she was very frightened indeed. Where were they taking her? And why?

      Captain Carstairs’s warning came to her mind. She was being kidnapped!

      After several more minutes they stopped outside a dilapidated tenement and let down the chair. She hurried to open the door and escape. But they had anticipated that and grabbed her arms and dragged her, protesting loudly, into the building, along a corridor which was as dark as pitch, and into a candlelit room.

      A woman rose from a chair to face them. ‘You got her, then?’

      ‘We did, Molly, we did. ‘Twas as easy as winking, though she made a deal of noise.’

      He was a big man, with a weather-beaten face, a moulting bag wig and bad teeth. He was also the man who had grabbed her bridle in Hyde Park. Captain Carstairs had been right in saying they might try again. Oh, how she wished she had listened to him …

      AUTHOR NOTE

      This is number five in my Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club series, in which club members solve crimes in Georgian society. Previously I have featured murder, deception, coining and smuggling. This one explores kidnapping—but it is an unusual kidnapping, which involves sailing the high seas. Captain Alexander Carstairs, recently elevated to Marquis of Foxlees, being a Master Mariner, is just the man for the job.

      The ‘kidnapped beauty’ is the daughter of a coachmaker. It was fun researching the coachmaking business, which was once very lucrative; the best coachmakers would have been multimillionaires in today’s terms. Anyone who was anyone needed a coach or carriage to get about, and the richest had more than one—just as today’s millionaires will have several different cars.

      Henry Gilpin, father of my heroine, has become exceedingly wealthy in the coachmaking trade. The trouble is that it is trade—and tradesmen were not admitted to the society of the nobility. He is doing his best to find his daughter a titled husband when she is kidnapped.

      I would like to acknowledge the help of Clive Gilbert, Chairman of The British Society of Portugal, in researching this book.

      About the Author

      Born in Singapore, MARY NICHOLS came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren.

       Previous novels by the same author:

      RAGS-TO-RICHES BRIDE

      THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN

      CLAIMING THE ASHBROOKE HEIR

      (part of The Secret Baby Bargain)

      HONOURABLE DOCTOR, IMPROPER ARRANGEMENT

THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY*

      THE VISCOUNT’S UNCONVENTIONAL BRIDE*

      LORD PORTMAN’S TROUBLESOME WIFE*

      SIR ASHLEY’S METTLESOME MATCH*

      WINNING THE WAR HERO’S HEART

*The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club mini-series

       And in Mills & Boon^®:

      WITH VICTORIA’S BLESSING

       (part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

      Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

      The Captain’s

      Kidnapped

      Beauty

      Mary Nichols

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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       Chapter One

       1765

      The regular meeting of the Society for the Discovery and Apprehending of Criminals, popularly known as the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club, was drawing to its close. Led by James, Lord Drymore, they were all gentlemen of independent means dedicated to promoting law and order in a notoriously lawless society. Some called them thieftakers, but it was a soubriquet they rejected only because of its unsavoury connotations. In general thieftakers were nearly all as corrupt as the criminals they brought to justice, but the members of the Piccadilly Gentleman’s Club were not like that and refused payment for their services.

      Today each had reported on the case on which they were working. Jonathan, Viscount Leinster, was trying to trace two notorious highwaymen who had escaped from prison while awaiting trial and not having much luck. Harry, Lord Portman’s particular interest was counterfeit coiners and he often went in disguise to the rookeries of the capital in search of information, though to look at him, you would hardly believe it; he was the epitome of a dandified man about town. Ashley, Lord Cadogan, was chasing smugglers with the help of his brother-in-law, Ben Kingslake, and Captain Alexander Carstairs had just returned a kidnap victim safe and sound to her distraught parents without it having cost them a penny in ransom money. James himself was tied up with their sponsor, Lord Trentham, a Minister of the Crown, in maintaining law and order in an increasingly disgruntled populace.

      ‘Allow me to offer condolences on the loss of your uncle and cousin,’ James said to Alex as they prepared to disperse. ‘To lose both together was a double tragedy.’

      ‘And felicitations on your elevation to the peerage,’ Harry added. ‘Marquis of Foxlees, no less.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Alex said. ‘It was a great