St. Raven (2 page)

Jupiter
! She was nestled against him in the most intimate way. Her bottom was… well… between his thighs, her legs over one of them. She felt, in a most extraordinary way, the movements of his legs that caused the huge horse to begin to back, swaying beneath her.

She clutched again. “What are you doing?” It was almost a screech.

“Putting a little more distance between us and your so gallant escort,
cherie
. If I am to pay you due attention, I do not want him quite so close.”

The words “gallant escort” bit with sarcasm.

She fixed her eyes on his jacket and not on the world moving around them. “You have no cause to sneer at him. You are a thief.”

“So ardent in his defense.”

She had to look. They were almost in the trees. She glanced back. They were five yards or more from the coach. “Stop!”

“So imperious. I adore a commanding woman.”

He rolled the
r
in a way that seemed to shiver through her. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t
kiss
this man! She had to do something to escape. But what?

Le Corbeau had holstered his pistol to control her. If she were a true heroine, wouldn’t she grasp that opportunity?

And do what?

Hit him? A fine lot of good that would do. He’d scooped her up like a child.

And what was she going to save herself from?

From a kiss.

Only a kiss.

A mere nothing compared with the fate she’d accepted. All London talked of Le Corbeau, and some ladies drove up and down these roads hoping for an encounter and a rascal’s kiss.

A kiss was nothing… But then the horse sidled, and she choked back a cry. She had to kiss him on a
horse
?

If her imagination had ever stretched so far, this would have been the most impossible, most intolerable thing ever expected of her. She saw no choice, however. Given that, she would not be a coward.

She swallowed, then turned her head up to the masked and bearded face. “May we have done with this, sir, so I can proceed with my journey?”

She saw him smile and realized that he might be handsome. His lips were certainly firm, yet in a mysterious way, sensual. Like a painting of a god of pleasure.

Those lips lowered, and she almost went cross-eyed, trying to keep the danger in sight before it reached her. Shutting her eyes, she felt his lips press against hers.

His face hair tickled.

She tried to pull back, but his hand slid behind her head, confining her. His lips parted, and his tongue touched wetly against her.

Trapped by his strong arms and his controlling hand, she was helpless and she hated it. What’s more, this was no sort of kiss she had ever imagined. This was nothing to do with tenderness or affection. It was a contest between two vile men, and she wished them both to Hades.

As his lips moved against hers, she sat perfectly still. She would give neither of them the satisfaction of seeing her struggle. If she admitted the truth, she was also still because any sudden movement might upset the monstrous beast beneath her.

The man chuckled, then licked her lips. She jerked back, then stilled again, but her hands became fists. Oh, but she longed to fight, to pummel, to claw at the monstrous beast who assaulted her.

But then he moved back and looked at her.

Thoughtfully. Questioningly.

And Cressida knew she had made a mistake.

She stared back. What had she done? Could she correct it?

He looked at Crofton. Then he pushed the forgotten earrings and banknotes down the low front of her gown. Before she could express her shock at that, he gave a sharp whistle, turned the horse, and rode into the woods, taking her with him.

Shock upon shock stole her voice for a moment, but then she screamed, “Stop it! What are you doing?
Help
!”

He pressed her face hard to his chest so she could hardly breathe, never mind shout, as the beast pounded beneath her, carrying her away. Now she fought, with arms and legs, trying to find a place to scratch, to hurt.

She’d rather fall off the horse than be stolen away like this.

And her plan.

Dear heaven, her plan!

She heard the man curse, and the horse stopped, sidling and jerking. She freed a hand and yanked the highwayman’s beard as hard as she could.

It half ripped off in her hand.

“
Damnation
!” He grabbed her hands. “Stay still, woman!”

She flailed and kicked as best she could. “Let me go!”

The horse began to rear and was forced down. The man’s grip on her wrists tightened to the point of pain. She tried to land a solid kick on the horse.

Her ankles were caught by two strong hands.

“Have your hands full, have you?” drawled a fashionable voice.

“Stop laughing and think of something to tie her up with.” Le Corbeau’s spoke in the same aristocratic English accent.

That and awareness of a new enemy stunned Cressida to stillness, but then “tie her up” sank in, and she struggled again. She opened her mouth to shriek, and a gloved hand covered it.

“Know when you’re beaten, you fool. I wish you no harm. In fact, I’m saving you from a fate worse than death. You’ll thank me when you come to your senses.”

She glared up at him, longing to scream her opinion of his interfering arrogance, but all she could manage was a growl.

Despite all her kicking and squirming, her evening shoes were snatched away, her garters—her
garters
!—untied, and her silk stocking stripped off. Then her ankles were tied. Moments later, her wrists were bound, as well.

“We need to blindfold her,” her infernal captor said.

She tried to fight, but the bonds and despair turned her feeble. Tears stung at her eyes as they were covered by a cloth tied behind her head.

Oh Lord—oh Lord, to be safe home again as she had been until so recently, with no deeper concern than the choice of jam for breakfast.

“Think that counted as a holdup?” asked the other man, still sounding amused.

“It’ll damn well have to. I’m not doing this again.”

“Perhaps you should mind what you say, the lady not having anything blocking her ears as yet.”

“Damn it all to Hades…”

“Perhaps you should mind your
language
.” The second man sounded as if he was laughing.

“Stubble it.”

Then the horse jolted, and they were off again. Her mouth was free and she could have screamed, but for the moment she didn’t dare. She couldn’t even clutch now. She was entirely dependent on her captor’s strong arms.

“Where?” asked the other man.

“The house. That’s why she’s blindfolded.”

A house. A house that mustn’t be seen.

Fear turned her cold. Le Corbeau was not a Frenchman, but an Englishman. A well-born Englishman. He’d do anything to save himself from the hangman. Killing her would be a mere nothing.

Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, save me
, she prayed with every sickening jolt of the horse beneath her, with every crush of her captor’s body. He was her terror now, not the horse.

She was powerless, helpless, completely at the mercy of this mass of muscle and power.

She was going to vomit.

Would it choke her?

Would anyone care?…

The horse stopped.

Cressida shuddered and gave thanks, trying to swallow the taste of bile. The man moved, taking the pressure from her, settling her to sit sideways on the smooth and slippery saddle.

Then he was gone.

She was
alone—
blind, bound, and unbalanced in the cold air. The horse moved.

She fell!

Even as she screamed, strong hands caught her waist. She cried out again, this time in thanks for the strong arms beneath her, then for the strong body she was held against.

The monstrous beast again, but this one was solid and safe—and two-legged.

From her right the other man said, “Dear lady, please don’t be afraid.” He sounded sincerely concerned.

But it was the highwayman who held her, carried her. To where? To what? New fears should be boiling up, but it was as if terror was exhausted. She could only pray.

No. She could
think
. “Knowledge is power,” Sir Francis Bacon had said, and she needed any power she could grasp.

She could hear, so she sorted through sounds. They’d left the horses behind, and the men must be walking on soft earth, because there was no sound of boots.

She could smell. No smell of horse, either, but a slight whiff that might be a pigsty not very far away. A farm? And sandalwood, of course, so common to her nostrils now that she hardly noticed it.

Then the men’s feet made a crunching noise. Gravel? No farm had a gravel driveway. They were approaching a house of substance.

She was blindfolded
because
of the house, so she wouldn’t recognize it. No, so she wouldn’t recognize it again if she returned with the magistrates. That did suggest that they expected to let her go eventually.

After they’d had their wicked way with her?

She’d thought such things the stuff of Minerva novels!

They stopped. She heard a click. A latch?

Yes. The door didn’t squeak, but it made a slight sound as it opened, and she was moved from outside to in. No breeze. Staler air. Polish. Faint memories of a meal. The steady tick of a large clock and wood floors beneath boots.

Fear trembled back into life. She didn’t want to be inside, inside his house. “Please…” she said.

“Hush. Make noise and I’ll gag you. I’ll put her in my room.”

The other man must still be there. Did that offer more safety or more danger?

With a shift of balance, Le Corbeau began to carry her upstairs.

To his room.

To his
bedroom
.

Cressida prayed. With Crofton it would have been vile, but it would have been her choice and for her purpose. Was she to lose her virtue to a thief’s whim?

Another door opening. Carpet under boots. A stronger smell of sandalwood.

His bedroom.

She was lowered onto something soft.

Onto his bed.

Cressida’s heart had been racing forever, it seemed, but now it settled to a deep, fretful thud as she waited for the worst.

For moments she heard only her heartbeats, as if she were alone, but with some deep and ancient instinct she knew he was there. It made silence more terrifying than shouting. She turned her head this way and that as if she might detect him.

Then he said—the highwayman said, “No one’s going to hurt you. Please believe that.”

Strangely, she did. Her frantic heartbeats slowed.

“I have things I need to do,” he said, “so I must leave you bound here for a while. I’m sorry for it, but no one will hurt you.” He spoke from closer by. “However, I need to tie you up a bit more.”

“No.”

He ignored her, lifted her, wrapped something around her at elbow level, and knotted it. Then he moved away, boots on carpet. She heard the door open and close.

Now, she was alone.

She wasn’t sure whether to give thanks or vent rage. The scoundrel had wrenched her from her place and purpose, and now he had abandoned her here, bound and blindfolded. She raised her hands to push off the blindfold and realized why he’d tied her around her arms. She could not raise her hands high enough.

She wriggled her head on the pillow but couldn’t dislodge the cloth. She stopped. The cloth was tied over the back of her turban, and that was held in place with hairpins that dug and pulled at every movement.

“Go hang yourself,” she muttered to the absent villain, a useful phrase she’d found in Shakespeare. With any luck, he’d be caught and end up at Tyburn doing the hangman’s jig.

For some reason, that image did not particularly satisfy her. She supposed that thus far he hadn’t deserved death.

And he had blindfolded her for a reason. So she wouldn’t see.

So he wouldn’t have to murder her?

It was a warm summer’s night, but a chill crept through her, and tears trickled beneath the blindfolding cloth.

Tris ran downstairs and found Caradoc Lyne waiting for him in the parlor, sipping cognac. Cary was a strapping blond Adonis who generally shared Tris’s carefree attitudes and sense of mischief. Now he disapproved.

“I couldn’t let her go with Crofton,” Tris said.

“I’d think not, but why tie her up?”

Tris grabbed the decanter and poured himself some brandy. Smuggled brandy. A reward of another jape, but one that had gone a great deal more smoothly than this.

“I should leave her free to wander the house or to run off?”

“You could explain…” But then Cary pulled a face. “I suppose not.”

“Quite. She’ll keep, and we still have a coach to hold up.”

“You said that would do.”

“On consideration, it won’t. Crofton, damn him, is hardly likely to complain to the nearest magistrate.” Tris drained the glass. “Come on.”

“Bollocks. If we have to try again, can I hold up the coach?”

“No. I claim right of rank.”

“Spoilsport.”

They left the room, debating the honor, heading for the stables and fresh horses.

“I could fit into the Crow’s disguise,” Cary argued.

“And how long would it take to darken your hair and stick on this damn face hair?” Tris touched his beard and realized that one side still hung loose. “Damn that ungrateful harpy.”

Glue would take too long for his limited patience. While his long-suffering groom was readying fresh horses, he used a bit of sticky emollient to tack the edge back. Then the three of them set out again to play the High Toby.

Cressida finally realized one reason her prison seemed eerie. There was no clock. She was accustomed to a bedroom clock. Occasionally she heard a distant chiming— two quarters, then one o’clock—but here was only silence and her own anxious breathing. What was going to happen when the man returned?

She’d set out on this journey prepared for terrible things, but not this. She’d been prepared to give herself to Crofton, but she’d had a plan to avoid that, a plan that now lay in pieces, damn Le Corbeau!