Abducted by a Prince (7 page)

Ellie gratefully accepted the brown-paper parcel. Though it would make a dent in her savings, the fabric would provide a welcome alternative to remaking one of the countess’s ugly gowns. With warm thanks, she promised to return on the following day with her payment.

Unless, of course, a miracle happened and her uncle paid for it. But Ellie wouldn’t hold her breath over
that.

Upon emerging from the shop, she paused in surprise to see that dusk had fallen and only a few shoppers remained on Bond Street. The afternoon hours had passed so enjoyably that she had quite forgotten the time. A cold rain had begun to sprinkle, and she drew up the hood of the cloak that she’d borrowed from her cousin.

Grasping the parcel strings in one hand, Ellie started on the short walk to Hanover Square. She now regretted wearing Lady Milford’s pretty slippers. Not because they hurt her feet—indeed, they felt like walking on air—but when she’d departed home early in the afternoon, there had been no sign of stormy weather. From the ominous look of these black clouds, she worried that a downpour could ruin the shoes.

Her head bent against the icy droplets, she hurried past shop windows that glowed yellow with lamplight. Home lay only a brisk ten-minute walk away. Nevertheless, it would have been pleasant to be ensconced inside one of the many passing carriages, wheels rattling and hoofs clopping, while she relaxed in warm luxury.

Had Beatrice returned to Pennington House? Ellie was anxious to discover how the visit had gone and if, after all, her cousin had managed to charm the Duke of Aylwin. Despite her silly naïveté, Beatrice was a beautiful girl, and even the most bookish of gentlemen would find it hard to resist adoring blue eyes and a fresh, lovely face.

Would Walt be at home, too?

Shuddering, Ellie recalled the scene from the previous night that she’d pushed from her mind all day. He had pawed her bosom in the most shockingly obscene manner. Should she tell her uncle? No, Walt would only deny it, and Uncle Basil wasn’t likely to believe her word over that of his son. She would just have to be more careful to avoid Walt until she sold her book and could afford to move away …

At the end of the block, Ellie turned the corner and, in her haste, bumped into a maidservant coming from the other direction. The girl dropped her basket and apples spilled over the wet pavement.

“Oh!” Ellie exclaimed. “I’m ever so sorry.” Immediately, she bent down to help the girl retrieve the fruit.

While reaching for an apple that had rolled into the street, she happened to notice a man stepping out of a black coach a short distance away. He was a hulking fellow in a greatcoat and a hat with a curled brim pulled low over his shadowy face.

Ellie froze in a crouch with her fingers curled around the apple. Was it just her imagination, or did he bear an uncanny resemblance to the stranger who’d been eyeing Beatrice the previous day?

As he glanced in Ellie’s direction, her heart slammed in heavy strokes. Yes, it
was
him. She recognized those harshly chiseled features. Then he strode toward one of the lighted shops, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

Ellie shivered from a chill that had little to do with the frigid dampness of the weather. Rising, she handed over the last apple and gave a distracted smile in answer to the maidservant’s stammered words of appreciation. Wanting only to be safely at home, Ellie rounded the corner and made haste down the deserted side street, the parcel strings digging into her cold, gloved fingers.

She didn’t know what to make of the incident. Was it just a horrid coincidence that she’d encountered the same man again? And why had he looked at her so keenly? Of course, she was wearing her cousin’s peacock-blue cloak, the same one Beatrice had worn to visit Lady Milford. Was it possible that he’d mistaken Ellie for Beatrice?

Ellie tried to convince herself that she was overdramatizing a perfectly ordinary situation. He had made no menacing gesture toward her. Perhaps, given her propensity for storytelling, it was only natural for her to conceive the worst.

Then, while going past a dark alley behind the shops, she glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. A ripple of movement. A black form hurtling through the shadows.

Straight at her.

Ellie sucked in a breath to scream. Before the sound could escape her lips, he pounced. His hand smothered her mouth and cut off her air. As if she weighed no more than a rag doll, he yanked her off the side street and into the gloom of the alley.

The parcel dropped from her fingers. In a wild panic she struggled and kicked. But he subdued her with the iron grip of an ogre. He thrust her up against a wall and pressed a sharp-smelling cloth to her face.

Taking a choking breath, she tried to turn her head away from the sickly-sweet aroma. A wave of dizziness drained the strength from her limbs. And the world melted away into nothingness.

Chapter 6

Ellie had been cast adrift in a shipwreck.

She was floating in an endless black sea. The rhythmic motion of the water rocked her, and she could hear the muted crashing of waves. Voices reached her ears now and then, the words garbled, too indistinct for her to decipher their meaning. At those times she struggled against the suffocating heaviness of lethargy. She wanted desperately to call for help, but only moans croaked from her lips.

Then a spectral hand would press a cup to her mouth, impelling her to swallow a liquid. And she would drift back into the gloom of her watery grave.

At last there came a time when the shroud of darkness began to lift. She grew aware of a warm, soft surface beneath her body. No longer did the vibrations of the sea hold her captive. She knew it to be day because a diffused, lemony light penetrated her closed eyelids.

Again she heard voices. This time, she detected the deep baritone of a man. Two men, to be precise. As she strained to make sense of their mutterings, specific words pierced the veil of her torpor.

Lady
 …
missing key
 …
ransom
 …
the earl
 …

One voice had a distinct Scottish brogue, and the other the cool, clipped tone of the upper class. Their conversation grew louder as if they had moved to stand right beside her. Gradually, entire sentences became clear to her, though she was too woozy to make sense of them.

“Such a wee, drab wren she is.”

“I daresay you’re right. She did look much prettier from a distance.”

At that, Ellie managed to lift her heavy eyelids. For a moment she blinked against the light and her vision swam alarmingly. Then the dark blotches that loomed over her coalesced into one silhouette.

A black-haired man bent down close, staring at her.

His features had hard edges, as if a sculptor had chiseled them from a block of marble in a fit of artistic fervor without adding any refining touches. His cheekbones were high, his nose a straight blade, his jaw square. In contrast to the somewhat swarthy tint of his skin, he had the most stunning green-gray eyes, and she found herself wondering how to re-create that precise color with paints …

In the same instant, memory struck like a hammer blow. She knew him. He was the stranger she’d seen on the street. The man who had been staring at her cousin. The man who had rushed out of the alley to attack her.

Choked by terror, Ellie tried to raise her hands to thrust him away. But her arms were trapped beneath the quilt and she felt as weak as a newborn kitten. The realization that she was lying in a bed only increased her fright. She thrashed to free herself from the tangled weight of coverings.

“Get away!” She meant to shout, but her dry throat allowed only a rasp of sound. “Or I’ll … I’ll scream.”

He obligingly straightened up and retreated, though taking only a single backward step. His charcoal-gray coat and silver waistcoat bespoke expensive tailoring. Hands on his hips, he gazed down at her, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “Calm yourself, Lady Beatrice. I’ve no intention of harming you—so long as you cooperate.”

Beatrice? His statement confused Ellie and she searched the fuzzy edges of her mind for an explanation. Had he meant to abduct her cousin, then? It would seem so. She had to make him understand his mistake.

But first, Ellie wanted to stand on her own two feet. She felt horribly vulnerable lying down without any means of defending herself. Gathering all of her strength, she hoisted herself up on her elbows. Then she had to stop, panting with effort, as fatigue sapped her strength.

Much to her surprise, a woman appeared at the bedside to lend assistance. The middle-aged maidservant had kind blue eyes in a careworn face and she clucked in sympathy at Ellie’s plight. With her help, Ellie soon found herself sitting against a mound of pillows and taking a sip of water from a proffered cup. The dull pounding in her head made her slightly nauseous. She ignored it, too busy trying to assess the direness of her situation.

She sat in an antique, four-poster bed with a sagging canopy and dark green curtains to be drawn around at night to keep out the drafts. The room had curved stone walls, narrow window slits, and heavy, old-fashioned furnishings.

It looked like a prison cell for a noble hostage.

The maid scurried back to her place by the door, joining a grizzled, bald-pated man with bandy legs. He must have been the other male voice she’d heard, Ellie realized. The presence of the servants made her feel only marginally safer.

Her gaze returned to her abductor. As if hewn of marble, he hadn’t moved. He remained standing beside the bed in that arrogant pose with his hands flanking his lean waist and his gaze intent on her. The hard slash of his mouth showed no sign of softening.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said.

He had the audacity to chuckle. “I’m sure
you
believe so, my lady. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Damien Burke. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Ellie fleetingly noted the absurdity of a formal introduction to her abductor as if they were guests in a London drawing room. Then her mind latched onto his name.
Damien Burke
. Where had she heard it before?

From out of the mists of memory came a scrap of gossip. Some six or seven years ago, she’d been helping the countess sort her embroidery threads when Walt had burst into their grandmother’s boudoir. He’d been eager to relate the latest scandal, that one of his old classmates, a scoundrel by the name of Damien Burke, had been caught
in flagrante delicto
with an impoverished lady and had been drummed out of polite society.

So much for the Demon Prince,
Walt had said almost gleefully.
Now he’ll return to the gutter where he belongs.

The countess had agreed. She’d declared Damien Burke to be the sort of rogue who put a shiver down the spine of any decent lady.

Now, staring up at his stony features, Ellie didn’t feel a shiver. Instead, she felt a swell of anger that he’d had the nerve to kidnap an innocent lady for his own nefarious purposes. Demon Prince, indeed!

She gripped her fingers in her lap. “It
isn’t
a pleasure to meet you, sir. Nor will
you
find it a pleasure when you realize that I’m not Lady Beatrice. I’m her cousin, Miss Eloise Stratham. You have imprisoned the wrong person.”

His mouth quirked slightly and he stared more keenly at her. “Quite clever, my lady. But surely you cannot ask me to believe you’re that drab nun I’ve seen in your company from time to time. She must be at least twenty years your senior.”

“Drab nun? Twenty
years
? I beg your pardon!”

“Besides, you were wearing the finest garments. Your shoes alone would have cost a year’s wages for a servant.”

Ellie parted her lips to explain that the clothes had been borrowed, when she suddenly looked down at herself, distracted by the startling realization that she no longer wore the gown and shoes. Her garb had been replaced by a fine lawn nightdress, and her feet felt bare beneath the blankets.

A flush suffused her from head to toe. Who had removed her clothing? This wicked man? Worse, had he taken advantage of her while she was unconscious?

Too scandalized to ask, she said stiffly, “Where are my things? And what did you do with my shoes?”

“You’ll have them back, all in good time. In the meanwhile, Mrs. MacNab will see to your needs.” A glint in his green-gray eyes, he added, “I’m sure you’ll be comforted to know that
she
took care of you during our voyage here.”

Ellie glanced at the kindly maidservant waiting by the door, then back at Damien Burke. “Voyage?”

“Yes, we were at sea for three days. It was necessary for me to take you far enough away from London so that no one could easily mount a rescue.”

Ellie tried to grasp the astonishing news. Three days had passed? Dear God, he must have drugged her, perhaps with laudanum. That would explain her headache and the sense of sluggishness. And it also explained the dreamlike period when she’d felt the constant rocking of the sea and heard the rhythmic crashing of the waves. She had vague, disjointed memories of someone feeding her, helping her to the chamber pot. And at other times, voices talking …

A cold knot formed at the pit of her stomach. Heaven help her. She had been gone for
three days
. The family would have discovered her disappearance the first evening when she’d failed to return home from the modiste. They would have been searching for her all this time …

“Where am I?” she asked hoarsely. “Where have you taken me?”

“Never mind, my lady. It is of no consequence whatsoever. You’re to relax and enjoy your stay here. Consider it a holiday.”

Damien Burke strolled away from the bed, stopping near a massive stone fireplace where a blaze crackled on the hearth. He leaned his forearm on the mantel in a cavalier pose. He was a tall man, broad shouldered and muscular, and it was no wonder he’d managed to subdue her so easily.

What did he intend to do with her?

Ellie’s mind shied away from speculating, and she struggled to contain her fear and outrage. “Enjoy my captivity? You must be mad.”