Fascination -and- Charmed (88 page)

“I want you as my wife. I want you to leave with me now.”

“You want me because you believe I am yours by right. Franchot wants me as his wife because he wants my dowry. He came here tonight to ask for a speedy marriage also.”

“Bounder,” Calum said under his breath.

“Is he more of a bounder than you, I wonder? Franchot…

I suppose I should not call him Franchot. Or perhaps I should call you both Franchot. That would be the fairest thing.” She flung herself from the bed and cast a robe about her shoulders. “Please leave me, Calum.
Please.
”

“Not unless you come with me.”

“Oh, I cannot bear it.” She turned away and went to the windows.

He was behind her in seconds, chafing her cold arms through the robe. “I…Believe that I want you, dearest.”

“
You
want me.
He
wants me. How am I to know if your reason is any different from his? I am a
pawn.
Wanted by two men for what I can bring them.”

Her words hit Calum like a blow. He dropped his hands. “You believe that?”

“Yes.”
He could hear that her teeth were clenched.

The pain in his throat would fade. The pain in his heart and the throbbing in his loins would take longer. “Very well. If you believe this invention of yours, then you have a simple task. Either decide to have neither of us or choose which one you prefer.”

“You torture me.”

“
You
torture
me,
Pippa. I trust you will not repeat what you heard at the cabin.”

“I…How can you even suggest such a thing?”

“I have made many mistakes with you, my lady. Good night.”

He left her whilst he felt he could still control himself. The urge to sweep her up and take her with him bowed him down.

In the dark passageway with its flickering wall sconces, he stood still, his back to the wall, and tried to gather his breath.

The slightest noise made him alert and he looked to the right and the left.

A flicker of something pale wafted in a distant corner and was gone.

Walking with careful steps, he approached that corner and turned.

Nothing.

He was a man besieged on all sides, and his imagination, like the rest of his mind, showed signs of bending.

Calum left the house at once, went to the stables and took the bay hack. The rest of this night he would spend riding the hills, perhaps in the company of the one friend who might judge his sanity but who would never doubt his honor.

Pippa stood where she was by the window. How should she bear it? The loving him, yet knowing that even if he cared for her at all, that caring was second to his need to claim her as a rightful possession.

She could not bear it any longer.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she found paper and ink and wrote a note to Justine, telling her that she had decided to leave. She asked that no one search for her because she needed to be alone for a while. When she was ready, she would let Justine know where she’d gone.

With the note finished and propped beneath a Venetian paperweight, Pippa hurried to dress in her most serviceable riding habit. She would set out for Cloudsmoor but could not stay at the Hall because they would look for her there first. There were several empty tenant cottages where she could find a refuge for a day or two whilst she thought.

When all was done and a few possessions were tied inside a shawl, she doused the lights once more and went to stand where she’d stood with Calum before he’d left her. By the window.

Why should loving hurt so much?

From the sitting room came the sound of the door being softly opened.

Pippa closed her eyes. She was wrong, but joy flooded her. He had returned to make her understand what he had not been able to explain before.

She stood quite still, waiting.

His footsteps approached, and when she knew he was close behind her, she began to turn.

Strong arms surrounded her.

Strong arms trapped her while someone else, someone smaller, pressed a hard goblet to her lips.

“No!” She choked and coughed, and bitter wine flowed down her throat.

Pippa tossed her head from side to side, but hard hands clamped her skull, and more and more wine was forced down her throat.

Almost at once, sick faintness burst upon her like a black, red-tinged blossom.

“Drink,” she heard a voice say. “Drink.”

The blossom swelled and Pippa slipped into its dark center.

Come along, now. We both know you’re awake, don’t we, ducky?”

Pippa heard the rough male voice and struggled to raise her eyelids. They felt heavy and damp, as if she’d cried for hours and fallen asleep still crying.

“Hey! You can hear me. Turn your head this way and let’s have a look at you.”

She lay facedown on splintered boards. When she did get her eyes to open a fraction, she saw a crude stone wall illuminated by flickering candlelight. From somewhere came a high, wailing sound.

Something—a foot, she thought—dug into the small of her back. “Don’t you want to know how long you’ve been here, ducky? Don’t you want to know who it is ‘as paid to have you brought here?”

Her head would break open if she lifted it. “Where am I?” she asked, but the words sounded like a burble in her brain.

“Come again, ducky?” the man asked. His hand descended upon her aching head. “Let me sit you up. No point lying in the dirt any longer than you have to, right?”

“Where am I?” Pippa repeated, and was relieved that she sounded clearer.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, as they say.” His laugh was a braying noise. “Up you come.”

He turned and lifted her to sit in one motion. Her back thudded against the wall. She cried out and held her head.

“Ache, does it? Well, I said as how you probably didn’t need so much. Being a little thing, that is. But—as usual—I wasn’t listened to. Never mind. My turn will come.”

Pippa cupped her hands beside her eyes and looked up into a thin, long-nosed face framed with lank black hair. “Who are you?” she whispered. Even though he was on one knee before her, she could tell he was exceedingly tall.

“I’m no one you have to worry about. No one you’ll ever have to think about again once this little lot’s over.”

He had no lips. His long teeth appeared and disappeared in a rolled slit in his face, and his eyes shone like gray agate.

She would not panic. “Why was I brought here?” If she asked what he intended to do with her, she might precipitate his awful plans.

“I think we should talk about where you are, after all,” he said expansively, peering at her more closely. “Pale thing you are. And thin. Shouldn’t choose you myself. But no accounting for tastes, I suppose.”

Pippa decided his disapproval of her was the best news she’d heard thus far.

“You’ve been here two nights and a day. That is, this is the second night.”

She gasped and clutched her middle. Every muscle and bone in her body hurt. “I cannot have been here that long.”
Wine poured into her mouth. Blackness. She’d been drugged.

“Have it your own way. What’ll really surprise you is where you are.”

Thumping. Thumping and jostling and the clink of a horse’s hoofs on rocks.

“You’re within spitting distance of Franchot Castle, you are. What d’you think about that?”

“I want to go,” she said, unable to hold back the desperation any longer. “I want to go now.”

“No, no, no. You’ll have to stay, ducky. Can’t disobey my orders. This is the abandoned lighthouse. The one on the head to the west of the castle. Remember it?”

She cast about in her fuzzy mind. “No. Yes, yes.” The lighthouse had been there, but she’d never paid it any attention. A new one had been built farther inland. She seemed to remember being told that this one was abandoned because it was too often endangered by high seas.

Pippa edged away from the man and he showed no sign of following her. Slowly, she started to push herself up until she stood, her head on a level with the gaping openings around the top of the lighthouse. She gulped in sea air and all but gagged on its heavy salt tang.

“Don’t you go casting up your accounts again,” the man said. “Had enough of that, I have. Might decide I couldn’t wait any longer.”

“You don’t have to wait,” Pippa said quickly. “Really, I’m very good at being on my own.”

His awful mouth opened in a guffaw. “Really, I’m very good at being on my own,” he mimicked. “And I’ve been sitting here wasting my time with you for nigh on two days only because I like looking at dirty, skinny little women snoring and snuffling. You’re here until he sends word.”

“He?”

The man merely grinned.

Oh, dear Lord,
Franchot.
Franchot had arranged to have her kidnapped so he could take her away to marry her instantly and put his fears to rest. She tried to compose herself. “I left a note, you know. If I were you, I’d make my getaway while I could. They’ll be bound to be looking for me already, and this isn’t very far at all, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, still in a parody of her accents. “And it was so nice of you to leave the note. I understand the lady who received it has arranged for parties to scour the countryside. They’ve gone particularly wide, so I’m told. Following your horse’s tracks. Got in someone specially for the job.”

“But I never got my horse…”

He grinned afresh.
“You
didn’t, but someone did. And they rode fast and far. So far your little band of rescuers will be busy a nice long time. And when they do give up, the last place they’ll look is so close to home as this, right?”

Pippa’s legs would not hold her. She slid back down the wall and hit the wooden boards hard enough to jar her spine. “Why?” she asked. “What could it possibly…You will ask for a ransom. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? My father will pay you, but he…” No, she
must
not say that Papa might not return for two or three more weeks.

“I won’t need your father’s ransom, my lady,” her captor said. “I’ll be paid handsomely enough by the gentleman who arranged this little holiday for you. He told me to tell you not to worry. And—as you can see—I haven’t hurt you, have I? No, not too much, anyways.”

“There were two of you,” Pippa said suddenly. “I remember. One of you held me and one of you forced me to drink.”

“Don’t go straining your mind. Save yourself. You’re going to need all your strength.”

He came closer, grinning his horrible grin, and she shrank away. “You could try saying your prayers. I’ve heard some females do find a lot of comfort in their prayers.”

Sniffing, he pulled a flask from his pocket and took a swallow. “Need something to keep me going. Cold up here.”

“Let me go!” Pippa cried. The wailing came again. Gulls. Seagulls. She was so close to Cloudsmoor and familiar places.
Calum.
Calum would be searching, too. “Please, let me go!”

“Can’t do it,” he said, shaking his head. “Not till I get orders. And then it won’t be orders to let you go. Not exactly.”

She pushed her hair from her eyes. “What’s happening to me?”

“Simple,” he said. “You’re waiting here with me until I get word that it’s time for you to go to sleep again. Should have come by now. Can’t imagine what’s keeping him.”

Pippa opened her mouth, but no sound came.

“That’s a clever, quiet girl. Not that it matters if you scream. Even if someone heard you, they’d think it was the seabirds. When he sends word, you’ll go to sleep. I’ll make sure you don’t know any more than you did the last time. Only this time you won’t have the worry about all this nasty waking up.”

She did scream—and clamp her hands over her mouth to try to hold it back. Gasping, coughing, she drew her legs beneath her and said, “You’re going to kill me. Why?”

“Don’t go on. It’ll only make things worse. And Mr. Innes said I was to try to keep you happy till it was time.”

Calum met
Struan’s eyes and between them passed the understanding that the wisdom of this return to the castle would not be questioned again.

Side by side, they rode beneath storm-laden clouds, up the great drive to the peregrine-flanked gates.

Beneath the stone escutcheon bearing the Franchot arms, those gates stood open.

“Odd,” Struan said.

Calum drew up the bay hack, twisted in his saddle and searched for the gatekeeper. The door to his quarters also stood open. “Probably means nothing.” He looked at Struan again. Unspoken was the thought that they did not know what awaited them at Franchot Castle.

“Pippa will not have told him,” Struan said.

“No.”

“We will hold to the tale that you rode out to meet me and I’d had difficulty on my travels from Dorset.”

Calum knew how Struan detested falsehood. “Thank you,” he told him. “I cannot give her up, Struan. I cannot.”

“And I must make certain all goes well for Ella and Max. So we both have reasons to return.” Struan urged his mount onward.

Calum fell in with his friend. “Franchot is innocent in whatever plot took place here.”

“He is a bad man.”

“Yes, but he is guilty of no crime against me other than having been used.”

“So”—Struan looked sideways, and in the gray, early morning light, his lean face was starkly somber—“you have decided to leave him with everything you believe is yours?”

The day and two nights since Calum had left this place had been the longest in his life, and they had taught him a great deal. He said, “Everything but Pippa.”

Struan smiled. “I do believe you shall have her. What woman could resist a man prepared to give up his claim to so much in exchange for her hand?”

Calum faced the castle.
“If
I can persuade her to believe I want only her. And if she does want me.”

They broke from the avenue of trees to the rise before the great entrance.

Struan pulled up once more and wheeled. “Who is that?” He referred to a figure dashing down wide steps from open double doors. “All is not well here.”