Julianne MacLean (2 page)

Clara and Sophia didn’t speak to her for about a week after that, but then they forgave her—as they always did—and told her they supposed it was her job to keep them out of trouble, because she was the sensible one.

Yet even now as women, Clara was still trying to talk Adele into misbehaving. Adele smiled and supposed it would never change. She’d be an old lady with a cane and spectacles, and Clara would try to convince her to dance in the rain. Adele smiled again and shook her head.

Just then, she heard another thump, almost as if there were a monster under her bed. Her heart leaped with panic, but she quenched the sensation because she’d stopped believing in monsters under beds many years ago.

Nevertheless, she tossed the covers aside to check. Her toes had just touched the floor when a man rose up in front of her. Adele gazed at the dark figure in terror. She sucked in a breath to cry out, but before she had a chance, a cloth soaked in a strong-smelling chemical covered her mouth.

Heart now blazing with terror, she struggled and tried to scream, but couldn’t make her voice work. Then she felt weak and dizzy, and lost all sensation in her body before she gave up the fight and remembered nothing more.

Somewhere in Northern England

T
hree days. It had been three long days, and now it was beginning to rain.

Adele rose from the hay-filled tick that served as her bed, and walked across the creaky plank floor to the window. All she could see in every direction were endless, rolling hills of grass and rock beneath an angry gray sky, swirling with the oncoming threat of a storm. Hard raindrops began to pelt against the glass.

It was barren and lonely, this part of the world, wherever it was. She hadn’t seen one person. Not even a lone goat or sheep. There were no trees, and the wind never ceased. It pummeled the stone cottage on top of this sadly
forsaken hill, rattled the windowpanes, and whistled eerily down the chimney. The door to the stable knocked and banged constantly. All day long. That, combined with the musty, damp smell of this room, was enough to make a person go insane.

Adele made a fist and squeezed it. She had been steered off course into fierce, treacherous waters, and she wanted her calm life back.

If she still had a life to go to. She wasn’t even sure Harold—or any man, for that matter—would want her after this, because she had no idea what her kidnapper had done to her. All she knew was that he had undressed her at some point, because when she had woken up, she was wearing someone else’s shabby, homespun dress. Beneath it, she wore petticoats and a shift with ivory stockings, but no corset and no shoes. She had no idea what had happened to her nightgown, nor did she know why he had undressed her. To be less conspicuous, perhaps, in getting her here? She hoped that was the reason.

Adele breathed deeply, determined to keep a cool head. She could not panic or lose control. It would do no good. She had tried everything to escape this room in the past few days. She had pounded and shook the door, she had shouted for help, used all her strength at the window, but her efforts had been futile. All she could do now was wait for something to happen—something she could act upon. Or for someone to find her. Surely her mother was searching, and the police were investigating.

Just then, the front door of the cottage opened downstairs and heavy footsteps entered the house. Adele heard them pound across the hard floor. The door slammed shut. Her heart quickened. Perhaps this would be an opportunity.

She walked to the center of the room and stood still, listening. There was more than one person. There were voices.

This wasn’t the usual routine. There had only ever been one person here to bring her food and water. What was happening?

Suddenly, commotion erupted downstairs. Frenzied footsteps. A piece of furniture fell over. Or was kicked over. Was someone here to rescue her? Harold? But Harold would never face a kidnapper on his own. Or would he?

Her father? Oh, if only it could be him! But no, he was home in America. He wasn’t due to come until the wedding day. Perhaps it was a constable. Or a neighbor who had discovered what was happening and had come to her rescue.

The footsteps pounded up the stairs and paused just outside her door. Every particle of her being froze with fear and dread. What was about to happen? Was someone here to hurt her? Ravish her? Murder her?

Her eyes searched for a weapon, but there was nothing. Nothing but a chair. She picked it up. It was heavy, but she would swing it if she had to.

The lock on the door clicked from the other side, then the door swung open. Two men walked in. One held a pistol to the other’s head, and smoldered with highly controlled fury.
Large and solid through the chest and arms, he wore a heavy, black greatcoat that matched his black hair. Adele feared him instantly.

Was he her captor? She’d never seen the man in daylight. He had stayed hidden from her view. Was her captor one of these men? The dangerous-looking one with the pistol?

“Your name!” he barked.

“Adele Wilson.” It didn’t occur to her to ask why he wanted to know. Or to ask anything at all. All she could do was answer his question, because he expected an answer.

At that instant, the man he held hostage—a short, stocky fellow with rotting teeth and thinning hair—whirled around and grabbed at the pistol, lunged forward, and took hold of Adele around the waist. He pressed the cold, steel barrel to her temple. She dropped the chair, as fear shot through her. She’d never faced a gun before.

“Now the ransom!” His unsteady voice revealed his desperation.

For the first time, Adele looked fixedly at the other man—the dark, wild one—and understood that
he
was her rescuer.

He held his hands up in front of him, in a gesture that commanded both her and her captor to stay calm. His eyes held a strong warning that told them they had no choice but to comply.

She guessed he was in his late twenties. His dark, intense eyes and windblown black hair gave him the look of the devil, or something worse. Masculine to the core, rough around the edges, and fiercely commanding in an inher
ently primitive way, he was as rugged as the rocky hills surrounding this house. He looked as if he’d been traveling for three days straight and hadn’t taken the time to shave or bathe or even sleep, because he’d been hell-bent on reaching this house. Reaching Adele.

Who was he? What were
his
intentions?

Her body quivered with fear and uncertainty.

“Harm her and you’re dead.” He took a slow step forward.

By the quality of his speech and his accent, Adele gathered he was well-bred. It surprised her. He didn’t have the look of a polite English gentleman—at least not the type she had imagined from her small life in New York. This man was pure, unleashed aggression.

“Or you can take the money now, and
run
,” he continued. “I recommend the latter choice.”

Adele felt the other man’s grip tighten around her waist. She sucked in a breath.

“You won’t let me leave,” he said shakily.

Her rescuer stepped out of the way of the door. “I will let you leave when you let the woman go. If you don’t, I guarantee my patience will not hang about.”

Adele felt her captor take in a deep, steadying breath.

He was terrified.

It was no wonder.

He pressed the pistol harder against her head. “I don’t believe you.”

Icy, paralyzing fear twisted around Adele’s heart. This man wasn’t going to simply walk
away and leave them behind. Why should he take the risk that they might follow, when
he
held the gun and could simply kill them both and escape?

By the dark, calculating look in her rescuer’s eyes, Adele sensed he was thinking the same thing.

Before he could devise and ponder a plan of action, Adele’s self-preserving instincts took over. She couldn’t just let this man shoot her. She had to do something. She dropped to the floor and sank her teeth into her captor’s thigh. He screamed out in pain.

Her rescuer dashed forward yelling, and carried the other man with him to the wall, where they smacked into it, hard. They wrestled for a few seconds, both grunting as they tried to gain control of the pistol, while Adele scrambled backward across the floor.

She thought about running, but instead, a fighting instinct she hadn’t known she possessed overtook her fears. She darted at the pair of them and leaped onto the shorter man’s back.

Taking the pistol with him, he swung around and crushed Adele against the wall. The air sailed out of her lungs as she fell off his burly form, landing on her knees. He backed away and aimed the pistol straight at her heart.

Her pulse quickened as she stared into the barrel. She held her hands up to block the bullet—knowing it was a futile gesture—and shut her eyes. Rain pummeled the roof over her head, and wind shook the rafters.

“Damn you!” Her rescuer tackled the man just as he fired. The noise was deafening, the pain shocking. Adele sank from her knees to the floor, grabbing hold of her thigh and curling forward.

The two men rolled around until her rescuer swung the handle of the gun and roughly struck his foe on the head. The other man’s body went still, while an ominous rumble of thunder boomed in the distance.

Clutching her throbbing leg, Adele stared numbly at the two of them.

Her rescuer looked up. “You’re shot.”

“Yes,” she rasped.

He crawled toward her. Without so much as a second’s hesitation, he tossed up her dress to uncover her leg from top to bottom.

Adele leaned back on her hands, trying not to show her sudden ridiculous sense of modesty in these circumstances. She had been shot. He—whoever he was—needed to see the wound.

She looked down at it. Her ivory stocking was stained red just above her knee, on the inside of her thigh. The whole area burned like nothing she’d ever experienced before. It was as if someone were branding her with a red-hot poker.

Clenching her teeth against the throbbing pain, she watched her rescuer’s face briefly while he examined her leg. He had such a striking face—the kind that draws one’s attention, clutches it in a tight grip, and doesn’t let go.

He wrapped his large hand gently around her
calf and moved her legs apart to get a closer look. Her muscles stiffened. She had to fight the urge to squeeze her legs together. This was far too intimate.

“I must remove your stocking,” he said, “to get a better look. May I have your permission?”

“Of course.”

Her reply came instinctively, but after she’d said it and had time to think about it, she felt her modesty return. He was a man, after all—a handsome and frightening man—and he was going to remove her stocking.

She swept the petty notion aside, for it was not the time to be worrying about decorum. Meanwhile, her senses began to buzz like bright, snapping, electric currents. Adele closed her eyes and tried to focus on overcoming the pain.

The man’s hands were gentle as he rolled down her stocking. He barely touched her skin; his movements were swift—as light as silk. He eased the stocking down to her ankle with great care, as if he were handling something very precious. Adele held her breath the entire time.

“This looks painful,” he said.

It was. Her whole leg throbbed, and the pounding sensation reverberated all the way up to her shoulders.

Adele opened her eyes and watched his face again. His dark brows drew together with concern as he inspected the gash. He slid a hand over her bare thigh as he touched all around the wound.

She wanted to gasp in pain as well as shock, but she resisted. He leaned down. Closer.

A man’s face had never been so close to her inner thigh before. Her naked inner thigh. She could feel his warm breath on her skin. A thousand winged creatures flapped violently in her stomach, sending her heart racing.

“It’s just a graze, thank God, but you’re still bleeding.” He sat back on his heels. “We’ll bandage it, and you’ll live.” He stood up and glanced around the room.

Looking up at him, so tall and serious above her, Adele had to fight the sense of embarrassment and intimidation that made her almost afraid to speak. She had never,
never
let a man who was not a doctor touch her so intimately before. “May I ask who you are? How you found me?”

He considered her question for a moment, then crouched down to meet her gaze at eye level. “I apologize, Miss Wilson. I should have identified myself.”

Suddenly, he seemed to transform into a proper gentleman. At least his words were gentlemanly. His appearance was quite another matter altogether. He was unshaven, wild, and rough. His black wool coat looked shabby, dusty, and weathered, as if he’d rolled down a hill in it. There was intensity in everything about him, and it left her breathless and panicky.

Adele was nowhere near ready to relax. Especially when she gazed into his dark, gleaming eyes.

“I’m Baron Alcester,” he said. “Damien Renshaw is my family name. I’m Harold’s cousin.”

Harold’s cousin. Good God, she knew of him. Her sister Sophia had met him before, and had said that he was the complete opposite of Harold. He was irresponsible with money, and his mother had been a scandalous adulteress. He was following in his mother’s footsteps, it was said, and led a careless life with a string of mistresses of questionable repute. The current one was a famous and beautiful actress.

“The ship’s master at arms informed Harold of your kidnapping,” Lord Alcester said, “as there was a ransom note addressed to him. Harold informed me, then the master at arms was released of his duty, and it was deemed that I should take care of things.”

Deemed? By whom
?

“I assured Harold I would bring you home quietly,” Lord Alcester said. “We will travel under assumed names and meet your mother and sister in two days in a small village between here and Osulton Manor. She will then escort you the rest of the way, as if nothing had ever happened.”

Adele was in shock. She was to travel alone with this man?

Still fighting the excruciating pain in her thigh, she struggled to collect her thoughts and understand the situation. “No one knows about my kidnapping?”

“Besides the ship’s officer, who has agreed to keep quiet, no one except your family and
Harold’s mother and sister. I suggested he not even tell them, but by the time he contacted me, he had already informed them. They have since been advised to keep it secret.”

“To avoid a scandal.”

“Yes.”

Adele glanced uneasily up at her rescuer—a rake of the highest order—then at the unconscious man on the floor beside them, who had done God-knew-what to her while she was unconscious. She swallowed over a sickening lump in her throat.

Lord Alcester followed her gaze, then strode to her kidnapper. The uneven planks of the old floor creaked and groaned under his heavy footfalls. He was a large, muscular man. She would not want to be in the unfortunate position of being taken for his enemy.

Kneeling down, he pressed two fingers to the man’s neck. For a long moment, he sat there—motionless and quiet. The wind from the storm outside moaned like a beast inside the stone chimney. The draft lifted the clinging cobwebs around the hearth.

When at last Lord Alcester spoke, his voice was low and subdued. “He’s dead.”