My Highland Love: Highland Lords Series (37 page)

The man nodded, then left.

Marcus waited for the door to shut, then
faced Steven. "The board members are ready?"

"They're waiting at a nearby tavern." He
shook his head in obvious disbelief. "I thought you were wrong. Had
I gone to Danvers as I wanted…"

His brother-in-law had no notion of the will
it had taken Marcus to remain idle on the
Josephine
. He,
too, wanted nothing more than to catch Price Ardsley on the road to
Danvers, but he couldn't chance Elise being hurt in the gunfight.
Justin would follow her. If worse came to worst, he would attack
and take Elise from Price.

"Ardsley had to be sure you and I were aboard
the
Josephine
," Marcus said. "You can be sure he knows of
our continued presence here." Marcus faced the captain. "Captain
Garret, please have your doctor prepare Miss Poteck."

"As you say," Garret replied crisply.

Marcus started for the door, Steven on his
heels. Once in the corridor, Steven closed the door and called out
to Marcus. He halted.

"Did you inform your cousin of your plan not
to sail back to Scotland with Elise?"

"Instructions await him on the ship they are
to sail on," Marcus replied.

"He will not be pleased. As for Elise—"

"Elise will be well looked after. Justin
knows what he's about."

"And if you don't make your ship?"

"I will."

* * * *

Elise's hand shook as she pressed a palm
against the iron door. She pushed gently. The door swung open. A
cry of surprise rose in her throat before she could stifle the
sound. Why was her door unlocked? They believed she was still in a
stupor!

She stepped as far as the doorway and peeked
into the hall. The long corridor was empty. She stepped from the
room and stopped two paces into the hallway. A single light lit the
hallway near where she stood. Doors lined both sides of the
corridor. She looked left, then right. Both directions turned into
what seemed yet another hallway. Which way was out? Out—out to
where? Where was she going? Marcus. No. She would not endanger
him.

Blood roared through her veins; her head
pounded. Panic rose. Which way? Choose a way, any way! She started
forward. Her courage grew with each infinitesimal step forward.
Near the end of the hallway, the tip of a banister extended out to
where the hallway turned left. Stairs.

A scream shattered the silence. Elise bit
back a shout and hugged the wall. Another cry, fainter this time
but close, rent the air again. She peered in the direction she had
been moving. A door stood three feet from her. She edged toward the
room. The door stood slightly ajar and she peered inside.

"No!" a woman wailed in a low voice. "Please,
Ramsey, not tonight, not tonight." Her voice trailed off repeating
the plea.

Elise jammed her eyes shut.
Ramsey
,
the monster who had been watching her.

"No," the woman cried again.

Elise entered the room. "Shhh," she said.

The huddled form in the far corner jerked
upright. "Who's there?" the woman said. "Sara? You're not
Sara."

"No," Elise soothed. She stopped near the
woman and knelt.

The woman shrank back. "Ramsey sent you. He
wants to know if my monthly flux has passed. Tell him no! It will
never pass. Tell him—"

"No," Elise whispered. "Ramsey did not send
me."

"Liar," the woman hissed. She jabbed a finger
at Elise and Elise scrambled to her feet. The woman began weeping.
"Never," she repeated. "My flux will never pass. I won't spread my
legs for him again." She fell into a fit of loud wails.

Elise backed up. The poor soul was mad. Tears
streamed down Elise's face. Ramsey. She couldn't remember his
face—Price had drugged her before bringing her to the
sanitarium—but she could imagine all too easily what he was like.
How many other women had he abused? She turned and fled the
room.

Ignoring the feel of the stiff, filthy
fabric, she ran toward the stairs. Her stomach roiled. Still she
ran. A noise sounded behind her. She jerked her head around to
glance over her shoulder but saw nothing. Another inmate of the
many rooms? She faced forward again, slamming into what, at first,
felt like a stone wall. She recognized the fingers of steel that
gripped her shoulders even before she looked up into the face of
Ramsey.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Release me!" Elise shouted.

She thrashed wildly and Ramsey's grip on her
shoulders turned painful.

"Well, now," he said, his Irish brogue
sharpened with raucous laughter, "what have we here?"

"Let me go!" She struggled harder, despite
the pain of his beefy fingers digging still deeper into her skin.
"My husband—" she began, but he cut her off with more foul
laughter.

"Your husband committed you, my bonnie girl.
So don't bother threatening revenge."

"Price Ardsley is
not
my husband."

"Don't know the man's name. Don't care. He
put you here and plainly doesn't plan on you ever seeing the light
of day." Ramsey yanked her to him and, with one hand, stroked her
hair. "That leaves you and I to sport, eh?"

Elise raised a foot and stomped on the top of
his boot. He yelped and leapt back. She whirled and lunged
forward.

"Bloody fool wench!"

He seized her from behind and flung her
against the wall. Ramsey crashed into her back, knocking the breath
from her. He snaked a hand around her waist. Elise wedged her hands
between herself and the wall and clawed at his fingers.

"Damn—" he hissed, pulling his hand free.

He grabbed her arms and yanked them back. Her
arms felt as though they would tear from their sockets as he
crushed her to the wall.

"You're a plucky one," he wheezed in her ear.
"Most wenches here are too daft to even know their names. Takes all
the fun out of the play."

He pinned her arms between their bodies with
one hand, then rammed the fingers of his free hand into her hair.
Elise jerked her head aside, but he mashed her cheek against the
wall.

"You haven't had a bath since coming here,
but Sara kept you cleaned up where it counts." He thrust his hips
against her.

Elise's stomach churned, more at the
knowledge of the shared intimacy when Sara had tended to her than
the feel of his erection digging into the cleft of her
buttocks.

"Not a pretty sight," he went on. "Until she
cleaned you up, that is. Then," he roughly ground himself against
her, "I knew you and I would be spending time together. I was
waiting for the right time." He laughed again. "You decided you
wanted me now, eh?"

She shoved hard against the wall in an
attempt to thrust his body away from hers, but he slammed back all
the more brutally, groaning when their bodies jammed together. His
fingers tightened in her hair and she cried out in pain.

"Aye, my girl," he rasped. "Scream. In this
place, no one will care, and I like it."

He released her hair and forced his hand into
the small of her back where his belt had been digging into her
flesh. His belt jingled and, for the first time, Elise felt
loathing and fear vie in earnest with outrage. Her body trembled
and her knees weakened. She twisted, but he yanked back on her
arms, and she felt her arms begin to separate from their
sockets.

His belt and trousers hit the floor with the
buckle landing with a dull clank. He grabbed her skirts and yanked
them up. Elise kicked backwards with the heel of her foot, hitting
the hard bone of his shin. He grunted, but only spread his legs and
thrust his hips into her.

"I will not be another of your victims!" she
shouted.

She grit her teeth and jerked her head
backwards. The back of her head struck Ramsey's hard skull. He
shrieked, yanking hard on her arms as he fell back a pace. Pain
reverberated through her head. Elise bit her lip to halt the pain
as he unexpectedly leapt back from her. Iron fingers seized her arm
and she barely registered the difference in this and Ramsey's hold
as she was spun her around.

Elise gasped.

Price Ardsley stared down at her.

* * * *

Two hours after the messenger arrived
informing Marcus that Price had arrived at Danvers, a messenger
arrived at the
Josephine
directing Marcus to come
immediately to Price Ardsley's home. Half an hour later, Marcus was
shown into his private study. A fire crackled in the hearth and
Price sat behind the mahogany desk he had occupied when they had
explained Elise's situation to Landen Shipping's board of
directors. A tumbler of whiskey sat before Price. How would this
man explain Elise's situation when the board members appeared here
later this morning?

"Please," Price motioned to the chair in
front of the desk, "have a seat."

Marcus sat.

"Would you like a drink?" Price asked,
straightening.

"Nay."

Price leaned back. "Word will arrive any
moment that Elise has been safely deposited aboard the
Josephine
."

"You had until this evening. Why bring her so
early?"

"I thought her speedy return would please
you."

"Her not being abducted would have pleased
me."

"Rest assured she is safe. So long as she—you
both—remain in Scotland. You've said nothing about the boy." Price
sipped his drink.

"He is no threat to you."

"He won't take lightly that I kept his sister
prisoner."

"I have convinced him to accompany us to
Scotland," Marcus gave the planned answer.

Price seemed to contemplate this. "The longer
the stay, the better."

"Aye," Marcus agreed.

The sound of boots on carpeted floor were
heard, and Price said, "That would be our young friend now."

As if on cue, the door opened and Steven
entered. "Elise is safely on the
Josephine
."

"She is well?" Marcus asked with as much calm
as he could exert.

Steven turned his glare to Price. "She has a
dislocated shoulder and looks as if she hasn't bathed since her
abduction."

Marcus jerked his gaze back to Price and
barely managed to check the compulsion to lunge across the
desk.

"Your brother-in-law will now take a message
to the captain that he is to set sail before the hour is up," Price
said.

"I will not leave," Steven shot back.

"Aye, you will." Marcus prayed the boy
wouldn't pull the pistol he'd noticed stuffed into his waistband.
"You have pen and paper?"

Price produced paper from a desk drawer and
laid it before Marcus as he scooted the quill, sitting at his left,
up alongside the paper. Marcus wrote the note instructing the
Josephine
to set sail immediately, then folded the missive
and extended it toward Steven.

"Anyone can deliver this," Steven
protested.

Marcus shook his head. "You take it, lad, and
be on the ship when she sails." This Marcus had not discussed with
Steven, for the boy would not have agreed. Chances were, he
wouldn't obey now.

Steven looked from Marcus to Price, then
snatched the note from Marcus's grasp. He settled his gaze on
Price. "We aren't finished."

Price nodded with a sigh and Steven faced
Marcus. "You shouldn't have come here."

"Take care of Elise," Marcus said.

"That I will," he said, and left.

Marcus focused on Price. "My father, the Duke
of Ashlund, will be waiting for the
Josephine
when she
arrives. If anything happens to Elise or Steven, if any attempts
are made to harm either of them, someone will set sail from
Scotland before I step onto Scottish soil."

"I have no intention of harming Elise."

Aye, neither will you harm her
brother,
Marcus silently added. "How long am I to wait here?"
Marcus asked.

"Until word arrives that the
Josephine
is well out of Boston Harbor. I estimate two hours."

"A guard stands outside this door?"

Price gave a single nod.

"I would have preferred to wait at one of the
harbor taverns," Marcus said, not feeling the slightest twinge of
guilt at the lie. He had planned all along to be here when the men
of Landen Shipping arrived on Ardsley's door about the same time
the
Josephine
left Boston Harbor.

"Shall I have refreshments served?" Price
asked.

"Nay," Marcus replied. "I dine only with
friends."

Nearly two hours of silence later, there came
a quick knock on the library door. Price looked toward the door as
it opened and Simons entered.

"Sir," the butler said out of breath, "Mister
Brentley and the other gentlemen from Landen Shipping are
downstairs. They are demanding to see you—" A pounding of footsteps
in the hallway intruded into Simon's speech. "There they are, sir.
I feared they would not wait."

Brentley appeared in the doorway. The rest of
Landen Shipping's board of directors piled up behind him. Brentley
stepped inside the room and looked at Marcus, who rose.

"We have just come from the
Josephine
," Brentley said.

"The
Josephine
?" Price asked
evenly.

"Yes," Brentley replied, and the room broke
out into a babble of voices. "Gentlemen," he shouted. "Gentlemen,
please!"

Another figure appeared behind the men. The
din quieted as Steven pushed past them and halted beside
Marcus.

"You should have sailed on the
Josephine
," Marcus said.

"As should you have," Steven replied.

"Price," Brentley said, "we have just spoken
with Miss Poteck and Elise."

"Miss Poteck?" Price said as if he had never
heard the name in his life.

"Don't," Brentley cut in, his quiet voice
harsh. He produced two folded pieces of paper from his front coat
pocket. He unfolded them and held up one. "This is a signed
affidavit from Miss Poteck, explaining in detail how you paid her
to impersonate Elise Kingston." Price frowned, but Brentley went
on. "This," he lifted the other document, "is Elise's statement."
He continued in a half strangled voice, "She swears you kidnapped
her in Scotland and brought her to Boston against her will, then
incarcerated her in Danvers Hospital." Marcus's heart raced as if
hearing this for the first time. Brentley lowered the papers. "If I
had been given this information without the benefit of witnesses, I
would put a bullet between your eyes."