Seized by Love (27 page)

“No, I’ll be perfectly fine alone. Perhaps I’ll stroll down to the lake. The only glimpse I’ve had of it until today has been through the bedroom windows.” She smiled mischievously through half-lowered lashes.

“Sorry for my damnable temper, love. I’ll endeavor to bridle it in the future. The entire estate is at your disposal”—he indicated with a sweeping wave of his arm—“but don’t wander too far into the forest. You might become lost.”

“I won’t, Nikki.”

“Now, you’re sure you’ll be all right alone?” he asked anxiously as he bent to kiss her.

“Of course, dear, and don’t shoot too many poor squirrels.”

“No, we won’t be gone that long. Au revoir.” He blew her a kiss as he strode away, extricated the pony and rider from the flower bed, and disappeared around the corner of the West Wing, heading toward the stable block.

Alisa sat on the swing for a short time after the hunting party left. It consisted of Nikki, Katelina, Arni, Yukko, and three trackers. The sun was comfortably warm, and Alisa daydreamed blissfully. She walked around the flower gardens, beautifully cared for by an army of gardeners, then moved in the direction of the lake. On reaching the sandy shore, she strolled along the soft white sand of the bay that swung away in an easterly direction from Mon Plaisir. Within minutes the house disappeared from sight behind the tall, dark pine trees lining the shore. Alisa stooped occasionally to select a small, flat piece of shale and skipped the rocks across the luminous sparkling water. She walked for some ten minutes, careless of her distance from the house because there was no chance of becoming lost out in the open of the lake shore.

Finding a large, flat boulder, Alisa sat on its broad expanse and gazed out on the lake, knees drawn up under her chin, arms clasping her legs, letting the lassitude of the warm sun and light lake breeze bathe her; contentment filled her soul.

Hearing an unexpected sound behind her, she whirled around.

Valdemar Forseus was standing five feet away, his small, deep-set eyes peering with a dangerous mockery at the terrified face of his young wife. She froze in horror at the sight of those fanatically piercing eyes.

“So, Mrs. Forseus, you have led me a merry chase,” he breathed softly. “We were beginning to despair of ever seeing you outside the house. That whoremonger of a Prince guards you well. But, alas,” he sighed, a sinister smile playing across his grotesque face, “not well enough. And, of course, I’m a patient man.”

A rapid flash of his arm and two gigantic men appeared out of the trees and strode swiftly to his side. “My trackers,” he conversationally remarked, “my sweet young wife. Men, the object of this long and diligent quest,” he politely introduced them, his wrath barely concealed beneath his rigidly controlled demeanor.

Alisa was dumb with alarm as wave after wave of silent terror flooded her consciousness. Why had she wandered so far from the house? Why had she so stupidly assumed Forseus would accept her flight from him? God, where was Nikki? She began to tremble in the sure knowledge that Forseus would kill her, certainly if not now, later, after he’d used her to suit his devilish will. He was insane, sadistically taking delight in causing pain. God, Nikki, help me, she sent up a silent plea, her nerves stretched taut in panic. Flashing, blinding spots of light suddenly danced before her eyes and oblivion took pity.

She crumpled in a swoon at the feet of the three men.

“Pick her up,” Forseus ordered sharply. “We must make haste.”

One tracker effortlessly lifted her body and the three men walked back to their horses tethered in the pines. The men mounted, Alisa was settled across one man’s chest, and the party spurred their horses. Once back on the road, neither quirt nor rowel was spared as the riders furiously pressed their horses south.

Mercifully, Alisa remained in a faint for several hours, the agonizing terror of Forseus’s proximity locked outside of her conscious mind.

She regained consciousness in the late afternoon when they were forced to stop to change horses. They mounted her on a small bay, her hands tied to the saddle pommel. Forseus spoke scarcely more than three words to her, carefully restraining his anger in front of the two trackers. To bring back a runaway wife was legal enough; he could expect their help, but even these primitive men wouldn’t accept the punishment he was going to inflict on his contrary wife once he had returned her home.

“You will rot in hell, Jezebel, and your carnal urges will be punished as you deserve,” he whispered evilly that evening as they stopped briefly to water their horses at a stream. “I hope you last long enough. I wouldn’t want my pleasure curtailed.” As if to prove his point, he cruelly tightened the cinch on his horse’s saddle and heaved his great bulk back onto his mount.

Alisa trembled involuntarily, prayed for courage and strength to sustain her. The full horror of her capture was beginning to overwhelm her. And although she told herself sharply to remain calm, her panic was reaching nightmare proportions.

•  •  •

The squirrel hunt lasted longer than anticipated, since Katelina was enjoying the excursion. Shadows of twilight were slowly creeping in from the forest as the small group rode back into the stable yard, a tired but satisfied little five-year-old nestled in Nikki’s arms.

Walking into the large hallway carrying the fatigued child, Nikki hallooed for Alisa, cheerfully anticipating a welcoming kiss from his lovely mistress. He handed Katelina over to Rakeli and strode up the broad wooden stairway to the bedroom, so eager to see and hold her, he didn’t even stop to shake the dust from his boots and clothes. This morning had been magnificent. God,
she
was magnificent; beautiful, sensual, intelligent, and she loved him. His world was near perfection.

“Alisa!” he called out. “Alisa, we’re back!” Nikki cried as he opened the door into the bedroom, lit now with the last rays of sunset glow. “Katelina is becoming a very excellent rider for—” He paused on the threshold as his eyes swept the room, searching for the familiar form, the auburn hair.

The room was quiet and empty. The muscles in his jaw tightened. Turning sharply, he retraced his steps down the main staircase, shouting for Alisa. The housekeeper came running from the back hall and explained quickly, “I haven’t seen Madame for hours. She was walking in the garden last I saw her.”

“You mean you haven’t seen Mrs. Forseus all afternoon?”

“No, sir, I haven’t,” she answered fearfully, for the Prince was scowling mightily.

Nikki thanked her gruffly and proceeded out the front door, racing down the entrance steps in three long strides, the tiniest twinge of apprehension beginning to mar his perfect mood. Within seconds he’d turned the corner of the West Wing and peered across the broad flower beds, all
gaily blooming, a few bees still busily humming from flower to flower.

No Alisa.

A larger fragment of doubt replaced the vague apprehension as he walked purposefully back to the entrance, thundering loudly for the housekeeper. He ran up the stairs. Having heard the roar of Prince Kuzan’s voice in the kitchen, she was at the door to greet him.

“What is it, my lord?”

“Assemble all the servants—immediately! I can’t find Mrs. Forseus.” Within the minute a glowering Nikki was addressing a long line of maids, gardeners, and footmen.

“Has anyone seen Mrs. Forseus since I left for my ride?”

The answers came in a confused babble, but when all were sifted and deciphered, apparently no one had seen Mrs. Forseus since early afternoon, when she was strolling in the yard.

A fierce rage began to smolder in the quick-tempered Prince. So all the theatrics this morning, the tears and sighs, the loving words, had been just that—theatrics. She had probably coolly plotted the drama and he, driven as usual by his genitals, had fallen for her scheme. How else would she have been released from the prison of the bedroom? Very clever of her; the oldest female ploy, when all else fails, use your body.

He swore to himself and then aloud as the servants huddled in a group, glancing nervously at their distraught master. There was no more to learn from them, so he curtly dismissed them, charging them to keep out of his way.

“Yukko, bring me two bottles of brandy,” he demanded, incensed. Nikki stalked off into his study, infuriated at having been deceived by the feigned sincerity of Alisa’s loving scene that morning.

Damn her, damn her lying heart. He’d drag her back by the hair! He’d beat her! He’d show her not to trifle with
him! But even as he stormed and raged, the more pragmatic side of his nature challenged—why bother? Why bring her back? He’d been ready to leave her this morning anyway; the decision had simply been taken out of his hands. Maybe that was what piqued him most. Was his pride pricked because Alisa had chosen to leave him, had taken away his perogative. And he was made to look the fool?

When Yukko appeared with the brandy, he attempted to raise a question about Alisa, but Nikki was only able to conceive her disappearance in terms of deceit. He condemned her duplicity, censuring, damning her provocative sensuousness, castigating himself for the thousandth time for his childish credulity. Cunt did that to him. He forgot all else.

“Nikki, what of Katelina? Alisa would never leave—” Yukko braved his master’s wrath.

“Silence!” Nikki bellowed, and put the bottle to his lips, draining a third of its contents in one huge swallow. He looked up with a deadly glare and said, “Are you championing that bitch?” He lapsed into Finnish. “I don’t want to hear that trollop’s name again! Do you hear? Do you hear?” Nikki snarled. “Now go. Leave me in peace. Bah! Women. Who needs them!”

Yukko lifted his eyebrows in resigned disbelief at the last statement. If there was ever a man who
couldn’t
do without women, it was his master.

“Very well, Nikki,” he sighed as he watched his master grasp the bottle again and pour down another long draft. Leaving the study, Yukko resolved to look for Alisa himself. She wouldn’t run off now, when she was carrying Nikki’s child. Everyone below stairs knew that. But when Nikki’s temper was up, he didn’t listen to reason.

It took Yukko no more than twenty minutes to find why Alisa had disappeared. Racing back to the house, he found
Nikki slumped in his chair, his face an unreadable mask. Having finished the first bottle of brandy, Nikki was approaching the mood when all the world was of no consequence.

Yukko jerked the second bottle of brandy from Nikki’s sullen grasp and said, “Alisa’s been abducted. Three men on horseback took her from the east shore of the lake about three quarters of a mile down the beach.”

Approximately three seconds elapsed before the news penetrated Nikki’s senses. Then he shot to his feet, clapped a strong hand on Yukko’s shoulder, and tersely questioned, “Abducted? You’re sure?” he asked sharply. “She didn’t run away? You’re sure?” His eyes were eager.

“I’m sure, Nikki,” Yukko answered positively.

“Thank you.” Nikki’s eyes lit with a hungry hope.

Yukko turned away in embarrassment from his proud young master. The Finnish brotherhood of trackers and woodsmen were by nature and training taciturn, proud, laconic of speech, and disinclined to show emotion. Nikki for a brief moment had exposed his vulnerability and Yukko, with a delicate courtesy, chose to avoid the sight.

When Yukko looked next, Nikki was out the door, dashing down the outside steps, already halfway down the path to the lakeshore. Yukko and Arni hurried to catch up with him. The three men ran down the soft sand, darkening now in the swiftly growing twilight, following Alisa’s small footprints.

An awful obscenity exploded from Nikki when they reached the additional tracks around the large lakeside boulder where Alisa’s footprints abruptly terminated.

“Are you positive there’s three, Yukko?” Nikki asked curtly.

“Yes, three,” Yukko replied decisively as he knelt to scrutinize the prints more carefully. “Two big men, one average size.”

Rising, Yukko followed the trail into the woods to the place the horses had been tethered.

“They’re carrying Mrs. Forseus,” Yukko said, glancing compassionately at Nikki striding beside him. Yukko had been with Nikki ever since he was a small boy given as a serf-companion to the young master. He knew all his moods, his pleasures, his idiosyncrasies, so he’d watched with almost unbelieving amazement as Nikki had altered his life for this young woman. Extending a sympathetic hand, he touched Nikki’s shoulder.

“We’ll catch up with them, Nikki,” he solemnly promised. “They can’t have more than a four-hour start on us and won’t be able to travel as rapidly with Mrs. Forseus. She can’t sustain a headlong pace.”

Nikki cast a swift glance around the small clearing that had sheltered the horses, shutting his eyes briefly in despair. There was no doubt who’d abducted Alisa, and the knowledge of Forseus’s cruel sadism shook his composure. Resolutely dismissing the awful visions, he started back to the house, running full out, his long legs outdistancing both Arni and Yukko. Dashing into the stables, he ordered the grooms to saddle six horses, then he swiftly returned to the house and explained to a fearful Maria what had transpired. He warned her not to alarm Katelina.

“We should be back in two days. Tell Katelina anything, anything at all to pacify her until we return.”

He strode into his study, lifted down an ivory-stocked Winchester model 1866, lever-action carbine, the best in the world, purchased in Paris, as well as a serviceable Belgian Colt Navy Model Revolver, crammed his hunting jacket pockets full of shells, and shouted for the cook as he ran back outside to the stables.

The horses were almost ready; the cook breathlessly appeared and Nikki ordered food to be packed for three days’ travel.

“You’ve five minutes to prepare it before we leave,” he snapped. The cook scurried back to the house, crying for the kitchen maids.

“Empty the stables,” Nikki commanded sharply. “I want every horse with us. Two grooms will be needed to return the fatigued animals.
Vite! Vite!
” He snapped his fingers.

Arni and Yukko were checking their harness, the mounts dancing and sidling in the nervous activity of the stable yard. Horse after horse was led out and strung together with long braided leads.