Sweet Silken Bondage (25 page)

"Did you hear from Jacob?"

"Yes, sir. He sent word that the name of the boat
you're wanting is the Crosswinds."

"Good," Clay answered. As he'd arranged with
them earlier that morning, they switched vehicles.
He and Reina were now riding in the privacy of an
enclosed coach with Calvin driving.

Both Hal and Jefferson exchanged worried looks
as Clay placed an unconscious Reina in the carriage. They had had no idea that their special
meeting with him had anything to do with stealing
a woman, and they wondered why someone like
Mr. Clay would have to resort to such tactics. Still,
he had sworn them to secrecy that morning when
he'd asked for their help, and they knew they would
never breathe a word of what happened here today,
even though they thought it mighty strange.

At Clay's instruction, Jefferson took the carriage
that had been used for the picnic and headed off to
the Delacroix house to deliver the letter to Emilie
that Clay had penned the night before.

"Where we going, Mr. Clay?" Calvin asked after
Jefferson had driven off.

"New Orleans, Calvin, and be quick about it.
There's not a lot of time."

As the carriage moved off at a good clip, Clay
settled back in the plush confines to consider his
next move. Everything had to go exactly as he'd
planned or he might find himself in big trouble. It
wouldn't look very good in town if he was forced to
carry a screaming, battling Reina up the gangplank
to the Crosswinds. They had to reach the boat before
she awoke from her slumber. He could only hope
that she'd imbibed enough of the drugged wine.

Clay glanced over at her where she was braced
awkwardly against the side of the carriage. He thought she looked miserably uncomfortable. For
some unknown reason, he found himself changing
seats to sit beside her. With care, Clay gently drew
her across his lap. He held her there, cradled
against him as they raced through the afternoon on
the first leg of their desperate return journey to
California.

Reina felt as if she was spiraling upward from the
bottom of a deep, deep pool. She could hear, but
the sounds were garbled and seemed strangely foreign to her. She struggled to open her eyes, but her
eyelids were too heavy. She tried to think of the
reason why she was so tired, but she couldn't remember much of anything. Her thoughts were
blurred and vaguely disconnected.

Reina attempted to move, then grew frightened
when she discovered she had little control over her
body. Her arms were like leaden weights at her
sides. She wanted to call out for help, but could
find no words to use. Tossing fitfully on the bed,
she groaned in abject misery, wondering what was
wrong.

Suddenly out of nowhere, strong, protective arms
were around her lifting her up, pressing a cup to
her lips.

"Drink, Reina. Take a deep drink," a deep, familiar voice encouraged.

Reina knew she should recognize that voice, but
every time she was about to remember the man's
identity, it slipped elusively away from her. The
man had told her to drink from the cup he was
offering her, so she obediently took a big swallow. It surprised Reina that the liquid he was offering her
was wine.

"Good," the mystery man praised. "Try another."

She took another sip at his urging.

"It's a shame that you're not always this submissive," the voice said.

The man laid her back down on what she
guessed was a bed, for it was soft beneath her. A
comforting warmth stole over her, and reality slowly
vanished. Reina was quietly unconcerned as she felt
herself floating away

Reina opened her eyes, then quickly closed them
again as a wave of nausea turned her stomach. She
felt so ill that she remained completely still while
she took a deep breath.

"Emilie?" Reina called out her friend's name and
was startled to find that her voice was hoarse almost
to the point of being a rasping whisper. When there
was no response to her call, she figured that her
friend probably hadn't heard her. Surely, Emilie was
close by.

"Emilie?" Reina tried again, a little louder this
time. When she heard the scrape of a chair on the
floor, she relaxed a little, feeling somewhat better,
knowing her friend was there. "I don't know what's
wrong with me, but-"

With an effort, Reina had finally managed to
open her eyes again just as she started to speak. At
the sight of Clay, not Emilie, sitting beside the bed,
she stopped in mid-sentence.

"Clay?" she asked in bewilderment, wondering
what he was doing there in her bedroom. Her gaze
swept quickly around the room, and she realized
with some shock that nothing was familiar to her. It
was not her bedroom. But if it was not her room, then whose was it? Where was she? Her thoughts
were in turmoil as she tried to remember-tried to
think.

"Glad to see that you're finally back among the
living," Clay drawled as he flashed her a wide smile.
He'd been sitting there at her bedside for the better
part of a day just waiting for her to come around.
He was glad to see that the drug had finally worn
off, but he was not looking forward to the explosion
of wrath he knew was about to take place.

"What happened?" Hazy memories of the picnic
were spinning through her mind. "Did I get sick on
our outing? Where am I?"

"You're on a boat," came his answer.

Reina was perplexed by his reply. Why would she
be on a boat? Her head was pounding, and the
more she tried to figure things out, the more confusing everything became. When she tried to lift
one hand to rub her aching brow, she discovered to
her horror that her arms were tied to the bed at her
sides. It was then that everything became perfectly
clear to her. It was over ...he knew! Clay knew the
truth!

"You know..." she whispered.

"Oh, yes, Reina. I know," he snarled. "I knew the
minute I saw you at the Randolphs'."

She almost groaned out loud in mortification.
Completely humiliated, she wondered how she could
have been so stupid as to believe that he really
hadn't recognized her! How naive and gullible she'd
been! "But you acted as if-"

"I acted, Reina, and I learned from watching a
master performer-you. You really should think
about giving lessons, you know," he complimented
her snidely. "I was completely fooled back on the
stagecoach. Wonderful disguise-Sister Mary Regina. You had me believing you were a pure, chaste young woman who'd devoted her life to doing
good works and serving God. Goes to show just
how wrong you can be about people sometimes."

Reina remembered then the very last thing she'd
heard him say right before she'd lost consciousness.
"If I were a religious man, I'd swear I'd been blessed in
finding you. You really must be a godsend." She was
mortified. She'd been such a fool! She should have
run that night at the Randolphs' as her instincts
had told her to. She should never have stayed and
tried to brazen it out. Never!

"Why didn't you just drag me off that first night
and be done with it? Why did you play along with
me?" She was humiliated. She'd fancied herself in
love with him and had thought he was falling in
love with her. How could she have been so mistaken?

Clay gave a derisive laugh. "Just how far do you
think I would have gotten if I'd tried to carry you
off? No, no, it was far better to carry you off
quietly, than to carry you off fighting and screaming. You were very quiet when I brought you on
board, Reina, you were sleeping in my arms just
like a baby."

"The wine!" she gasped in outraged horror. "No
wonder you wouldn't drink any of it!" She recalled
his statement about choosing the wine "just for her"
and she remembered how special she'd felt knowing
he'd been so thoughtful. Now, all she felt was sick.
Lies... What she'd thought had been the beginning of a
beautiful love had all been lies.

"Yes, this has turned out to be a most interesting
job," he mused. "My plan worked quite well, don't
you think?"

Clay sounded so smugly secure that all Reina
wanted to do was hit him. Had she been untied,
she would have done it. She flushed scarlet as she thought of how simple she'd made everything for
him-never telling Emilie that he was her father's
hired gun and then by stupidly agreeing to go on a
picnic with him. She'd thought herself in love, but
he'd never really wanted her at all. He'd only been
doing his job! Pain stabbed at her heart.

Reina blanched as she realized that her worst
fears had come to pass. Clay had found her; Clay
had trapped her; Clay was taking her back against
her will!

"Untie me!" she demanded, growing more furious
with each and every passing minute. She wasn't
sure if she was angrier with him or herself.

"Not yet," he said simply, annoying her even further.

"Not yet?" she echoed outraged. "Why not? We're
on a boat, out in the middle of God knows where!
What do you expect me to do? Jump overboard and
swim back to shore?"

"I wouldn't put anything past you at this point,
Reina, and I'm not going to let you go until I'm
sure you won't cause any trouble. Right now, we're
in the Gulf about six or seven hours from port,
heading full steam for the Isthmus of Panama," he
went on coolly, leaning back in the chair and folding his arms across his chest in a very self-confident
gesture. "You're on your way home. It's my job to
make sure you get there."

Reina's thoughts turned chaotic as she stared at
him. For an instant tears burned her eyes, but she
fought them back. She couldn't go back and marry
Nathan! She just couldn't! The thought that she
might break down and cry angered her even more,
and she began to fight against her bonds.

"Let me up!" she snapped.

"As soon as you admit defeat and agree not to
make any trouble for the rest of the trip, we'll talk about untying you."

"I hate you, Clay Cordell!" Her dark eyes flashed
defiantly at him. "I'll never stop trying to get away!"

"That's your choice, and that's exactly why you're
tied down. It won't inconvenience me in the least to
keep you flat on your back for the rest of the
voyage. In fact, it might prove interesting. You
certainly were willing enough on the picnic..."

"You...!"

"Pleasant as it was at the time," Clay went on
easily, "I knew you were only acting. I never believed you for a minute."

He'd thought she'd been pretending the whole
time they'd been together. Reina was devastated.
"But I believed you."

She sounded so sincere that for a moment Clay
was almost convinced. At the last second, though,
he remembered just who he was dealing with, and
he gave a derisive laugh. "Sure you did, Reina," he
drawled disparagingly. "Is this some new act now?
How many other lies do you want to tell me?"

Reina's spirit stiffened under the cruel onslaught
of his reply. "You'll never know!"

"That's exactly why I want your word that you're
going to behave yourself before I let you up. Not
that I mind keeping you like this, but it might
prove a bit awkward, if the captain starts wondering
why you never leave our cabin."

"You're a vile, disgusting man!"

Clay shrugged off her words as if her opinion of
him mattered little to him. "I'm a determined man,
Miss Alvarez. Surely, you knew that a long time
ago."

Fear frissoned through Reina as she tried to
think. "What about Emilie? She's going to be worried about me. I'll bet the whole Delacroix family is
out looking for me right now!"

"I doubt it," he answered, apparently unconcerned
that a posse of Delacroixs could be scouring the
area looking for her.

"Why?" Reina barely whispered, knowing that
somehow he'd covered that possibility, too.

"Because Emilie got a wonderful letter from us
telling her how happy we were and how we were
running off together."

"You didn't...?"

"I most certainly did."

"But you don't know that she believed you!"
Reina was grasping desperately for straws.

Even as she said it, though, Reina realized that
Emilie probably would have believed it. After all,
hadn't she teasingly told her to elope with Clay if
the opportunity arose? Reina could have kicked herself for having gone along with her ridiculous suggestion at the time. If she'd balked at the idea, then
Emilie might have suspected that something was
wrong. Right now, her friend probably thought she
was blissfully happy.

"She believed me, Reina," he stated matter-offactly. "In fact, Emilie was quite pleased to send on
a small trunk of your clothes."

"When she finds out the truth, they'll come after
me!" she cried, feeling his trap closing around her.

"So what if they do? Let them look," he drawled
sarcastically. "Even if they do try to come after you,
they'll be too late. We have such a good head start
on them that we'll be back to California and your
father before they can possibly catch up."