“No kissing?” Alyson stared at him in wonder. “But kissing is so very pleasant. Why should anyone be denied it?”
“Not until you are betrothed,” Rory answered, putting his hand to her waist and escorting her back to the ballroom.
“You are no fun at all. I shall be glad when you sail.” Like some spoiled child, she picked up her skirts and swept away from him, leaving him chuckling in the hallway.
Only when he spied Deirdre watching him did Rory narrow his eyes and bear down on her. “Did Alyson ask you to invite anyone in particular to this little crush of yours tonight?”
Deirdre touched the patch at the corner of her mouth and tilted her head. “I believe she asked that some of her Cornish neighbors be invited. Why?”
“Their names?” Rory refused to indulge his aunt’s curiosity.
“Tremaine, I believe. Sir Thomas and Lady Tremaine. And their son, I think. Now, let me think, what was his name?” She wrinkled up her delicate brow in deep thought, bouncing her fan off Rory’s chest as she considered.
Impatiently he caught the fan. “Would it be Alan, by any chance?”
Her face brightened with delight. “Alan, of course. Do you know him? How could I have forgotten? They just arrived a few minutes ago, something about a broken carriage wheel delaying them. Shall I take you to them?”
Rory whirled and stalked into the ballroom without answering. It took only one quick glance to find the white gown and the lovely frame of curls in the room full of gaudy colors and closely pinned caps. His fists knotted as he saw her smile politely at the older couple. He could tell just by the look on the lass’s face that she wasn’t listening to a word they said, and the tall young man at her side was the reason.
Damn and blast, but she had made a pudding of his brain! He would talk to Farnley tomorrow, make certain the money could be tied up in some manner, then he would get the hell out of here as he had meant to do earlier. A man in his line of work had no business loitering so long near civilization. He was very bad at it.
5
Farnley stared at his visitor with ill-disguised irritation. The new Earl of Cranville was a physically imposing young man who treated his inferiors in stature as well as status with impatience. Hampton swept around the room now, pounding his great fist against the desk in a show of strength.
“I want her direction now, old man. As head of this family I am responsible for the chit. I’ll not have her hiding behind the skirts of strangers.”
Technically, the man was quite correct. The girl belonged with her family, and Farnley would have upheld that position to his dying day, had the family been any other than this spoiled dandy. Besides that, the earl had not solicited his services, but Miss Hampton had. He knew where his loyalty belonged.
“I understand she is staying with friends of her mother’s family.” That was what he told himself. He had no other idea how the part-Scots heiress had come to know the very Scots Campbells. “I’m certain she’s well-treated. I’ll let her know that you have inquired after her. There really is no more I can do for you, my lord. She knows how to find you if she wishes to consult with you.”
“Bigawd, man! Do you think I will let you get away with this? I’ll have your head on the block before this week’s out!”
The earl stormed from the room with a flutter of the many capes of his greatcoat. His booted feet could be heard all the way out of the building.
The earl need only look as far as any gentleman’s club to locate the heiress, Farnley knew, scribbling a note of warning to the Campbell household.
***
The warning arrived too late. Alex Hampton, earl of Cranville, caught Alyson by surprise when he appeared in Lady Campbell’s drawing room.
She had been entertaining callers who had come to compliment them on the previous evening’s entertainment. Her cup rattled against her saucer when the earl’s familiar towering figure entered. Everyone else saw only the handsome new lord come to call on his ward. She saw a hulking monster come to devour her soul.
Lady Campbell did what she could to keep him away from Alyson, but she was in no position to have the earl thrown from her drawing room. When he finally grew impatient with her delaying tactics and asked in front of an audience that he be allowed to speak with his cousin alone, Alyson could not harm her hostess by denying him.
Aware that Lady Campbell had stationed the butler outside the study door, Alyson still felt as if a prison door shut behind her.
***
Cranville had planned his speech on the way over here. Even before he’d inherited the title, he’d had enough women setting their caps for him that he didn’t expect continued refusal. He supposed it had been a long time since he had courted a virgin. He had been precipitous—and drunk— with this docile little pigeon.
Still, he felt certain his assertiveness—and his title—would overcome any obstacles. He had only to calm her with his good intentions, speak to her of children, and give her a few lingering kisses. Nature and society would take care of the rest.
“I have my man of business working at obtaining a special license,” he told her, relieved that her expression remained vague and uncomprehending. She needed his experience. “We can be married in the morning. I’ll have the town house opened up. We can reside there if you wish to see London. For the sake of the entitlement and so there can be no question about the inheritance, you’ll have to bear my heir before we can go our own ways. After that, you will be free to do as you wish. A married woman has much greater freedom than an unmarried one.”
He waited impatiently to see the effect of his carefully prepared speech.
She sat with head bowed, studying her hands in her lap. “What happened to the lady you kidnapped?”
That hadn’t been the answer he was prepared for. How had she known that in his desperation, he’d sent rogues to bring her home?
Cranville studied the pale nape of Alyson’s neck. It was a very fragile neck, topped by a thick cloud of ebony tresses. It wouldn’t take any effort at all to snap it, but he doubted that a murderer could inherit his victim’s wealth. It was the money he wanted, after all.
After years of living on nothing but the expectation of his uncle’s great wealth, he had accumulated vast debts. The claims collectors hung about his lodgings and would until he could put a good deal of blunt in their pockets. Without his cousin’s wealth, he would have to flee the country or rot in debtors’ prison.
He sought some way of ameliorating his reckless fiasco. “She wasn’t a lady, and I sent her away well paid for her inconvenience. I didn’t find your little trick amusing. I have told you I will marry you. You will be the Countess of Cranville. A bastard can scarcely ask for a better title than that. Surely you aren’t simpleton enough to hold out for love? Your birth and your wealth will only attract the worst sort of rake. I at least can offer you your home and a decent name.”
“I can make my own home, and I have a feeling your name will not be decent much longer. No, thank you, my lord. I cannot accept your offer.” She refused even to look at him but seemed to be staring longingly at the door.
Alex laid his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t have time for more pretty words when threats worked equally well. “You have no choice, cousin. You will marry me in the morning, and we will get along suitably well. Or you can refuse and find your friend’s home in flames, her person set upon by thieves and rogues, and yourself bound and gagged on the way to a whorehouse in France. I have friends in a great many interesting places. You would be much better off joining me than fighting me.”
With satisfaction, he felt her shudder. He had already marked her for one of those frail, cowardly females who would run at the first sight of a real man but cower at his feet forevermore after he bedded her. He preferred a more spirited wench, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
He had no intention of carrying out any of his threats, but anyone foolish enough to believe them needed a man’s protection. He would be doing her a fa
vor to wed her innocence to his experience.
His hand slid up her throat to cup her chin and turn it to face him. She had odd eyes. He had never paid much heed to a woman’s eyes, but hers were impossible to escape. They were all he saw when he forced her chin up.
He had thought them a washed-out blue at first, but as he held her, they turned an icy gray that would have frozen a lesser man. Behind that heavy fringe of black they were a witch’s eyes, but he was not the superstitious sort. He lowered his head to claim the luscious lips that would be his alone until he tired of her.
Aroused by the spell of the woman in his hands, the earl failed to hear the click of the door as it opened. Not until the bitch sank her teeth into his lower lip, and he yelped in pain, did he hear a laugh and know his humiliation had been witnessed. Cursing, Cranville shoved Alyson from his hold and grabbed his sword hilt.
The intruder leaning against the doorframe did not match his height, but the nonchalant manner in which he crossed his arms across his muscular chest warned of the strength behind the sword dangling at his fingertips. Cranville narrowed his eyes. Here was no anxious lover, but a soldier looking for a brawl.
“No introductions are necessary, lass,” the intruder announced. “I can assume this is Cranville. I go by Maclean. Now that the amenities are accomplished, where shall I send my seconds?”
Rory ignored Alyson’s gasp. He scarcely cared if it were astonishment or fear that caused her lovely hands to rise in protest. His rage was such that it would scald all within sight until he had this monster’s head on a skewer. Alyson might choose to throw herself away on a fool, but no one would force himself on her while Rory Douglas Maclean had a breath in his lungs. He could do that much to protect the only good thing he knew in his life.
The earl lifted his big shoulders in a casual shrug, then drew out his card with his direction. Maclean watched him with suspicion, but stepped aside to let him pass. Cranville turned for one last look at his errant cousin.
“Remember what I have told you, Alyson. After I have disposed of your lover here, I will be coming back for you. I expect you to be waiting.”
Rory’s fist clenched around his sword hilt. His desire to run the blade through this vermin was so strong that it almost felt like an outside force. He restrained himself, however, and when he glanced at Alyson, he forgot Cranville.
The vibrant beauty who had so daringly defied a man twice her size moments before had dwindled into a dazed waif who neither met his eyes nor replied to his call. When he stepped into the room and held out his hand to offer her comfort, she did not even seem to know him. More terrified than he had ever been in battle, Rory buckled his sword. He approached her slowly, catching her shoulders in his hands, reassuring himself that she was alive and well behind those glassy eyes.
“Alyson! Say something. What is wrong? What did that bastard say to you? Alyson, dammit, wake up and tell me what happened!”
Rory’s tortured cry apparently reached her, and she emerged from her trance. Fear and horror lingered in her eyes, but seeing the anxiety in his, she smiled slowly.
“My lord, how can anyone fear a man with eyes as beautiful as yours? I can see right into your soul.” With that, she rested her hands on his chest, stood on her toes, and kissed his lips.
The shock thrilled him down to his bones. But with this angel, Rory had to be a gentleman. His hands had instinctively circled her waist, but he released her as soon as she pulled away.
“Do not worry. I will not let anything happen to you or your aunt,” she murmured, before drifting past him as if he were not there, to disappear into the rooms beyond.
Rory ran his hand through his loosely bound hair and stared after her, no longer an arrogant man in full control of his life but a man whose soul had just been plunged into torment.
Deirdre found him shortly after, but Rory had no intention of telling her he meant to kill Alyson’s insufferable cousin. He suggested that she and Alyson spend the night with friends, then walked out.
Upstairs, Alyson was already packing her trunk. She had laid out the shabby maid’s costume she had arrived in and was now sorting through her new wardrobe for the simpler gowns and petticoats. At sight of Deirdre, she smiled vaguely and continued packing.
“I do wish someone would explain what is happening,” Deirdre complained, taking a seat at the vanity and poking around the bottles and brushes.
“I told the Maclean I should travel incognito.” Alyson folded a flaring petticoat and shoved it to the bottom of the trunk.
“Rory says we are to leave the house and spend the night elsewhere. Is your cousin that dangerous?”
“I thank you very much for your hospitality, Deirdre, but I cannot impose on you longer. I will write and tell you how I fare. Thank Rory for me. Besides my grandfather, he is the only true gentleman I have ever known. I regret that I involved him in this.”
“You are talking nonsense, child! Anyone who calls Rory a gentleman is all about in the head. Have no illusions about my nephew. He is well able to take care of himself, has done so since he was a child. You needn’t be protecting him by running away. I’ll just send a servant over to Lady Emilie, and we’ll pass the night comfortably with her until Rory and your cousin have put an end to their differences.”
With a sad smile, Alyson shook her head. Why couldn’t others see what she did? There wasn’t time to explain. She had to change and get to the bank before it closed.
“Rory has nothing to fear from my cousin. You do. Go to your friend’s house, please. I will be fine.” This last was a lie. The vision she had seen when Rory had challenged the earl had been filled with terror, but she could not pin a name or place or face to it.
She had known nameless terror before. Just before her grandfather died she had felt it. It was a cold sensation that surrounded her heart and stopped it from beating and clouded her thoughts with wispy vapors of fear, but the source was never clear. She just knew this time that it was directed at herself, and she could surmise Cranville was the source of it.
She knew other things too, vague things that were not always clear until the moment struck. That was the frightening part, waiting for it to happen. But action, any action at all, was better than sitting still. By separating herself from her friends, she assured herself that they would not be struck by whatever befell her.
Alyson returned to methodically gathering her belongings. Deirdre gave up with a sigh and departed, presumably to scribble a message to Lady Emilie.
A fog was rolling in from the water by the time Alyson had completed her packing and changed to her maid’s costume. She left the house with her reticule wrapped around her wrist and hidden beneath the old woolen cloak. The unusual warm weather had turned bitingly cold for March. The damp fog had driven people inside, and there were few to observe her direction.
She hurried to the corner on Piccadilly where she knew she would find a sedan chair to take her the distance to Cheapside. It had not been easy leaving without a maid. Surely no one would blame an entire household if she disappeared quietly on her own.
The mist settled on her cloak, dampening her spirits until she located a chair. It might have been faster if she walked, but she was afraid of the empty streets and the shadows in the fog.
By the time she arrived on Cheapside, the bank was preparing to close. It, too, was nearly empty, and the clerk was impatient. The account she drew upon, however, was a healthy one, and after some fussing, he provided her with the funds requested.
With enough coins to travel anywhere, Alyson set out to locate a post chaise. She had learned a good deal about travel in these last few weeks, but not so much as she would like. It would be better if she had a destination, with someone waiting for her at the other end, but Cranville would only make life a misery for any friends of hers. Better to just disappear and reappear elsewhere as someone new. She owned property in Bath. That gave her a direction, at least.
Her mind cluttered with worries, she hurried throug
h the fog-shrouded street. Turning from the wide avenue of the financial district into a short alley that would take her to the hiring inn, she became aware of men following her.
Garbed as a servant, she assumed she had nothing that would interest a thief. But as she hurried on, she heard two more pairs of footsteps in the fog. That was when she knew she had been a fool to think Cranville would wait until morning.
She began to run, but she had no hope of outdistancing three strong men while running in clogs and long skirts. Hard arms grabbed her from behind. She kicked and struck out with her reticule, but no amount of struggle could free her from three pairs of sturdy arms. Her screams brought no reply.
They covered her face with a heavy, sweet-smelling rag that made her gag. Fighting to breathe, she was helpless to prevent them from binding her arms. Darkness prevented any other thought.
***
The man holding the plump pigeon’s waist chuckled and slid his other hand beneath her cloak to explore her pleasing curves. The girl moaned and moved restlessly. With a predatory hunger, he glanced to his companions, who were busily tying her wrists and ankles and recovering the heavy purse she had used to strike at them.
“’E didn’ give no time we’re to bring ’er, did ’e?” her captor asked.
Opening the reticule and ignoring this question, his companions whistled. “We’re rich, yer bastids! Rich! Blimey, just look at this!”
Hauling their burden into a doorway, they emptied the coins into their own pockets, arguing as to who should get the greater share. But even with this wealth to worship, more primitive hunger called. The one who’d first caught her gestured toward their sleeping burden.
“We’ve got more bloody gold than ’e offered us. What if ’e finds out we emptied her pockets? She’s got a mouth on ’er. She’ll tell.”
That produced a sudden silence as they recalled their employer’s unpleasant temper.
The thin, sharp-faced one spoke up. “She’s a prime piece. Molly would let us live like gents for a week if we brung ’er somethin’ this fine. Maybe even let us break ’er in to the trade, if you catches my meanin’.”
Moon Dreams Page 5