With that in mind, he decided to calm his uneasy spirit in the card room with some like-minded gentlemen – especially when he saw Gillie with the countess. Judging by her expression of defiant outrage, hastily but imperfectly covered, she was receiving much the same lecture as Bernard.
He halted, wondering vaguely if he should rescue her. While he hesitated, Kit Grantham approached, presumably for the next dance. Bernard breathed a sigh of relief, for he really didn’t want to think about the damned card parties any more. He made his way through the groups clustered around the dance floor, pausing occasionally to speak to friends and acquaintances on the way. At least he didn’t have to contend with mothers trying to make him dance with their dull or frumpy daughters.
Beside him, as he halted politely to let two ladies cross his path, a woman spoke in a low, rather delicious voice. “Oh, who is that causing a scene, Wickenden? Is it the scandalous young lady who runs the local gambling den?”
Bernard snapped his head around, a flush of anger not untinged with shame surging into his face, and a sharp set-down already forming on his lips.
He never spoke it. Quite simply, the lady who should have been on the receiving end took his breath away. Never in his life had he set eyes on someone so beautiful and so desirable.
Her glossy hair was fashionably dark, her eyes languid and mysterious under perfectly arched brows. Her nose was refined and pretty, her mouth small and full and eminently kissable. She was an elegantly tall lady, nearer thirty than twenty, he guessed, and her gown of pure white silk and red gauze was stunning. Just for an instant, Bernard was paralyzed. And it was left to the wicked baron to defend his sister.
“Scandalous? My dear Kate, you’ve been listening to the wrong gossip,” Wickenden drawled. He dragged his apparently bored eyes from the dance floor to Bernard’s no doubt flabbergasted face. “There is no scandal. Ask her brother. Let me present Mr. Muir to you. Mr. Muir, Lady Crowmore.”
And as the baron strolled away with a mocking bow, Bernard found himself alone with the divine creature who’d insulted his sister. How the devil was one supposed to deal with such a situation? This was exactly why he hated such damned affairs.
The breathtaking Lady Crowmore dealt with the matter for him by giving him one languid, gloved hand. “Mr. Muir. How do you do? Do you know, I imagined you would be older?”
“I’m old enough,” Bernard said belligerently.
Lady Crowmore smiled, “Old enough for what?” she enquired. “To waltz?”
Only the last vestiges of good manners prevented his jaw from dropping. The divine lady was asking him to waltz with her.
“Truly?” he said in amazement, then flushed even redder. “That is, I assumed your dance card would be filled. Twice over.”
“Well it is,” she said carelessly. “But I always leave one waltz free in case someone takes my fancy.” She smiled dazzlingly and Bernard’s downfall was complete. “Thank you, sir, I would love to waltz with you.”
In a daze, Bernard led her on to the floor. It came to him that all eyes must be upon him in envy for his beautiful partner. A surreptitious glance showed him to no such thing. In fact, attention seemed to be largely on another couple.
Gillie, dancing with…Lord Wickenden.
“She’s meant to be dancing with Kit,” he blurted.
“Ah well, Wickenden can be most persuasive,” Lady Crowmore murmured.
Bernard frowned. “I’m not sure I like him persuading my sister!”
“Well, if you want to draw further attention to her, just keep scowling at his back,” Lady Crowmore advised.
Bernard brought his gaze back to the beautiful woman dancing in his arms and swallowed, consigning Gillie and Wickenden to the devil, at least temporarily.
*
From the moment Lord Wickenden swept Gillie into the waltz, the evening took on a kind of unreality for her, almost like the night she’d met him when she’d imagined the elegant, fascinating stranger had truly admired her. This time she understood perfectly that he was amusing himself with the ridiculous wager, to which she hadn’t even agreed. For one thing, she had no desire to sell her home – hence the card parties.
On the other hand, there was a certain, reprehensible satisfaction in observing the jealous and discontented faces of certain acquaintances, such as the squire’s wife and daughter who had always lorded it over her in the past as if they were immeasurably above her. And yet, astonishingly, it was she who sat next to the earl’s most honored guest at supper.
Even more amazingly, she found herself to be well entertained. He talked lightly, humorously, on many subjects. Her first riposte, like her first laugh, was quite involuntary, they simply escaped her lips. And after that, she simply enjoyed it, because in the midst of company, the man was fun.
Alone, of course, he was a different matter, a danger to be avoided at all costs.
But it seemed he was sticking to the rules of his bizarre experiment, for he made no effort to separate her from the company. On the contrary, after supper, he very properly conducted her back to her aunt, bowed, and left her.
And yet, as she danced the next country dance with Captain Graham, she couldn’t quite help a guilty feeling of anticlimax, as if the excitement had gone from her evening along with Lord Wickenden, who was now nowhere to be seen.
Lady Serena seized her as soon as the dance was over, whisking her out of the ballroom, not onto the terrace, but out of one of the castle’s side doors to the wilder ground that overlooked the cliffs.
“It’s cooler and a lot more private out here,” she said, although she shivered in her thin muslin dress and grasped Gillie’s arm as if for warmth. “Now, tell me all. How did you tame the wicked baron?”
“Tame him?” Gillie repeated in astonishment. “I only danced with him! Once!”
“Yes but the wicked baron never dances. It’s laziness, of course, because he wants to avoid having to converse with gauche and tongue-tied debutantes. If he doesn’t dance with anyone then no one can take offense. But he did dance with you.”
So that part was true. She frowned as she gazed out over the sea. It was perfectly still, like dark glass. Hiding its true danger, like Wickenden’s face. “He’s up to something. I just can’t quite work out what. And yet why should he bother? I’m no one.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Serena said with a friendly nudge, “but I take your point. You are no one great by the standards of the world and Wickenden may look as high as he likes. Still, it’s you he’s looking at.”
“Oh, he isn’t really,” Gillie exclaimed, and yet a small voice whispered in her ear, wondering how it would feel if he actually pursued her in earnest instead of for experimentation, wagers, revenge, or whatever it was he was actually doing.
She shivered, although she no longer felt cold, and hastily withdrew her arm before Serena could feel her agitation. “Come, let’s go back inside or we’ll both get a mighty scold from your mother.”
“Good idea,” Serena said at once, hurrying back toward the door. “I’ve had enough of her scolds for one week.”
“Why, what have you done?” Gillie asked, following more slowly.
“Nothing. But we had a bit of a row when she wouldn’t let me call on you this afternoon. And I particularly wanted to–so did Frances–because we haven’t seen you since your father died and letters just aren’t the same–Gillie!”
The last came out on a scream as something hurled itself through the darkness straight at Gillie, sweeping her off her feet and onward, almost without a break. She shouted, lashing out instinctively with both hands and feet. Some of her blows hit home, encouraging her to continue struggling, but although her captor grunted, he didn’t release her. In fact, his fist crashed down toward her stomach and the world exploded in pain.
*
Lord Wickenden, in fact, had overheard neither of Gillie Muir’s difficult conversations. From his covert observation in the center of a group of sycophants w
ho’d followed Braithwaite up from London, and then more privately with Kate Crowmore, he’d seen only that she was distressed.
He wasn’t quite sure what happened to him after that, only that his determination to have nothing more to do with the wretched girl flew out of the window. And when she went almost immediately from the countess’s scolding to that of Lillian’s son, Kit Grantham, who should have been entertaining her, he thought only of rescuing her from public spectacle and making her smile. Or at least rousing her spirits enough to quarrel with him. Once more, he doubted that Gillyflower Muir had any intention of marrying Lillian’s son. Though he couldn’t speak for young Captain Grantham’s intentions.
There shouldn’t have been quite so much pleasure in holding and guiding the girl’s furious little body as they danced. She followed his lead without thought. Quarrelling with him even relaxed her enough to display the natural grace that tempted him to hold her closer. Nor had he expected to enjoy her company quite so much at supper that he was reluctant to part with her as both etiquette and his own plan required. Instead, he was reminded so forcefully of why and how he’d pursued her that first evening, that he left the ballroom for his own bedchamber to pace away his lustful thoughts.
Throwing open the casement to let in the cool, salty scent of the sea, he wished she wasn’t a lady, for she would make a wonderfully quirky mistress of whom he was unlikely to tire. He knew he could seduce her into it, too, in the end. It had been in her kiss before he’d spoiled things with a rare but spectacular moment of crass insensitivity. He’d felt it in her erratic breathing when he’d boldly caressed her bare foot under pretense of cleaning it. And it was still there in her physical reactions to his presence tonight. But she didn’t understand the game. It wasn’t in her nature or her upbringing. And besides, it took him by surprise to realize he would not willingly cause her unhappiness.
Extraordinary selflessness, he mocked himself as he paused by the open casement, considering he barely knew her. But he was already in danger of obsession; he could imagine he heard her voice.
He thrust his head out of the open casement and saw below him two young women, both easily recognized in the glow of light from the castle. One was Lady Serena Conway, Braithwaite’s youngest sister, and she was holding the arm of Gillie Muir while they talked in low voices. For probably the first time in his life, Wickenden was conscious of a desire to listen to female confidences. Curling his lip at himself, he began to withdraw his head back inside the window when some movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention.
A shadow was moving at the edge of the cliff, slowly, stealthily approaching the two women below in a manner that was truly alarming.
Wickenden could have yelled a warning to the young ladies, but he didn’t want to precipitate the threat – the man below could have been armed. So he simply bolted across the room and out the door, flying along the deserted passage and down the stairs that led to the side door. As soon as he wrenched it open, a female figure fell into his arms with a scream.
Lady Serena.
“Help her!” she sobbed. “He took Gillie!”
“Who did?” Wickenden demanded, forcing himself not to shake the information from her.
“No idea! He flew out of nowhere and grabbed her, dragged her off kicking and screaming.”
“Which direction?”
Serena pointed to the right of the doorway where, as Wickenden recalled, a footpath led a winding way down to the beach.
“How many?” he asked grimly.
“Just the one that I saw, but there could be others.”
Instinct told him speed was of the essence here. But his cool brain always considered a whole situation, and he was well aware that, although her safety was paramount, in her particular circumstances, she really didn’t need a scandal, even one not of her making.
“If I don’t find her, I’ll raise the alarm,” he said, as he hauled the lantern from the wall beside the door. “Until then, do nothing, say nothing. Go back and pretend nothing’s happened. Except to the aunt. Give me half an hour, then contrive to take her out of the ballroom and send her home in a carriage, tell her Gillie’s angry or unwell or something.”
He flung the last over his shoulder at her stunned face as he sprinted across the rough ground to the cliff path and began to descend, wrestling off his perfectly fitting evening coat as he went. It restricted his movement, and in any case, it would provide a useful shade for his lantern if necessary.
Chapter Five
After the first shock of the blow, Gillie was too busy to be frightened, first trying to breathe through the pain and nausea, and then trying to free herself. Only gradually did the fear begin to sink in, as she realized that whoever held her was immeasurably stronger than she, and that he was dragging her away from her friends. And she couldn’t prevent it. Particularly not after a second man pressed something cold and sharp to her throat and growled at her in a low and menacing voice that if she didn’t come quietly, he’d cut her throat.
After that, she was too frightened even to ask where they were taking her. Instead, she tried to concentrate on where they were going–down the winding cliffside path toward Braithwaite Cove. At least she slowed their progress as much as she could, catching her dress on the wild brambles, tripping over, feeling her way in the darkness. Surely Serena would raise the alarm and people would be looking for her…
In the end, she didn’t have to ask what they wanted, for as soon as they reached the beach, they pushed her to her knees and demanded, “Where is the passage?”
It was so totally unexpected that for a moment she could only stare from one dark figure to the other. “What passage?” she asked at last.
“Don’t play that game with us,” snarled the man who’d held her. He was bigger and brawnier than his friend with the knife. “You know damned well what passage! The one that leads from here to your cellar.”
“But…but there is no such passage,” she assured them earnestly.
There wasn’t. The only secret passage she knew of ran from her cellar to a cave in the Black Cove, not Braithwaite Cove. To get them mixed up, the men were clearly not local. Although, she was fairly sure smugglers frequented this cove, too. It was ideal when the castle was deserted for large parts of the year, with any remaining staff living in the newer and less exposed wings on the other side.
One of the men shoved her hard and she fell back against the rocks. “Don’t give us that!” he growled. “We know! So just—” Quite suddenly, he broke off, at exactly the same time as a loud thud sent him sprawling to the ground. A thick stick landed beside him just as someone leapt through the darkness and felled her second attacker with an audible crack.
Appalled, Gillie wondered if she’d been dragged into a war between smuggler factions. It would explain why her abductors hadn’t known all the details about the tunnel. Though not why they’d chosen to antagonize a buyer in such a way…
Forcing herself upright while the lone attacker hastily searched the still bodies, she began to edge along the cliff toward the path.
An instant later, the lone man swung around, her abductor’s knife gleaming in the moonlight as he gazed right at her. Surely, there was something familiar about him—one of her own smugglers? Surely such a man would not hurt her? He strode toward her and she halted, paralyzed by the knowledge that she couldn’t outrun him or save herself.
“Gillie? Are you hurt?”
Baffled by the context, she took a moment to recognize his voice. “Lord Wickenden?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
She stared up at him as he put an arm around her shoulders, easing her back off the rocks where she seemed to be clinging like the proverbial limpet.
“You’re freezing,” he said gently. She hadn’t known he could sound like that. “Come with me. I have a coat somewhere, if we can find the lantern.”
“What about them?” Gillie asked, glancing back over her shoulder at her comatose abductors, even
as she longed to sink weakly into her rescuer’s embrace.
“We could send the soldiers–or the town Watch–to pick them up.”
“What if the tide comes in before they wake up?”
“I won’t shed any tears for them,” Wickenden said coldly. “Will you?”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She shivered.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, his voice mild, as if he didn’t much care.
She shook her head again, although her stomach still ached to the point of sickness.
“What did they want with you?”
“They wanted to know about a secret passage leading from the cove here to our cellar. But there isn’t one.”
He paused, bending, and light blinded her as he pulled some dark material from a lantern. An instant later, she felt the warmth of a fine, wool coat around her shoulders, and she smiled at him in sheer gratitude.
“How did you find me?” she asked, curious at last.
“I ran into Serena Conway.”
“Oh dear, Bernie and my aunt will be worried sick!”
“Well, if I can get word to her in time, they’ll never know.”
Gillie frowned. “Word?”
“Or you can go back to the ball, but I’m afraid your current appearance – especially with me in tow – would cause comment.”
Instinctively, she reached up to her tumbled hair, and remembered the several ripping noises she’d heard on her way down the cliffs. She was probably covered in mud and sand, too.
“Oh the devil,” she said shakily and not quite properly. “This was a new gown.” She came to a halt, looking up at him. “I can’t go back like this, can I? At the very least, Lady Braithwaite will blame it on my new lifestyle. Bernie will be after blood and my aunt will have palpitations. And Kit—” She broke off with a quick, hoarse laugh.
Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two Page 6