Regency Diaries of Seduction Collection: A Regency Historical Romance Box Set

by Lucinda Nelson

  It was men that she was afraid of, she decided. Not snakes or other monsters of the wood. Men killed so thoughtlessly. So easily. It was men who would kill her father, and it was men who had driven her away from everything that she had ever known, and it was men who would harm her now, if any harm were to come to her.

  There was a quiet sound behind her, but every hair on her body suddenly stood on end. She couldn’t resist glancing back over her shoulder, certain that someone must be there.

  And sure enough, there was someone. The man was cloaked and hooded, and Charlene could see nothing of his features.

  But he was keeping pace with her, moving as she moved, and she was certain that it was no mistake. There was truly a reason that she felt she was being followed.

  She was being followed.

  She nearly stumbled as she sped up, but she managed to keep her balance. She could not keep from looking over her shoulder again, however. Was the man closer to her now?

  Without thinking, she turned to the right and headed down an unfamiliar alleyway. Of course, now wasn’t the time to be exploring unfamiliar routes through this part of the city.

  But at the same time, she couldn’t help thinking that this might be her only chance. If she could but lose the man, then perhaps she would be all right.

  As she sped up, though, the man following her sped up as well. His hood fell back, or he allowed himself to be seen, and Charlene had to keep from gasping.

  It was the same man as before, the one who had claimed that he worked in the apothecary.

  Charlene swallowed hard and made another sharp turn, and then another. But all the while, the man continued to bear down on her.

  She started to run, heedless of where she was going. She did not care, now, whether she ever returned to the apothecary. In fact, let her run clear out of London.

  She hated that circumstances had brought her to this point, but she was coming to realize that there was nothing left in this city for her.

  She fled along the darkened alleyways, sure that the man was simply playing with her. If he had wished to catch her, then he would have done so by now. Instead, it was as though the man was toying with her, as a cat plays with a mouse before finally devouring it.

  Charlene hated to flee like a frightened little mouse. At the same time, she wasn’t sure what else to do.

  She came to a place that she vaguely recognized and assessed, in that moment, that she had two choices: she could turn her steps towards her aunt’s house and hope that the reception was warm, or she could leave it all behind for good.

  She could never bring this sort of trouble to Aunt Helene’s doorstep, however. Nor could she possibly ask Eric to help her with this situation.

  She turned towards another abandoned alleyway. This time, however, she didn’t make it far before she tripped over a loose cobblestone. As she stumbled and struggled to regain her balance, her foot got twisted in the hem of her skirt.

  She went down hard, the stones of the street driving the air from her lungs. She cried out as she scraped her palm across the rough rock, tearing the skin and causing stinging pain to course through her.

  She scrabbled to her feet, but before she could continue to run, he was there.

  He pressed her back against the wall. Charlene opened her mouth to scream, but he clapped a hand over her lips, refusing to allow her to do that.

  As though there were any in this part of the city that would care to intervene. No one was going to help her. Her father had met a dreadful end, Charlene was certain, and this was the way that her end would come.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t allow him to see that. She refused to.

  In vain, she tried to push him away from her, but he kept her penned into a corner. She lifted a hand and swatted at him, smiling viciously when her fingernails dragged along the man’s cheek. But the thin scratches that she left there would do nothing to save her.

  “What do you want?” she asked the man, even though she was certain that she already knew. What did any man want from someone like her? She felt sickened at the very thought.

  All those years of saving her purity to give to the right person, and it had all been in vain.

  The man laughed harshly. “What do I want?” he asked. “Have you still not figured out who I am?”

  Charlene shook her head uncertainly. She was sure that she had never seen this man before in her life. Perhaps he had her mistaken for someone else? Was there any way for her to prove that?

  If he found out that he had the wrong woman, then perhaps he would let her go.

  Charlene wished that she could truly believe that would be the case. Instead, she knew exactly what would happen if this brute of a man found that he had the wrong woman. He would kill her on the spot, without a second thought. After all, why keep alive a hostage that one does not require?

  She felt sick at the thought that this might be her end. But she felt even sicker when the man finally admitted to who he was.

  “My name is Harvey Parsons,” the man murmured. “You may remember me as Harvey Blake.”

  Charlene felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. Harvey Blake.

  He was the very man that Eric had been looking for. The very man that Eric was certain had something to do with her father’s incarceration.

  Charlene swallowed hard, feeling faint. She had imagined a dozen terrible things that the man could do to her, but now she was afraid that everything she had imagined would fall short of what he actually wished to do to her. This man was a murderer, and he would stop at nothing to make her life hell.

  She thought back to the young apprentice. She could barely remember him, to be honest. He hadn’t made much of an impression on her. She couldn’t remember why her father had released him from his employ. Perhaps she had never known.

  Perhaps that was the key to convincing him to give up this vendetta.

  “Harvey – Mr. Blake,” she tried, tears falling down her cheeks, “I’m afraid I don’t know who you are or what you want with my family.”

  Harvey laughed bitterly. “Yes, I suppose you probably don’t remember me at all, do you?” he asked angrily. “You were always too focused on being your father’s brightest apprentice, and on your coquettish games.”

  Charlene shook her head. “I was never my father’s apprentice,” she insisted.

  “He trained you in the medicinal arts,” Harvey snapped. “He should never have done that, but he did it anyway. Then when the medical college forced him to take an apprentice, he did everything in his power to sabotage me!”

  His eyes gleamed evilly. “He’ll never be forced to accept another apprentice now, though. In some ways, I’ve done him a favor.” He paused. “And I’ve done a favor to any other young men whose lives he would have ruined!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlene said desperately. “Please, Mr. Parsons. Just let me go!”

  “No,” Harvey said simply. “Your father ruined my life. He had me banned from practicing my trade, and even that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to have me put in prison, all for doing nothing wrong.”

  Charlene found that difficult to believe. Surely her father wouldn’t have tried to get Harvey sent to prison if the man hadn’t done anything wrong. But it was difficult to argue with him about this when she didn’t know the facts.

  Not for the first time since her father had gone to prison, she wished that she could speak to him.

  Right now, though, she had more important things than proving her father’s innocence. She had to get herself out of this situation. She had no idea how, though.

  She sighed dejectedly and dropped her head, hoping that if she appeared compliant, Harvey would get bored with trying to scare her and leave her alone. The man was clearly deranged, after all. Perhaps if he didn’t view this as a fun game anymore, then he would walk away.

  She had to hope so. The alternative was too grim for her to contemplate.

  �
��What do you want with me?” she asked quietly.

  Harvey grinned meanly at her. “I’m going to take you away and torture you,” he informed her, making her blood run chill. “It’s something that I ought to have done with your father, rather than letting the lawyers have him. I didn’t think of it at the time, though.”

  He paused and traced a finger lightly down her cheek. Charlene shuddered with revulsion, but as she tried to pull back away from him, she realized that there was nowhere for her to go. She was hemmed in against the wall, with no way to escape.

  She thought she might be sick.

  She knew that she couldn’t fight the man, and even if she managed to slip away from him for a moment, it was only a matter of time before he caught up to her again, either in this dark alleyway or elsewhere in the city.

  She was doomed. From the start, she had been doomed.

  For a moment, she wished that she could just go back. Back to Bath, when she was younger. Back to that kiss that Eric had given her. If she could do it all again, perhaps things would have been different.

  Aunt Helene had been right, maybe. Charlene should have agreed to marry Lord Ambrose. It would have been a horrid way to go, but at least it wouldn’t be this. Harvey was talking about torture and death, and Charlene had no way of escaping him.

  Harvey wrapped his fingers around her wrist, tightly enough that she could feel the bruise already beginning to form. With his other hand, he caught at her hair, twisting it roughly in his fingers.

  He leaned in close to her, and she could smell his foul breath as it washed in hot waves over her face. She couldn’t turn away from him, not with the grip he still had on her hair. She trembled, holding her own breath as she listened to his words.

  “Perhaps I should defile you right here, where anyone could come across us,” he murmured, his lips trailing across her jawline in a mockery of a romantic gesture. “I bet that pink flower of yours is ripe for the taking. I’d love to hear you scream my name.”

  He paused. “But then, patience is ever a virtue. Perhaps I should wait until you’re so mad with the torture that you beg for me to take you.”

  “I will never, no matter what you do to me,” Charlene whispered fiercely.

  Harvey laughed and suddenly dragged her along down the alleyway. “I doubt that,” he hissed as they went.

  Charlene stumbled and fell hard to her knees, but Harvey kept dragging her along, barely seeming to realize that she was no longer on her feet. She cried out in pain as her hip jolted against the rough edge of a rock. “Wait!” she cried, but Harvey paid her no mind.

  She reached out with her other hand and managed to drag her fingernails across his wrist, digging them into the skin. Harvey howled in frustration, sounding more like an enraged animal than anything human.

  For a moment, his grip lessened, and that was all that Charlene needed to yank her wrist away and lift herself to her feet again. She grabbed blindly at a wooden crate to the side of the alleyway and threw it at the man with all the force that she could muster.

  That, in itself, likely wouldn’t have deterred the man. Nor would it have stopped him from chasing after her as she fled away from him.

  In that moment of distraction, though, there was suddenly someone else there in the alleyway besides them. Charlene stared at the tall, muscular man who barrelled past her and charged Harvey.

  He bore the man to the ground and got a few good punches in before Harvey seemed to realize what had happened. The ensuing fight was evenly matched: Harvey was lean and quick, but the newcomer had more strength to throw around.

  Eventually, however, Harvey gave up the fight and simply ran, his footsteps heavy on the cobblestones as he darted away into the night.

  Her unknown savior started to pursue the man but then circled back to Charlene, who was still standing where she had been left, utterly stunned.

  She knew that she should have run off while she had the chance. That just because this man had chased off Harvey, it didn’t mean that he was good news for her. He probably just wanted Charlene for himself.

  So as he stepped closer to her, Charlene swallowed and stumbled a half-step back. She still couldn’t see much of the newcomer, not with the way his hood was shadowing his face.

  As though the man realized this, he slowly reached up and drew back the material, revealing his familiar features.

  Charlene felt the breath go out of her for the second time that evening, and she slumped a little as exhaustion and relief both suddenly hit her.

  “Eric,” she breathed.

  Eric stepped forwards, reaching his hands out to steady her. “Charlene,” he confirmed, running his hands along her arms as though he was trying to reassure himself that she was actually there before him. “Are you hurt?” he asked belatedly.

  Charlene shook her head, but even as she did so, she became aware of all the aches and bruises on her body that had formed during her altercation with Harvey. She sniffled, and Eric pulled her close, carefully holding her against his chest. “You’re all right,” he murmured into her hair, and Charlene sagged bonelessly against him.

  “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask, unable to keep the tears from her voice.

  “I came looking for you,” Eric told her, sighing softly. “I only wish that I had found you sooner. I was out searching the streets when I thought I saw you run past, and then when I heard your cries…” He looked pained. “Are you sure that you’re not hurt?”

  “Just some bruises,” Charlene said, her voice wavering.

  “Who was that man?” Eric demanded. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  Charlene shook her head, but then she slowly nodded. “My whole family is in trouble,” she said. “That was Harvey Parsons. You’re right, he is the one who framed my father.”

  Eric swore. “I knew I should have caught the bastard!” he snarled, looking down the street as though he expected the man to rematerialize to turn himself in.

  “It’s all right,” Charlene sighed. She leaned into Eric’s warmth again. “Can you take me home? Please?”

  She knew that there was no place for her there, but she was beginning to realize that there was no place for her here, either. Whatever the consequences might be, she had to go back home and face them. Marrying Lord Ambrose would be no worse than the torture she would have faced at Harvey’s hands.

  Eric frowned. “It’s too far to go tonight, and especially with you this upset.”

  “I’m not – ” Charlene began to protest, but then she realized that she was still trembling against Eric. Shock, she diagnosed distantly.

  Eric rubbed her arms, trying to warm her, then pulled off his coat and wrapped it around her. “Come,” he said, guiding her down the alleyway away from the place that Harvey had first grabbed her. “I have a room in an inn not too far from here.”

  “Why?” Charlene asked in surprise.

  Eric looked horrified. “I’m not going to do anything to you,” he said immediately. “Charlene, I’m not going to…do whatever Harvey said he was going to do to you. I’ll book a second room for myself if you want. I just want to know that you’re safe and warm.”

  Charlene shook her head quickly. “I didn’t think you were,” she said. “I know you’re not trying to get me alone or anything like that.” At the same time as she said it, though, heat flushed through her. She could almost imagine sharing a room with Eric for the night, their naked bodies pressed flush against one another’s in the bed.

  Foolishness. If Eric had ever wanted her, well, he certainly wouldn’t anymore.

  “I simply wondered why you would have a room in an inn near here,” she added.

  “I told you, I’ve been looking for you,” Eric said simply. “I was worried about you, Charlene.”

  There was something in his tone, and something in his eyes as he stared seriously down at her, that made Charlene feel warm inside. Her shock began to abate, leaving her feeling nothing but exhaustion

&nbs
p; She let Eric lead her towards the inn.

  Inside, he deposited a hefty bag of coins on the counter, making the innkeeper promise that not a soul would know of their presence there.

  Charlene doubted that any would recognize her at this stage anyway.

  At least, she doubted that until Eric ordered a bath be sent up to their room. Eric disappeared when the water was brought in, explaining that he was going to talk to the authorities about Harvey and his attack.

  Charlene hated the silence as the man disappeared from the room, but she stripped down to her skin and slid into the hot water, viciously scrubbing at her skin as though she could forget all about Harvey if she just rubbed away the slime of his touch.