by Lisa Bingham
Aloise could have sworn she heard a faint guffaw, but when she peered into the shadows, she saw no one there. The beach was empty of anyone save the priest. And yet …
A niggling fear began to tickle the hairs at the back of her neck. They weren’t alone. She couldn’t see anyone else, but she was quite sure that someone was there.
Sitting back on her heels, she fixed her eyes on the man who loomed above her. “Father?”
The stranger didn’t speak. Indeed, he stared at her with an intensity that was unsettling—as if he disbelieved what he saw.
She managed little more than a cursory inspection of a bearded jaw, and dark hair. Then he drew the cloth more firmly about his head. For long moments there were no sounds save the slither of waves against the shore and the distant din of Mr. Humphreys and the sailors. The water lapped at her shoes, but Aloise found she couldn’t stand.
“Father?”
Her question was barely audible this time. She swiped at the chestnut-colored strands that had come loose from her braid and straggled over her cheeks, but the action caused him to glance farther down. The fichu that had been tucked into the daring neckline of her gown had been lost somewhere in the surf. Without the modest scarf, her breasts pushed against the tight column of her stays, the pale mounds gleaming in the platinum sheen of the moon.
“Father, please, can you help me?” When he didn’t respond, Aloise wondered if she’d offended him by using an improper address.
For one flashing instant, the man’s expression became strangely haunted. Tormented. Then, he jarred loose from whatever spell had been cast over him, and crouched down to her level.
An odd tingling began at the tips of Aloise’s toes as the distance between them disappeared. The cloth of his breeches strained over the flesh of his thighs, pulling tautly enough for her to determine that it was lean muscle that pushed against the close weave. She caught a faint wisp of a scent that could only be described as masculine. Soap and leather and musk.
Aloise tried to retreat, but quick as a trap, he clasped her wrist.
“God has provided for your safety, my child. There’s no need to fear.”
There was—she knew there was. The priest might speak of God and salvation, but his voice eased out of the night like liquid velvet, rumbling low in his chest then emerging to stroke her senses. Far from soothing her, it caused a rash of chills to pebble her skin. The sensation of being spied upon intensified manyfold.
“I must go.” When she twisted her arm in an attempt to free it, he held her fast.
“No.” It was an implacable command.
“You’re hurting me!”
“I apologize most sincerely.”
He didn’t sound sincere; and he didn’t let her go. He pulled her closer. So close, she could feel the heat of his body mingling with the icy damp of her soaked clothes.
Aloise managed to struggle to her feet, but he followed just as quickly.
“Come with me, mistress. You’re cold and damp and in need of a fire.”
The gleam of a jeweled signet ring flashed, causing a renewed skitter of unease to wriggle up her spine at the apparent sign of worldly ornamentation. A blunt, faintly calloused finger hooked under her chin and lifted her face to the moonlight. He peered at her intently as if to memorize each facet of her appearance. A brief spark appeared in his gaze, burning her.
“Jeanne …”
Aloise couldn’t be sure what he’d said. The word had been a bare puff of sound, but she had thought he’d called her by her mother’s name.
“No,” she whispered, her head shaking in disbelief. It couldn’t be. She’d been mistaken. The word she’d heard was the result of her pulse galloping in her ears.
Planting her palm on his chest, she tried to push free, but the impact of solid flesh and bone caused her efforts to falter. Inexplicably, a voice deep in her head argued that she did not want to retreat; she wanted to step closer. She felt so tired, so cold, so hungry, she wished she could lean into his strength.
Aloise thrust such a thought away as quickly as it had come, horrified by her inappropriate reaction. The hooded stranger must have sensed her chaotic emotions because his mouth tilted in an ironic smile. One that would have caused her to stumble had he not held her so firmly. There was something infinitely wicked about that grin. Something carnal. This was no priest, of that she was suddenly quite sure.
“I’ve come to help you.”
The phrase fairly stroked her senses and the experience frightened her. “N-no. Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” He moved inexorably nearer. So near that his thighs pressed against the folds of her skirt. She could feel each corded muscle, the solid shape of his hips, the hilt of a sword digging into her side.
“Let me go. Please, let me go.” She’d meant the words to emerge as a demand. They seeped from her throat in a wispy plea. Aloise despised herself for such a display of weakness.
As she grew skittish, trying to dislodge his hold, the bearded stranger cupped her cheek in his palm. “Shh. There’s no need to fear me.” He bent, his words brushing across her cheek like a butterfly’s caress. “I promised her I would claim you.”
His statement confused Aloise, terrified her. “No!” Choking back a cry of distress and confusion, she jerked free.
It was then the stranger noted the bulge of her belongings beneath the waist of her gown. A strange pallor flooded his cheeks and he grew still, silent. Although he didn’t move, his manner overpowered her, causing her to become rooted to the packed sand. The waves tickled the hems of her skirts, bidding her to flee. But she couldn’t.
The man prowled forward, his jaw growing rockhard beneath the fullness of his beard. For some reason, Aloise divined that he was angry. Very, very angry. If she were to retreat, she would place herself in certain peril.
“Isn’t it a little late in the evening to be swimming in your … condition, mistress?”
Chapter 3
Aloise touched the bundle hidden beneath her gown. He thought she was pregnant. Pregnant. And even that information had not dampened the determination in his eyes. However, she didn’t intend to deny such a condition. It might prove to be a limited source of protection.
From far away, she could hear Mr. Humphreys and the sailors arguing and grappling with the skiffs, but since the tone of their voices had not changed, she prayed that they couldn’t distinctly see her. She had to get away before they could untangle the rigging and row ashore.
But the stranger noted each movement she made with a blazing thoroughness. It would do no good to try and run; she knew he would follow.
Think, Aloise, think, she told herself sternly. Now was not the time to forget the methods she had learned over the years to escape her numerous guards. Blackmail, bribery, and seduction. A woman’s three most powerful tools. One of them was enough to unarm a man. But which? As she reevaluated her captor, she realized her alternatives were few.
Seduction?
Staring at him, she castigated herself for even considering such an idea. But a faraway splash warned her that the sailors had managed to lower one of the skiffs to the water. Seduction was her only viable method to take him unaware. She would be subtle; she would be charming. She would be swift.
Clinging to her own weak spurt of courage, she tipped her face more directly to the moonlight and adopted a look of panic. “I was not swimming, sir … I f-fell overboard.”
Unfortunately, the man did not appear in the least affected. In fact, he watched her quite suspiciously.
“You can’t imagine how terrified I was.” She touched her breast. “My heart is fairly pounding through my ribs. Feel how it throbs?” She took his wrist and pressed his hand to the bared flesh above the neckline of her gown. To her own surprise, the touch of his calloused skin caused a slight charge. Her pulse leapt, providing proof of her claim.
Her palm slid up his arm, and cupped his shoulder, then went behind his neck, pullin
g him down toward her. Closer, closer. As he bent, she felt a brief stab of disappointment that this man could be so easily wooed, so easily fooled. “Oh, Father, I was so afraid!”
His lips touched her own and the brief caress startled her to the very core. Rather than feeling her control over him strengthen, a frisson of excitement scattered like grapeshot through her body. A tiny voice in her head urged her to retreat, but she lingered, absorbing the taste of him, the quick rush of desire. Dear heaven, it felt so good to be kissed this way! As if he felt at least a spark of meaning to their embrace.
No!
Before the stranger had time to entrench her further in his spell—or worse yet, absorb the fact that the bulge of her middle was far too pliant to be a child—she lifted her knee, ramming it into the man’s groin.
His breath escaped in an oof! of surprise and he doubled over, but to Aloise’s infinite dismay, her aim was not entirely true. She’d managed to force her release, but she hadn’t felled him completely.
Frantic now, she began to run. But she’d taken little more than a half-dozen paces when the stranger’s arm snapped around her shoulders.
“Let me go, you warthog!” Aloise planted her heels in the sand and fought with all her might. By all that was holy, she was not about to gain her first taste of freedom, only to be surrendered to Mr. Humphreys. With all the commotion that was made on the ship, this man would have to be dense not to realize that the occupants of The Sea Sprite were determined to have her back. The stranger might even be tempted by the thought of a reward.
Desperate, Aloise bent her head, grasped the man’s wrist and bit him.
“You little brat!” He whipped free, but when she would have dodged away, he yanked her back.
Aloise gasped, a fiery dart of pain shooting through her left shoulder. Seeing her reaction the man released her, lifting his palm to the vague light of the moon.
In an instant, Aloise knew what she would see. She told herself not to look. For some time now, she had ignored the heated moisture seeping through the fabric of her gown and the insistent ache. But in the sheen of moonlight, she saw it anyway. Gleaming. Thick.
Blood.
Her blood.
Damn, those sailors. They’d shot her. Shot her.
Her stomach roiled. Apparently disconcerted by her injury, the stranger let her go. Whirling, she gazed wildly about her, holding the wound to stem the flow of blood.
The beach seemed to lurch. Spin. “No, please, no.” A buzzing began in her head. A fierce pain shot through her temples. She took a stumbling step, two, but four men loomed out of the darkness apparently willing to stop any sort of flight. All were dressed in black. All looked as fierce and unforgiving as a herd of brigands.
Aloise came to a weaving halt. Behind her, she could hear the rhythmic slap of oars and knew that Mr. Humphreys and the sailors had begun to row ashore. The bearded stranger looked at her much like a hunter regarded a cornered fox, pitying the animal, but willing it to surrender.
Panic-stricken, she searched for some sort of weapon, but there was nothing. A cold clamminess dotted her brow. Nausea blossomed in her gullet. Brackish memories burbled to the fore of her mind, indistinct yet insistent. A storm. Lightning. An overwhelming horror. The pain in her head intensified, becoming an ache, a pounding.
Uncurling her fingers, she chanced one peek, one glance.
Blood. She simply couldn’t stand the sight of blood. As a child, she’d screamed each time she witnessed the crimson liquid. As an adult, such an occurrence invariably made her sick. Made her … faint.
“Oh.” The single word slipped from her lips in a mere wisp of sound. The pain in her head became overpowering. Blackness gathered, her limbs trembled. Then the world was eclipsed by darkness and she wilted to the sand.
For a moment, the clearing throbbed in a stunned silence. Only Curry dared to nudge her wrist with the toe of his boot. When she did not react, he glanced up at Slater.
“I must say, Slater,” he drawled. “You have an astonishing effect on women.” He made a tsking sound. “She’s been shot, poor mite—though I’d say it’s little more than a flesh wound and hardly worth such a fuss.”
“That ‘poor mite,’ as you call her, nearly emasculated me,” he muttered, bending to rest his hands on his knees to relieve the ache in his groin. One which had not been entirely caused by Aloise’s aim.
Curry chortled. “I know.”
Sighing in impatience, Slater twisted to squint into the darkness. The men from The Sea Sprite were little more than a dozen yards from shore.
“Is the coach readied?”
“Louis has it waiting behind the church. But I think we would all be better off leaving her here for now. Those men will follow us if—”
The rattle of hooves and harnesses alerted them mere seconds before the distant shape of a coach appeared on the road from the village.
“Crawford has arrived!” Hans shouted, riding madly toward them. “We’ve got to leave. Now!”
Slater immediately snapped to attention, a rush of adrenaline surging through his body. “Rudy, take the young lady to the phaeton. Marco, join him inside the conveyance and watch her,” he added forcefully. “I wouldn’t trust her to refrain from biting your nose off if she rouses.”
The huge Russian scooped Aloise from the ground, carrying her limp figure into the shadows. Aloise’s head lolled over Rudy’s beefy arm and her hair dripped to the sand, causing a curious sense of worry to settle into Slater’s bones. He’d seen women faint in the past—usually through art more than through necessity. But never had he seen a woman grow so pale so quickly. At the sight of her own blood, she’d gone positively gray—perhaps due to her … family condition. For a moment she’d looked just as fragile as her mother on that fateful night she’d come to beg for his help.
He should have helped her. Sweet heaven, why hadn’t he helped her?
Curry, who had been checking the pistols tucked into his belt, glanced up, then followed Slater’s regard. “Quite a scrapper, isn’t she?”
Slater didn’t comment, resolutely shaking away the eerie sensations of déjà vu. But then, the sight of this woman, this pregnant, unconscious woman left him stunned nevertheless.
Pregnant! Damn it all to bloody hell!
“She didn’t appear to recognize you at all.”
“Fifteen years have passed since the last time we saw each other. We have both changed dramatically I would venture to wager.”
“Yet, she knew you once.”
“As a child.”
“A child to whom you were betrothed.”
“It’s dark, Curry. Perhaps she did not see me well enough to prick her guilt.” Pushing away his own disquiet at the woman’s reaction, Slater chanced one last glance at the men who’d tumbled from the skiff and now tugged it onto shore. A gleaming coach had come to a stop on the beach nearly fifty yards away. A swarm of seamen clambered to surround the conveyance as the door opened and Crawford stepped out, standing arrogantly on the water-packed sand.
Slater felt the years drop away. In an instant, he experienced the same burning anger, the same lust for revenge, the same horror that had filled his chest fifteen years ago. Staring at the man who had destroyed his life as well as Jeanne’s, he committed to memory the changes that had occurred in his fleshy face. One day soon, that man would fall at Slater’s feet and beg him for mercy.
Will tugged at his sleeve. “Damn it, Slater, this isn’t the time to gawk. We’ve got to be leaving!”
Heeding his friend’s warning, Slater turned and ran toward his mount.
“I still maintain it’s a bad idea to take the girl this way.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Wait awhile—a day or two. At least until we’ve had a chance to see the extent of Crawford’s power in the area.”
“No. We take her now.”
“They’ve probably seen us, you know,” Curry added as they swung
into their saddles.
“Not distinctly.”
“No doubt they will follow us.”
Plans began to sprout and Slater’s lips twitched in the beginnings of a rare rakehell grin. “For a time. Only for a time, my friend.” Uttering a bark of laughter, he urged his stallion into action. “Come along, Curry.”
The two men galloped toward the carriage which had already turned onto the upper road. They were nearly a mile away from the church when Will asked, “May I inquire what nefarious plots you’re hatching?”
Slater gazed ahead at the rocking phaeton. Inside was his onetime betrothed. Crawford’s daughter.
His eyes crinkled slightly and a note of pleasure tickled his reply. “Why, Willie, whatever do you mean?”
“I’ve seen that predatory expression many times in the past. It never ceases to make me nervous.”
“Then by all means trust your instincts, Curry. After all … the hunt has just begun.”
“The hunt for what?”
Slater threw back his head and laughed, allowing the wind to tug at his hair and clear his brain. Urging his retinue into greater speed he shouted, “Us, my friend. Us!”
Crawford glared at the horsemen and the glittering phaeton rushing away from the beach. Damn, damn, damn! How, by all that was holy, had his daughter managed to thwart his will this time?
“Humphreys!”
The stooped-shouldered man snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“What did you tell her?”
“N-nothing, sir.”
“You must have said something about our plans— where you would dock, the time I would arrive. Otherwise, how could she have arranged such an escape?”
Mr. Humphreys clutched his hands together, cowering in that way Crawford had always despised.
“I don’t know if she … planned this, sir.”
A chill of warning crept into his bones, one which Crawford had learned in the past to trust. “What do you mean?” he drawled, his tone deliberate, silky. Dangerous.
“I… I mean that I thought I saw Aloise struggling. As if she did not want to go with those men.”