by Lisa Bingham
A host of men swarmed around the carriage, changing the horses, then ushered another woman forward and enclosed her inside. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving a disturbing stillness in the yard. A slight breeze toyed with the leaves in the trees causing them to rattle mysteriously. The light of the approaching dawn seemed muted. Somber. As if the horizon had been dusted with a layer of soot.
The man who held her walked to the front steps of his home, and Aloise quickly absorbed as much of the house’s exterior as she could—gleaming marble columns, a stately facade, leaded windows. The cool gusts of wind caused her to shiver slightly, huddling closer to the man’s warmth, but before she could analyze her reaction, the front door opened to reveal an old woman holding a brace of candles.
Her lips were drawn tightly together. A puff of pewter-colored curls poked from beneath her mobcap, her entire body taking on a jaundiced color beneath the candle glow that bathed her. She appeared far from astonished to see some unknown lady being held aloft in her master’s arms. Indeed, she appeared almost resigned.
“Miss Nibbs, we have a guest. Will you please take her to the Rose Room then prepare a bath?”
The woman made no sound, no gesture, no change of expression to show that she had heard. She merely disappeared inside, limping noticeably on gnarled limbs.
The stranger followed much more slowly, stepping into a foyer aglitter with scores of lighted tapers. Aloise peered about her in astonishment, noting the somber portraits, the black marble walls, the gilded trim. The oval entryway was bordered on one side by a scrolled staircase; a set of double doors led into a massive drawing room on the other end. A huge crystal chandelier hung over their heads, the branches alight with candles, while the inky parquet floor beneath their heels gleamed with their combined reflections.
The uneasiness she’d experienced outside intensified. A huge hand seemed to lock about her chest until it became difficult to breathe. The throbbing ache of her head that she had been courting for hours returned full force. She tried to shake the sensations away, but vague impressions swam to the forefront of her mind’s eye, tantalizing her with the thought that she had seen this place … somewhere.
Aloise quickly pushed the thought aside. She hadn’t been allowed to visit England very often in the last fifteen years. When she had returned, she’d invariably been taken to London to meet her father’s new wives. She had little recollection of any other buildings, not even her father’s estates in Briarwood where she had lived as a young girl.
“Mistress?”
Briarwood.
She barely heard the low query, barely saw the way the old woman turned at the bottom of the stairs to eye her carefully. As if expecting her to know some hidden knowledge.
A faint nausea settled in her stomach. The pain in her head grew sickening. Blinking, Aloise tried to keep her gaze firmly focused on the sights about her, but other images kept superimposing themselves on her mind. Glittering white walls. Slippery floors.
A storm.
Urgent screams.
“No.” The word burst from her lips. Aloise stiffened as the horrible half-formed images crowded fast and strong. Throughout her childhood she had been tormented by awful dreams of a jarring ride, rocky bluffs, a windswept coastline. But the nightmares had always been somewhat the same, beginning with ornate frescoes. Marble floors. Crowded corridors. A house.
This house, she realized in horror. The colors might have changed, the accessories, but the structure itself could not be mistaken. She knew this place.
Dear sweet heaven, what was happening to her?
Pressing her fingers to her throbbing temples, she tried to wriggle free, tried to escape, run. But the stranger held her fast, forcing her to confront the truth. She had been here once. As a child. She had lived here.
Uttering a low, guttural moan of fury, she fought to be released, but her struggles were ineffectual against his iron-clad hold.
“Is something amiss?”
Amiss? The brief images that flashed through her head could only be the result of one thing. This man had brought her to her father’s home. He’d brought her to Briarwood!
“Let me go, you bastard,” she ground out. Fighting in earnest now, she managed to free her feet, but long before they touched the floor, the stranger’s arms wrapped around her body, bringing her so close to his frame that she could not mistake his gender.
“Damn you!” she hissed. “How dare you drag me along like some toy on a string.” She tore loose and ran into the drawing room, expecting to find her father ensconced in the chair in front of the fire, sipping brandy and scowling at her for her impertinence.
You should have been a boy. Those would be the first words he spoke, said with the proper amount of loathing and disappointment so that she would automatically feel the guilt for something completely beyond her control.
She heard the man move into the room and whirled to confront him.
“Is something the matter? You are more than welcome at Ashenleigh, I assure you.”
She opened her mouth to retaliate, but one word stuck in her brain. Ashenleigh. Ashenleigh?
A piercing relief was swiftly replaced by a slow wave of horror. “Ashenleigh?” she breathed.
“Yes, have you heard of it?”
He was watching her. Like a hawk watched a mouse. Taunting her, testing her.
“Who has not heard of Ashenleigh?” Even in her isolation on the Continent, Aloise had read articles in the Tatler that had outlined the titillating gossip of an unknown, unnamed foreigner who—without ever visiting the site—had purchased the property bordering her father’s estates, then had sent a host of solicitors and stewards to erect a manor house identical to Briarwood in every respect save one. Instead of a clean shimmering white, Ashenleigh was said to have been furnished entirely in black. Cool, mysterious black.
Who was this man? Who? Why had she had the misfortune of falling into his clutches? What did he intend to do with her?
“I hadn’t realized my house had garnered such attention as to have developed a reputation with strangers.”
Stunned, she had to force herself to speak. “Apparently there are those who find it beautiful enough to tell tales.”
The man took two steps, three, crowding her, his features becoming brooding, dark, almost cruel. “You flatter me. But I cannot claim the whole of the credit for its design. I based it on the house that rests in the opposite valley. Have you heard of it as well?”
“Yes.” She barely managed to scrape the word from her mouth.
This time, Aloise couldn’t answer. She couldn’t force a single syllable free. Instead, the name she wished to banish from her soul reverberated in her head like a death knell. Briarwood.
She was only miles away from her father’s home.
Chapter 6
Her father would find her here. Aloise knew he would. A stinging desperation gripped her heart. It was only a matter of time. She had to get away! Now! This night!
“You look very weary.”
The stranger’s low comment took her unaware. She had been so steeped in worry that she had forgotten how closely he observed her.
Afraid that he might read a portion of her intent, she quickly schooled her features. But she couldn’t still the quickened tempo of her heart.
“The journey and your injury have taken their toll. Therefore, I think it would be best if you retired now. We’ll talk more at a future time.”
Aloise’s hands clenched into tight fists and her desperation was tempered by a surge of fury. There would be no talk. This man was partially to blame for her predicament. She didn’t know how much of her true identity he knew, or if the entire situation was simply a grand coincidence, but she didn’t plan to stay long enough to find out. As soon as this stranger turned his back, she would have to abandon her things and go.
“Good night, mistress.”
When she would have left him, he cupped her
cheeks, holding her immobile and forcing her to look at him. His gaze sought something within her, delving so deeply into her soul she feared he would know each thought she entertained. But after several minutes, he leaned toward her and pressed his mouth to her forehead, softly, sweetly, with such tenderness that her throat inexplicably tightened and she blinked in surprise.
“Miss Nibbs will take you to your room.”
It took more effort than it was worth to turn and follow Miss Nibbs up the winding circular staircase. Behind her, she felt the light of the candles begin to lessen and realized her host was dousing the tapers one by one, obscuring his own shape in gloomy shadows. When she chanced a glance, somehow needing to imprint the sight of him one last time in her memory, he bowed, ever so slightly.
“You are most welcome at Ashenleigh, mistress.” The words melted out of the darkness at the foot of the stairs. With that single phrase, he made her overtly conscious of each move she made, the way her clothes clung limply to her body, her hair straggled down her back. His gaze caressed her like a bare finger, trailing from the hollow of her throat, between her breasts, down her abdomen, the touch so real, so tangible, she felt a heat beginning to seep into her cheeks.
She was not a beautiful woman. She knew that.
But with a single glance, he made her feel like a princess royal.
Tears crowded in her throat, hot and strong. Tears of anger and frustration … and perhaps even a trace of regret. Turning resolutely away, she focused instead on her future. He might have kept her belongings thus keeping her funds limited, but as soon as she left this place, her new life would begin. She would become the woman she wanted to be. She would join the missionaries, travel to far-off lands, and turn the world on its ear.
Alone, a little voice mocked and she pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. She had been alone all her life. She could survive such a fate.
When Aloise dawdled in her progress, Miss Nibbs huffed beneath her breath in a way that could only be interpreted as impatience. Motioning for Aloise to quicken her pace, she turned down the hallway, slipping deeper and deeper into the cool shadows to be found there. If not for the faint light of her candles, they both would have been swallowed completely by the black, black corridor. The glow from the tapers danced and shimmered, reflected by myriad shiny surfaces, until the ebony and gold carpet runner beneath her feet appeared to sparkle with fairy dust. If Aloise had not known better, she might have believed that she had stepped into some magical land and this was the castle of a king.
The thought brought her up short. No, the bearded stranger who had abducted her and kept her here against her will was no king. He was a man. A man who had twisted her wishes to suit his own.
The old woman came to a stop beside a gilt-trimmed door halfway down the hall. Cherubs flew in frozen relief above the lintel, looking grim and a little bit naughty. “This will be yours.”
Aloise started at the gravel-toned statement. She had assumed that the elderly lady had not the faculty of speech since she hadn’t uttered so much as a word to her master or anyone else.
Seeing she had surprised Aloise, the old woman’s lips quivered slightly. Apparently, Aloise was destined to amuse everyone she saw.
Without warning, Miss Nibbs cupped her chin, forcing Aloise to look down at her. “I knew he would find you,” she murmured. “How pretty you are.”
Aloise frowned in confusion, but Miss Nibbs had already swung the door wide and stepped inside. “Your chambers,” she said.
She opened her mouth to demand an explanation of the woman’s odd comments, but the old woman shook her head as if sensing her question. “You will know what I mean soon enough. It is not my place to say more.”
Taking her hand, Miss Nibbs drew her inside. A whisper-soft tinkling greeted Aloise’s ears. Instantly, she sought the source of the sound. A sparkling wind chime of cut crystal had been hung in front of an open window. The tune it played was slightly mournful, ringing with odd discords as if the prisms had been tuned in a minor key.
The elderly lady waddled toward a privacy screen, pulling it slightly aside for Aloise to see that a tub had already been prepared for her. She took a cotton bathing sheet from a shelf in the armoire and draped it over the chair near the fireplace. Then, she brushed by Aloise and exited the room. “You’ve all you need. He’s already seen to that,” she offered as she closed the door behind her and locked it with an audible click.
Stepping nearer to the rollicking flames, Aloise was struck anew by the sensation that this place was familiar to her. That she had seen this room once before. As a child she fought to capture the fleeting memory. But the colors were wrong.
The chamber was black, just as the rest of the house had been. Ebony lacquered walls and marble floors shone with a decadent patina that screamed of wealth, elegance, and intrigue. The somberness ended at that point, softened somewhat by the mauve flowers and mint green leaves patterned into the Oriental rug. Pale pink draperies of a shimmering brocade trimmed in maroon were looped back to reveal sheer lace panels of pristine white. The delicate baroque furniture had been painted a corresponding rose with elegant gilt accents.
Pink. Her favorite color.
Aloise gingerly settled on the chair in front of the fire. The hair at the back of her neck prickled slightly, and she looked over her shoulder as if someone were watching, then scolded herself for such folly. She was alone. Completely and utterly alone.
Forcing all gloomy thoughts aside, Aloise jumped to her feet and crossed to the window. Peering down into the darkness, she saw that the ground was nearly thirty feet below. Too far for her to jump without breaking her neck.
Drat it all! There had to be a way to escape. She refused to be imprisoned here. She refused to be bested by a stranger.
Whirling, Aloise planted her hands on her hips, surveying the room from all angles. There were delicate ladies’ chairs, settees, and swooning couches, a vanity laden with cosmetics in crystal decanters, armoires aplenty, and numerous mirrors. In the center of it all, lay the bed. A massive four-poster affair mounded with feather pillows and bolsters, heaped with lace-edged linens and satin duvets.
Linens.
Of course!
Running forward, she flipped the bedding away and stripped the sheets, wincing when her arm twinged in protest. Tying the ends together, she formed a makeshift rope, all the while congratulating herself on her ingenuity.
However, when it came time to execute her escape, she discovered one slight disadvantage. The railing of the veranda had been fashioned from solid slabs of marble, leaving no place for her to secure the rope. Most of the furniture in the chamber was far too light and delicate to offer a firm anchor, which left her with no other choice than to tie the sheets to her bedpost.
Frowning, she whipped the linen ladder around one wooden leg, then unraveled the cord she had formed and threw it over the edge. Just as she had feared, it reached no farther than midway.
Blast! The comforters were too bulky to tie together, and she had nothing else to use.
Think. Think, Aloise! she scolded herself. Then a simple solution occurred to her. Quickly stripping off her clothing, she tied her dress and two petticoats to the rope. A space of about ten feet remained, but she felt quite sure she could make such a jump.
Throwing the cloth ladder over the balcony again, she took a deep breath of the early, mist-thickened air. Dawn had encroached even farther into the sky, lightening it to a delicate golden glow. She would have to leave now, before the sun could gain any more inroads into the sky.
Offering a silent prayer for fools and adventurous maidens in distress, she crawled over the balcony, gripped the sheets, and began her descent.
The entire situation proved much more difficult than she had imagined. Her arm throbbed where she’d been injured and she closed her mind to the warmth she felt seeping through the bandages. Hurrying, she damned the way the weight of her body caused the sheets
to shift as if the knots were coming free. The hem of her chemise kept tangling around her legs, but she hadn’t the strength or the will to crawl back. Only a few yards remained. Then she could drop to the ground and be on her way.
Her feet left the safety of the rope, signaling that she had gone nearly to the limit of her ladder. Breathing a silent sigh of relief, she moved down as far as she could, then glanced into the courtyard below to gauge how best to land.
Rowrr.
The noise melted out of the foliage, sounding frightening and completely unfamiliar. Still suspended in midair, Aloise looked about her, seeing that she had lowered herself into a formal garden of sorts. Try as she might, she couldn’t see the source of the guttural cry.
Rowrr.
The growling came again, louder this time, followed by the rustling of leaves. Aloise’s eyes widened in distress. Sweet heaven above, were there beasts in the garden? Boars? She should have thought of such a thing. She should have realized that her host would not have left her near an unlocked window without thinking she might use it.
The bushes murmured another insistent warning and Aloise looked toward the sound just as a fierce amber and black head appeared, a long, lean body, powerful legs, a swishing tail. Great stars above! The man had a tiger in his garden. A tiger!
Gasping, Aloise tried to ascend the rope, but her wounded arm buckled in exhaustion and she only managed to cause her body to swing back and forth on the end of the tied-together linens until she dangled above that animal like some huge pendulum or a tempting, wriggling treat.
Realizing she was only exasperating matters, Aloise stopped her struggles. Her hands were beginning to slip. The rope shuddered as if the bed had started to shimmy free from its moorings.
Desperate now, Aloise called, “Here, kitty, kitty.” Her greeting was little more than a croak. “Nice kitty. Kit—”