Taken by the Wicked Rake

But just to be on the safe side, she would stay away from the garden doors.

She glanced in the mirror, straightening hair that did not need straightening, and smoothing skirts that were already in place. If one took sufficient care with one’s appearance—and did not get overheated by a few simple dances—it was hardly necessary to fuss further. It was not as if a brief conversation with a man was as strenuous as a tussle in the bushes.

And now, she was thinking of tussling, and bushes and gardens. And Lord Stephen Salterton. And her cheeks were growing pink again.

Diana had warned her of the dangers of feelings such as these, and of the need to repress them at all costs. While men might think such things about even the gentlest of young ladies, it did not do for young ladies to emulate their coarse behaviour.

She took a few deep breaths and made her mind a blank so that she might return herself to something akin to normal. And then she stepped from the room.

As soon as she was clear of the door, arms seized her from behind, and a hand covered her mouth, stuffing a rag between her teeth to muffle her attempt at a scream.

Chapter Two

Her assailant wrapped her round about with a piece of rope, firmly pinning her arms to her sides until it was difficult to stand without his help. Then he began to push her toward the back door of the house, and into the very gardens she had planned to avoid.

She stumbled and kicked against him, trying to bump into walls in an effort to shake free of him and stop his progress. But her struggles had no effect. He had a firm grip on the ropes around her body and kept her upright, pivoting easily as she fought to throw him off balance. When he spoke, his voice was barely winded, as though the effort to contain her were no more difficult than walking alone. ‘This would have been simpler if you had gone into the garden when I asked. But you are not as easy to gull as the rest of your family. Now, we must do it the hard way. Cease your fighting, for it will accomplish nothing. I am much stronger, and I have no wish to prove that fact by striking you.’

She had imagined that the man who grabbed her must be some ruffian or stranger who had wandered into the house through an open back door. But the man whispering into her ear made no effort to hide the exotic cadence of his voice. It was Lord Stephen Salterton who held her. To be so used by an apparent gentleman was the last thing she had expected. Could he have been the one that had been the reason for all of Marc’s vague and dreadful warnings, after all?

She responded by fighting harder, her hands forming claws where they were trapped at her sides. But Salterton continued propelling her forward and out of the house. Why was there not a servant, a footman, someone or anyone who could stop this progress with a scream or a shout? The way before them was clear; it seemed that her abductor had known it would be so. He had planned his assault for a time when he would not be interrupted. He had known where she would go when he angered her. He had hidden a rope and the gag, so that he might quickly render her helpless. He knew how to get her out of the house and away.

There was nothing random or careless in the actions of this man. If he could slip under the guard of Robert Veryan to accomplish what he had, he must be even more dangerous than Marc had imagined.

Once clear of the house, he hoisted her off the ground and carried her into the night, running easily through the trees as though he could see in the darkness as well as in the light. Then he stopped and released her. And although she could barely stand unsupported, he was spinning her round and round on her feet until she was dizzy. When he stopped, she was no longer sure which way she should run to regain the safety of the house, even if she could manage it. Before she could find her balance again, he had gotten a sack from a hiding place behind a nearby tree and pulled it over her upper body. She could feel him binding it with more rope, tangling it around her skirts until her legs were trapped, immobile.

Then he scooped her up in his arms again, and went further into the trees. She could hear the crunch of leaves under his feet and feel branches slapping and tugging at her body as he ran. And then, she heard the sound of a horse snorting impatiently, and the creak of leather harnesses and wooden wheels. He lifted her further from the ground, and then dropped her none too gently onto the floor of a wagon or carriage. She felt the body tip as he leapt into the driver’s seat, and heard him snapping the reins and murmuring to the horse in a foreign language, which made it start forward at a brisk pace.

For a moment, she was frozen with the fear of what had happened. And then, she struggled to master her mind. Even though she could not use her eyes or her voice, she still had her ears. What else could she learn from them?

She was alone with this man. She’d heard no other voice offering to help him as he had loaded her into the wagon, nor had it seemed that there was anyone else involved in her capture, other than Salterton himself. No matter what his intent towards her person, as long as they were moving, he was busy driving. Nothing worse was likely to happen to her than had already. It was only when the wagon stopped that she would have anything to fear.

This fact provided some comfort and made it easier to control her panic. She had time in which to form a plan to thwart him. If he truly was a gentleman, then perhaps this abduction was something more than the coarse violation she had at first expected. Perhaps he only wanted ransom, for she could not think what she might have done to offend the man that would drive him to violence.

She tested her bonds and was sure, from the feel of them, that she was not strong enough to break them. But either he had overestimated her size in the voluminous gown, or had spared some small feeling to her femininity. The ropes were not as tight as she would have made them, had she been trying to subdue him. She wiggled her arm inside the sleeve of the dress.

She could manage only a small movement, but it was better than nothing. She smiled to herself, and set to work pressing her hand tight to her side, and wiggling it out from under first one loop, and then the next, working the coils of rope down her body. As her first arm came free, the bonds became looser still, and she found she could move the other arm. If both were untied, then perhaps her legs.

She shifted and stretched against the bonds. Their increasing slackness let her grip the inside of the sack, and work the fabric of it up and out of her way. If she could move it to a place where she might throw it off along with the rest of the ropes, when the wagon stopped she would kick free of the bonds and run. Who knew what he might do if he caught her? But she doubted it would be worse than what would happen if she went passively to her fate.

At last, she felt the horse stop, and heard the driver get out. But instead of coming to pull her out, he had gone to the other side of the wagon, as though he had forgotten her existence.

As soon as she was sure he was out of arm’s length, she wiggled free of the last of the ropes and tried to throw herself out of the carriage. There was a loud, ripping noise as her dress caught on a rough bit of wood. Then her petticoat tore from hem to waist, and she tumbled out and into the mud of the road. She scrabbled for purchase, slipping, falling, and then standing to run a few unsteady paces as the feeling returned to her legs. After the darkness inside the sack, the night seemed as bright as day. The landscape was unfamiliar. She did not know if there would be rescue ahead. But anywhere might do, as long as it was far away from her captor.

She heard a curse from the other side of the wagon, and the sound of Salterton coming after her. The ground was wet from a recent rain, and the heavy clay sucked one of the slippers from her feet, leaving her to run unsteadily in her stocking and remaining shoe. The puddles soaked her skirts, and the silk gown which had seemed so light on the dance floor, grew heavy and clung to her legs, making it even more difficult to run. She stepped on a flint, feeling the point of it rip through her stocking and poke into the soft flesh of her sole.

She had made it barely fifty feet when he caught her. He was annoyingly clean, having taken the time to pick his way slowly on the higher and drier ground, while she had blundered through the worst of the mud. He glanced down at her, where she had fallen again, wet and dejected at his feet. ‘Are you quite through?’

Truth be told, she was. It was clear that she would not escape him shoeless and with no idea of her location or destination. But all the same, she made another lunge away from him.

He caught her by the last bit of rope still trailing from her waist, and pulled her back as easily as if he was controlling a dog on a lead.

She turned and struck out, scratching at his face.

He swore and gave a shove, pushing her down on her back in the mud. The impact jarred through her, causing more shock than damage. Then he yanked her upright, until her face was close to his own. ‘I have no desire to do that again. But if you persist in that behaviour, I will take whatever steps are necessary to subdue you. Do you understand?’

She opened her mouth, trying to scream at him from around the gag, and reached to remove it. But he caught her hands to stop her, smiling at her efforts. ‘A nod will be sufficient. I have no intention of unmuzzling you until I am sure that you will not bite. And as for screaming to attract attention? I have taken you to a place so remote that no one will hear you, even if you cry out.’

At his words, the reality of her situation struck her again. She was very much alone, in a strange place with a strange man. He was smiling at her, but there was no warmth or friendship in his face. His look said that he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And for whatever reason, he wanted her.

After her fall, the soft net of her evening gown was soaking wet, clinging to her skin in ways that revealed more than she would have liked. The cold night air cut through it, making her shiver. But Salterton stood close enough to her that she could feel the heat of his body, and his hands were warm and dry, just as she remembered them from the ballroom. His grip on her wrists was not gentle, but neither did it hurt her. And for a moment, her mind tricked her into thinking it was not for restraint, but out of possessiveness that he held her, as though this touch was a shared pleasure—the first of many. And then, she remembered it for what it was, and struggled against him.

It did her no good. He was so solid and still that it was like fighting against a statue. At last, he grew tired of it, and said, ‘You strike me as being smart enough not to expend effort to no purpose. Your attempt at escape and your pitiful cat scratching is more amusing than anything else. Let me give you a word of advice. If you cooperate with me and give me no more trouble, you will be returned undamaged to the arms of your family. But if you resist, that may not be the case.’

She went still, as well, turning her rage inward to calm her body and her mind. As he had done before, he’d seemed to speak to her without words. He still smiled at her, but there was something, a hint in the darkness of his eyes that said, I am not as unmoved by you as I appear. Do not tempt me. And do not try my patience.

As if to confirm her fears, he raked her body with a slow, interested gaze, lingering in ways that no gentleman should linger. Then, he released her wrists and held out a hand, as if he were a gentleman, offering to help her back to the wagon.

She gave another little shiver, as though she could shake his eyes from off her form, and tried to loosen the wet cloth where it clung. Then she ignored his outstretched hand, walking with difficulty, for the torn fabric of her dress bunched and tangled around her legs.

He shrugged and grabbed the rope at her waist, giving a sharp tug on it as if to remind her who was in control. Then, with no further offers of help, he led her back to the wagon, returned to his place in the driver’s seat and waited for her to climb in beside him.

She glared at him, for he must know that she could not get up onto the seat without his help.

‘You seemed eager enough to manage before. I could help you. Or I could tie your leash to the backboard and let you run along behind. Or shall I leave you here, just as you are? You could congratulate yourself on the success of your escape. And if you are lucky, you might be found and rescued before you die of exposure.’

She dropped her gaze and waited for him to decide what he wished to do, unwilling to show any sign that he might take for weakness or cooperation. At last, he reached out and pulled her up to sit beside him. Then he retied the rope about her, binding her arms again and tying the other end to his wrist.

‘This is much friendlier, is it not? And so much easier to prevent further attempts to leave me. He gave the rope around her waist a small tug to tighten the knot. ‘You may struggle as you wish. It will not break. And it will not cut your tender English skin. It is silk. The same rope that hung the Earl of Leybourne, when your father let him die for a murder he did not commit.’

Was this what it was about? The Earl of Leybourne? Was Salterton some kin of his? She had met William Wardale’s children, and none were anything like this man. She had meant to shower him in a tirade of abuse, behind the muffle of the gag in her mouth. But all she could manage was puzzled silence.

He was staring at her, awaiting a response. And then he laughed out loud. ‘If you could see the look on your face. It is most amusing. I will remove the gag now, so that you may argue with me as you wish to. You will tell me that your father is innocent. That you think I am a villain. And that I shall pay dearly for this dishonour to you. I have had business with your family before, and I have come through it all with a whole skin. Though you rant and rail, it shall be the same again, I am sure.’

He reached over and yanked down her gag, pulling the handkerchief out of her mouth, and tossing it into her lap. She glanced down to see, in some relief, that the thing had been clean before he’d forced it upon her. And there, in the corner, the initials S and H.

He nudged her. ‘Go ahead. What have you to say for yourself?’

‘Stephen Hebden?’ Despite her family’s attempts to keep her in the dark, she had heard his name.

She knew she had guessed correctly, for he started a little as she called him by his real name. And then, he collected himself and returned to taunting her. ‘Some call me that. You may think of me as Stephano Beshaley, bastard son of Kit Hebden and Jaelle the Gypsy.’

So this was the man that her brothers had been warning her about. And she had fallen easily into his clutches, just as they had feared. It annoyed her that she had proved herself to be the naïve girl everyone thought her to be. If she had any wit at all, she would need to use it to escape from this situation, for the man at her side was smarter than she had given him credit. She stared at him, trying to divine his true character and wondering how she might separate reality from facade. ‘Your half sister Imogen told me of you. You are the Gypsy child that Amanda Hebden raised as her own.’

He rocked back in his seat as though a simple statement of fact bothered him more than the abuse he was expecting. ‘I am no longer a child. And I do not consider a few years of room and board to indicate any maternal devotion on the part of Hebden’s gadji wife.’ Hebden’s eyes blazed with a cold merciless light. ‘After my father was no longer alive to protect me, my stepmother and her family could not get rid of me fast enough.’

Was that pride in his voice, that his father’s family could not hold him? Or had their rejection hurt him? Because she could not believe that the feud between the families was all the result of a little boy’s injured feelings. She hazarded a guess. ‘If you did not like them, and they did not like you, then it was probably for the best that they sent you back to your mother and her people.’

‘Sent me to my mother’s people?’ He snorted. ‘They sent me to a foundling home and forgot all about me. When the Gypsies offered me a place, I returned to them with pride. And the Rom are not—’ his sneer deepened ‘—my mother’s people. They are my people, now. And they accepted me, even though I was a half-breed gaujo, whose mother was not alive to plead for my admittance to the tribe.’

‘Your mother had died, as well?’ she asked.

‘Of grief. Because the Hebden family did not want me, but neither would they return me to her.’

Sympathy blotted the anger she felt with him. ‘I am sorry.’

For a moment, he seemed genuinely puzzled by her response. ‘Sorry? Why should you be sorry?’

‘Why should I not be? It is a sad story. You and your mother were both badly served. Because I am only a girl, I have no say in the actions of my family. There is little I can do for you, other than to offer my sympathy for your loss.’

She prayed that he understood the fact, and agreed with her. For by the way he had been staring at her, the fact that she was an innocent girl had everything to do with the reason he had taken her. And she feared that he would demand far more than an apology, before the evening was through. ‘I am without value to you. Truly. But my father is rich, and powerful,’ she blurted.

‘I know who your father is.’ He smiled as though he had been waiting for the chance to reveal the extent of his knowledge. ‘George Carlow. Earl of Narborough. Betrayer of William Wardale. And true murderer of my father, Christopher Hebden.’

‘My father a murderer? You are insane!’ Any plan to reason her way to freedom was destroyed. But she could not let such an outrageous lie stand unchallenged.

‘Ha!’ he shouted back, as though he was satisfied with the revelation of her true nature, and twitched the reins to speed the horse. ‘My mother died with a curse on her lips for both the Carlows and the Wardales. Twenty years later, the Wardale children are thriving, and George Carlow sickens and dies.’

‘He sickens because he is old. Your continual harassment of my family is what weakens him. And he is not dying,’ she said, feeling the rising panic that had come so often in these past months. Because he could not be dying. Not now, when she was far from home and unable to be with him. ‘But you are trying to drive him into the grave, even though he has done nothing wrong.’

‘At best, your father was a meddling fool with no love for me or my family. At worst, he was a murderer. Soon, I will know the truth. Then the man who really killed my father will pay for his crime.’ He wrapped the rope around his hand and tugged it tight. ‘I will not bother with silk, or take the time to be gentle.’ And in that moment, he looked capable of murder.

‘But I had nothing to do with this. I was a baby when it happened. Let me go, and I will tell him what you said.’ Her voice sounded weak, pitiful. She struggled to control it so that he would not hear her fear and use it against her.

‘The children will pay for the sins of their fathers,’ he intoned, as though reciting scripture. ‘By my mother’s curse, you bear the guilt of your family. If your father wishes to stay my hand against you, he will admit what he did.’

She wished that she could raise her arms, so that she could put her hands to her ears and block out the man’s madness. If a twenty-year-old grievance and a dead woman’s curse had driven him to take her, then what hope did she have that he would be satisfied and release her, even if her father told him the lie he wished to hear?

She looked ahead of the wagon, trying to guess where they might be going. The road had narrowed before them. And now, there were overarching trees to block out the stars. She wished she knew enough about such things to guess which direction they had gone. Although she suspected that the glow on her left might be the first light of dawn. They had been travelling for hours, and she had not seen so much as a cottage.

Then, in front of her, another faint glow. She sniffed the wind. Wood fires. A horse gave a welcoming whinny as they drew near. They passed another bend in the road. And there before them, in a clearing surrounded by beeches, was a Gypsy camp.

She had never seen such a place before, but it must be that. There was a circle of tents, some of them big enough for a whole family, and also several curved roofed wagons that looked like small houses on wheels. But it was too early for the people to be awake. No lanterns were lit, and the cooking fires were banked. If she cried out, would anyone wake to help her? Or would they lie still in the dark, pretending that they did not hear?

The man who called himself Stephano Beshaley had driven close to the largest of the wagons, this one painted in green and gold. He slid out of the seat beside her, still holding the rope that bound her waist and hands. He tugged until she followed him to the ground, catching her as she almost fell. And then, he was pulling her towards the brightly painted wagon.

She set her feet in the ground and wrapped her hands on the rope, pulling back to free herself. ‘No.’

He laughed, and tugged back until she stumbled forward, into his arms. He held her, wrapping his arms about her waist, until there was no space left between them. ‘You will say yes to me, until I say otherwise.’

‘I will not,’ she shouted. But his touch made her feel so strange that suddenly she was not sure what would happen if he did not release her. ‘Let me go!’ She squirmed and pushed at his arms, trying to get away, but only succeeded in tearing a hole in her bodice when the net caught on the buttons of his coat. ‘Help me! Someone! Please!’

There was a grumbling from one of the tents, followed by laughter from another, and a child’s murmuring of questions, which were quickly silenced. But no one appeared, neither to aid her, nor to be curious about the goings on.

Her shouts made him hold her all the tighter, as though he meant to squeeze the air from her lungs. Perhaps that was what was happening, for she felt lightheaded, almost to the point of faintness. The contact of their bodies was more terrifyingly intimate than anything she’d experienced. But the fear she felt was not for the man who held her, but of the other more pleasant sensations he evoked. With a final shudder, she forced herself to stop fighting and lie still in his arms. For when she moved her body against the hardness of his, she could not remember why she wished to escape.

He must have felt it, as well, for he stood very still, and his eyes seemed to go even darker. He was staring at her lips as though he could know the taste of them, just by looking. And for a moment, she thought the same. For though he had not moved, she could imagine the feel of his mouth on hers, kissing her with such force that she would beg to surrender to him.

He moved suddenly, scooping her legs out from under her and carrying her up the little wooden steps of the wagon. He fumbled with the latch for a moment, then took her through and kicked the door shut behind them. It was too dark to see, but he had dropped her onto something soft that felt like a mattress.

She lay still, sure that any movement would draw dangerous attention from him. She should have thrown herself out of the wagon—to her death if necessary—instead of listening to his bitter childhood stories. Now, he was standing between her and the door, fumbling to light a candle. If she tried to push past him, she could not help but touch him. And if she touched him …

She was shaking, now. She told herself that it was only because she was cold and wet from her struggles in the bog. But she knew it was more than that. He was reaching for her.

And she closed her eyes and trembled with anticipation.