Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
HIS GRACE BENEDICT Taylor, the Duke of Nothshire, lost his grip on the girl as he pulled her into the woods. It was his own fault. She’d been so docile, coming along easily, for too long, and he’d been thinking ahead, thinking of where he was going to take her, how he was going to navigate a kidnapping, which—admittedly—he’d never done before.
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, let out a cry of dismay or rage, and took off running.
He couldn’t help but laugh when she did it, though, because she took off running in the opposite direction of the carriage. He shouldn’t have laughed, he supposed. She was a spoiled noblewoman who’d never been through one single moment of unpleasantness in her entire life. Women, especially the daughters of titled men in England, were coddled like children for their whole lives, passed off from fathers to husbands who never did more with them beyond treating them like living dolls who could bring beauty and grace to their lives.
The point of a woman like that was that she was a bit of pretty frippery, and most of them never had to learn anything like keeping direction in their heads.
Even so, he needed to stop laughing and go after her.
She was screaming at the top of her lungs, yelling that she was coming back for the carriage. “Isabella, have the driver untied when I get there, and we shall away!” she shrieked, and the dog in her arms howled its agreement.
All right, all right, he could laugh and go after her, couldn’t he?
She was wearing skirts and holding a dog, and she was in the darkness, hindered by tree branches and brambles in the woods. It didn’t take long until she fell down, and the dog fell out of her arms.
He was still chuckling as he advanced on them both, even as she attempted to get to her feet.
The dog ran for Nothshire, growling as if it really thought it were some kind of match for him. He liked dogs. Well, he liked real dogs, not these sorts of abominations, which were bred to sit on ladies’ laps, and run around like rats. Still, he squelched the idea of wringing the poor thing’s neck. He had taken mens’ lives in his time—not often, and only when they truly deserved it—but killing a dog seemed like something only a demon would do.
He swept it up off the ground instead, again by the nape of its neck, holding it aloft as it whined and yawned and struggled in the air.
She was sobbing. “Don’t hurt Dash,” she said. “I know you. I have met you.”
Yes, he’d been a bit stupid, overall, showing himself the way he did. They held up carriages out here, but they usually did most of the dealings with the drivers. If there were footmen that tried to get into the fray, they usually didn’t even get too close to them, really. It had been one thing when they’d conceived of the idea, ten years ago, when they were all seventeen and idiot half-grown men, willing to take ridiculous risks. It was another now, a decade on, with the very real danger of being recognized looming in every single one of these interactions.
Dash it all.
That was a problem.
“Get up,” he said. “If you don’t wish me to hurt your dog, get on your feet.”
“There, I knew that accent of yours wasn’t even real,” she said, scrambling up to a standing position.
Dash it all .
For a man who’d been doing this for a decade, he really was shite at it, wasn’t he?
“Let me go back to the carriage,” she said stoutly. She gestured off in the direction she’d been running. “I shan’t tell anyone about this if you simply let me go.”
“My lady,” he said gravely, “we left your carriage that way.” He gestured with his head. He pulled the dog in against his chest. It yapped at him, angry.
She turned to look into the darkness. “You’re simply trying to confuse me.”
He shrugged. “I can’t let you go back, you know. Especially if you recognize me.”
The realization of that went through her, and she grimaced. “Oh, I’m very stupid, aren’t I?”
“You’re understandably upset,” he said. “Listen, it won’t be too awful. I shall take you somewhere nearby. We can walk there. It is but half a mile through the woods. I think I’ll have to tie you to the bed, but it’ll be warm and dry and there will be food. Once your husband pays the ransom, I shall let you go.” Of course, could he let her go, if she knew who he was?
Yes, certainly, of course he could. Better disguises. A new name. A different spot. It could all go on. Rutchester and Arthford were already seeking out new vulnerable points on the roads, after all. No one came through the crossroads anymore. They’d worn their advantage thin at this point, truly. He was alone here tonight for there was almost never a carriage worth knocking over through here, anyway.
He supposed he might work on his accent, too. Maybe, from now on, they should all sound French. That worked well, didn’t it? He smiled at the thought of it.
“I am telling you, he will not pay,” she said. She wavered. “Anyway, I don’t really recognize you. I just know I met you. I can’t rightly remember your name, though, I have to admit.”
Was she telling the truth? He scrutinized her. “You’d say that you don’t recognize me now, of course,” he said.
“I don’t.” She stomped her foot. “Give me back my dog.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Follow me if you want your dog back.” He set off into the woods.
“I’m not going to follow you!”
He shrugged. “This way is the way back to your carriage.” Of course, it was not.
She clenched her hands into fists and turned in a circle, and he could see the realization dawning upon her that she was entirely lost.
“They’ve probably taken off now, at any rate,” he said. “Back to your husband.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s where they went,” she said. “He really would murder them.”
He shrugged again. “Regardless, my lady, even if you somehow managed to get free of me, you’d likely wander around in the dark, all alone, and anyone you did come upon would likely hurt you—”
“ You’re going to hurt me.”
“I promise I shan’t,” he said.
“You threatened my dog,” she said. “Besides, I can’t see your word is worth anything.” She took a deep breath, screwing up her face in determination. “I am going to fight you.”
“Oh, that seems pointless,” he sighed. “Look, I don’t want to hit you—”
“Yes, you see, your word is worthless.”
“If you hit me, I shall hit back,” he said. “Then I’m only defending myself.”
“Oh, as if it’s a contest,” she spat out.
“You are making my point for me,” he said.
She let out a cry of sheer frustration.
“Come along,” he said. “Cooperate, and this will all be over very soon. Think of the story it will make at tea. Everyone will be hanging on your every word, doubtless, facing off against one of the Lords of the Crossroads. You can say you fought, how’s that?”
“I want you to know I hate you,” she told him.
“I want you to know I’m deeply wounded by it,” he said airily. “Shall we continue hashing this out or are you going to hit me now?”
Her nostrils flared. Her lower lip trembled, and he thought she was moments away from bursting into tears, which would make it all that much harder, really, but he was beginning to think he could probably just haul her up over his shoulder—she didn’t look like she weighed very much, in the end—and, as for the dog, it’d probably trot along behind its mistress. Maybe it’d bark and make a lot of noise, but, well, yes, that was probably the best course of action.
He could set the dog down and put the knife to her throat. No, her back, likely, to make her walk. The back of her neck.
But she threw up both of her hands and said, “Fine. I suppose I’ll go with you.”
“Excellent,” he said, brightening. He went to her, took her by the arm and started to pull her along.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, trying to shake free.
“A number of things that I’m doing right now, I don’t strictly have to do,” he said.
“Yes, like robbing people when you’re wealthy enough to come to people’s country houses as a guest,” she said pointedly.
“Oh, well, that I suppose I do have to do,” he said. “Should we have a little conversation, then? Lovely weather we’ve been having lately, don’t you agree? I do so love the July warmth.”
She scoffed.
But then she fell silent, which made things easier. She also stopped trying to get free of him.
The walk through the woods was fairly quick. There was a path out here that was well worn, for he and the others used Bess’s as a sort of meeting place of sorts. They could trust Bess, who owned the place, and it was a convenient distance from the crossroads. They’d been coming there for years upon years.
He took her in the back door, and there was no one in the kitchen, which was a mercy. They went up the back steps, which were only used by Bess and the girls here.
At the top of the place, there were only five rooms, and these were always filled last, so he expected them to be empty. Still, he checked before bringing her in, throwing his shoulder into the door, as he worked the latch and calling out, “Anyone in there?”
“What?” came a distant call from the room down the hall. “I paid for an hour, and it’s been not even ten minutes.”
“Apologies!” he called back, hauling her into the room. It was dark in there, empty, and he deposited both the girl and the dog on the bed. He lit a lamp and she looked around at the sheets and the paintings of the wall, all of which were rather bawdy—naked people entwined in all manner of lascivious poses.
“What is this place?” she breathed.
“A brothel,” he said. “Don’t worry, no one saw you come in, and no one will ever know you were here. I certainly have no intention of advertising that bit of information to your husband.”
She looked as if she were going to cry again.
“Oh, and don’t look at me like that ,” he said. “I’m certainly not going to touch you.” He huffed, affronted.
She sat down hard on the bed, gathering the dog up in her arms.
“Truly, what would be gained by that?” he said. “That would materially lower your value to your husband. I’m smarter than that, not to mention I don’t have any taste for bedding women like you.”
Pretty fripperies, as he said. Living dolls. It would be like taking a child to bed. He supposed, at some point, he was supposed to marry one of them, but he hardly thought about that. His life was not the life of a typical duke, and he had no real hope of ever getting out from underneath the thumb of Champeraigne. Besides, he was only seven and twenty, and he didn’t need to really think about marriage until he was six and thirty. Maybe eight and thirty. Whatever the case, he had time.
She petted her dog, making little noises of comfort to it.
“I promised you food, I believe,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll go and see to that.”
“You also said you were going to tie me to the bed,” she said in a resigned voice.
He had said that, and it was likely the most intelligent way forward. But, damn it all, there was something about this woman—no, it wasn’t her particularly, it was the idea of these women in general, he supposed—that made him not wish to harm her.
He still had some relationship with his mother, and she had been in a state of horrific helpless sadness after his father had died, and she had clung to him as if he was the only thing who could save her, even though he knew he was as much the source of her destruction as anything else. Still, women like this, women in the upper classes, the fragile fripperies, he misliked hurting them or causing them discomfort. Some part of him shied from it, even though he could see that it was necessary.
Brilliant idea, kidnapping, Benedict, he said to himself. Yes, wonderful that you’ve committed us to this course of action. I rather imagine it’s going to go swimmingly.
He grimaced. “I shall simply lock you in, and that should suffice, I think. If you get free, you’ll have to come down one set of stairs or the other, and you’ll be horrified, undoubtedly, by whatever acts you see in the brothel, so you’d best just stay put. Wouldn’t want to damage your innocent purity, I don’t imagine.”
She lifted her gaze to his, and her eyes were blank in some way that startled him.
That was when he noticed the bruise. He had seen it before, but taken it for some shadow in the scant light. Now, here, illuminated by the lamp in the room, it was unmistakable.
His first thought was that he’d somehow done it, and shame welled up like a tidal wave. And then he realized that bruise was too far along to have been his doing.
Her husband, then.
He was sure of it, and it was mostly because of that blank look in her eyes. He’d seen that blankness before, truthfully. He felt entirely uncomfortable now, entirely uncertain. He put a finger in her face. “Do not move from this room, my lady, or I shall make sure you regret it,” he growled.
Then, he left her alone.