Chapter Ten #2
“I do.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “He was waiting here for you, all lordly, pleased with himself and his plans, not a little drunk, which made him all the more full of his own importance...” His shoulders moved as though shaking off a distasteful memory.
“He’s a grotesque apology for a man, to try to use a woman against me. ”
“Thank you for coming after me,” Lucy said. “I was less than grateful earlier. I apologize.”
A faint smile lightened the grimness in Methven’s eyes. He looked across at her. “I’ll always come for you,” he said. His tone was fierce. “I’ll always protect you.”
It was a promise. It sounded as though he was claiming her. Silence fell between them, sharp with awareness.
Lucy broke it, wrenching her gaze away, looking around, taking in the slovenly room, the sagging mattress.
“Where is this place?” she said.
“An inn near Thurso.” Methven looked around too and gave a grimace of distaste. “I apologize. It’s a little Spartan in its comforts for the daughter of a duke, but if you are hungry they might be able to rustle up some bread and cheese.”
Lucy shook her head. She was not hungry. What she really wanted was a bath, but she doubted the inn ran to such a luxury, especially not in the middle of the night.
“It will do until tomorrow,” she said. “When you take me back to Durness.”
He did not answer her. She looked up and saw the quizzical expression in his eyes as he watched her, and suddenly her stomach dropped and she felt as though she could not breathe. She understood his earlier words then. He was claiming her.
“You are not taking me back to Durness,” she said slowly. She felt chilled all of a sudden.
“There would be no point.” Methven sounded blunt, unsentimental, making her face the truth. “It’s too late. It was already too late when I found you. You have been missing for a day and a night, Lady Lucy. If I take you back unwed you will be ruined.” He smiled. “You really will this time.”
Silence again, broken only by the sigh of the wind against the shutters and the hiss of the logs as they settled deeper in the grate. Lucy swallowed hard. She could hear her blood beating loud in her ears.
Marriage. Or ruin.
Her perfect reputation, her perfect life was in tatters. This time there really was no escape.
She looked at Robert Methven.
“So as I am already ruined you are taking me for yourself,” she said. She was starting to feel afraid. She could feel the chill of it seeping through her blood. This was impossible. There had to be a way out.
He shrugged. “If you wish to put it like that. If you were feeling particularly grateful to me, you could say I am saving your reputation.”
“Grateful!” Fear and disbelief blocked Lucy’s throat.
“I refused to be compromised by you! You cannot simply take what is denied you—” She broke off because of course he could take what was denied him.
She was here, in his power. She did not believe he was a man to take by force, but suddenly she was sure of nothing, alone here with him, frightened, in pain.
She felt the sagging mattress sag farther as he sat down on the end of the bed.
He did not answer her immediately, and in some way his quietness was more frightening than the implications of his actions.
It meant that he had already thought through everything that needed to be considered.
He had decided what he was going to do. He was determined and she would never be able to change his mind.
“Lady Lucy,” he said, “I am offering you the protection of my name. It is all I can do to help you now.”
“How fortunate for you that this is precisely the outcome you wished,” Lucy said coldly. She looked around the shabby chamber. “If it comes to that, how do I know that the story you told me about my cousin is true? Maybe you were my abductor all along!”
Methven’s expression hardened into stone, colder, more remote than the rock of the mountain. “You may believe that if you wish,” he said. “All I can say is that I told you the truth and I would be honored if you would accept my offer of marriage this time.”
“And if I refuse?” Lucy said. “Or shall we drop the pretense and agree that I have no choice?”
“There is always a choice,” Methven said.
“Not if I wish to keep my reputation,” Lucy said.
He smiled. “That is the choice.”
Lucy rubbed her forehead where there was a vicious ache.
Marriage. Or ruin. The words echoed in her head.
She knew how it would be if she did not wed.
Her name would become a byword for scandal, the abducted heiress who returned home with a tarnished reputation.
No longer would she be the perfect debutante, the perfect anything.
She would be damaged, dishonored, spoken of in scandalized whispers.
Her father would be mortified, the whole family disgraced.
Accepting Robert Methven’s proposal was the only way to save herself.
Yet Methven would want a marriage in every sense.
He would want an heir. Darkness raked through her heart.
She could not marry him. She could not give him an heir.
The thought terrified her. She saw Alice’s tearstained, terrified face and felt the cold clutch of her fingers.
So much blood, so much pain... She gulped back the sob that caught in her throat.
Intolerable choices.
Her head ached suddenly, viciously, and she closed her eyes.
“You need to rest.” Methven’s voice was soft. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
“I won’t do it,” Lucy said. She could feel panic clogging her chest. “I won’t marry you. I can’t.”
He was watching her steadily, and the gentleness in his eyes made her want to cry.
“Don’t think about it now,” he said. “You’ve been through an ordeal. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
She would not feel better. Nothing could fix this, not this time. She turned her face away and squeezed her eyes tight shut against the burn of the tears. She was not going to show any weakness now.
“I need you to give me your word that you won’t try and run away,” Methven said.
Lucy opened her eyes and glared at him. “It would give me the greatest pleasure to run away.”
He raised his eyebrows. “In that case,” he said, “I am going to have to restrain you for your own safety.”
Lucy shot bolt upright with outrage. “Restrain me? Don’t be absurd!”
He smiled, implacable. “Then give me your word.”
It would have been by far the most sensible thing to do, but Lucy was sick and tired of being told what to do. It felt like a small rebellion to thwart him, no matter how childish she secretly knew it to be. Besides, she was certain he would not go through with it.
She turned a shoulder. “I don’t promise anything,” she said sulkily.
He shrugged, as though her attempt at mutiny was of no consequence. “Then I must tie you up. I did warn you.”
“You won’t,” Lucy said. “You can’t.”
“I can,” Methven said, over his shoulder. He had gone across to the dresser and was rifling through the contents of the top drawer. Lucy could see that it was full of gaudy clothes: skirts, blouses, barmaid’s attire perhaps. He was removing something that looked like garish silk scarves.
He meant it.
For a second the shock held her still, and then she darted across the room toward the unlocked door.
He was too quick for her. He caught her just as she was reaching for the handle, his hand closing about her wrist. “Please do not make a fuss, Lady Lucy,” he said, in her ear. “I have no intention of hurting you.”
It was the warmth of his body and the sudden intimacy of his touch that held her motionless.
He scooped her up and dropped her back on the bed.
Lucy was thrown off balance for one crucial second, and in that moment he rested one knee on the bed and leaned in to loop the silk tie around the bedpost, twining it expertly about her wrist. Lucy pulled on it and only succeeded in tightening it to a tourniquet.
“Release me,” she said, through shut teeth.
She could not believe that he was doing this.
This was a different side to Robert Methven she was seeing, a man stripped of formality, a man, she suddenly realized with a flash of insight, who had been ruthless enough to make his own way in the wilds of Canada when his family had cast him out.
She had seen flashes of this resolve in him already. Now it was undisguised.
He was laughing down at her. “Are you going to beg me?” he asked.
Lucy glared at him. “I’m a duke’s daughter. I don’t beg.”
“You’re stubborn.” He was tying her right wrist now. “I like that.”
“It’s of no consequence to me whether you like it or not,” Lucy said, kicking her legs impotently. “Let me go.”
“No.” He spoke calmly. “I don’t trust you not to run away. Not only would you put me to the trouble of fetching you back, but you would put yourself in danger.”
“You are an oaf,” Lucy said. “A complete boor.”
“You’re very polite in your insults,” Methven said. “Such a lady.” He tilted his head to one side. “And yet not so much of a lady sometimes. You didn’t kiss me like a lady would.” He smiled, that wicked smile that made her shiver. “I liked that too.”
He stood back to admire his handiwork. Her arms were spread wide now, tied to the bed head, not so rigidly that she could complain of discomfort but not so loosely that she could slip free either. She lay flushed and furious, completely outraged that he had followed through on his threat.
“So this is your idea of wooing,” Lucy snapped. “I should have guessed after your scoundrelly attempts to compromise me earlier. Do you intend to keep me tied up until I consent to be your wife?”
“I don’t think that scoundrelly is a proper word.” His hands checked on the knots, sure and methodical. “I had not thought to keep you restrained,” he added with the same slow smile, “but the idea has some appeal.”
Oh.