Taken by the Wicked Rake. Christine Merrill
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right hand. ‘How are you feeling this morning, Stephen Sahib?’
In truth, he felt better than he had expected, after a sleepless night and several hours in the saddle. ‘The headache is not so bad today. After a cup of your special tea, I shall feel almost normal.’
Akshat had anticipated his request, and was stirring the special herbs that were the closest thing to a remedy for the incessant pounding in his skull. If it could keep him clear-headed for just a few more days, he had hopes that the curse would be ended, and the headache would go with it.
He drank the proffered tea, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a new man. Or his old self, perhaps. He was no longer sure. But he knew it was Stephen Hebden the jewel merchant who was reflected in the cheval glass, as he brushed at an imaginary speck of lint on the flawless black wool. When a member of the gentry needed someone to dispose of the family diamonds, or find a jeweller to produce a paste copy of something that had been lost at hazard—or forgotten in a mistress’s bed—there was none better than Mr Hebden to handle the thing. He was discreet, scrupulously honest, and always seemed to be where he was needed, when he was needed. It said much to his knowledge of the lives of his customers.
He grinned at himself in the mirror. And if one had business of a less scrupulous nature, Mr Hebden could always count on Salterton. And then, of course, there was the Gypsy, Beshaley. Robert Veryan had dealt with all three, at one time or another. And while the servants at Bloomsbury Square were quite used to Mr Stephen’s unusual ways, Veryan found it quite upsetting to get visits from a man who could not be filed easily for future reference. Today, he would use the old man’s unease to good advantage.
Stephano glanced again at the cut of his coat. What do you think, Munch? Sombre enough to visit a viscount?’
The Indian grinned at him, and Munch said, ‘Sombre enough to attend the funeral of one.’
‘Very good. When one means to be as serious as death, one might as well dress the part.’ And the severity of the tailoring did much to clear his head of distractions for the difficult day ahead. Although he had not expected to make a trip to London for his interview with Keddinton, he would almost have deemed the kidnap a success. But he had underestimated his captive, and his reaction to her.
He resisted the urge to pull apart Munch’s carefully tied cravat while attempting to cool the heat in his blood. He had been watching the girl from a distance for weeks, convinced she was no different from a dozen other Society misses. She was lovely, of course. But a trifle less outgoing than her peers. And more malleable of opinion, if her reaction to the people around her was any indication. She seemed to follow more than she led, and she did it with so little complaint that he wondered if she was perhaps a bit slow of wit.
A deficiency of that sort would explain her tepid reaction to the gentlemen who courted her. When the men she had spurned were away from female company and felt ungentlemanly enough to comment on her, they shook their heads in disgust and announced that, although her pedigree was excellent, the girl was not quite right. Though their suits had met with approval from her father, Earl of Narborough, and her brother, Viscount Stanegate, they had been received by the lady with blank disinterest and a polite ‘No, thank you.’ It was almost as if the girl did not understand the need to marry, or the obligation to marry well.
When he had planned her abduction, Stephano had expected to have little trouble with her. Either she would go willingly into the garden because she lacked the sense not to, or she would retreat to the retiring room and he would take her in the back hall.
But he had imagined her frightened to passivity, not fighting him each step of the way. He had not expected her to work free of her bonds, nor thought her capable of tearing her virginal white ball gown to shreds in her attempt to escape.
Nor had he expected the lusciousness of the body that the dress had hidden. Or how her eyes had turned from green to golden brown as he’d held her. Or the way those changeable eyes had watched him undress. When he had planned the abduction, he had not expected to want her.
He looked again at his sober reflection in the mirror, and put aside his thoughts of sins of the flesh. While the lust that she inspired in him might have been a pleasant surprise, he did not have the time or inclination to act on it. It was an unnecessary complication if the plan was to hold her honour hostage to gain her family’s cooperation.
When he arrived at Lord Keddinton’s London home a short time later, he pushed his way past the butler, assuring the poor man that an appointment was unnecessary: Robert Veryan was always at home to him.
Keddinton sat at the desk in his office, a look of alarm on his pasty face. ‘Hebden. Is it wise to visit in daylight?’
Stephano stared down at the cowardly little man. ‘Was it wise to run back to London so soon after the disappearance of your guest? You should have taken the time to look for the girl, before declaring her irretrievable.’
‘I—I—I felt that the family must be told, in person, of what had occurred.’ The man’s eyes shifted nervously along with his story.
‘You thought to outrun me, more like. By coming here, you deviated from the instructions I set out for you. You were to await my message to you, and then you were to deliver it. It was most inconvenient for me to have to follow you here. Inconvenient, but by no means difficult.’
When Keddinton offered no further explanation, Stephano dropped the package he had brought onto the desk in front of him. ‘You will take this to Carlow.’
The man ignored his order and said, ‘The girl. Is she still safe? Because you took her from my house.’
‘Exactly as you knew I would,’ Stephano reminded him calmly. ‘We agreed on the method and location, before I took any action.’
Keddinton’s breathing was shallow, as though now that the deed was done, he was a scant inch from panic. ‘She was supposed to be in my care. And if the Carlows realize that it was I who recommended Lord Salterton to my wife …’
‘You will tell them you had no idea that the man was a problem, and that you are not even sure he was the one who took her. Her absence was not discovered until late in the evening, was it? And others had departed by that time, as well. I took care that no one saw me leaving. The corridor and the grounds were empty, as you’d promised they would be.’
‘But still …’ Keddinton seemed to be searching for a problem where none existed.
‘Thinking of your own skin, are you?’ Stephen wondered who the bigger villain might be, George Carlow, or Veryan for his easy betrayal of his old friend.
And worse, that it would happen at the expense of an innocent girl. It had been difficult for Stephano to reconcile himself to his own part in the crime. He had not stuck at kidnapping women before. But it had never ended well for him. He was almost guaranteed a headache so strong that he would be too sick to move for several days. His late mother might still want her vengeance, but it was as though she punished him for the dishonourable acts she pushed him to commit.
But though his head might feel better today, it turned his stomach at how easy it had been to persuade Verity Carlow’s godfather to help in her abduction.
Keddinton opened the package in front of him, and went even paler when he recognized the contents. It was a chemise, embroidered at the throat with the initials V C, and tied tightly about the waist with red silk rope. He looked up at Stephen with alarm. ‘My God, Hebden. You didn’t …’
‘Touch the girl?’ Stephano laughed in response. ‘Certainly not. She is worth more to me as a virgin hostage, than she is as some temporary plaything.’ But the image of the girl sprang to his mind, sprawled upon his bed with her skirts ripped near to the waist to give a tantalizing glimpse of her silk-covered legs. ‘Since you are so quick to search the package I intended for another, then you had best read the attached note.’ He quoted from memory. ‘Your daughter is safe, for now. If you wish her to return the same, then admit in public what you have done.’
‘But is this—’ he poked at the chemise and shuddered