Invitation to Passion (32 page)

Meg missed Rheda terribly. Although Rheda was a daughter of a baron and Meg a mere village widow, they had become firm friends. For almost five years, the two of them had run the biggest smuggling ring in Kent, for Rheda was the Dark Shadow, the infamous smuggler. They had used the proceeds to help the widowers and children of Deal. When Rufus had arrived in Kent looking for the Dark Shadow, believing that the infamous smuggler was a French spy both their worlds had changed—for the better. Rheda had found love and she had too. Ewan was one of Rufus’s men who had stayed on to help clean up the mess that had resulted from the revelation that the Earl of Hale had been the traitorous French spy.

She stood and wiped the sand from her clothing. There was no fishing to be done today; the storm that had blown through last night saw the sea was still churning, which meant Connor, her eldest son from her late husband, was not on his fishing boat. Instead, he was looking after her younger children.

Ewan helped her up the path from the beach to the top of cliff and they walked back toward the village hand-in-hand. They were going to be wed next month and Meg could hardly wait.

A few villagers called out and whistled and made ‘I know where you’ve been’ comments as they entered town. Meg laughed with joy; however, her laughter soon turned into a terrified scream as a horse-drawn carriage came tearing round the bend and into the village, almost running her over. If Ewan hadn’t pulled her out of the way, she would have been badly hurt. The speeding carriage had to swerve to miss her, almost tipping on to its side before coming to a careening halt outside the tavern.

Ewan confronted the driver in a flash, tearing a strip off the reckless man. As someone helped her to her feet, Meg saw Ewan yank the carriage door open. She ran to his side. She didn’t want any trouble. This was an expensive carriage, with, no doubt, a lord inside. Ewan would lose in this confrontation.

However, when she got to his side and peered into the carriage she almost gasped. Madeline Knight was inside. She was about to say hello when a slight movement of Madeline’s head, and a pleading look in her eyes, made her hold her tongue.

She let Ewan curse out the young man in the carriage, a man she did not recognize, before dragging him away. The carriage moved off. Meg ran after it until she could see in which direction it was venturing. It turned left before continuing on its way on the road toward Kingsgate Bay. As she slowed down and watched the carriage and horses gallop frantically away, Meg’s legs almost gave out again. She had a terrible foreboding she knew what was wrong with what she had just witnessed.

It was clear Madeline had not wished Meg to acknowledge the fact that they knew each other. Meg remembered the terror in her eyes. Madeline was clearly in trouble. The direction the carriage sped off had given her a clue as to Madeline’s abductor’s identity. There was nothing but ruins at the end of Kingsgate Bay.

The young man, who’d been party to the kidnapping, and near death of Lord Strathmore, had never been found. Ewan had looked for weeks for Samuel but because no one knew what he looked like, it had been an impossible task. The man in the carriage would fit his age perfectly, and if he were Samuel, he would know his way around the ruins. These ruins had been the site of Lord Hale’s sinister playground. Samuel had been his perverted partner, and the ruins were where they had abused and killed young boys. But Rufus had stopped them at their sick game. Rufus had killed Hale but somehow Samuel had escaped.

If it had been Samuel in the carriage with Madeline, she had to get help urgently. Daniel, Baron de Winter, Rheda’s brother, would know what to do.

“Ewan, we have to get to Daniel and fast. He needs to send a message to his sister. That was Madeline Knight in the carriage. I’m pretty sure Rufus’s enemy has his sister, Madeline.”

“Samuel! You think that was Samuel?” Ewan’s jaw tightened.

As she spoke, she pulled him toward the road leading to Tumsbury Cliff Manor. “Maddy was in that carriage, and she’s in real trouble. Run on, you’re faster than me. Go and warn Daniel. Tell him to get help quickly. Her abductor will have taken her to the ruins at Kingsgate Bay.”

The ruins were where Rufus had killed Lord Hale.

Ewan took off a rapid pace.

Dear Madeline,

I apologize for not responding sooner, but my life has been hectic of late.

Thank you for your good wishes. I wish I could have told you in person that I am contemplating marriage but until her father approves of the match, I thought it best to wait.

If you have any tips on how to persuade a woman to follow her heart rather than listen to her father, I’d appreciate any advice.

Your friend,

Richard.

Pain.

Pain everywhere.

Madeline understood how her harp strings felt when she plucked at them. Her muscles were pulled rigid in every possible direction, burning her insides. Shackles dug into the tender skin of her wrists and feet. She was strung and drawn up like a dead pheasant, the chains pulled taut; her joints screamed, wanting to pop from their sockets.

Even her eyelids hurt. They would not open. It was as if Hercules himself were holding them shut. She desperately wanted to awake from this nightmare, but if she opened her eyes she would see it was all too real. She could hear the chains rattling as they held her arms up and kept her legs spread wide, and their weight only added to her agony.

Maddy remembered seeing Meg in the village and their arrival at some ruins; however, everything else since then had been a blur. From the taste in her mouth, she gathered she’d been drugged. She tried to shake her head but the pounding made her want to cast up everything in her stomach. Actually, throwing up might be a good idea as she began to recall Christopher forcing a sweet liquid down her throat.

She’d never been a brave person but the realization that Meg had seen her and would have realized that something was seriously wrong, meant help was likely to be on it’s way, and all she had to do was to survive until she was rescued. To do that, she needed to understand why Christopher had abducted her.

She forced her eyes open and tried to control her rising panic. She was chained, as she’d already surmised, in a well-fitted-out but sparsely decorated stone room. The word
dungeon
echoed in her head; however, she didn’t wish to call it that. The connotations were too horrible to consider.

She gave an agonized cry at the metal digging into her wrists, and tears welled up and ran down her cheeks. She struggled, yanking on the chains as she gave into her panic. Not only was she chained up like a criminal, but also she was shamefully naked. She’d not noticed her lack of clothes when her eyes were closed, as the room was very warm. She could feel the heat from a crackling fire on her back, and could see the shadows of the flames flickering on the opposite wall.

She gave up struggling when the futility of doing so seeped into her weary mind. She gulped back her sobs and gave herself a stern ‘buck up’ message. Instead, she focused on working out where she was and why.

Lifting her head, she waited for the dizziness to ease. The stone room was tastefully furnished, in almost exactly the same style as Christopher’s townhouse in London had been. It was a very masculine look, but with a touch of style. Persian rugs covered the slate floor, and there were two chaise lounge covered with fur throws. The walls were bare except for a torn canvas hanging askew.

She had always been intelligent and it didn’t take her long to understand where she most likely was being held and why. It made her blood ran cold. She was in Deal, Kent. There was only one reason Christopher would bring her here. She gave a bitter laugh. She guessed his name wasn’t really Christopher. She knew with absolute dread filling her heart that she’d been taken by Samuel. His dead lover wasn’t a woman; it was Christopher, Earl of Hale, the man her brother had killed. Here, in this very room.

The nightmare became a reality when a familiar voice spoke softly from across the room. An apparition of utter malevolence stood in the doorway. A man, a naked man, with his head covered with a black mask, with slits for his mouth, nose, and eyes, stood before her.

Samuel.

“You know, I did feel a tad guilty about instigating this plan once I’d met you. However, when I saw how you were allowing your husband to treat you like a piece of misplaced luggage, I realized I wouldn’t be breaking his heart at all. The only heart I want laced with pain is your brother’s.”

“I suppose it will do me no good to state that you’re wrong, Richard is very much in love with me.”

Samuel laughed. The sound was filled with insanity. “Nothing Richard has done indicates he has any feelings at all for you.”

“That’s because we have been trying to ascertain who killed Lord Wrentham. We think it was Sarah’s doing. Lord Wrentham’s horse’s girth was cut.”

He was now standing before her and she tried not to squirm with embarrassment. He was looking over her body as if she were a cow at a market, and her temper flared.

He reached out with a finger and ran it down between her breasts. She could not hide her revulsion. She tried to pull back and the chains rattled.

“I rather admire Lady Sarah. It seems she’s willing to do anything for love. Unlike you.”

Thank goodness he then removed his finger, and moved off to a small cabinet. He opened a jar and turned back to face her. The slit in his hood grinned hideously and her mouth dried as she found it impossible to swallow down her fear. What was he going to do with her?

He approached, but walked round behind her so she could no longer see what he was doing. Her muscles tightened, waiting for—she didn’t want to imagine.

She felt a cold liquid dribbled on her back, and then Samuel’s hand spreading the liquid over her skin.

“I had the pleasure of doing this to your brother. Only I’ll admit it was far more arousing then.”

Firm hands messaged her naked body. She licked her parched and cracked lips, each movement of her tongue like swallowing broken glass, and tried not to cry at the indignity.

Her drug-addled mind tried to block out the horror of what Samuel’s hands were doing to her, and worse still, why.

She looked down and fires of shame washed over her pain. He was touching her—and she was naked.

“I thought you were my friend,” she choked out.

Christopher’s laugh proclaimed him the madman that he was. “How can
you
be my friend? The blood flowing in your veins is
his
blood. The man who killed my master.”

He leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss between her shoulder blades. “It was all too easy.” He molded his palm to her buttock. “As easy as luring a child.” He moved round to face her and looked at her with a sneer. “However, don’t despair, I’ve left a note for your brother. He’s unlikely to find the note very quickly. I’m not sure your husband will even notice you’re missing. He’s too busy with Lady Sarah. However, I suspect in a few days he’ll notify your brother and then Rufus will be distraught to learn I have you.” She shuddered to note he was fully aroused as he gloated over her.

Fear. Stinking, smothering fear, slid over every inch of her skin.

Samuel’s fingers pinched her nipple viciously. She yelped in pain. “When Rufus learns I’ve taken you here, he’ll understand fully what I’m going to do to you. I really wish I could be there to see his face.” His hand continued its path down her body, stopping at her most private place. “I had thought to kidnap you from one of those goddamn awful balls. It would have been easy because Richard was always absent, panting away after Sarah.” His sneer distorted his beauty letting her for the first time see the unmitigated monster that lurked beneath the pretty veneer.

He began spreading oil over her stomach and breasts. The concoction had a sweet sickly smell.

“However, at each ball, one of your brother’s friends was watching you like a hawk. Luckily for me, Lady Sarah came to me with a proposition. She’d tell me where I could perhaps persuade you to run off with me. The silly woman actually thought I was in love with you.”

Oh, my God. Blinding clarity had not been her friend. Sarah had deliberately made her think the child was Richard’s. Sarah had literally driven her into Samuel’s arms. She’d believed the witch without asking Richard first for the truth. “What have I done,” she whispered piteously into the darkness of the dungeon.

“You’ve given me my revenge.” The triumph in Samuel’s voice edged her even closer to despair. “I made you write the note to Richard, so he wouldn’t bother looking for you. That should give me plenty of time to set up my welcoming reception for your brother. Richard will think you’ve set him free, and I suspect he’s so relieved he won’t even think to look for you. However, Rufus will eventually want to know where you are. That’s when they will track me down to Lord Hale’s residence, and he’ll find my note. I wonder how long it will take before my taunting message leads him here.”

A spark of hope was ignited in her. She prayed Richard had understood the clues she’d left in the note Samuel had forced her to write. Richard
would
come. In addition, there was sweet Meg; hopefully, she had also gone for help. Rheda’s brother, Daniel lived nearby and could take action immediately.

Suddenly her head began to swim. Her eyes could not focus. “What are you doing to me?”

Samuel looked up from where he was crouching at her feet. He continued to spread oil over her body, his hands sweeping up and down her legs.

He stood and looked her in the eyes, lifting his palm to her nose. “I’m preparing you. You should be thanking me. What I have in store for you will be a lot more painful if you’re not relaxed. I could simply take you now, but I can’t abide too much screaming.”