Wicked Promise (7 page)

The earl swore an oath, then she felt his arms around her, gathering her protectively against him. "It's all right, love, you're safe now. I won't let anyone hurt you."

She didn't mean to cry, but somehow, there in his arms, held tightly against his chest, the tears just spilled out. She felt his hand stroking gently over her hair, heard him whispering soft words of comfort. She knew she should pull away, but in that moment she didn't want to be anywhere but exactly where she was.

She sniffed several times and her tears finally abated. "I'm sorry." She hiccuped softly, beginning to pull away. "I don't usually cry."

"It's all right. I don't usually behave like such a bloody fool." The earl reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief, and she dabbed it against her eyes. "I apologize for misjudging you. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."

"It wasn't your fault." A shudder passed through her. "It's just that when I think of what those men meant to do ..."

Ravenworth gently lifted her chin. "I want you to tell me exactly how all of this happened."

Elizabeth closed her eyes, picturing once more the men riding toward her. She dragged in a slow breath of air and nodded, began to relate the morning's events. She told him about the flash of light that had glinted in the sun and how, a few minutes later, the pair had started riding out of the forest.

"They must have been using a spyglass," Ravenworth said. "That is probably the reflection you saw. That was how they knew it was you."

"I wonder how long they had been waiting."

He stiffened then, his jaw going tight, and she realized he was angry all over again. "Probably for quite some time." He swore softly. "I should have known something like this would happen. I convinced myself Bascomb would leave you alone as long as you were here, but I should have known better." He turned a hard look in her direction. "And you should have known better than to ride off on your own. I specifically told you to ride with a groom."

True, but she hadn't realized why. She hiked up her chin. "I needed some time on my own. Next time, I shall take Freddy and—"

"There isn't going to be a next time. Obviously it's too dangerous. From now on you will stay near the house."

"But surely if Freddy goes with me—"

His fingers bit into her shoulders. "You saw what happened today. You've had a taste of Bascomb, more, I think, than what you've let on. The man is cruel and ruthless. If he gets his hands on you, he'll take what he wants—make no mistake about it. And I don't believe you will enjoy it."

Elizabeth's cheeks went hot and then cold. She trembled at the memory of Oliver Hampton pressing her down on the sofa in the study, his hot, damp hands feverishly shoving up her skirts.

Her eyes slid closed and slowly she nodded. "I'll stay close to the house," she said softly. "I won't go riding again."

She thought she saw a softening in the hard planes of his face, just before she turned and started walking back to the house.

Nick watched her leave, anger still pumping through him. Fury at the men who had ridden onto his land and tried to accost her. Rage that Bascomb would go so far.

Anger mostly at himself for failing to protect her.

He had given her his word that he would keep her safe, yet she hadn't been safe, and in truth it was entirely his fault.

Watching Freddy Higgins lead the tired little mare into the barn, Nick swore a long, fluid oath. He had underestimated Bascomb just as he had so many years ago. It had been a costly mistake—one he vowed not to make again. He watched Elizabeth Woolcot climb the steps to the house, her shoulders not nearly so straight as they usually were, her head drooping forward like a wilted rose. She was worried and he didn't blame her.

Thank God she'd been the capable rider he had suspected. His stomach tightened to think what would have happened if the men had succeeded in their scheme to abduct her. Thinking of Elizabeth with Oliver Hampton, of his big hands on her body, of him thrusting himself inside her, made him want to squeeze a hand around the bastard's throat.

A memory of Elizabeth appeared and he couldn't help remembering how soft and feminine she'd felt when he had held her, how her high, full breasts had pillowed against his chest as she had clung to him and sobbed out her fear. Too easily he recalled the silk of her auburn hair beneath his hand, the deep green of her eyes, round and luminous with her tears.

There was something about her, something strong yet vulnerable that touched him in some strange way. He felt protective of her as he never had of another woman. Why she affected him so, he could not say, only that for some odd reason he was beginning to care about Elizabeth Woolcot.

It was dangerous, he knew.

Dangerous for both of them.

Elizabeth returned to the stable the following day, worried that her madcap ride might have injured the little gray mare in some way.

"Sasha is fine," Freddy assured her. "A little run is good for her once in a while." He led her toward the animal's stall and the saucy little Arabian nickered a greeting and ambled over. "See, she's fit as a fiddle."

Elizabeth extended her hand, holding out a chunk of sugar. Sasha lipped it off her palm and her perky little ears went up. "Such a good girl," Elizabeth crooned, hating the fact she had ridden the horse so hard. "So brave and strong."

She turned away with some reluctance, the animal's presence reminding her of the earl's forbidding words. "I guess I won't be riding her anymore."

"Don't ye be thinkin' that way. 'Is lordship, 'e'll have them blighters on the run in no time. 'E won't let nothing like that happen to ye again."

"Bascomb won't give up."

Freddy grinned. "Neither will our Nick."

Our Nick. It was an odd way to refer to an earl, yet she had heard others in his employ speak of him with the same strange note of familiarity. "You think a lot of him, don't you?"

" 'Is lordship—'e helped me. Hired me when nobody else would. Me and a lot of the others, Theo and Elias, Silas, and Jackson, 'e's the coachy. Maybe 'alf a dozen more. And o' course there's Mercy Brown."

Elizabeth frowned. "Mercy? Why wouldn't anyone hire Mercy? She certainly seems capable enough."

Freddy's mouth flattened out and his short frame went stiff, his fingers tightening around the just-oiled headstall he held in one hand. "I thought ye knew or I wouldna' said. Me and them others ... we're all of us ex-convicts. Some of us was indentured with Nick in Jamaica. If that bothers ye, ye don't have to talk to me no more." He watched her, his eyes fierce as he waited for her reaction. There was something in his wrinkled, weathered face that told her how important this was, how much he hoped she could see him for the man he was now, not the man he had been.

Elizabeth met his gaze squarely. "I'm a little surprised, I have to admit. But you've always been kind to me, Freddy. 'Judge not that ye not be judged'—that's what it says in the Bible. That is good advice, I think." Besides, it was obvious the men who worked at Ravenworth Hall had reformed. Most likely far more than the earl himself.

Freddy seemed to relax, so Elizabeth pressed on, more curious than ever about Nicholas Warring and the people who worked for him. "Earlier you mentioned Mercy Brown. Surely Mercy wasn't in prison."

"Aye, that she was. She were arrested for stealing her employer's fancy jeweled brooch. Mercy claims she didn't do it. Swears she were wronged."

Elizabeth thought of the robust young woman upstairs. She was so forthright it was hard to believe she could possibly be a thief. "I take it you believe her, and obviously the earl did, too."

Freddy nodded. " 'E knows what it's like out there, how 'ard it is to start over. Even for him, it weren't easy."

For the first time Elizabeth thought of Nicholas Warring and the life he must have led. Of the wife who had abandoned him, of the seven years he had spent at hard labor and how it must have felt to come home to a world that shunned him. A memory arose of his arms around her, gently stroking her hair. She could still recall the smell of him, of tobacco, horses, and leather. The tips of her fingers still tingled with the memory of his hard-muscled chest beneath her hands.

More and more she was beginning to believe she had misjudged him. If she had, heaven help her. She would be even more drawn to him than she was already.

"Thank you for telling me, Freddy. I think perhaps I understand his lordship a little better now." She smiled. "And I believe you should all be proud of yourselves for accomplishing what you have and turning your lives around."

Freddy grinned and a great dark hole appeared between his two front teeth. "Ye come out to the barn anytime, Miss Woolcot. Any time at all. Me and the little gray mare, we'll both of us be glad to see ye."

Elizabeth smiled even wider, feeling as if she had just made a friend. She said nothing more as she turned to walk away but she was suddenly glad that Nicholas Warring had given a man like Freddy Higgins a second chance.

Oliver Hampton, Lord Bascomb, slammed a meaty fist down on the walnut desk in his study. The motion scattered a stack of papers sitting on the corner and they floated to the polished oak floor.

"I'm tired of your whining and I'm sick of your lame excuses. It doesn't matter a whit that the girl was a more capable rider than you had guessed or that her horse had too big a lead. The fact is, the two of you have been waiting for weeks for a chance at the girl and when you finally got it, you muddled the whole affair."

Both Charlie Barker and Nathan Peel, the two ruffians he had hired to return Elizabeth Woolcot to Parkland, his estate in Surrey, had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"But we was only—"

"I've heard what you have to say. Now you will listen to me and you had better listen well. I want that girl. I don't want excuses; I don't want to wait another six weeks. I want Elizabeth Woolcot and I want her now. If that means going onto Ravenworth property—if it means going onto the grounds of the hall itself—then that's what you will do."

"But you told us not to get too close," Charlie argued, scratching his burly red beard. "You said for us to wait for the girl, catch her on the way to town or when she's out ri- din'."

"Well, obviously I've changed my mind." Oliver was a big man, tall and imposing. He was used to giving orders and expecting people to follow them without question. These two were no different.

"We'll have to be careful," Nathan put in, "watch her a while and get to know her habits better. It might take a couple more weeks."

"That's right," said Charlie. "Got to do this right. Ain't no amount of coin worth facing the three-legged mare."

Reluctantly, Oliver nodded. He had waited for years. A couple of weeks, more or less, would hardly make a difference. "Just don't take too much time. The London Season will be starting, and I want her married and settled in my bed long before that happens."

Charlie nodded and Nathan seemed to agree. "We'll get it done, milord. You can count on Nathan and me."

Perhaps he could—for enough coin to keep them in trollops and gin, they were willing to do about anything. "That'll be all, then. Bring me the girl in the next two weeks and there'll be an extra measure of guineas for both of you."

Charlie gave up a yellow-toothed grin and Nathan's thin face split with a smile of anticipation. They left through the servants' entrance at the rear of the house and Oliver went back to work, rounding his desk to pick up the papers that had sifted onto the floor.

For the next two hours, he worked over his shipping ledgers, checking bills of lading, sailing manifests, and shipping invoices. He was more than halfway through the stack when his mind began to wander, turning to thoughts of Elizabeth Woolcot, straying back to the day she had arrived home from Mrs. Brewster's very fashionable finishing school.

He had been visiting Sir Henry that day, trying to settle a boundary dispute, but he could still remember the moment she had walked through the door. His breath had caught at the sight of her. No longer the saucy little girl who had gone away, this Elizabeth was a woman, a delicious blend, he came to discover, of sensuous femininity and cleverness, of naiveté and determination.

He had decided to have her almost from that very moment, the notion more pronounced as the years went by and the proximity of their estates put them in such close contact. From the start, he had known her father would not approve, but the fact had never deterred him. He had devised at least a dozen methods to force Sir Henry to accept the marriage, each of them requiring Elizabeth to be compromised in some fashion, and the need for that had not changed.

Even with Sir Henry gone, Elizabeth had not been able to see the rightness of a union between them. In time she would, he was sure. Once they were married and Elizabeth firmly resigned to a future as the Countess of Bascomb, the trouble he had gone to would all be worthwhile. His wife might require a bit of discipline on occasion, being as strong-minded and willful as she was, but Oliver looked forward to the challenge.

A memory surfaced of Elizabeth's fine young body struggling beneath him on the sofa and his body began to grow hard. He imagined what it might have been like to fondle her lovely white breasts and take them into his mouth, to spread her shapely legs and thrust himself inside her.

Oliver groaned, his hands shaking and his body hard. He had wanted Elizabeth Woolcot for as long as he could remember. As the time drew near for him to have her, his need for her seemed to expand until it was all he could think of. He ground his teeth together until a muscle ached in his jaw.

God help his men if they failed him again.

Elizabeth thought the earl must surely have taken pity on her, must have realized how trapped she felt, even in the seemingly endless, sprawling chambers of Ravenworth Hall.