Taken by the Duke (4 page)

Her lips pursed ever so slightly and she nodded once. “Ah. So this is your way to finally exact revenge against my brother.”

He nodded. “I want
him
to know what it is like to lose a beloved sister.”

Her face crumpled, and for the first time he thought she
would
cry. But she didn’t. Not even when she whispered, “So you will k-kill me.”

Her slight stammer was the only thing that revealed her fear, but he recoiled at the statement. She said it so calmly, despite its power. It was fascinating and guilt-inducing all at once.

He scowled. He had no cause to be either of those things. She deserved no fascination, and he deserved no twinge of guilt. What was about to happen was just.

“Of course I will not kill you,” he snapped.

She all but drooped against the carriage seat in relief, her fingers gripping the fine leather reflexively.

“I see,” she managed to croak out in a moment. “Then what
will
you do?”

He shook his head. “Now is not the time for us to discuss these matters, Lady Ava. We have a long drive ahead of us. I suggest you rest yourself. We will have plenty of time to talk once we arrive.”

A flurry of questions passed over her face, and he saw her struggling not to blurt one or all of them out. A struggle not to make demands she likely deserved to have met. But she won the struggle and finally nodded once.

“Very well.”

He arched a brow. “You will not fight me?”

Her lips parted slightly. “Would it do any good? I assume if I tried to hurtle myself from the carriage, I would find the door locked, since I heard the click of it when you first tossed me in here like a barbarian. Even if I could release the latch before you stopped me, we appear to be riding at breakneck speeds. I would be injured if I tried to flee.”

Christian flinched as he pushed away images of Matilda alongside a road just six months before.

Ava continued, blind to his painful thoughts.

“I suppose I could physically attack you, but you are far superior in strength, so there would be no point in it. Nor is there a purpose in arguing with or questioning you. To have come this far, to have snatched me in public from a ballroom, you must have some kind of plan in your mind. I doubt my screaming and wailing for some innumerable hours will do me any good except to give me a headache, which I fear I am already suffering at present. So having considered all those things, I feel it is best to do as you ask, not risk your further ire and hope that once we reach our destination, you are more amenable to discourse and even negotiation.”

Christian had merely stared at her during her response, but now he actually had to choke back a laugh. Great God, she was unlike any other person he had ever known. Not one woman in a thousand would respond to a kidnapping by an enemy in such a fashion. Yet here she was.

“Lady Ava,” he drawled. “You are clearly a person of elevated intelligence and correct on all counts above.”

She folded her arms. “Do not sport with me, sir. Just because I have agreed to your terms at present does not mean I intend to allow you to have your way with me indefinitely.”

Christian blinked as a sudden image flashed through his mind of having his way—his wicked, wicked way—with this odd woman. He pushed it aside and shrugged.

“As you see it,” he grunted, then turned his face away to look out the window and effectively end the conversation.

But he could not end the remnants of the fantasy that had begun to spin itself in his mind. A fantasy of gray-blue eyes fluttering shut on a groan of pleasure.

Day was beginning to dawn, sending little shafts of sparkling light around the drawn curtain of the carriage. Almost against his will, Christian took a moment to glance at his captive for the first time since they’d exited London and the lack of city lights had made her face impossible to see.

She was asleep, though her rest was fitful at best. Her hand, cuddled up beside her face as a pillow, twitched from time to time, and her eyes darted around behind her shuttered lids.

Even so, there was no denying how lovely she was. He had seen her before, of course, across ballrooms and parks. But all those times, he had been distracted by the brother at her side. Certainly he had never been so close. Even last night on the terrace, he hadn’t looked at her so intently—he had only ensured her identity and attacked.

But she was undeniably a pretty girl. Her dark hair, when hit by sunlight, revealed an auburn hue, and her skin was fresh and clear. The gown she wore was tight around the bodice, as was the fashion these days, and clung to her small, perfect breasts. In the night, the skirt had hiked up a few inches to reveal the turn of her ankle, the smoothness of her calf.

“It’s been too long since you’ve had a woman,” he grunted to himself, “if you desire your greatest enemy.”

He turned away from her abruptly and raised the shade on the window to stare into the cold morning. Steam rose from the grass along the roadside as the sunlight began to warm the blades.

The plan probably caused him to think of Ava in such a way, not her beauty. After all, his intentions were simple enough. He would take her, hold her, allow Windbury to feel the keen power of her loss and then return her. After a week unchaperoned in his presence, she would be ruined even if he never laid a finger on her or spoke a word to her.

But now the concept of ruination took on a whole new level. He could not help but picture what it would be like to do it in truth, rather than in name alone.

He cast a glance in her direction. As sunlight filled the carriage, her eyes fluttered open. Gray-blue flickered to him, focused on him, and she sat up. She held her stare on him, without flinching, without blushing. Her boldness should have been repulsive to him, but it wasn’t.

It was something else entirely. Would she do the same, hold his gaze, if he were touching her? Standing before her, naked and aroused? Would she be so bold if he were inside of her, claiming her in a way no one could ever take back?

He cleared his throat as blood rushed to his loins and made sitting in the rumbling carriage even more uncomfortable.

“Will we be stopping soon?” she asked, her voice rough from a night of travel.

He blinked. “We will not reach our destination until evening.”

She tilted her head. “But surely you will not drive your horses all night and all day without changing them. I assume you will allow yourself to eat at some point and take your…personal relief, even if you expect me to suffer.”

He shifted because her stare had not left him even as she questioned him so directly.

“There is a small coaching inn we will be stopping at in a very short while,” he admitted. “The horses will be fed, as will we, and you may take any…personal relief you need, my lady.”

She folded her arms. “Thank you.”

He arched a brow. So polite in the face of kidnapping.

“Do you think I might also have a blanket of some kind?” she asked, rubbing her hands along goose-bumped arms. “It is cold.”

His brow wrinkled as he stared at her. He hadn’t actually considered her clothing, not in all his plans. She was wearing that ballgown, not designed for travel. It did not cover her arms, and her wrap had been left at Stavendish Court.

“I apologize,” he said with a tilt of his head. “I did not think. We will ask the innkeeper for something when we arrive. Until then—”

He shrugged out of his own jacket and held it out to her. She stared at it like it might bite her, then back to him.

“Will you not be cold?”

“I’m fine. Please, take the jacket.”

She hesitated, then snatched it from his hand and wrapped it around her shoulders. As his remaining body heat sank into her skin, she sighed in an unmistakable sound of pleasure that jolted through his blood and straight to his cock.

Wonderful.

“I’m pleased you will not let me freeze,” she said after a moment of enjoying the jacket. “I do still wonder what your plan is for me.”

Now he was beginning to wonder the same.

“As I said last night, Lady Ava, there will be plenty of time to discuss everything when we arrive at our destination.”

Her eyebrows lifted in tandem. “I see. So we are to be trapped in a carriage together all day and into the evening on our way to this mysterious destination, and yet you do not wish to speak until we arrive? It will be a long day indeed. Did you bring books?”

He pressed his lips together in annoyance. Again, she pointed out a part of his plan he hadn’t exactly thought through. He was so focused on the kidnapping and holding part, he hadn’t put much thought into the hours of travel of they would share, crammed into a carriage together.

Perhaps when they stopped at the inn, he would buy a horse and ride outside, if only to avoid her questions and stares. It would give him some time to think, at least. To escape her wiles which drew him in for such unexpected desire.

“You are very quiet,” she said.

“And you talk constantly,” he snapped as a reply.

She ignored his tone. “No, just today. I have observed you over the years, you know.”

“Have you?”

“Of course.” She shrugged. “I would be a fool not to observe the man whose name and family were a topic of every supper at my father’s table, then my brother’s table. And I always noted how quiet you were. My brother is the center of attention wherever he goes. Or he was…” Her full-lipped mouth turned down with sadness. She shook it away. “But you have never surrounded yourself with bushels of friends. I never heard your laughter booming through halls or across ballrooms.”

He shook his head. “I would never be so ridiculous. Your brother surrounds himself because he needs attention at all times. He is a fool.”

He expected her to rush to her brother’s defense, but instead she smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “You say that with hate in your tone, but it isn’t too far off the mark. I do not think he is a fool, of course, but he does—or did—like to be the center of attention. In that way we are very different.”

Christian found himself leaning closer, examining her face with an intensity he could not seem to control. She was like a puzzle to him now, a riddle he could solve if he analyzed the pieces enough.

“You do not like the attention?” he asked.

“No. Surely you must have noticed I am considered a wallflower. I have friends, but I can count them on one hand. They would not take up a ledger book like my brother’s do—
did
. I prefer quiet to the rush of a ball or the loudness of a gathering of hundreds. I suppose in that way, you and I are not so different, are we?”

He stared at her. She was telling him all this so guilelessly, except it wasn’t without purpose at all. No, her stare was very focused. Her hands were clenched in her lap. He could all but see the wheels of her mind turning and turning on escape.

She was trying to make herself more human to him. To arouse his sympathy and perhaps encourage her release.

He leaned back against the carriage seat with a shake of his head. “You may stop wasting your time trying to forge a bond with me, my lady. I
am
taking you where I planned. This is happening. You cannot lie your way out of it.”

Her lips parted. “I was not lying.”

He shrugged. “I can see out the window that we are approaching the inn I discussed with you earlier. Before we stop, I would like you to understand that the man who runs the inn is indebted to my family. If you ask him or his people for help, they will only report that to me; they will not assist you. So take your ease and comfort, obtain your food and blanket, but do not think that this momentary respite will result in an escape.”

She swallowed hard, and in her eyes there was a faint flicker of anger, of panic. But then she nodded. “I see. Well, I suppose I appreciate you saving me from wasting my time.”

The carriage stopped and Christian opened the door. “We will stay here for an hour at most. Use your time wisely.”

Then he stepped down and walked away, without looking back and without helping her down.

Chapter Four

Ava tapped her foot in growing impatience. In a very short time, she would be forced back into the carriage by Rothcastle, and off they would go to their final destination, wherever that was.

She had pretended calm with Rothcastle. She had forced herself to be accepting of this kidnapping when they spoke of it. But in truth, she was anything but. When she looked into her captor’s eyes, she saw a darkness there. He claimed he would not harm her, but he had a plan. One that made her stomach quiver with something akin to fear, though not like any she had ever felt before.

This stop at the inn might be her only chance to help herself in this untenable situation. Although Rothcastle insisted the innkeeper and his wife would not help her, he also had not left her alone since their arrival, except to allow her to take her relief.

Which made her wonder if the innkeeper’s silence was so well and truly bought after all.

“I’d like to see about that horse we discussed,” Rothcastle said as he popped the last crust of bread on his plate into his mouth.