by Julia Quinn
The White Hart Inn
When Hugh opened his eyes, he was in a bed. And his leg hurt like the devil. “What on earth?” he groaned, reaching over to massage the screaming muscle. Except—
Bloody hell! The bastard had tied him down.
“Oh, you’re awake.” His father’s voice. Mild and slightly . . . bored?
“I’m going to kill you,” Hugh growled. He twisted against his bindings until he saw his father sitting in a chair in the corner, watching him over a newspaper.
“It’s possible,” Lord Ramsgate said, “but not today.”
Hugh yanked again. And again, but all he got for his trouble was a chafed wrist and a serious case of vertigo. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to regain his equilibrium. “What the hell is this about?”
Lord Ramsgate pretended to consider this. “I’m concerned,” he finally said.
“About what?” Hugh ground out.
“I fear that you are taking too long with the lovely Lady Sarah. Who knows when we shall next find a woman willing to overlook”—Lord Ramsgate’s face wrinkled with distaste—“you.”
This insult did not register. Hugh was well used to such barbs and at some point had begun to take pride in them. But his father’s comment about taking “too long” left him profoundly uneasy. “I have known Lady Sarah”—in this incarnation, at least, he added silently—“for barely two weeks.”
“Is that all? It feels like quite a bit longer. A watched pot and all that, I suppose.”
Hugh slumped. The world had clearly been turned inside out. His father, who usually ranted and raved while Hugh maintained an aloof disdain, was regarding him with nothing more than raised brows.
Hugh, on the other hand, was ready to spit nails.
“I’d hoped you’d be further along with your courtship by now,” Lord Ramsgate said, pausing to turn a page in his newspaper. “When did it all start, again? Oh, yes, that night at Fensmore. With Lady Danbury. God, she’s an old bat.”
Hugh felt ill. “How do you know this?”
Lord Ramsgate held up his hand and rubbed his fingers together. “I have people in my employ.”
“Who?”
Lord Ramsgate cocked his head, as if he was debating the wisdom of revealing this information. Then he shrugged and said, “Your valet. Might as well tell you. You would have figured it out.”
Hugh stared at the ceiling in queasy shock. “He’s been with me for two years.”
“Anyone can be bribed.” The marquess lowered the newspaper and peered over the top. “Have I taught you nothing?”
Hugh took a breath and tried to remain calm. “You need to untie me right now.”
“Not yet.” Lord Ramsgate picked up the newspaper again. “Oh, bloody hell, this wasn’t ironed.” He set the paper back down and irritably inspected his hands, now streaked with black ink. “I hate travel.”
“I must return to Whipple Hill,” Hugh said in as reasonable a voice as he could muster.
“Really?” The marquess smiled blandly. “Because I heard you were leaving.”
Hugh’s fingers curled into claws. His father was disturbingly well informed.
“I received a note from your valet while you were indisposed,” Lord Ramsgate continued. “He wrote that you’d told him to pack your things. This concerns me, I must say.”
Hugh yanked against his bonds, but they did not slip even a hairsbreadth. His father clearly knew his knots.
“I hope it won’t be much longer.” Lord Ramsgate stood, walked over to a small basin, and dunked his hands. He picked up a small white cloth, then looked over his shoulder at Hugh to say, “We’re just waiting for the lovely Lady Sarah to arrive.”
Hugh gaped at him. “What did you say?”
His father dried his hands with meticulous precision, then pulled out his pocket watch and snapped it open. “Soon, I should think.” He glanced over at Hugh with an unnervingly mild expression. “Your man will have informed her by now of your whereabouts.”
“Why the bloody hell are you so certain she will come here?” Hugh snarled. But he sounded desperate. He could hear it in his own voice, and it terrified him.
“I’m not,” his father replied. “But I’m hopeful.” He glanced over at Hugh. “You should be, too. God only knows how long you’ll be stuck in that bed if she doesn’t.”
Hugh shut his eyes and groaned. How on earth had he let his father get the best of him? “What was on that cloth?” he demanded. He still felt dizzy. And tired, as if he’d just run a mile at top speed. No, not that. He wasn’t breathless, just—
His lungs felt shallow. Deflated. He didn’t know how else to explain it.
Hugh repeated his question, his voice rising with impatience. “What was on that cloth?”
“Eh? Oh, that. Oil of sweet vitriol. Clever stuff, isn’t it?”
Hugh blinked against the dots still swimming before his eyes. Clever was not quite the word he would have chosen.
“She’s not going to come to the White Hart,” Hugh said, trying to keep his voice dismissive. Derisive. Anything that might lead his father to doubt the efficacy of his plan.
“Of course she will,” Lord Ramsgate said. “She loves you, although God only knows why.”
“Your paternal tenderness never ceases to amaze me.” Hugh gave his bindings a little yank to further illustrate the point.
“Wouldn’t you go to her if she’d run off to an inn?”
“That’s completely different,” Hugh snapped.
Lord Ramsgate just smiled.
“You do realize that there are countless reasons why this will not work,” Hugh said, trying to sound reasonable.
His father glanced over at him.
“It’s pouring, for one,” Hugh improvised, trying to motion to the window with his head. “She’d have to be mad to go out in this.”
“You did.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice,” Hugh said in a tight voice. “And furthermore, Lady Sarah has no reason to worry over my coming here to see you.”
“Oh, come now,” his father scoffed. “Our mutual distaste is no secret. I daresay everyone knows of it by now.”
“Our mutual distaste, yes,” Hugh said, aware that his words were spilling too quickly from his lips. “But she does not know how deep the enmity goes.”
“You did not tell Lady Sarah of our”—Lord Ramsgate sneered—“contract?”
“Of course not,” Hugh lied. “Do you think she’d accept my suit if she knew?”
His father considered that for a moment, then said, “All the more reason to carry out my plan.”
“Which is?”
“Ensuring your marriage, of course.”
“By tying me to a bed?”
His father smiled smugly. “And allowing her to be the one to release you.”
“You are mad,” Hugh whispered, but to his horror, he felt something stirring in his loins. The thought of Sarah, bending over him, crawling over him to reach the knot around the bedpost . . .
He clamped his eyes shut, trying to think of tortoises, and fisheyes, and the fat vicar in the village where he’d grown up. Anything but Sarah. Anything but Sarah.
“I should think you would be grateful,” Lord Ramsgate said. “Isn’t she what you wanted?”
“Not like this,” Hugh ground out.
“I’ll have the two of you locked up tight in here for at least an hour,” his father continued. “She’ll be compromised in full whether you do the deed or not.” Lord Ramsgate leaned over and leered. “All will be well. You will get what you want, and I will get what I want.”
“What about what she wants?”
Lord Ramsgate quirked a brow, then cocked his head to the side, then shrugged. Apparently that would be all the thought he would give to Sarah’s hopes and dreams. “She will be grateful,” he decided. He started to say something more, but then stopped, tilting his head to better aim his ear toward the door. “I do believe she’s arrived,” he murmured.
Hugh didn’t hear anything, but sure enough, a moment later an insistent knock sounded at the door.
Hugh pulled furiously against his bonds. He wanted Sarah Pleinsworth; dear Lord, he wanted her with everything that he was. He wanted to stand up with her before God and man, slide his ring onto her finger, and pledge his eternal devotion. He wanted to take her to bed and with his body show her everything that was in his heart, and he wanted to cherish her as she grew heavy with their child.
But he would not steal these things from her. She had to want them, as well.
“This is so exciting,” Lord Ramsgate said, his mocking tone perfectly calibrated to make Hugh’s nerves stand on end. “Dear me, I feel like a schoolgirl.”
“Don’t touch her,” Hugh snarled. “By God, if you lay a hand on her . . .”
“Now, now,” his father said. “Lady Sarah is going to be the mother of my grandsons. I would never dream of causing her injury.”
“Don’t do this,” Hugh said, his voice choking before he could add, please. He did not want to beg. He had not thought he could stomach doing so, but in this, for Sarah, he would do it. She did not wish to marry him; this much was clear after all that had transpired with Daniel earlier that morning. If she entered the room, Lord Ramsgate would lock her in and seal her fate. Hugh would gain the hand of the woman he loved, but at what cost?
“Father,” Hugh said, and their eyes met in shock. Neither could recall the last time Hugh had addressed him as anything other than “sir.” “I implore you, do not do this.”
But Lord Ramsgate just rubbed his hands together with glee and walked to the door. “Who’s there?” he called.
Sarah’s voice came through the door.
Hugh closed his eyes in anguish. This was going to happen. He couldn’t stop it.
“Lady Sarah,” Lord Ramsgate said the moment he opened the door. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Hugh turned and forced himself to look at the doorway, but his father was still blocking his view.
“I’m here to see Lord Hugh,” Sarah said in as cold a voice as he’d ever heard. “Your son.”
“Don’t come in, Sarah!” Hugh yelled.
“Hugh?” Her voice rang with panic.
Hugh thrashed against his bindings. He knew he wouldn’t break free, but he couldn’t just lie there like a bloody lump.
“Oh my God, what have you done to him?” Sarah shrieked, and she pushed past Lord Ramsgate with enough force to knock him into the door frame. She was dripping wet, her hair plastered to her face, the hem of her gown muddied and torn.
“Just getting him ready for you, my dear girl,” Lord Ramsgate said with a laugh. And then, before Sarah could utter a word, he stepped out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
“Hugh, what happened?” Sarah asked, rushing to his side. “Oh my God, he tied you to the bed. Why would he do such a thing?”
“The door,” Hugh practically barked, jerking his head to the side. “Check the door.”
“The door? But—”
“Do it.”
Her eyes grew wide, but she did as he asked. “It’s locked,” she said, twisting back to face him.
Hugh swore viciously under his breath.
“What is going on?” She hurried back to the bed, immediately going to the bindings on one of his ankles. “Why did he tie you to the bed? Why would you come here to see him?”
“When my father issues a summons,” Hugh said in a tight voice, “I do not ignore it.”
“But you—”
“Especially on the eve of your cousin’s wedding.”
Her eyes flared with understanding. “Of course.”
“As for the bindings,” Hugh added in a voice full of loathing, “they were for your benefit.”
“What?” she asked, mouth agape. Then: “Oh, drat, ouch!” She stuck her index finger in her mouth. “Bent back my nail,” she grumbled. “These knots are monsters. How did he get them so tight?”
“I was not able to struggle,” Hugh said, unable to keep the self-loathing from his voice.
Her eyes flew to his face.
But he turned away, unable to look at her when he said, “He did it while I was unconscious.”
Her lips formed a whisper, but whether she made actual words or mere sound, he did not know.
“Oil of sweet vitriol,” he said in a flat voice.
She shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”
“Soaked into a cloth and pressed against a face, it can render a person unconscious,” Hugh explained. “I’ve read about it, but this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure.”
Her head shook; he didn’t think she was even aware of the movement. “But why would he do such a thing?”
It would have been a sensible question had they been talking about anyone other than Hugh’s father. Hugh closed his eyes for a moment, utterly mortified by what he was forced to say. “My father believes that if we are locked in the room together, you will be compromised.”
She didn’t say a word.
“And thus forced to marry me,” Hugh added, not that he thought this had been unclear.
She froze, her eyes never leaving the knot she’d been so diligently trying to release. Hugh felt something heavy and dark settle around his heart.
“I’m not sure why,” she finally said. Her voice was slow, and very careful, as if she was worried that the wrong word might set off an avalanche of distasteful events.
Hugh had no idea how to respond to that. They both knew the rules that bound their society. They would be discovered together, in a room with a bed, and Sarah would be presented with two choices: marriage or ruin. And despite everything she had learned about him that morning, Hugh had to think that of the two, he was still the better choice.
“It’s not as if you could compromise me while you’re tied to a bed,” she said, still not looking at him.
Hugh swallowed. His tastes had never run toward such things, but now it was impossible not to think of all the ways one could be compromised while tied to a bed.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Maybe I should just leave you like this,” she said.
“Leave me . . . like this?” he choked out.
“Well, yes.” She frowned, bringing one hand to her mouth in a worried gesture. “That way when someone arrives, and someone will—Daniel can’t have been too far behind me—he will see that nothing could possibly have happened.”
“Your cousin knows you’re here?”
She nodded. “Honoria insisted upon telling him. But I thought— Your father— I didn’t want—” She pushed her wet hair from her eyes. “I thought if I could get here first, I might be able to— I don’t know, calm everything down.”
Hugh groaned.
“I know,” she said, the expression in her eyes matching his grim chuckle precisely. “I wasn’t expecting . . .”
“ . . . this?” he finished for her, and he would have motioned to himself with a derisive wave of his hand . . . if said hands hadn’t been bloody well tied to the bedposts.
“It’s going to be ugly when Daniel gets here,” Sarah whispered.
Hugh didn’t bother to confirm. She knew it was true.
“I know you said that your father will not hurt him, but—” She turned abruptly, her eyes alight with thought. “Would it do any good if I pounded on the door? I could scream for help. If someone arrived before Daniel . . .”
He shook his head. “That will give him precisely what he wants. A witness to your alleged destruction.”
“But you’re tied to the bed!”
“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that someone might think that you tied me.”
She gasped.
“Precisely.”
She jumped away from the bed as if burned. “But that’s— That’s—”
He decided not to finish her sentence this time.
“Oh, my God.”
Hugh tried not to notice the horror in her expres
sion. Bloody hell, if she had not been completely revolted by him after the revelations of that morning, she certainly was now. He let out an uneven breath. “I’ll find some way,” he said, even though he had no idea how he might keep such a promise. “You won’t have to . . . I’ll find a way.”
Sarah looked up. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, and he could see her face in three-quarter profile. Her expression was stiff, uncomfortable. “If we explain to Daniel . . .” She swallowed, and Hugh followed the slight motion down the soft length of her neck. He’d kissed her there once. More than once. She had tasted of lemons and salt and she had smelled like woman, and he had been so bloody hard for her he’d thought he would embarrass himself.
And now here he was, with his every dream being handed to him on the proverbial platter, and all he could think was that he needed to find a way to prevent it. He could not live with himself if she was forced into marriage, even if it was his most desperate desire.
“I think he will understand,” Sarah said haltingly. “And he will not force the issue. I don’t want . . .” She looked away, completely now, and he could not see her face. “I don’t want anyone to feel obliged . . .”
She did not finish. Hugh nodded, deciding how best to interpret her words. He’d been planning to ask her to marry him; she knew that. Was this her way of hinting that he should not ask? After all this, she still sought to spare him the humiliation.
“Of course not,” he finally said. Three meaningless words, spoken just to fill the silence. He had no idea what he was about any longer.
She chewed on her lip again, and he could only stare as her tongue flicked gently out to moisten the spot where her teeth had just been. And just like that, his body was set aflame. It was the most inappropriate reaction imaginable, but he could not stop thinking about taking his tongue and sliding it along her lip, across the spot she was worrying and over to the corner. Then he’d move lower, to the curve of her neck, and—
“Please untie me,” he practically croaked.
“But—”
“I can’t feel my hands,” he said, seizing on the first excuse he could think of. It wasn’t remotely true, but his body was leaping to life, and if he did not get free soon, there would be no way to hide his desire.
Sarah hesitated, but only for a moment. She moved toward the head of the bed and got to work on the knot at his right wrist. “Do you think he’s right outside the door?” she whispered.
