The Earl's Temptation

by Emma V. Leech

His throat had grown unbearably tight and how he didn't just pull her into his arms and promise her he would never let her go was beyond him. But he didn't, he just stood there, unmoving, as though he didn't care and simply replied.

  "No."

  She turned and began to walk away from him and he strode after her.

  "Céleste, come back here," he demanded. "We need to discuss this. Let's go back to the house."

  "Non!" she turned on him, and it was clear there would be no discussion of anything. She was beyond any rational conversation. There was a wild glint in her eyes that he knew would bring them both to disaster if this conversation continued for he couldn't bear to see her hurt any more. "I will not discuss it, for you will not listen. You 'ave made up your mind what I shall do, what is best for me, because I am just a stupid child without a thought in 'er 'ead and my feelings are not real. They do not count and they certainly don't concern you. So non, I will not go back to the 'ouse, I would rather return to Roscoff! I do not want to see you or speak with you or be with you, so there, you have accomplished something at least this day. Now leave me alone!"

  And with that she picked up her skirts and ran and he didn't dare follow her, for if he did he would do something unforgivably foolish and undo all his good intentions. He hoped she would walk her anger off and return to the house presently. Her temper was familiar to him though he had only seen it on occasion, but it had always been brief and fiery and quickly gone. He could only pray that it would be the same today.

  With the sensation of a heavy weight lying on his chest, Alex retraced his steps back to the house and found Henri sitting on a bench in the garden as he returned. He paused and turned to her.

  "Perhaps ... if you don't mind ..." He stopped, afraid that his voice gave away too much and took a breath to steady himself. "It might be an idea if you would take a walk, down towards the river. Céleste ..."

  Henri got to her feet and put her hand on his arm. "You told her?"

  He nodded, unable to say more.

  "Oh, Alex, I'm ..."

  "Don't!" he snapped, turning away. "For the love of God, please don't." He walked away from her into the house and slammed the door behind him.

  ***

  Céleste walked in a daze, unaware of quite where she was going. Her boots were sodden and heavy with mud and her skirts damp and stained too. She pitied whoever would have the cleaning of them for they would likely never be the same again. She remembered her days of scrubbing and cleaning for the girls at Madame Maxime's and for just a moment she could almost wish she was back there. At least then she'd had nothing to hope for, nothing that she wanted so desperately past the immediate need to eat and have a roof over her head. She scolded herself soundly for that thought. There was ingratitude. Alex had given her everything he could. It wasn't his fault that he didn't love her.

  He had promised her a life of ease, of pretty things and parties and friends and never having to wonder where her next meal was coming from, or if she would have to sleep with one eye open as there was no safety to relax enough to find peaceful slumber. He had given her all he could be reasonably expected to and far, far more, but he had taken something from her too. That he had done it without meaning to didn't make it hurt any less. That he belittled her feelings as though they were of no worth because she was young made her furious with him, and yet her anger was short-lived. For some reason it was an emotion she could not sustain towards him. No matter if she wanted to. At that moment she would like very much for him suffer the pain that she felt in her heart, for him to know what it was to love someone you could never have. Perhaps then he wouldn't send her away from him because he would know how very deeply it would hurt her.

  Little by little her anger fell away to be replaced by a bone-weary sorrow that seemed to steal her energy, and she wanted nothing better than to sit down in the mud and stay there. But that would be pitiful and weak and she was neither of those things. So she would go back to the house and she would be sent away as he wanted her to be and then ... and then ... She couldn't think any further than that, the misery was too great.

  At last familiar roads came into sight and she breathed a sigh of relief for the sky was growing dark. She had been walking for hours and hunger gnawed at her stomach though the idea of actually eating anything made her feel ill. Heavy dark clouds rolled overhead as the great roof tops of the towers at Longueville came into sight in the distance and the first drops of rain began to fall.

  The ground was already sodden and mucky and now, as the rain began to fall in earnest, her boots slipped on the thick, churned soil as she made her way across the field to the road that ran to the Château. She gasped as her footing failed her and she almost fell face first into the mud, but a hand came out and grasped her firmly about the arm, hauling her back and keeping her upright. Turning, she opened her mouth to thank whoever had helped her, and felt a wash of pure, cold fear as she looked into the eyes of the man standing beside her.

  Chapter 15

  "Wherein a hero grows desperate, and our heroine takes matters into her own hands."

  For a moment Céleste just stared, too astonished to be quite as frightened as perhaps she should be, though that didn't last long. She yanked her arm free but then realised the futility of that idea as four more men appeared, with looks on their faces that she knew boded ill.

  Before she could speak or make any further protestation she was struck with such force that her ears rang and her legs gave out, and she knew nothing further as blessed darkness swallowed her up.

  ***

  "Céleste!" Alex's voice rang through the growing dark and he heard her name repeated as Lawrence and his men took up the cry. When Henri had come back to say there was no sign of her he had set out to look himself, with Lawrence and the men who guarded their property. That had been two hours ago. Her name echoed around the fields of Longueville and he thought he had never felt such a sick and desperate fear as the terror that gripped him now.

  He should have followed her, should never have let her out of his sight. What if she had fallen? What if someone had hurt her? She should never have been allowed to walk off by herself. They had been on the estate though and not so very far from the house and he had thought she would just walk off her temper and return when she was calmer. It had never occurred to him ... If anything had happened to her ... He couldn't get past the thought.

  Surely if someone had been close to the property one of the men would have seen. Longueville was well-guarded, both Lawrence and he had enemies enough to take security very seriously indeed, but if she had strayed far from the Château... His heart contracted. Please God, please let her be safe.

  He had walked to the farthest edges of the Longueville estate on the north side and held the lamp aloft and scanning the horizon but the rain and the wind smacked against him, blinding him momentarily. He was forced to look down, and saw the faintest glimmer of gold in the mud. Hardly daring to breathe he bent and picked Céleste's locket out of the mud, the fine chain quite clearly broken in two. Oh dear God no. He held the lamp and looked around, finding the ground churned up and covered in men's footprints. He turned carefully, not wanting to disturb the trail and found the place where Céleste's tracks stopped. With terror and fury holding his heart in their grasp he followed the footprints to the road where there had clearly been a carriage waiting.

  "Lawrence!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Lawrence, bring the horses now!"

  ***

  Céleste woke to a familiar jolting motion. Her head was pounding and she could taste blood in her mouth and something was very, very wrong. She opened her eyes and immediately scrambled away, lunging for the carriage door but the man opposite her struck out with his foot and pushed her back into her seat. She stared back at him in terror, suddenly focused on the pistol in his hand.

  "I would not do that, ma chérie, for then I will have to shoot you and I really would prefer not to make such a mess in the carriage."

  Céleste st
illed and looked at her abductor. The neat and precise air about him, from his shiny Hessians to the impeccable blue silk waistcoat and the crisp, white cravat. Everything perfect, not a hair out of place, those too soft, too neat, manicured, long-fingered hands, one holding the pistol with such a casual manner, and those cold, cold, reptilian eyes. Céleste's heart was pounding and her own hands trembling so badly she could not keep them still, but she knew what this man wanted, and she doubted he would kill her yet. He hadn't yet got what he wanted, and he'd come a very long way to get it.

  He looked her over with approval and moved forward across the carriage. Using the end of the pistol, he tilted her head, this way and that. "Such beauty, and such a pity I had to hit you. I hope you don't make me do it again. I would so hate to see that pretty skin covered in bruises." The barrel of the gun trailed down her neck and back up again, the cold metal barely touching her skin but making her flinch in terror. "I have thought so much about this, Céleste. You see I was very, very, angry to find you gone. I'm afraid I rather took it out on Madame Maxime." He gave her a nasty smile and revulsion shuddered through her. "You should thank me for that; she never was very nice to you was she? Still, the girls can always find another Madame I suppose."

  Céleste sucked in a breath, her eyes growing wide. He'd killed Maxime. It was true that Maxime hadn't been kind to her, but she hadn't deserved that. Céleste was suddenly gripped by a pure, cold rage, that this bastard thought he could just do as he wanted with her, with any woman, because he had money and a gun to hide behind. The words were out before she could properly think them through.

  "I am flattered, Monsieur Pelletier, that you would go to such trouble to come and find me," she replied, keeping her tone as cut glass and haughty as her mother had taught her to when speaking to someone of an inferior class. "But I am afraid you have had a wasted journey. For what you sought to take from me is no longer available."

  Pelletier frowned at her and she laughed in his face.

  "I am mistress to the Earl of Falmouth, you fool, no longer the sweet little virgin you had hoped to take for yourself. So you see you cannot have what you thought to steal for I have already given it away, willingly and freely and to a man I love."

  His hand struck out with such speed and force that she didn't have time to make a sound, but just sat in stunned silence with her cheek burning.

  "You stupid little bitch," he hissed, his face screwed up with fury. He stared at her as though she'd somehow transformed before his eyes. "Well you're right, you are of no value to me now." He looked at her with more disgust than desire now. "More's the pity for you," he added with a sneer. "I would have made things easy for you, but as it is I won't have wasted my time. I'll still take you with me, until such time as I grow bored of you. Then perhaps I will give you to my men and you can amuse them for a while. Maybe if you survive that you can return to your earl, and we'll see if he still wants you then, shall we?"

  Céleste swallowed but said nothing. Her mind was reeling and she fought back the blind terror that threatened to overwhelm her. There had to be a way to get free of him. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had to fight off someone bigger and stronger, at the brothel she was used to fending off men who thought she was one of the attractions. One had been particularly insistent and had cornered her alone. But that man hadn't had the cruel glint in his eyes that she could see now, he had simply been drunk, and thankfully slow because of it. Pelletier was neither of those things, and he wasn't alone.

  She thought of Alex and how he would feel when he discovered her gone. Would he believe her ungrateful enough to run away? She realised he might even believe she had run back to Roscoff after everything she'd said. Would he follow her? Or would he decide life was easier without her? No, she wouldn't believe that. He was fond of her at least, like ... like a niece, that much was obvious, or at least it had been.

  . No, Alex would follow her but he wouldn't know to look for Pelletier, seeing him there had been such a shock. She'd no idea he had become so obsessed with her. Yes he was often there, watching, but she had never imagined that he would go so far as to search for her, and she doubted it would occur to Alex. She was on her own, and she had to save herself. She sat back and vowed to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open, until such a time as she could get free. She would pretend to be docile and to do as Pelletier asked, maybe then she would find a way to escape him.

  "Whatever you are thinking, Mademoiselle, please do not bother. We are going somewhere no one will find you and you cannot escape me."

  She nodded and didn't try to stop the tears that fell. Perhaps if there was anything in this bastard that could be moved she could at least make him go a little easier on her.

  "I understand, Monsieur. I underestimated you. I will do as you please, only ... do not hit me again."

  Pelletier laughed, sounding genuinely amused, and he nodded. "Oh yes, you will do as I please and perhaps if you are very good, I will not hit you. But I make no promises, Céleste. You have caused me a deal of trouble and expense and I intend to get compensation in whatever way I desire."

  ***

  "Damnation!" Alex wheeled his horse at the cross roads and they looked again at the ground but there were too many tracks here to be certain which one they had been following. "We'll have to split up," he said, wondering how in God's name his voice sounded so calm when he felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest. "Rob, take four men and follow the right fork. Lawrence, Pierre, and the rest of you come with me."

  They split up and the horses thundered into the night. Alex prayed that their luck would hold as it was a wonder the horses had kept their footing as the going was treacherous with the ground churning beneath them. The rain continued to hammer down, freezing and stinging as the speed they rode at forced it harder into their eyes and faces. They rode as fast as they dared until another cross roads came into sight. As they looked around in despair, the tracks had disappeared. Alex cursed in fury and frustration and dismounted, searching the roads for any sign that they had overlooked but there were no tracks of a carriage having come this way recently.

  "We must have overshot," Lawrence shouted over the noise of the wind and the rain. "There were certainly tracks at the beginning of this road and a carriage can't disappear into thin air."

  "Look!" Alex said, hope leaping to life as a tiny glimmer of light flickered briefly in the darkness across the fields. "Did you see that?"

  Lawrence shook his head but continued to scan where his brother had indicated. Alex mounted once again and they looked together until Lawrence whispered.

  "There! I see it."

  It glittered for a moment and disappeared again, like someone holding up a lantern and walking in the dark. Alex didn't wait for Lawrence to follow but urged his horse back down the road, searching for a pathway off the main stretch that they had missed. About half a mile back he found what he was looking for and the carriage tracks heading down the path. He went to turn his horse but Lawrence, riding beside him, reached over and grabbed the reins.

  "Wait! Alex, we can't go down there without knowing what we are getting into."

  "But Céleste is down there!" he hissed, the need to find her and bring her to safety so fierce it obliterated any other concern. Dear God when he remembered all the terrible things he'd said to her ...

  "And if she is she will likely be guarded," Lawrence returned. "Think, man! I know you need her back but we have to do this right. If they hear us coming they'll barricade themselves in the house and pick us off one by one. We'll hide the horses here, approach on foot. You go around the back and we'll spread out around each side so that no one escapes. Agreed?"

  "Very well," Alex, growled, knowing Lawrence was right, but he couldn't wait to get his hands on whoever was responsible for this. Whoever it was would find themselves very, very sorry for this night's work. "Then for God's sake, let's get on with it."

  ***

  Céleste looked around the soulless room with her ho
pes disappearing all too rapidly. The windows had shutters closed over them which had clearly been nailed shut. Apparently, from what she had been able to gather, this was just a stop for the night. He had intended to return to Roscoff with her, but her little revelation had now scuppered that plan. He didn't want to keep her now she was soiled goods. What that meant, knowing what had happened to Maxime, made her heart beat so fast she felt light-headed with fear.

  The room itself was sparse. There was a neatly made bed with pristine white covers and a single wooden chair. The room was clearly designed to serve one purpose, one that she could not think of too closely for her courage would fail her and she would succumb to hysterics. If she let herself panic she would be lost, and she had no intention of being lost. She had not survived this long, alone, in a dangerous world to let a vile creature like Pelletier win.

  Yet the windows were inescapable and she could hear a guard outside the door, a big lumbering, stupid-looking fellow who made the floorboards creak in protest every time he moved. Well stupid could be used against him, she thought. Pelletier had disappeared for the moment but she had no doubt that he would be back very soon. This was likely her only chance. Taking a deep breath she moved to the door and tapped on it with quiet hope.

  "Monsieur," she whispered. "Oh, Monsieur, please may I speak with you for a moment?"

  There was a huff of annoyance and a rough voice replied. "Que veux-tu, chienne."

  She gritted her teeth against the insulting manner he spoke to her and replied as sweetly as she could. "I wonder if I could speak with you, please? But do open the door, I can't do it without seeing your face."

  "Do what?" he demanded.

  She gave a heavy sigh. "Well, I can't say, it's ... it's embarrassing."

  There was silence and she hoped that the fool's curiosity would get the better of him.

  She heard the key turn in the lock and the door swung open. She almost flinched as she looked him over. He was huge and coarse, with a large belly that protruded over a well-worn leather belt. He turned and locked the door again behind him, keeping the key in his meaty fist.