Her Captive

by Connie Brockway

  HER CAPTIVE

  Connie Brockway

  ONCE UPON A PILLOW: HER CAPTIVE

  by CONNIE BROCKWAY

  Copyright 2013 © Connie Brockway

  All right reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Connie Brockway.

  PRAISE FOR ONCE UPON A PILLOW

  “Dodd and Brockway's creative collaboration yields four delightfully humorous and delectably sexy romances that exemplify their witty writing and talent for creating compelling characters.” Booklist

  “Witty, sensual, delightful and pure fun, ONCE UPON A PILLOW is a perfect anthology that allows both Ms. Brockway and Ms. Dodd to showcase their talents for storytelling. Each tale is unique, lovingly crafted and peopled with such likable characters that I wished for more of their stories and so will you. This is a shining example of what a team of talented authors can do with an idea—and what an idea it is!” RT Book Reviews

  ONCE UPON A PILLOW

  ...a four novella tale by two of historical romances brightest stars, Connie Brockway and Christina Dodd. Set during four of England’s most enthralling eras, these exciting and romantic stories follow the history of the magnificent Masterson bed and of the passionate couples who shared it...

  FIRST KNIGHT: In medieval England, A battle weary knight returns from the crusades searching for peace and finding instead the feisty—and blood thirsty—wife-by-proxy he’d forgotten he even had.

  KIDNAPPED: A poverty-stricken lord concocts the perfect plan to win a fortune by abducting and marrying an heiress, but finds his own heart stolen when he snatches the wrong girl instead.

  HER CAPTIVE: During George’s III reign, a highwayman’s beautiful sister will do anything to protect her brother from the bold kingsman set on his trail, even if it means chaining the fierce and furious man to her bed.

  LAST NIGHT: The man in her house is a stranger to her, a danger to her ...and the one man she should never love.

  Prologue

  Masterson Manor, Present day

  “Hey! These marks look like they were made by handcuffs,” Brian said.

  The comment brought an immediate halt to all other conversations. Everyone in the room, including Max, turned their attention to the teenage boy. Including his mother, Mrs. Plante.

  Max Ashton edged closer to the bed, inspecting the marks Brian pointed to. A series of ring-like gouges scored the surface of the post on the left side of the headboard. The marks were deeper along the inner face of the post than they were on the outer, as if someone had tried to drag the thing with a chain.

  “Probably how they moved the beastie,” Max offered.

  Mrs. Stradling gave him a fond, if oddly pitying, smile. “I doubt it. It wouldn’t make any sense to try and drag something this size from one corner,” she said. “There are no corresponding marks on the posts at the foot.”

  “Oh.”

  “Someone was chained to the bed.” With the astute vulgarity of the very young, Brian immediately tumbled to the crudest interpretation.

  Mrs. Plante smiled proudly at her offspring while the other two Americans, Miss Ferguson and Mrs. Stradling, nodded. Laurel, in no hurry to have the day end, sat down on the edge of the bed and let them speculate.

  “Sounds a little far-fetched, if you ask me. Like something from one of those old pirate movies,” the young groom John said. “Things like that don’t happen in real life.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Stradling popped the Ray-Bans off from the top of her head and began polishing them on the hem of her shirt. “I mean, a bed this size would be perfect for keeping someone in his or her place.”

  “That’s true,” said Max Ashton. Apparently at some point he erroneously believed that he had been asked to join the group. “Are there marks on the post on the other side of the headboard?”

  Brian, finally having found something in the manor that interested him, scooted around to the other side. He peered closely at the post before returning with a disappointed, “Nope. No marks here. Blast.”

  Max smiled indulgently at the boy. He had, Laurel conceded, a very nice smile. “Don’t look so glum, mate. Maybe the owner of the bed tried to spare it by cushioning the chains and the ones on this side slipped out.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Could happen.”

  “Doubtful. I imagine it would be most uncomfortable being handcuffed between two posts,” Mrs. Plante, the most earnest of the lot, said in a troubled voice. “But from the position of the marks on this post I’d say it’s doable.”

  “Impossible,” Laurel disagreed. “Not with the marks being where they are.”

  “And why’s that?” Max asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  How had Max Ashton suddenly gained such prominence in this little group? Laurel wondered. Perhaps it was time she regained control—

  “Tell you what, Miss Whitney,” Max Ashton said. Her head shot up and she found herself looking into a pair of devilishly dancing eyes. “Be a sport and scoot to the middle of the bed. The folks here would like a demo.”

  He was mocking her. Daring her. She almost told him just where he could take his suggestion but then realized that her group—her last tour group—was watching her with innocent certainty that she’d be game and play along.

  Oh, she’d play, all right.

  “Of course, I would comply, Mr. Ashton, but don’t you think it a little, well, unkind to any surviving Masterson males, wherever they might be, to suggest that a lady was chained here? Look around.” She waved her hand at the portraits lining the wall. Although they were dimmed by hearth smoke and time and in need of cleaning, anyone could tell that the male faces looking down at them were from a handsome and well-made line. “Do you think a Masterson would need to chain a lady here?” She met Max’s eyes with a challenging lift of her brow.

  “Nuh-uh. No-way, no-how.” Mrs. Stradling’s sudden appreciative comment broke the tension.

  “Exactly,” Laurel said. “For the purposes of verisimilitude, I suggest we use a male volunteer. How ’bout you, Mr. Ashton? You look like someone who might have been chained up at some point in time.”

  “Only by error,” he said.

  “Whose? Your accusers’ for getting the wrong man or yours for not slipping away quickly enough?”

  “I’m not the sort that slips away. Not in this life or any other,” Max said with a touch of tenseness. Then, abruptly, he shook off his darkening mood and moved on all fours to the center of the bed where he turned around, sat down against the piles of pillows, and threw open his long, muscular arms.

  “At your service,” he said, his eyes glittering.

  “Right.” She hadn’t really thought he’d do it and now the tour group was waiting expectantly. Well, she’d prove she was just as sporting as him.

  Resolutely, she got on her hands and knees and moved the short distance to where he waited. Once there, she looked around, spied the satin bed pull, and with a flick of her wrist dislodged it from the hook that joined it to an interior system of cables leading to the servants’ hall. “Thank you for being such a trooper, Mr. Ashton.”

  She deftly secured the satin cord around the post and then looped it around his wrist. The action necessitated that she move closer to him. She half-expected him to ...
do something. She wasn’t sure what, but her muscles tensed as if she stood in imminent danger as she secured his wrist.

  In contrast, Max looked utterly relaxed. He caught her eye and smiled lazily. This hadn’t worked out as she’d expected. She was the one who felt nervy and embarrassed while Max Ashton looked like being tied to a bed was nothing new for him.

  Maybe it wasn’t.

  After she secured his other wrist to the unmarked post she scooted away from him. “Well, there, now you can see why the prisoner wasn’t chained like Mr. Ashton,” she mumbled. “If they had been, the gouges would be quite a bit lower on the post, unless the prisoner was actually standing on the pillows.”

  “Thank you. That makes it all very clear, indeed,” Mrs. Plante said, looking decidedly amused.

  “You know,” said Miss Ferguson, her nose inches away from the bedpost as she studied the wood, “there actually do seem to be two sets of marks on this post. The deep ones higher up and another set, faint but there, low. Whatever do you suppose that means?”

  Max pulled off his satin bonds and rolled to his feet. “More than one prisoner?”

  “A series of prisoners,” Brian breathed. Laurel could almost see the idea forming in his fertile, teenage boy imagination. “Maybe some bugger of a Masterson kept the local hotties chained up here as his sex slaves?”

  Bugger of a Masterson?

  “I doubt it.” Laurel regarded the young man with something less than warmth.

  “Why?” Brian demanded, unwilling to let go of his fantasy.

  “Trecombe is a very small, very tightly knit commu­nity. There are families here that trace their ancestry back to the Domesday Book. If some mad Masterson—and I am by no means disallowing the possibility of a dissolute, odious Masterson—stole a local girl, don’t you think there would have been some legend attached to the event?”

  Brian looked sullen. The American ladies looked deflated. Only Meghan, the new bride, perked up. “Not if she found she fancied being a sex slave. Could be the affair turned into a love match and ended in a nice chapel wedding. And you know what locals are in that case: All’s well that end’s well.”

  The Americans laughed. Meghan turned to Laurel for support. “It could happen, couldn’t it?”

  Laurel smiled. “I hate to pop anyone’s bubble, but actually we have an explanation for those marks, how they were made, and by whom and, again sorry to disappoint, but there was no love slavery involved.”

  “Come now, Brian,” she cajoled the crestfallen boy, “don’t look so woebegone. The real story is very dramatic, too. You see, as I mentioned earlier, the coast ’round here was once a prime spot for smugglers to put in with their contraband. Lots of caves and inlets.

  “Those marks were made by Ned Masterson, the captain in charge of cleaning up the town, so to speak. Legend has it that he chained the leader of the smugglers here, as the bed was the heaviest thing in the house, while he rode off and routed the rest of the band.”

  “You’re sure?” Brian obviously preferred the love-slave notion.

  “Fairly sure. It’s a local story but they most often have their basis in fact.”

  “Wasn’t a female smuggler by any chance?”

  “Not unless she was strong as an ox,” Max Ashton said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, kid,” Max said with a kindliness Laurel wouldn’t have suspected him capable of, “look at how deep the gouges are. Whoever had flung himself against the chain was either very strong or very, very angry and while I’ve met my share of irate women”—he ignored Laurel’s sotto voce “I bet”—“I’ve never met one that strong.”

  “You know what I’d like to know?” Mrs. Stradling suddenly asked. “I’d love to know what this Ned Masterson was like. I mean think of what he must have been like if he could overcome a man strong enough to move this bed...

  Chapter One

  Masterson Manor, 1815

  Stopping to gloat proved Philippa Jones’s undoing.

  If she had simply manacled Ned Masterson— Captain Ned Masterson—to his infamous bed and left, all would have gone according to plan. But no, Philippa Jones who, as everyone in Trecombe could attest, was as incapable of hiding her feelings as a rabid dog is incapable of snarling, would never pass up the opportunity to enjoy the downfall of her enemy and her onetime lover, the despicable, deceitful, and treacherously attractive Captain Ned Masterson.

  Especially since disaster had been so nearly averted. Indeed, only happenstance had led her to uncover Ned’s stratagem. She and her brother John, orphaned gentlefolk that they were, had been invited to the Masterson Manor weekend house party by Ned’s widowed Cousin Merry, an elderly gentlewoman recently arrived for a visit.

  Obviously accepting had been a mistake, because the affair between Ned and her had ended months ago and it had most definitely not been amicable. No one had bothered to mention this to Cousin Merry who’d sent them a handwritten invitation.

  John had, of course, thought it spectacularly amusing and had insisted that they go. She’d resisted, explaining to her reckless brother how stupid it would be to place himself under even closer scrutiny by their host. Especially when that host suspected him—and not without warrant, Philippa feared—of being a smuggler. And most especially when that host had recently been revealed to be an agent of the Crown, sent here specifically to purge the coast of smugglers.

  But John had affected not to understand her fears, countering with an appeal to her pride. If they accepted the invi­tation, all of Trecombe would see that she wasn’t pining after Ned Masterson. The idea that anyone thought she was languishing was, of course, laughable as well as intolerable.

  And so, here they were.

  It had been a disaster. She was too aware of Ned. Every instant of every interminable day she could have answered the question of where he was, to whom he was speaking, and what he was wearing. Worse, she felt his gaze tracking her just as closely. The proximity, the tension simmering between them, the accusation she could not yet make, had conspired to make her miserable for the entire weekend. She’d tried to hide it, to mask her unhappiness for the sake of pride, but every now and again she felt the overwhelming urge to escape the charade.

  She had done so that afternoon, leaving the card party to find a brief respite. On her way to the solarium, she’d been passing the library when two words had erupted from the other side of the closed door, spoken by a voice she’d have known anywhere.

  “John Jones!”

  She’d stopped. Yes, the door had been shut. True, she was a guest in this house. But that was her brother’s name being spat with such venom. She’d snuggled her ear up against the paneled door and held her breath.

  “…first light at the caves Jones marked on his map. And this time we’ll take the slippery bastard,” Ned’s lieutenant, a man named Bragg, was saying.

  “Finally,” Captain Masterson replied. “Wait for me in the old kirkyard. Unless I hear something that changes my plans, I’ll meet you there an hour before dawn.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  “You’re certain that the bastard will be there?” Captain Masterson’s voice, low, threatening.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Because I need an end to this, Bragg, before I do someone a very serious harm.”

  Amazingly, Bragg sounded like he laughed but then it turned into a choked sort of coughing sound. “Name of this person wouldn’t happen to be ‘Jones’ now would it?”

  “Damn your impudence. Get the hell out of here, Bragg, and remember what I said.”

  Eyes wide, Philippa backed off and hurried away. She hadn’t realized the extent of Masterson’s animosity. He kept his feelings masked most of the time. Oh, not that he didn’t swear and stomp around and all, but she would never have guessed he contained such anger.

  Needless to say, she hadn’t returned to the card party.

  She didn’t waste time pondering her course. She knew it. She always knew her course and it
always was one charted from the heart. Clearly, she had to save John from the law.

  Therefore, that afternoon she’d pinched the manacles and chain she’d noticed in the Masterson stables a few months ago when her visits had been regular and more convivial, before she’d accidentally intercepted a letter that revealed Lord Masterson also happened to be Captain Masterson, sent here with the express purpose of “ferreting out an iniquitous den of smugglers.” Within an hour of her discovery, she’d broken it off with Ned.

  When he’d come calling, she’d left him cooling his boot heels in her great aunt’s parlor while she’d fled out the back door and gone tearing along the cliff paths on her half-wild mount, trying to outdistance her anger and hurt. But that was months past. She was over him.

  She’d avoided conversation with her taciturn host that evening by passing the time flirting outrageously with brawny Hal Minton, a neighbor who appeared by her side often when she wanted most to avoid Ned. Then, after all the other guests had gone to bed, Philippa had snuck into Ned’s bedroom, the manacles and chain carefully muffled in a shawl.

  She’d held her breath when she saw the faint glow from his bedchamber, praying that he hadn’t stayed up reading all night before going on his predawn raid. He must have planned and worked toward tomorrow’s undertaking for over a year, the same year he’d spent manipulating her in order to get closer to his intended prey.

  Her heart stomped in her chest. Even for her, this was bold work. Only her fear for John compelled her. He was her only living relative except for dear, doddery Aunt Grace who acted as their guardian—at least, when she remembered to do so.

  And a frankly poor job she’d made of it, too, Philippa now thought with unaccustomed rancor, otherwise she wouldn’t have stood there, staring with a far too familiar eye at the broad and beautifully muscled expanse of Ned Masterson’s naked chest.