She gathered up the hem of her skirt and scooted past the door to the foyer, being careful to be as quiet as she could so no one would hear her from within the dining room.
In a short time, Gareth would join her downstairs and together they could face her family. With him by her side, she was certain she would find the strength to make Ethan and Miranda understand her position. Until then, she wanted to step outside and enjoy the fresh morning air. If nothing else, she hoped to prepare herself for what would surely be the final battle to come. Outside there was a warmth to the morning that made Beatrice smile as she shut the door and moved down the drive to the grassy hil s of the estate. In a few weeks, this would be her permanent home. That gave her a thril , for it was a place where her mother couldn’t control her and her sisters wouldn’t judge her. She sighed with contentment. Being here, knowing she would soon wed, was more than she had dared to hope for when she began this bargain with Gareth. Except those things were not the only ones that made her smile. In truth, the time she had spent with him had made her forget the mercenary reasons she had come here with him and surrendered herself. There was a story her father had read to her as a girl. A tale of a beauty asleep in a tower who could only be awakened by true love. At the time he read it to her, Beatrice had thought it rather sil y that the girl would need a prince to wake her. But now…
Now she understood that fanciful tale al the better. Before Gareth she had been asleep. It had only been half a life for her in London, a sleep existence where she only functioned, but did not thrive. She had been waiting until Gareth had chal enged her to want more, to accept more, to surrender al she had and more. Like the beauty in the story, he had awakened her, although it was with a bit more than a mere chaste kiss.
She frowned as she crested a low hil and looked out over the estate grounds. The story had said love could awaken the girl. But she and Gareth didn’t have that. Passion, yes. An understanding, most definitely. But love?
For the first time in her life, Beatrice wondered if she would miss such a feeling. Would she come to long for it over time?
No. That was sil y. She had never been bold or foolish enough to love any man. It would be unfair to demand it of Gareth now. They could have a good life together without such sentimental nonsense.
She began to turn back, hoping Gareth had already joined Miranda and Ethan for breakfast while she took her walk. Together they would face them and together they would convince them to accept the fact that they would be married. If they couldn’t…wel , the decision had been made, no matter what her family said. But as she turned, her thoughts on the future, she suddenly felt a powerful pressure at her throat. A big, muscular arm latched around her, holding her against the hard, immoveable chest of a person she couldn’t see.
“No!” she cried, but was cut off when a hand clamped a piece of cloth over her mouth. It smel ed sickly sweet as it covered her nose and fil ed her throat with cloying scent. She struggled for a moment, but then her body turned heavy. Her eyes began to droop. She fought the feeling, but it was too powerful to deny. And there was only darkness.
When Gareth entered the dining room to find only Ethan and Miranda Hamon awaiting him, he groaned inwardly. Although he and Beatrice had ful y resolved their future last night and no amount of argument from her family would change their present course, he stil did not look forward to the confrontation about to come.
“Good morning, my lord, my lady,” he said with a tight smile.
Miranda returned the expression warily. “Good morning, Lord Highcroft.”
Ethan hardly looked up from his tea except to glare at Gareth briefly. “Highcroft.”
“I trust your rooms were comfortable,” Gareth asked as he poured himself a cup of the steaming liquid.
“And your view satisfactory.”
Miranda nodded. “Yes. Your estate is very beautiful.”
Gareth inclined his head as thanks. He had purposeful y put the two in a room overlooking the finest part of his estate. He wanted them to see, however they could, that Beatrice would be comfortable here.
“Perhaps later we could al take a strol down to the lake together,” he suggested. “I’m certain my housekeeper could arrange for a luncheon for our party.”
Ethan speared him with a superior glare. “I don’t think Beatrice likes a picnic,” he murmured. “She has never been fond of the outdoors.”
Gareth arched a brow. A few days before, Beatrice had been quite enthusiastic about the outdoors. Just the thought made him smile.
“Perhaps she has simply never found the right outdoor activity to tempt her,” he said softly. When the two looked at him incredulously, he shrugged. “You two may not know Beatrice as wel as you believe you do.”
Miranda folded her arms, and in her eyes Gareth saw a spark rather like the one Beatrice possessed. No matter how loudly each would deny it, the sisters were more alike than they admitted.
“And you do, sir?” Lady Rothschild asked. “Simply because you have compromised her?”
Gareth wrinkled his brow.
“Since you bring up the indelicate subject, my lady, I am happy to reply. What is between us is much more than the mere physical. Your sister and I have formed a deeper bond than just that.”
As he said it, Gareth realized just how true it was.
“Beatrice puts on a face to the world,” he mused, almost more to himself than to the couple before him.
“Yes, it is sometimes bitter and off-putting, but when one takes the time to look past that, one can see her reasons for being so protective of herself. In my time with her, I have found her to be quite intel igent, which interests me. And when she is treated properly, she is capable of much vulnerability and trust.”
Miranda was staring at him now, almost as if he had said her sister had taken over a smal country. She shook her head. “It is hard for me to picture that what you say is true.”
“Because Beatrice has kept herself from you for so long,” Gareth said with an arch of his brow. “But that doesn’t mean that the feelings and thoughts you didn’t see weren’t present, my lady.”
Miranda pursed her lips, but made no vocal argument.
Gareth continued, “I realize you have grave doubts about me, but if you acknowledge nothing else, at least admit that your sister has some sense. After so long searching for a husband, she would not pick unwisely.”
“But it is the fact that she has waited so long that troubles us,” Ethan Hamon interrupted. “You cannot deny that she has long kept herself at arm’s length from any man who was interested. Why would she suddenly run to you?”
Gareth leaned back and eyed Lord and Lady Rothschild evenly. “You took her sister to the country, did you not? To match her? Leaving Beatrice alone with a mother who has done almost everything in her power to ruin her daughters’ chances at marrying wel .”
When Miranda flinched, Gareth knew she was thinking of whatever she, herself, had endured at the hands of their troubled mother.
“I tried to explain—” she began.
“Why would your explanations mean anything to her?
” Gareth interrupted. “In that emotional moment, al she could see was that she was being thrown aside, abandoned to old maidenhood and a life as your mother’s companion. If that drove your sister to make a desperate bargain, it is only understandable.”
“So you admit she was desperate when she turned to you,” Rothschild said, rising to his feet in what could only be interpreted as a threatening stance.
Gareth didn’t back down. “Initial y, yes. But I would have been a fool not to consider her offer. Neither of us had much to ingratiate ourselves to the ton, so our prospects of making a marriage were slim at best. W hy not see if we could have a reasonable match together? Beatrice came here to test our connection, but as soon as she arrived, her desperation began to fade. We have forged a bond, something that is likely stronger than most arranged marriages. And I think you can see that she would be taken care of here.
”
“But your past…” Miranda whispered, her voice breaking with worry.
Gareth flinched. It seemed he would never overcome the rumors about Laurel’s death. And for the first time he cared about what he would lose if he continued to be viewed as a murderer.
“Why don’t we ask Beatrice about that?” he suggested. “Where is she?”
Miranda wrinkled her brow. “I wouldn’t know, my lord. We have yet to see her this morning. I assume she is stil abed or perhaps readying herself for the day.”
Gareth stepped forward. “No. She is not. She came down before I did.”
The moment he said it, Ethan Hamon’s face darkened and Gareth swal owed back a curse. He had revealed too much, leaving little doubt that he and Beatrice had spent the night together, but for the moment he didn’t care. He was only concerned about Beatrice.
“We should find her.”
Miranda shook her head at his shift of mood. “You seem worried. Could she not have simply returned to her chamber or been otherwise waylaid?”
Gareth nodded. “I suppose, but I would feel better if I knew her whereabouts for certain.”
As he left the room, Ethan Hamon fol owed. “What is going on here, Highcroft? Either you wish to utterly control my sister-in-law or you have reason to fear for her safety. Neither is comforting to me. So which one is it?”
Gareth ignored his guest as he motioned for a servant who was standing at the end of the hal way.
“You there, did you see Miss Albright this morning?”
he asked.
The young woman turned toward him with a shake of her head. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t. But I believe the footman Bradley was out and about this morning doing a few errands.”
“Fetch him,” Gareth ordered, his tone sharp.
“Immediately.”
The girl scurried away and within a few moments, she returned with one of the younger footmen at her heels. “What is it, sir?”
“Did you see Miss Albright while you were carrying on your duties this morning?” Gareth asked.
After a moment of consideration, the footman nodded. “Yes, sir. I was outside drawing some water when I saw the young lady come out the front door. She took a walk down the path, but after that I didn’t see her.”
Gareth froze. He had told Beatrice not to wander the estate grounds alone, not after the attack from his late wife’s brother.
“You didn’t see her return?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“You two go back and determine if anyone else saw her come back to the house, and do it quickly,” Gareth snapped. “I’l go and search the grounds myself.”
Both servants looked at him with clear concern, but didn’t argue as they fled to question the others in the house. Once they were gone, Gareth grabbed for the door, but before he could, Ethan Hamon caught his wrist.
“Enough. Tel me what is going on. Why are you so worried about Beatrice?”
“Fol ow me,” Gareth said as he shook off the other man’s hand. “I’l explain everything while we look for her.”
With that, he was out the door with Miranda and Ethan close behind. He scanned the estate grounds from the doorway then began down the path that led to the rol ing hil s and trees in the distance.
While they hurried, Gareth explained what had happened just a few days before, when Beatrice had been attacked by the brother of his late wife. And the threats the other man had made against her life.
“What the hel is wrong with you?” Ethan Hamon said as he grabbed for Gareth’s arm and hauled him around to face him. “You should have told us this immediately upon our arrival! If my wife’s sister was being threatened, I had a right to know. To protect her from that other person, from you and what your past has wrought!”
Gareth pul ed himself free. There was no sign of Beatrice anywhere and the longer she was gone without word, the more afraid he grew for her. So Rothschild’s accusations stung al the greater.
“I didn’t fucking kil my wife,” he burst out. Then he stopped. Until he had confessed that to Beatrice, he hadn’t told anyone else. His silence was atonement, punishment.
But now he wanted Miranda and Ethan to know the truth. To hear it from his own lips. He wanted a chance at a life again…with Beatrice.
“It doesn’t bloody wel matter, does it?” Ethan snapped. “Someone believes you did, and they might be wil ing to hurt Beatrice in some twisted quest for revenge.”
“Stop it, stop it, both of you!”
Both men turned to find Miranda standing a few feet away from them. Her eyes were wide and wild, rimmed with tears. And in her trembling fingers she held a slipper.
“This is my sister’s,” she whispered and one of her tears glided down her cheek. “I recognize it, for we had a row over her expensive taste when she brought these slippers home.”
Gareth snatched the shoe from Miranda’s grasp, staring at the delicate brocading and expensive stitching. There was no way Beatrice would play Cinderel a games with him. Someone had taken her and with enough force that she had lost her shoe in the process.
He turned toward Ethan. “Please, please help me,”
he whispered, and scarcely recognized his own trembling voice. “Please help me find her.”
Ethan nodded. “Do you know where she might be?”
“We should speak to my former brother-in-law,” he said softly. “He was once a reasonable man, if he has her perhaps we can negotiate her return.”
Ethan pul ed his wife into his embrace and briefly held her as he whispered, “Go back to the house, Miranda.”
She pul ed away. “No! I want to—”
“Please,” he said sharply. “You need to be there in case she makes her own way home. And to cal for the magistrate. Please do this for me, and for her.”
A world of communication moved between husband and wife, and Gareth turned away from it. He and Beatrice shared the same silent understanding. The difference was that while Miranda and Ethan clearly knew the love the other felt for them, Gareth had never told Beatrice that he cared. That she was more than a sexual plaything.
That he would die if he lost her.
And as he and Ethan hurried toward the stables to get horses, Gareth prayed that he would be in time to tel Beatrice al that and more.
Chapter Sixteen
A s Beatrice came awake, it was through a strange fog. As if she were caught between darkness and reality, she fought troubled dreams to open her eyes. She had to open her eyes, though she wasn’t certain why such urgency accompanied that floating thought. After a while, the clouds in her mind cleared. She was welcomed back to the world by stomach-rol ing nausea, intensified by a sickly sweet taste that lingered in her mouth. The taste, coupled with the utter darkness in the strange room around her brought back, with terrifying clarity, the details of her abduction. She had hoped that it was al a dream, but now, lying at an odd angle on a hard floor, feeling the pounding in her head that had been brought on by whatever drug had rendered her unconscious, there was no denying what had happened.
She had been taken, though she had no sense of when it had happened. It could have been moments, it could have been days.
As she came to al those realizations, her eyes began to adjust to the room around her and she realized it wasn’t entirely dark, as she had original y thought. There was a dim light in the corner, blocked by something so that it hardly pierced the haze. In the hopes she could see better, she moved, but was instantly rewarded by a sharp pain in her arms. They had been tied behind her back. Panic clawed at her, but Beatrice fought the weak emotion. There was no time for such foolishness now. Calm and calculated plans were her best…and perhaps her only hope. She shifted, trying to scoot herself into a seated position, both to better find her bearings and perhaps ultimately mount an escape. But as she began to slide, she heard a low chuckle from across the room. She froze. It seemed she wasn’t alone after al . Her captor was present.
“Hel o?” she ca
l ed out, trying to keep her fear from her voice. “Who’s there?”
There was no response and she barely held back a frustrated moan. Her intuition told her that this was no accidental taking—not a robbery for money or ransom. No, whoever had taken her was playing a game, enjoying the knowledge that she was at his mercy, toying with her.
She rol ed onto her stomach and turned her face. The floor was dirty, she felt dust and rough wooden planks against her cheek. How she wished she was at home. With Gareth. Why hadn’t she simply faced her sister and Ethan?
She drew in a deep breath. No. She wouldn’t think of that now. Her energy had to be spent on getting out, and first she had to know who had taken her. There was only one person she could think of: the same man who had attacked her a few days before.
If he was so bold as to approach her on Gareth’s estate, it stood to reason that he might return again looking for her. He had, after al , spoke of revenge. She shivered as she thought of the anger in that other man’s eyes…the mad despair. He was Gareth’s former
brother-in-law… Adam,
she
remembered
Gareth had cal ed him. In his grief over his sister’s death, it seemed he had lost his sense. But that didn’t mean he didn’t stil have decency. And if she appealed to that, perhaps she could talk her way free.
“Adam?” she cal ed through the darkness. When her voice trembled, she swal owed against the dryness and spoke again, “Adam, you don’t want to hurt me.”
“Adam? That fool doesn’t have the stomach, no matter how much damning evidence he is given,”
came the voice from the corner in return. It was laced with annoyance.
Beatrice’s heart leapt with pure fear at the realization that she didn’t know who had taken her after al . Although the voice seemed familiar, she couldn’t place it and she certainly couldn’t think of anyone besides Adam who knew she was with Gareth, let alone would take her.
“Who are you?” she asked, turning to anger to mask her fear. “How dare you!”
There was a long silence and then a screech of a chair being dragged across wood. She winced and when she opened her eyes the light in the room was suddenly bright. She craned her neck to see and was shocked when a man suddenly loomed over her.
Nothing Denied Page 17
