A Stolen Heart

by Candace Camp

  “I’m sure.” Thorpe controlled his voice with an effort.

  “Were only a tap, anyway.”

  “Where did you take her? Who is this madam?”

  Peggoddy grinned slyly. “Oh, no, I ain’t tellin’ you that.” The large man shook his head and took another quaff of ale. “She wouldn’t like it. Madam’s particular like that.”

  “I am particular, too,” Thorpe replied, sliding a gold coin across the table toward Peggoddy. He lifted his hand to reveal it, then laid his hand over it again. “Now tell me where you took her.”

  The man swallowed, staring greedily at Thorpe’s hand. Finally, with reluctance, he shook his head. “No. Madam’d ‘ave my ‘ead if I ratted on ‘er.”

  “You’re scared of her?” Thorpe’s voice dripped scorn.

  The man looked abashed, but he said only, “You don’t know madam. You cross ‘er, and yer dead with ‘er.”

  Thorpe leaned forward conversationally. “And you’re dead, period, if you don’t.”

  “Wot?” The man blinked at him.

  “You may notice that one of my hands is not on the table,” Thorpe went on coolly. “That is because I have a pistol in it.”

  “Wot!” The man glanced at the table as if he could see through it to Thorpe’s concealed hand.

  “Yes. And it is pointed at a rather vital part of your anatomy. Now, if you don’t tell me who this madam is and where her brothel is located, I shall fire, and you, my friend, will die a slow and painful death. I’ve seen men with their privates blown off, and it’s not a pleasant way to go.”

  Peggoddy paled, and he glanced from Thorpe to Murdock, who said, “I would do as he said.”

  “But…but you’re a toff! You can’t do that!”

  “Can’t I? I’m afraid you will find that I am not the sort of toff you know.” He leaned closer, his eyes boring into the other man’s. “The only reason you are alive right now is because I need you to tell me where you took Alexandra. If you don’t tell me, I’ll have no reason not to kill you, which, believe me, would bring me a great deal of pleasure.”

  “Th-then you’d never find out.” Sweat beaded on the large man’s forehead.

  “Oh, I think I would.” Thorpe offered him a wintry smile. “I’d find someone willing to tell me what madam you supplied girls for. It would just take a little longer—which is why I am willing to bargain your life for the information.” He paused. “So which is it? I need to get on with it, one way or another. I haven’t the time to waste.”

  Peggoddy licked his lips and cast a last desperate glance at Murdock, who stared at him stonily.

  “All right. All right. I’ll tell you.”

  “Better than that. You will show us.”

  “Wot?”

  “You didn’t imagine that I would leave you here to run away after you had given me a false address, did you? Not everyone is as witless as you are. You are coming with us, and Murdock here will watch over you while I get the girl out of madam’s house. If she is not there, I’ll use you for target practice, starting with your ankles and working up.”

  Peggoddy stared at him, his eyes huge. Sebastian rose, his coat pocket distorted by the obvious shape of a pistol. Peggoddy’s eyes flickered to Thorpe’s pocket. Then he swallowed hard and rose to his feet. Murdock linked arms with the big man and steered him around the table. Thorpe followed them out.

  Peggoddy directed them to a slightly better part of town, glancing nervously from time to time to the pistol Thorpe kept trained on him and then to Murdock, who sat beside Thorpe and had pulled a pistol from his waist and held it, too, on Peggoddy.

  “’Ere now,” he said finally, “You’re not goin’ to shoot me now, are you? I didn’t ‘urt ‘er none.”

  “Other than sell her to a brothel?” Thorpe asked in an icy voice. “Oh, and give her a little…tap, was it?”

  “It weren’t nothin’,” he protested. “I ‘ad to knock ‘er out, see.”

  “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut,” Murdock offered. “You’re digging your grave deeper every time you open it.”

  Peggoddy settled into an aggrieved silence. Thorpe studied him.

  Finally he said, “No, I shan’t shoot you—as long as you’re telling me the truth about where Alexandra is. If I get her back, you’ll live.”

  “There it is,” Peggoddy said in a hushed voice, looking out the window.

  Thorpe signaled to the coachman to stop. “Where?”

  “The buildin’ in the middle, the one with the green door. There’s an alleyway beside it, see, and you can go down it and go in the back door. Madam’s got stairs up the back, that’s where I go.”

  “What room is she in?”

  The man shook his big head. “I dunno that. Where I took ‘er’s not where she keeps ’em. Put her in a fancy room for the toffs, I imagine.”

  A light flared in Thorpe’s eyes, and the big man drew back a little. “I didn’t know she were nothin’ to you! ‘Ow was I supposed to know?”

  “I’m going in,” Sebastian said to Murdock, turning to his servant as he put his pistol into his pocket. “You stay here and make sure this one doesn’t get away. If he’s steered us wrong, I’m coming back to kill him bit by bit.”

  “Harrison could watch him, sir,” Murdock protested. “You might need my help.”

  “If I do, then I need you on the outside to rescue us, not in there with me and caught. Besides, while I’m gone, I want you to question him about the job he was hired to do. Find out who hired him and why.”

  Thorpe turned, cast one last icy glance at Peggoddy and stepped out of the carriage.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SEBASTIAN STRODE RAPIDLY ACROSS THE street to the alleyway. He paused at the end of the long, dark corridor and looked down it cautiously, aware that Peggoddy could easily have given him directions that would land him right in a nest of his henchmen. However, he could make out no variation, no shadow along the blank wall until the darker indentation of a doorway halfway down.

  Drawing his pistol out of his pocket and holding it at the ready, he made his way along the narrow pathway to the door. He was just about to ease the door open a crack when it opened, throwing a line of yellow light out, and he stepped back hastily. A girl came out, carrying a pail far too large for her, and poured out some water. She turned to go into the building, and Thorpe, who had pocketed his pistol, stepped up quickly behind her, grabbing her around the waist and immobilizing her arms. His other hand he clamped over her mouth to prevent a scream.

  “I won’t harm you if you’ll be quiet. I only want information,” he whispered. “Do you understand?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes wide with fright.

  “If you will give me the information, I’ll give you money—more than you earn here in a month, I wager. Are you interested?”

  Again the girl nodded, this time with less fear and more interest.

  “All right. I’m going to take my hand away. You have to promise not to scream—because if you do, I will have to hurt you.”

  At her firm nod, he released her mouth.

  “Cor!” the girl whispered. “You scared a girl to death, you did.”

  “Sorry.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Somehow I don’t think you’re one to scare easily. What’s your name?”

  “Janet, sir.” Even in her fright, she recognized the tone of class and authority, and she responded to it.

  “All right, Janet, I’m going to let you go, and we’ll talk.”

  “Yes, sir.” He released her, and she turned to look at him. “Were you lyin’ about the ready?”

  “No, indeed.” He fished out a gold coin and held it between his fingers. Janet’s eyes widened.

  “Wot you want to know?”

  “The whereabouts of a young lady. She was brought here by a man named Peggoddy in the last day or so. Beautiful.”

  “Black ‘air?” the girl asked. “Funny talkin’?”

  Relief flooded Sebastian. He had been worried
that perhaps they had taken a wrong turn with Peggoddy, and that he was not speaking of Alexandra. “Yes. She is an American.”

  “Aye, I seen ‘er. Peggoddy brought ‘er in t’other day. Stubborn sort.”

  Sebastian couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “That would be her.”

  “She’s ‘ere. Madam’s ‘olding ‘er till tonight. She’s got three lords wantin’ to bid on ‘er.”

  Ice settled in the pit of his stomach. “Tonight? When?”

  “In a ‘alf hour or so. She’s in there, gettin’ ‘er ready. I was just carryin’ down the water from ‘er bath.”

  “Can you take me to her?”

  “You goin’ to steal ‘er?” Janet asked, eyes great with curiosity.

  Sebastian nodded. “She was stolen from me. Will you show me where she is?”

  “It’ll be worth me ‘ide if old Mags finds out.”

  “The madam?” He tossed the girl the coin, and she caught it deftly. He plucked another from his pocket. “Perhaps you won’t have to stay here with the madam. Take me to her, and I’ll give you this coin, as well. You can go elsewhere and get a new job.”

  Janet looked intrigued. Suddenly she grinned, exposing crooked teeth. “Aw right, I will. Wait ‘ere a sec.”

  She went into the house with the pail. Thorpe was about to decide he had made a terrible mistake by already giving her the coin when she popped her head out. “Aw right, come on.”

  She disappeared, and Sebastian stepped in after her. They were standing in a small entry. The door beside them led into the kitchen area, where several servants were at work. In front of them was a narrow corridor, lit by a few sputtering lamps.

  “Old Mags don’t believe in wastin’ light on the likes of us servants,” Janet whispered to him, then started down the hall, waving to him to follow her.

  Sebastian did so quietly, tiptoeing up the stairs after her. The girl gestured to him to wait at the top. She stuck her head out and surveyed the area, then signalled to him. She moved noiselessly down a more elegantly decorated hall to a doorway, turned the knob and went inside. Sebastian was right on her heels. He was expecting to find Alexandra in the room, and he was disappointed to find that it was very narrow and small, more like a hall than a room, unfurnished, and containing no one but himself and Janet.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Shh.” Janet lifted her finger to her lips and pointed to the wall in front of them. “They may still be with her,” she whispered.

  She took him by the arm and led him to the center of the wall, once again gesturing with her fingers to be quiet. A small knob stuck out from the wall, and she slid it to the side. Two eyeholes appeared, and Janet motioned to them. He bent and looked into the holes.

  He almost gasped when he saw that they were only three or four feet from a bed. A man, a woman and a bizarre old harridan stood beside the bed, studying the young woman who was on it. The woman on the bed was dressed all in white, sitting up with her legs curled under her. Her head was turned away from him and toward the other people, so that all he could see was the cloud of thick black curling hair that tumbled around her shoulders. The sight of it hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. Alexandra!

  Janet closed the eyeholes and whispered. “Soon as that lot leaves, you can go in through the hall door.” She pointed to the hall from which they had come. “Don’t let ’em catch you. I gotta go now.”

  “Thank you.” Sebastian pressed the other coin into her palm.

  The girl smiled, and her plain face was almost pretty. “She’s lucky to ‘ave you, she is.”

  “I’m not sure she would agree, but thank you.”

  Janet opened the door and peeked out, then exited quietly, closing the door behind her. Sebastian went to the peephole and opened it.

  The woman pushed a lock of hair from Alexandra’s face and tugged her dress so that it exposed the creamy curve of her shoulder. The harridan nodded.

  “That should do it. A right picture you make, girlie.” She let out a gleeful cackle. “When those gentlemen see you, I’ll have ’em bidding high as the moon.”

  The woman on the bed moved restlessly and ran a hand down her chest and over her breast in a seductive gesture. Sebastian was aware of the sudden fluttering of desire deep in his loins. He was looking at her from the side, but he could see the curve of her breast through the thin material and the pointing of her nipple.

  “I feel…funny,” the woman said. Sebastian recognized the voice as Alexandra’s, but it sounded odd, almost slurred.

  “No, you don’t, girl,” the harridan said crisply. “No satisfaction till later. Ned, tie up her hands so she can’t touch herself. We want you good and ready by the time the gentlemen come.”

  The man pulled Alexandra’s hands behind her back, tying her to the bedpost by her upper arms, which pulled her into an awkward position, her breasts thrusting out sharply.

  “A right picture,” the woman in charge repeated, and the three of them left.

  Sebastian went swiftly to the door, leaning against it to listen for the sound of their footsteps. When he could no longer hear anything, he eased the door open a crack and checked the hallway. No one was about, so he slipped out and hurried to the next door. He turned the knob, for a moment afraid that it might be locked. But it opened easily to his hand, and he slid inside.

  He turned to the bed. “Alexandra!”

  It was indeed her. Her vivid black hair tumbled around her face and onto her shoulders like a silken cloud. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes huge and dark in her pale face. She looked beautiful…and utterly seductive. They had dressed her in a simple white dress of the cut and style worn by any well-to-do young woman, a maiden’s dress, quite demure—except for the fact that it was made of the sheerest material, revealing the curves of her breasts, the well of her navel, even the shadow of hair between her legs. The pink-brown circles of her nipples were pressed against it, their centers pointing. Her dress was shoved to her knees, leaving her stockinged legs bare below it. One stocking had been artfully shoved down, exposing her knee and leaving her looking as if she were in the middle of undressing.

  Desire flared in Sebastian, unbidden and as hot as fire, making him feel guilty and ashamed for feeling it even as it weakened his knees. He swallowed, his hands tightening into fists.

  Alexandra looked at him for a long moment, blinking. Then a slow smile curved her lips, and her eyes shone. “Thorpe! Thank God.”

  He crossed the room to her, firmly pushing down his desire. “Are you all right?”

  He started to work on the scarf the man had used to bind her to the bedpost. Alexandra shook her head, and her hair brushed against his knuckles, sending tendrils of heat sizzling through him.

  “I feel…strange,” she whispered, her voice husky and soft. “All hot and tingly.”

  “You’ve probably caught cold in that dress,” Sebastian commented dryly. “There. Now you can stand up.”

  He tossed the scarf to the floor and put his hands on her arms, pulling her out of the bed. Her feet touched the floor, and she buckled against him. His arms went around her to hold her up.

  “I’m all wobbly,” Alexandra said with a little laugh, wrapping her arms around him.

  Her breasts pressed into his chest, and her warm breath drifted over his skin at the open top of his shirt, sending a rush of heat slamming straight into his loins.

  “Mm,” Alexandra murmured and twisted a little against him.

  He drew a sharp breath. “Bloody hell, Alexandra! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured with a throaty laugh. “But doesn’t it feel good?”

  She leaned back and looked at him. She was smiling, her lips moist and inviting, curving upward seductively. Her eyes were huge and velvety, the color of night. She was softer than he had ever seen her, and—and there was something definitely wrong. For a moment he wasn’t sure what it was, just a feeling, perhaps, but then he began to see the signs. T
here was a slackness to her face, particularly her mouth, a hazy, almost somnolent look to her eyes, and she swayed a little as she stood. The dark velvetiness of her eyes came from the fact that her pupils were huge, as if she were in Stygian darkness, not a lamp-lit room.

  “My God!” he breathed in horror. “They’ve done something to you! They’ve drugged you!”

  She nodded in that same slow, overly firm way she had before and said in a small voice, “I know. I’ve been sleeping and sleeping. But not so much now. The last few hours I’ve been awake. I just feel so…so languid.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Thorpe. I’m useless; I can hardly stand. And my brain isn’t working very well.”

  He set his mouth grimly. “Don’t worry. I can carry you if I have to.”

  “Mother!” She grasped the front of his shirt. “I forgot—is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. Don’t worry about her. The main thing is to get you out of here. I’ll take you home and pour some coffee down you. That ought to help.”

  “I hope so. I feel so odd.” She shivered and began to run her hands up and down her arms. “Hot one minute and cold the next. They gave me something else about—” She frowned. “I don’t know, a while ago. But it didn’t make me feel sleepy. It’s what makes me feel so odd, not numb, but tingly and—and itchy.”

  A blush flooded her face, and she turned away, putting her hands up to her cheeks to cool them. She felt as if she were on fire. For the past while, a strange urgency had been growing in her, making her hot and stirring up all sorts of odd, vibrant sensations. The itch she felt was not the sort that one might have on an arm or leg, but an itching deep inside, a hunger and yearning that ached to be appeased.

  When Thorpe had entered the room and she had recognized him, she had been flooded with joy and relief. Whatever they had drugged her with had left her sleepy and languid, unable most of the time to move or talk coherently, but still she had known, despite her enforced acquiescence, that she wanted very badly to be out of this situation. Otherwise, something terrible was going to happen to her, and she was going to be powerless to stop it. When Sebastian walked in the door, her fears had fallen away. She had known deep within her that he would take her away from this evil place and that madwoman Magdalena.