Your Wicked Heart

by Meredith Duran

  For her ears alone, he added: “And if you try to trick me, or oppose me in any way, I will throw you into the sea.”

  That drew a very satisfying gasp from her.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “In that gown, I do not think swimming is a possibility.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Amanda sat in a cabin the size of a cell, on a sagging mattress that swayed with every crest of the waves. From her vantage, the single small porthole opened onto the cloudy darkness of night. Perhaps standing up would provide a revelation. Perhaps, if she did so, she would still see the port of Syra, the chalk promenade on the overlooking cliffs gleaming in the moonlight.

  But although she made a practice of hoping for the best, she knew what it sounded and felt like when a ship lifted anchor. This vessel was no longer in Syra. She had been kidnapped.

  The doorknob rattled. She knew what a brave woman would do. She forced herself to her feet to look for a weapon. The stool, perhaps? The chamber pot, she’d already found, was too heavy to throw.

  A key scraped in the lock. The door opened. A sullen boy hurled her valise across the threshold, then stepped back.

  “Wait!” she cried—but the door slammed, the lock scraping shut.

  On a ragged breath, she sat back down on the mattress. Keep your head. Matters looked dire, but she would not let her imagination run away with her. Perhaps she was being kidnapped for . . . some other reason than her fevered brain suggested.

  Kidnapped!

  She bit down hard on her knuckles to gag her whimper.

  One heard countless tales of slavery—of young Englishwomen abducted and sold throughout the Orient. But she had thought them fictions!

  Instead, it seemed chivalry was the fiction. So many men at that hotel, and all of them had watched silently as she was dragged away by a lunatic!

  But the impostor viscount put on a good show, didn’t he? He did not seem a lunatic. Upon arriving at the quays, he had spoken quite calmly—and dispensed ungodly amounts of money—to the stevedores, asking them if they had seen “a blond man, fair and uncommonly tall—nearly as tall as I.”

  “Taller,” she’d said once, but his black glare had silenced her.

  His words of description echoed now, making her dread pitch higher. Uncommonly tall blonds stood out in this corner of the world. The viscount—her viscount—was the only one whom she had seen of that description on the entire island of Syra.

  Had his lordship set sail when he should have been marrying her?

  For two sailors and a publican had seen a very tall blond man boarding a ship bound for England—this very afternoon, as she’d waited in the church.

  The news had shocked her into a daze. Just as quickly, the devil-rogue had invented a new plan: he, too, would find a place on a departing ship. And she would go with him. He’d dragged her up the gangplank—threatening to turn her over to the governor’s men otherwise. Dockhands from up and down the pier had watched, trading quips in various languages, mockery and malice on their faces.

  She had begged for help from the captain and crew of this ratty, run-down ship, but they spoke little English, or desired to speak none; all of them had ignored her, merely watching as the devil locked her in this cabin.

  She shifted her weight on the mattress, and the deck creaked alarmingly.

  Was this ship even seaworthy?

  She did not like sailing. Swimming was . . . not her strong suit.

  Don’t think on that! You are brave now!

  Yes, that was right. When she had left Mrs. Pennypacker’s house today, she had left behind the cowardice that had kept her trapped in the woman’s employ. She was brave now. Strong. Unwavering—

  Footsteps sounded on the deck outside, and she shrank into herself.

  The door opened. He stood on the threshold. The light of the lamp in his hand cast a warm glow over one sharp cheekbone, the full curve of his lower lip. Truly, he looked like the villain from some melodramatic novel, woven from shadows to corrupt a woman, to seduce her to her damnation—

  Seduce? Rubbish!

  As he ducked into the compartment, she hurled herself off the bunk, as far away from him as possible. Retreat was not cowardly but wise.

  Alas, it did put not much distance between them: the cabin was terribly small.

  He hung the lamp on a hook set into the bulkhead, then straightened to study her, his expression cold.

  “Let me go,” she said—and regretted it instantly, for there was nowhere to go but . . .

  “Feel like swimming, do you?” He gave her a malicious half smile, then turned away, his movements measured as he relocked the door and pocketed the key.

  Another whimper tickled her throat. She made herself swallow it. You are strong, Amanda.

  Drawing herself to her full height, she said, “Kidnapping is a crime. I am a British citizen, and I will see you prosecuted and hanged!”

  This pronouncement caused him to rub his eyes. “Oh, excellent,” he muttered. Then, more briskly: “Look here. I’m grateful you don’t pretend at hysteria. In return, I won’t pretend at patience. Until we’re done, you’ll cooperate.”

  “I most certainly will not!” Slavery was heinous enough; to willingly succumb to it would endanger her immortal soul!

  He bared his teeth. It could not have been called a smile. “If you are innocent,” he said, “you will be glad to help me find this man who deluded you so sorely. And surely you must be innocent, to speak of the authorities. Otherwise I imagine they will be the last people to whom you wish to speak once we reach England—unless, of course, your threat is an empty one?”

  She stared at him, thoughts spinning. “This ship is bound for England ?”

  “Where else?” he asked impatiently—and then destroyed her relief by slipping out of his coat.

  In his shirtsleeves, he looked all the larger, the bulked strength of his upper arms undisguised by the thin lawn of his shirt. His dark waistcoat hugged a flat belly and lean waist before disappearing into trousers that outlined, too starkly, the taut musculature of his waist and thighs.

  He was clearly not a viscount. Aristocrats had bellies. Their main duties were to eat and to . . . supervise.

  “The blond man boarded a London-bound ship,” the fraud was saying. “The captain of this crew assures me we will catch up to them in Malta. You will identify him for me, if you know what’s good for you. And if not . . .”

  England! Not slavery, after all! She swallowed, cautioning herself not to betray her elation. “That is all you wish me to do? To identify the viscount for you?”

  He flashed her a sardonic look. “I am the viscount.” Now he began to unbutton his waistcoat; her next step backward slammed her into the wall.

  “Why are you undressing?” she demanded.

  His hands paused. “We’re sharing this cabin,” he said. “There are no others.”

  “If you lay one finger on me, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” He sat down on the bunk—the very small bunk, hardly big enough for two—and gave her a look, up and down, of frank interest. “I suppose I should have searched you. Have a weapon hidden away?”

  “A— No! I most certainly do—”

  Too late! In two strides he was up and by her side, pinning her immobile with a forearm that felt like iron. His broad, hot palm traveled roughly over her body, delving beneath her neckline to skim the tops of her breasts, then digging beneath her skirts to chart the lines of her legs.

  A curious numbness settled over her, and she was grateful for it—grateful—until his hand brushed the back of her knee. Their eyes met then, and a weird thickness gathered in the silence between them.

  His hand was hot and rough on her bare skin.

  She sucked in a breath. She was not so perverse as to find this man attractive! She couldn’t be!

  His mouth tightened. He stepped slowly away from her, his hand lingering as it slipped off her skin, the touch very nearly a caress.

  She wanted to curse
him. But her mouth had gone dry, and his eyes distracted her. They were not black, after all, but a very dark brown, the shade of Turkish coffee. His lashes were long, thick, ridiculously curled. They should have looked effeminate.

  But not when they framed such a cold, merciless gaze.

  “You seem unarmed,” he said quietly. “But if I’m mistaken, have a care with your aim. A quick death is easier than gangrene.”

  Her jaw dropped as she registered his meaning. “You think I would stab you? Good heavens, sir, what do you take me for?”

  A strange little smile curled his mouth. “An artist of your craft,” he said. “At the very least.”

  She frowned. What craft is that? But now he had turned away to retake his seat on the bed, and it seemed wiser not to engage him.

  A minute passed, in which she calmed her pulse with several long breaths. With every second in which he showed no further interest in her, she felt slightly better.

  Her destination was not slavery, after all—not Tripoli or the deserts of Africa, but England.

  Why . . . in one (admittedly, very perverse) view, this was a fine piece of luck. He was paying for her ticket home! Once in London, she would go straight to the police to report his crimes—kidnapping, impersonation, and now, after groping her, assault! Besides, if her viscount truly was bound for home, then she could enlist him in the effort to destroy this rogue—

  Only . . . if her viscount was bound for home, that meant he had jilted her.

  So she would have no support at home, either.

  Her knees weakened. She slid down the wall, skirts crunching, bustle stabbing into her hips, until she came to rest amidst a puddle of ivory skirts—the very skirts which she had donned today in the hopes of becoming a wife . . .

  She had not allowed herself to dwell on it till now. But no matter this villain’s intent, it did not alter her betrothed’s foul actions. He had enticed her to quit her employment, and then he had abandoned her.

  She lowered her face into her hands, pressing her eyes hard enough to see sparks. She had known it was too good to be true. Handsome viscounts did not really fall in love with nameless secretaries. And if they did . . . it was not marriage that they sought.

  Her hitching breath felt damp against her palms. You are too naïve. Wasn’t that what her friends from typing school had always told her? It’s all very well to look on the bright side, Olivia Mather liked to caution, so long as one doesn’t forget to inspect the dark side for all the other possibilities.

  But the dark side was so very grim. And life was depressing enough without forcing oneself to dwell on the many ways it could grow even grimmer.

  Nevertheless, she feared Olivia’s point was now proved. In her shoes, Olivia would have demanded that the marriage be carried out before she quit her paid position.

  No. Olivia would have been smart enough to never take the position. Or to have given notice on the first occasion that Mrs. Pennypacker grew abusive. Amanda had still been safely on English soil that first time. But she had so wanted to travel . . .

  The quality of the silence dawned on her, total and somehow unnerving. She looked up to discover her captor watching her with narrow intensity.

  A chill crept through her. Her fiancé had tried to make love to her, but she had held him off through flustered demurrals. This man, on the other hand . . . words might not dissuade him.

  But she had nails and knees, and she knew how to use them. “Do you mean to ravish me?” she whispered. “I will not make it easy for you.”

  Perhaps it was only in her imagination that shock briefly showed in his face. But his disgust was clear enough. “I mean to have a night’s sleep,” he said, “if you’ll quit flouncing and sliding and crawling and whatnot.”

  She had no reason to believe him. Yet . . . what cause did he have to lie? The door was locked, the crew indifferent to her fate.

  Hope strengthening, she pushed herself up. “Let us be clear. And all you ask is that I . . . help you find the”—not the viscount; this villain was very intent on his own claims—“blond man?”

  “Precisely,” said the villain.

  She frowned, cautioning herself against trust. His proposition made no sense. Why should he wish so much to find the viscount? To do so would only expose him as a fraud.

  But if this villain was . . . telling the truth . . . his motives would be perfectly logical.

  What if her viscount had never been a viscount at all?

  Her heart skipped. The truth looked fearsome: either this man who had kidnapped her was a very cunning fraud bent on revenge against her fiancé—and armed with the money to effect it—or he was telling the truth . . . and her viscount was the impostor.

  No. Impossible!

  But as she forced herself to inspect the dark side, mortification burned through her. The possibility would explain so much. Her suitor’s discomfort in public places. His insistence that she never visit his hotel to dine with him. She would have been certain to address him by his title—which he had never admitted to her while they were still in Constantinople.

  In Constantinople, where so many Englishmen lived, such a fraud would be far more difficult to undertake. But in Syra, where he had finally introduced himself as the viscount, there were fewer Englishmen to overhear . . .

  Good God. If her betrothed were the true impostor, then that meant this man was very likely the . . . real viscount.

  In which case, she would be lucky if he did not abandon her to a foreign prison!

  She tried to swallow. But all her spit had dried up.

  “Come to sleep,” said the man, his voice weary. “By my honor, I will not touch you.”

  Worst of all was the knowledge that she had no choice but to trust in his honor—which, if it was real, meant that she had been badly fooled indeed. But not by him.

  One day you will learn this lesson the hard way, Olivia had warned her. Your naïveté will be your doom!

  * * *

  Spence tried to sleep. But it was not easy when the woman who lay next to him was trembling so violently that the mattress quaked. He would gladly have spent the coin on separate cabins—provided one of them locked from the outside, for he didn’t trust this girl to stay put—but time had been of the essence, and this ship, the last to depart for the day, had not offered a choice of accommodations.

  And so, it seemed, he would be sharing the next few nights at close quarters with a small, perfumed piece of quivering aspic.

  He turned over, cursing inwardly, trying to find a more comfortable position that kept him as far away from her as possible. But it did not help. Ridiculous that she somehow still managed to smell like a rose garden when they had spent the evening trawling the filthiest wharves on the planet. He would order her to scrub herself clean of the scent tomorrow. It distracted him.

  A strange, gasping breath came from her.

  Christ. If she started to cry, he’d never get any sleep.

  On an ill-tempered impulse, he sat up and turned up the light. No surprise that her eyes were open. “What is it?” he said sharply.

  Her head turned on the pillow. The only pillow. Somehow she’d ended up with it. He’d heard no thanks for that. “You are the viscount, aren’t you?”

  God in heaven. “Spare me your routine until the morning, I beg you.”

  She blinked, all big blue eyes and tumbled ringlets. Little Bo Peep, reborn as a huckster. “Why—and you think me an adventurer!”

  This show of injured innocence grated him. “No. I think you a swindler, to be precise. A criminal, to speak more broadly.”

  She stared at him. “I am a secretary.”

  “A secretary.” That was a good one. “Very original, I’ll give you that.”

  She turned her head away, presenting him with her profile. The bridge of her nose had a ridiculously girlish scoop to it. Somehow it aggravated him. “You may check my references once we return to England,” she said. “I was educated at Mrs. Lawrence’s School of Typing
, after which . . .” She sighed. “I entered the employ of Mrs. Martha Pennypacker.”

  “The memoirist?” This lie grew more elaborate by the moment.

  Pushing herself up on her elbow—she still wore the ornate gown, and the position thrust her cleavage into a prominence he did not require—she eyed him with a finely feigned show of wariness. “The very same. Do you know her?”

  He considered lying, just to frighten her. But that would undermine his greater aim: to make her stop shaking so he could sleep. “Not personally,” he said. “But the name, of course, is familiar.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lower lip, worrying it as she gazed up at him through her lashes. Those lips belonged in a bordello. Indeed, for all her large eyes and spiraling hair, she was not so much like a doll after all. Her lips and décolletage suggested a more adult brand of fun.

  He gritted his teeth. Her charms did not concern him. “So,” he said. “Syra. A very peculiar place to take a secretary.”

  “Not so odd. She was seeking an amanuensis to help document her journey through Turkey and Greece.” Her mouth flattened. “Thirty women applied for the post, but I was the most qualified.”

  “I see.” He believed not a word of it. A woman who looked like her would not stand in need of secretarial skills. Any number of stupid bachelors, their wits poisoned by her pretty eyes, would have been glad to offer matrimony. “A piece of advice: if you mean to come up with a lie, you’d best make it credible.”

  “But this is the truth,” she said. “Why . . . when the offer was made, I imagined it the answer to all my prayers.” Her laugh sounded low and unhappy, precisely calculated to stir a man’s chivalrous instincts. “To travel the world, to see the sights . . . How foolish I was!”

  He would not comfort her. He reserved his chivalry for honest women. For her, he would draw on the traits he used more regularly—cynicism, practicality, and indifference. “Very well, then. If Mrs. Pennypacker was gullible enough to hire a charlatan, that is her business, not mine.”

  She blinked, and to his immense displeasure a tear rolled down her cheek. “I am not a charlatan.”