by Lauren Smith
He withdrew his fingers from her body and slipped them between his lips, sucking them. Her thighs quivered with longing as she watched his lips around his fingers with fascination.
“It is your turn, my lord.” She dropped her skirts and turned to face him.
With a chuckle he shook his head. “There’s something else I had in mind, since we first met.” He retrieved his cane and held out his arm to her. She followed him as they walked through the house to the ballroom. Anne had glimpsed it when taking a short tour a few days before, but she’d never expected to come here with Cedric.
“Husband, what are you up to?” Excitement fluttered inside her as she watched the moonbeams cut through the tall windows and light up the room. The floor gleamed invitingly, as though calling her to dance upon it.
Cedric paused in the center of the room and spun her to face him. He set his cane down on the ground and sent it sliding several feet away. Then he straightened and held out his arms.
“I believe you owe me a waltz, my heart.” The smile on his face brought tears to her eyes.
How had he guessed her secret wish for this very thing? It didn’t matter that they weren’t in a lively assembly room full of their peers. No, what mattered was that she was here, right now with the man she loved, and they were finally going to have their dance.
She could have danced all night with him if he asked her to. Walking into his embrace, she guided one of his hands to her waist and clasped his other hand in hers. Then he tugged her close enough that their bodies brushed.
“We have no music,” she murmured, studying his look of concentration.
“We don’t need it.” He began to hum, the notes soft at first a cappella, then, as though more confidant, he began to sing the notes, his voice clear and bell-like. He sang like an angel. She would never have guessed that about him. Grinning in delight, she followed his lead as he began. They moved together with such ease it surprised even her. Without anyone else in the room, he could guide her effortlessly and she could follow him.
Because I trust him. Even after what Crispin had done to her that night at Almack’s she hadn’t given up the belief deep inside that Cedric was her destiny. As broken as Crispin’s violation of her had made her feel, Cedric had erased that pain. Not unlike a piece of pottery she’d once seen from Japan, shattered and then fastened back together with gleaming powdered gold or silver seams. Kintsugi, her father had called it. The act of fixing something, letting the break symbolize something that was stronger for it’s being repaired. The gold illuminated the breaks that had been mended rather than hiding them.
What had happened with Crispin no longer defined her. Moving on with her life, with love, with Cedric, were her gold seams holding her pieces back together, making her whole again. She was not simply another wronged woman. She was Anne Chessley, a woman who loved horses, the outdoors, and her husband. He let her be herself, and yet they shared all their joys and now all their heartbreaks.
And we have survived through them, finding our joy together again. Because we lean upon each other. We are partners, equals. The thoughts turned in her head even as they turned around the ballroom. It was the sort of marriage her father had wished for her to have, and although he was gone, she knew he would have approved.
“Are you all right, my love? I felt you shiver just now.” Cedric’s hand on her waist, so warm through the fabric of her dress, tightened a little as they continued to dance.
“Yes, oh yes. I’ve wanted to do this with you for years,” she admitted. The darkness and his blindness hid her blush, but she wasn’t ashamed of the truth.
“Perhaps we ought to dance every night before bed?” He winked at her and she laughed.
“I wouldn’t argue with you on that.” She squeezed his hand and he spun her out from him, twirling her around before pulling her back, which made her laugh in delight.
“Let’s have a ball next month. Invite all our friends. We can dance all night, darling.”
“A wonderful idea! We could let Audrey plan it when she returns from France. Perhaps she and Jonathan could plan it together.”
Her husband chuckled. “Are you matchmaking, my heart?”
She lifted her chin. “You said yourself Jonathan is considering courting her. I think it would be an excellent way for them to spend more time around each other.”
“Then it’s settled,” he agreed, and pulled her flush against him.
“This isn’t a waltz anymore,” she whispered against his ear. “There’s no longer any music.”
“No, but it’s something much better, wouldn’t you agree?” He nuzzled her cheek and then kissed her temple.
She shivered again, but this time from renewed desire. “Cedric, why don’t we go upstairs to bed. I have a sudden need for you to fulfill your duties to me again.”
“Yes—” But something had changed. Cedric’s wicked grin faded and his entire body went rigid. His hands on her hips dug into her hard.
“Anne, did you tell the servants to leave a window open?” His words were so soft, she almost didn’t hear him. But she felt a faint breeze kiss the back of her neck.
“No. I didn’t.” She started to rotate toward the window when a sound froze her in place.
Someone was clapping.
“What a charming show you put on, Sheridan.” A cold voice cut through the gloom of the ballroom.
“Who’s there?” Cedric demanded, dragging Anne behind him, putting his body between her and the direction the voice came from.
A soft hiss filled the air, echoing off the wooden floors. It sounded like a blade being drawn back from a sheath. Her father had a sword from his days as an officer in the service. When she had been a little girl, he’d let her remove it once from its scabbard.
“It has been a long time, Lord Sheridan.” A rich, accented voice came from the shadows by the open window.
“No…” Cedric’s utterance of that single word made Anne’s blood turn to ice.
“Oh yes.” The man stepped forward. In the dim glow of moonlight, she could see the gleam of his white teeth against his skin. Something about that seemed familiar, but she couldn’t remember why.
Cedric’s body began to tense. He started to maneuver them toward the door halfway between them and the man with the sword. “Anne, listen to me very carefully. Get Hartley and escape the house. Do you understand? Go, now!”
Cedric shoved her toward the door. After that, everything happened too quickly. She stumbled toward the door just as the man with the sword came toward them. By the time she reached the door, Cedric had positioned himself between her and the intruder. His foot brushed against his lion head cane, which he picked up.
“Cedric!” she screamed as the man lunged. Cedric swung his cane as though it were a broadsword. The man ducked, but not fast enough, Cedric clipped him on the shoulder.
“Anne, go!” Cedric’s bellow jarred her out of her frozen terror. She needed to find Sean. Find help. She burst into the hall, right into a tall, hard body.
Sean gripped her shoulder, holding her steady. “My lady? What—”
“Find Ashton. We need help! There’s a man attacking Cedric!” She couldn’t think beyond that.
Sean was about to rush into the ballroom, but several men now emerged from an adjacent room, men who couldn’t be their servants. Their clothes were ragged and they all carried pistols or knives.
“My lady, get back inside, it isn’t safe!” Sean pushed her into the ballroom, as he turned to face the advancing men. She watched in terror as he charged the men, fists swinging. One man fell back onto the ground with a single blow. Sean then grabbed another’s arm and broke it, causing him to let go of his weapon. He threw the screaming thug into one of his comrades and picked up the dropped blade. The man knew how to fight, but he couldn’t escape all of the men, not forever.
“Hartley,
behind you!” she shouted from the ballroom doorway, warning him just before a pistol fired. Hartley had dropped down an instant before the gun discharged, and the bullet sank into the wall with a crack. He sprang forward and plunged the knife into the attacker before he could pull out a second pistol from his brace.
“Get inside, my lady!” Hartley shouted as two men tackled him and a third got past him to run toward her. She slammed the ballroom door, pushing against the heavy wood to keep it shut.
Before she could recover, she was grabbed from behind, a blade pressed against her side as a warning for her to stay still.
“Don’t move, Lady Sheridan, or you will regret it.”
“Anne?” Cedric’s voice was distant, farther away.
The man had evaded Cedric and gone directly for her. He gripped her by the back of the neck and dragged her in front of him. Two more men slipped through an open window.
Anne tried to warn him of the others coming up behind him, but the man holding her squeezed her throat. She dug her fingertips into his hand, fighting for breath while the invaders wrestled Cedric to the ground. He couldn’t defend himself, lashing out wildly against unseen foes.
“Don’t fight, Lord Sheridan. I have a blade to your wife’s heart. It would be so easy to slip it between her ribs.”
Cedric ceased his struggles and lay stomach down on the floor, the men pinning his arms and legs.
“Bind him,” the man holding Anne barked. Two men used a coil of rope they had brought with them.
Once bound, Cedric was pulled to his feet. His blank eyes drifted in her direction, but she still couldn’t make a sound. The crushing grasp on her windpipe was too much.
“Take them to the coach, and be quick. Dispatch anyone who sees you. We must get back to port in time for the morning tide.”
The man strangling her then let go, only to strike her across the back of her head, and she knew no more.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darkness. Damn the everlasting black.
Cedric hung from a rafter in the belly of a ship. At least, that was his best guess. The ropes around his wrists chaffed him where they stretched straight above his head. Whoever had strung him up had given him enough slack to have a sure footing on the floor, which was a good thing because the ship kept pitching and rolling.
The briny smell of seawater and aged wood filled his nose. He tried to think clearly. The last thing he remembered was being attacked in his own ballroom by Samir Al Zahrani, whose voice he would recognize anywhere. Then he’d been ganged up on by a number of his men. Then he’d lost consciousness.
Where was Anne? He called out her name, his voice hoarse and his throat dry.
“Ah. Finally awake, Lord Sheridan?” Samir’s cool voice taunted from somewhere in front of him.
Cedric jerked on the ropes binding him. “Where is my wife?”
Samir chuckled, the sound a little closer. “She is entertaining my men. Fair-skinned ladies fetch a high price, and she is in need of the practice in satisfying multiple men. I left her screaming like the English whore she is.”
Cedric jerked on his wrists, the beam above him creaking slightly.
“You bloody bastard, I’ll kill you!” The roar vibrated through his entire body.
“Do be quiet, or I’ll have the men bring her down so you might hear her screams yourself. Pity you cannot see. The sight of her body breaking might have blinded you.”
Cedric fumed as he clawed at the rope to no avail.
Suddenly something sharp dug into his ribs.
“You once said you had a long line of men ahead of me waiting to kill you, Lord Sheridan. But I’ve never been one to wait my turn. Besides, I owe you a fate worse than death. I can envision much, but I’m willing to settle with my original promise—my mares returned and your life as a eunuch. I’ll give you a few hours to prepare, Lord Sheridan. You might die, if you are lucky.” Samir laughed darkly as he dragged the blade’s edge down Cedric’s body to just above his groin. He didn’t cut Cedric, but the intention was clear.
“Now, stay quiet and I might spare your wife a few hours of my men’s attention.”
Cedric’s heart withered inside. Oh, God, Anne, my darling…
A despair like nothing he’d ever felt before overwhelmed him. Loving him had become a death sentence for her. For both of them. They had both found happiness only to have it ripped away. Losing his sight was nothing compared to the crushing bleak truth of what losing Anne would do to him. He slumped in his bonds, giving up. There was no hope. Nothing he could do to save her.
“You are fortunate that my mares were well cared for,” Samir continued. “I might grant you death sooner, as a way to express my gratitude.”
“This is all about the bloody horses? Did you steal them back as well?”
“Soon. They are being kept in Brighton, waiting to be put on a more reliable transport ship back to my country. This vessel is fine for human cargo, but as we both know, my mares deserve much better.”
A scuffle of boots announced someone new had joined them.
“I will join my men upstairs, Lord Sheridan, to take a turn with your wife. If she pleases me, I might keep her for myself. While I’m occupied with her, I wouldn’t want you to become lonely. As it turns out, this fellow here is also familiar with your treacherous ways, as you were once intimately familiar with his sister, a lady’s maid for Lady Poncenby. He has volunteered to give you a sound thrashing.” Samir’s laughter made Cedric tense. He was strung up like a side of beef, unable to defend himself.
He couldn’t prepare himself for the blow to his stomach. His breath whooshed out and he grunted as pain radiated out from that point of contact. Another crushing punch to his chest and he wheezed.
“Enjoy your stay aboard my ship, Lord Sheridan. It will only take us three weeks to get home, I believe.” Samir laughed one more time, and then his booted steps on the stairs eventually faded.
“I swear to you, I never touched a hair on Poncenby’s maid.” There was a decent chance this was true. If he could only remember whether Freddy Poncenby’s mother actually had a comely looking lady’s maid or not.
“Shut up, Cedric,” a voice hissed. “Wait until I’m sure he’s gone.”
It took him a second to recognize it. “Jonathan?”
“Sorry about hitting you. I had to make it look convincing.”
“How in the blazes did you end up on Al Zahrani’s ship?”
Jonathan’s hands brushed over his. There was a rasping sound as the bonds on his wrists were cut. He slumped to the ground, his legs weak after hanging for so long.
“I overheard a few sailors in London discussing a plan to kidnap someone in Brighton. I feared it might be you. There wasn’t time to warn you, so I found a way to hop on the ship.”
“The devil you did!” Cedric was so relieved that he nearly laughed, but he didn’t have time. He struggled to his feet. “We have to find Anne.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her,” Jonathan said. “You have to take it easy and be careful.”
Cedric frowned. “How many are there on this ship?” he asked. The odds were going against them. They were in the ocean on a ship with Al Zahrani and his crew.
Jonathan must have understood the unspoken question.
“Too many to handle on our own. I sent word to Godric before I left port, but I do not know if the message reached him in time, or what he could do for us now that we’re at sea.”
“Damnation,” Cedric growled. “Where the hell is Ashton and that fleet he’s always talking about?”
A distant cry from above their heads silenced them.
“Ship off the port bow!”
“What?” Cedric and Jonathan said together. They’d heard the shout, but even still he was too afraid to hope.
“Jonathan, I need your help. We must find the pow
der room. Lead me to it, and then we find Anne.”
He had a plan. It just had to work. He refused to accept any other outcome.
* * * * *
Ashton rode up to Rushton Steading, glancing around at the lack of life inside the house. No groom rushed out to meet him. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck as he slid from the saddle and hastily looped the reins of his horse’s bridle over an iron post by the door.
“Cedric?” he called out and walked up the main steps.
The front door was ajar. Ashton tried to push it open, but it only shifted a few inches. He rammed his shoulder into the door and it finally gave. When he was able to slip inside, he froze at the sight of blood streaking across the floor leading to the body of a young man, the body that had been against the door he’d just forced open. Sean Hartley, the footman, lay half-dead on the floor by the door. Around him lay two corpses of men Ashton didn’t recognize. Their rough clothing and the weapons they still held in their hands identified them as dangerous men.
“My lord.” Sean’s words escaped on a raspy breath.
Ashton removed his hat and clenched his fist in rage as he tried to soothe the younger man. He’d been stabbed and wasn’t long for this world.
“Can you speak, lad? Tell me what happened? Where are the other servants?” In a house this large, they should have been everywhere, seeing to their duties.
“It’s the…sheik.” Sean’s ashen face scrunched with pain. “The staff fled to the Pickering estate…going to find help…safe I think…but they don’t know…” He shuddered, his eyes briefly closing.
“Don’t know what? Where are Lord and Lady Sheridan?” Ashton asked the question, surprised his voice was steady. With the rage burning inside him, he could barely think straight.
“Taken…ship in port. The Maiden Fair, heard one of the men say it as they left,” Sean said. Ashton pressed a hand to the young man’s wounds, but he’d lost too much blood. Still, he had to try.
