“You are kidnapped too? What do they want with you?”
Molly stood irresolute, slightly unsure why she was standing. Hot rage had boiled through her, but it had not been against the sorry sight of a gentleman who was seated on the floor before her with rope painfully keeping his wrists together.
No, it was at those vile and stupid brothers of hers. Never before had she been so angry at them, leaving her in this sort of mess.
She had stood by the door for almost an hour, by her reckoning, sure that they would come back for her and release her. When she had given up hope of both of them returning, she had still remained there for almost another thirty minutes, by the bells of the nearby spire, hopeful that Jack, alone, may return to release her.
Eventually, tiredness and exhaustion had pulled her away from the door and onto the slightly moulding sofa in the other room. Sleep had overcome her until birdsong had woken her and she had come through here – to find Sir Edmund still sprawled out on the floor.
“Well?” Snapped the now fully awake Sir Edmund who had risen to his feet.
Molly swallowed. She had forgotten how tall he was, how captivating his gaze was. What a pity he was so handsome.
It made it far harder to lie to him.
“Well, what?” She said quietly.
As her own rage dissipated, Sir Edmund’s seemed to disappear also. His shoulders slumped and he gestured around the room.
“I would not expect a woman in conditions like these, let alone be kidnapped with a stranger,” Sir Edmund said quietly, moving to sit at the table where she had been perched when he had come around.
Molly hesitated, and then sat at the table without saying a word.
Well, what could she say? The last thing she wanted to do was admit that their kidnappers were none other than her own brothers – her own brothers, moreover, who had pulled this trick before.
Grab a gentleman who looks worth a bob or two, abandon them in this old, run down house, leave them to stew for a day or two – until they are really hungry – and then turn up with demands for money.
Whether they had it on them, their family could send it, or a bank order could be written up in haste: it did not matter to the Bletchley brothers.
They would get their money, and the gentleman would be allowed to leave. It was the way they had always done it.
And every time before, the enticement into the trap had been Molly Kimble.
Molly started. She had been sitting there, staying into the eyes of Sir Edmund, without really seeing him, handsome as he was. But now he was leaning towards her as though expecting to kiss her.
“I-I had a disagreement with them,” she said hastily, leaning backwards and folding her arms across her chest, as though that would slow down her frantically beating heart.
Sir Edmund’s grey eyes narrowed. “You know them?”
“I barely know them at all,” Molly said as coldly as she could, though the truth of her words hurt. “I did not agree with them bashing you over the head, which I like to think any upstanding citizen would not.”
He raised his bound hands to the back of his head and winced. “That would explain the headache, at least.”
Sir Edmund looked in genuine pain and Molly’s heart, already a little soft on him, warmed even further. Poor man, he did not deserve to be in this mess.
But then, she did not deserve to be in this mess either. Neither of them did, and yet they were stuck here, not only in a disgusting old house – but with each other.
“So you…you argued with them?”
Molly swallowed. It did not quite feel right, lying to this gentleman. Gentleman he certainly was, you could see from the breeding.
“I argued with them,” she repeated slowly, “and they said they would…would put me in here as punishment.”
That was all true, was it not? Molly’s thoughts raced back to the night before, a time which felt an age away.
“You can go quiet,” Tom has said, “or you can go unconscious.”
“A punishment, indeed?” Sir Edmund’s eyebrows raised but there was a sardonic smile on his face. “I am flattered, to think that rogues and kidnappers are using my presence as a punishment.”
Molly felt her cheeks blush. “I did not mean – I think being locked up is the point here, not…not the company.”
“Kidnapped with a knight,” he mused, his smile now broadening. “Not exactly what you had pictured for your Christmas celebrations, I suppose?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Molly had said the words before she had really thought about them, and clapped a hand over her mouth when she realised that her bitter thoughts had become bitter words.
Sir Edmund laughed. “My word, Miss Kimble, you speak your opinion very decidedly for a woman so young.”
Molly smiled wearily. Every time he called her ‘Miss Kimble’, a small part of her felt even more uncomfortable. “Not so young in experience, Sir Edmund, though I be young in years.”
She had not intended her phrasing to be suggestive, but she saw in the countenance of her fellow captive that he saw, immediately, where her words could lead them.
“Well, far be it from me to argue with you, Miss Kimble,” he said lightly. “You are quite welcome to renegotiate my offer. Pleasing you would certainly please me.”
Heat seared across Molly’s cheeks, but not purely embarrassment. She could see, any woman could, that this was a man who certainly knew how to please a woman.
Those strong hands, those tender fingers, that mouth –
Molly stood up hastily, almost tripping over her own feet to be away from him.
“Miss Kimble, I do declare you want me,” said Sir Edmund slowly, turning with a smile to watch her stride across the room. “Why do you deny it? Why do you deny me?”
“There is a little food here,” she said loudly, looking anywhere but at the handsome man bound at the table. “Not much, but enough if we are careful to see us through for the next few days.”
Sir Edmund snorted. “Not much of a Christmas dinner, is it? I do not suppose your kidnapping friends – ”
“They are not my friends.”
Molly was unable, or perhaps unwilling to keep the bitterness from her voice.
Sir Edmund nodded shortly. “Do you think they will be back soon?”
“No.”
“Well then, we will have to make do with what we have,” he said briskly. “First port of call, get these robes from my hands. You do not happen to have a knife on your person, do you?”
Molly smiled. “I am afraid not – and even if I did, I am not sure whether I would release you.”
Sir Edmund was the most handsome man she had ever met, and one look from him did strange things to her knees.
His smile now made her whole body burn. “Do you like your men bound, Miss Kimble?”
Molly swallowed. She would not allow herself to be taken in by this trickster, even if every inch of her body ached for his touch.
“Yes,” she said sweetly. “That way there is no opportunity for them to touch me. Just how I like you.”
5
“I am bored!”
His words echoed off the empty walls and reverberated back to him in even more dire tones that they had been when they left his mouth.
“Bored…bored…bored.”
Edmund shifted uncomfortably. The moulding sofa did not become any more comfortable the more he lay on it, and his wrists were starting to get sore. The frayed rope around his wrists wrenched at his skin with every movement but he could not stay still.
He never could, even when a child.
“Miss Kimble, I am bored!” Edmund repeated, looking at the back of the young woman with which he was forced to endure this experience.
Not that she was much of a punishment. Miss Kimble was seated by the window, a book in her hand – God knows where she found that – and the weak Christmas Day sunlight was pouring through the window, bringing a golden shine to her hair. Even
from his vantage point, he could see her smooth curves, just waiting to be touched.
Not that he would have much opportunity to, with his hands bound by this infernal rope.
“Do you not find it frustrating that we are in here, on Christmas Day?”
Edmund heard a petulance in his voice that he did not like, but it was impossible to remove. Christmas Day – it was Christmas Day! He should be four drinks in at his local watering hole, three hands into a winning stream, and two minutes away from another success.
Not holed up here, literally kidnapped like one of Mrs Radcliffe’s sordid novels.
“‘Tis only late afternoon,” Miss Kimble said distantly as she turned a page.
“But I am hungry!”
“You know how much food we have,” Miss Kimble said quietly. “And neither of us know how long we will be here, and so the best thing we can do is just accept it.”
Edmund sighed. “I did not think a Christmas Day could be so boring as this.”
“You have not even been here for a full day, and you are already bored?”
Edmund sighed and leaned back with his eyes shut. “I have never been good at entertaining myself.”
Miss Kimble snorted. “Well, that much is obvious. How rich were you, Sir Edmund, when you were younger?”
The question surprised him and Edmund opened his eyes to look at her. She had not turned around.
“Quite, I suppose,” he conceded, deciding not to tell her that his father had been the fourth richest person in the country, after the Regent, the church, and the Duke of Devonshire. “Why?”
Another page was turned, more slowly this time. “Because it is my experience that those with money never had to entertain themselves. They always had games, horses, theatre, servants to keep them occupied. Only the very wealthy have no wealth of mind.”
Edmund’s jaw dropped. Who was this woman to lecture him in this way – God’s teeth, the fact that she was entirely right had nothing to do with the frustration boiling inside him.
“You think you have a good read of me, do you not, Miss Kimble?”
Finally she turned around, and Edmund had to ignore the spark of desire that flushed once again through his body. He did not want to bed her more than he wanted to hear her response.
Almost.
“I do,” she said bluntly. “You are spoiled, Sir Edmund, and for all your blustering about being disowned and ignored by your family, you still had the best upbringing in life and you still enjoy all the benefits of that education.”
Edmund gaped at her. “Benefits? I lodge in a hovel and I have been kidnapped!”
Miss Kimble ignored him. “You have education, breeding, and – I do not doubt – family somewhere that would own you. I have none of those things, and yet here I am, willing to make do and mend. I have found a way to while the hours until we are released.”
“If we are released,” Edmund said, hearing the petulance once again in his voice and hating it.
Miss Kimble sighed and turned back to her book.
Edmund seethed silently on the mouldy sofa. How dare she? How dare she assume that because he had once been rich, and it had been his father’s money the entire time, and God knows he took as little of it as possible, that he could not entertain himself!
After another five minutes had passed, Edmund sighed heavily.
“Fine. I am terrible at entertaining myself and finding ways to distract myself. Are you happy, Miss Kimble?”
Another page was turned slowly and Miss Kimble did not look around. “No, Sir Edmund.”
Now it was Edmund’s turn to snort. “I think, considering the circumstances,” and he raised his bound and now bleeding hands, “we can dispense with the ‘sir’. What is your name?”
That certainly got a reaction.
Miss Kimble turned around, fire in her eyes. “What gives you the right to call me by my first name?”
Edmund blinked. He had not expected such a response, but it roused him just as her fury roused her. God, but she was a beautiful woman. One that he would very much like to tame, if he could ever get these blasted ropes off.
“I-I do apologise,” he said, and found with surprise that he meant it. “I just thought, as we are both trapped here, on Christmas Day, that we are the closest things to each other. It…it would be nice to be called ‘Edmund’ rather than the ridiculous ‘Sir’ lumped on the front. But if you do not wish to…”
His voice trailed off. Why did everything he said to this woman come out wrong? Miss Kimble was staring at him as though he was possessed. Maybe he was, but it was her fault.
“Molly.”
Edmund blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“My name is Molly,” said Miss Kimble stiffly. “‘Tis Mary, actually, but my mother was also Mary and so my family…I was called Molly.”
Molly. It suited her. Sweet and soft, and gentle at the same time.
“Molly,” he repeated.
Was it a trick of the light, or did she smile? Did the sound of her name on his lips softened her slightly?
Edmund smiled. “Well, Molly, you have found yourself a book. Is there a pack of cards in this place?”
The softness disappeared. “Do you not think you should think a little less about pleasure and a little more about getting out of this place?”
“‘Tis Christmas!” Edmund protested. “Of all the days in the year, surely this is the one to think about pleasure and entertainment?” Then his mind caught up with him. “Out of here – you said before that there was no way out.”
Molly grinned. “Yes, I did. But it would keep you occupied and that would keep me entertained.”
It was impossible not to smile, even when her jest was at his own expense. By God, but she was beautiful. And witty, too. The most important features in a woman, although in Edmund’s opinion, being naked was perhaps just as important.
“Molly, why am I still tied up?”
Was that a flicker of a smile as he said her name?
“Because I have no wish to untie you, that is why,” Molly replied as she turned back to the window and opened her book.
Edmund sighed. “If it did not hurt so damn much, I would not mind.”
“I like you that way.”
The words seemed to escape Molly’s lips without her realising, and even from Edmund’s vantage point he could see a crimson blush spread across her neck.
Well, well. “I did not know you had those sort of preferences, Molly Kimble.”
Molly scowled. It was only partially better being ‘Molly’ after the travesty of ‘Miss Kimble’. But now it felt as though she had opened herself to him, made herself vulnerable. Hearing her name spoken by him made a shiver go down her spine.
He said it like no one ever had. It was not a shout, not a snarl. He was not ordering her, or berating her, or about to beat her.
No, it was like a caress. As though he liked her name.
As though he liked her.
Molly swallowed and turned around slowly to stare at the handsome man draped lazily over the sofa. Only a man of wealth and breeding could be tied at the wrists and lying on a moulding piece of furniture and look that at home.
“You know what I meant,” she said coldly.
Edmund grinned. “Oh, I do.”
She sighed and placed the book once more on the table. No matter that she had read it before – she had accidentally left it here the last time she and her good for nothing brothers had kidnapped someone and brought them here to become fearful for their lives.
Really, she should untie him. He had been bound for almost a day, and that did awful things to the skin. It would be painful, getting those ropes off him, but she had no choice really.
After all, no one should be that uncomfortable for Christmas. Not unless they had done something truly awful.
The thought skipped across her mind before she could delve into it further, but her heart skipped a beat. He had been disowned, abandoned by his family. What had a gentle
man to do to receive such a punishment?
But there was no time to think about that now.
“Give me your hands,” she said reluctantly, rising to her feet.
Edmund sat up, his legs dropping to the floor, and Molly sat beside him.
She instantly regretted it. Being this close to him was an experience she had not expected, and his presence, his musk, the manliness of him was something she could not describe but could feel on every inch of her body.
His gaze was on her, his grey eyes trailing across her face and Molly felt her cheeks tinge with pink, despite herself.
“Hands,” she managed to say.
How was it possible for a gentleman to do this to her – to have such an effect on her when they had not even touched? Even Charlie had not made her whole body tingle when he had touched her, and Edmund had not laid a finger on her.
But that was about to change. Not taking his eyes from hers, Edmund raised his wrists and placed them in her lap.
The weight of them was nothing to the shiver of anticipation that rushed through her. Molly swallowed. All she had to do was remove the rope, and Tom was terrible at knots. If Edmund had spent more than two minutes thinking about it, he could probably have released himself.
As it was…
Molly dropped her gaze from his face and raised her hands. Her fingers pulled at the first knot and as it came loose, they brushed across his skin.
Her gasp was only inaudible because of the louder gasp that Edmund made. Molly’s head jerked up and she stared at him, as though she could read in his grey eyes the same shock of heat that rushed through her body as their fingers had touched.
“One knot down.” Her voice sounded strangled, but Edmund did not seem to trust his own. He merely nodded.
Molly attempted to focus on the task at hand, but it was impossible. Each time her skin touched his there was another sear of heat, and her knees touched his as she focused on the knots, and it was too much. She felt overwhelmed, intoxicated by his presence.
She had to do something – had to distract herself and him from the intimacy of the moment.
Kidnapped with a Knight: A Steamy Regency Romance (Ravishing Regencies Book 0.5) Page 4
