Taken by the Wicked Rake

by Christine Merrill

  She went still, as well, turning her rage inward to calm her body and her mind. As he had done before, he’d seemed to speak to her without words. He still smiled at her, but there was something, a hint in the darkness of his eyes that said, I am not as unmoved by you as I appear. Do not tempt me. And do not try my patience.

  As if to confirm her fears, he raked her body with a slow, interested gaze, lingering in ways that no gentle man should linger. Then, he released her wrists and held out a hand, as if he were a gentleman, offering to help her back to the wagon.

  She gave another little shiver, as though she could shake his eyes from off her form, and tried to loosen the wet cloth where it clung. Then she ignored his out-stretched hand, walking with difficulty, for the torn fabric of her dress bunched and tangled around her legs.

  He shrugged and grabbed the rope at her waist, giving a sharp tug on it as if to remind her who was in control. Then, with no further offers of help, he led her back to the wagon, returned to his place in the driver’s seat and waited for her to climb in beside him.

  She glared at him, for he must know that she could not get up onto the seat without his help.

  ‘You seemed eager enough to manage before. I could help you. Or I could tie your leash to the backboard and let you run along behind. Or shall I leave you here, just as you are? You could congratulate yourself on the success of your escape. And if you are lucky, you might be found and rescued before you die of exposure.’

  She dropped her gaze and waited for him to decide what he wished to do, unwilling to show any sign that he might take for weakness or cooperation. At last, he reached out and pulled her up to sit beside him. Then he retied the rope about her, binding her arms again and tying the other end to his wrist.

  ‘This is much friendlier, is it not? And so much easier to prevent further attempts to leave me. He gave the rope around her waist a small tug to tighten the knot. ‘You may struggle as you wish. It will not break. And it will not cut your tender English skin. It is silk. The same rope that hung the Earl of Leybourne, when your father let him die for a murder he did not commit.’

  Was this what it was about? The Earl of Leybourne? Was Salterton some kin of his? She had met William Wardale’s children, and none were anything like this man. She had meant to shower him in a tirade of abuse, behind the muffle of the gag in her mouth. But all she could manage was puzzled silence.

  He was staring at her, awaiting a response. And then he laughed out loud. ‘If you could see the look on your face. It is most amusing. I will remove the gag now, so that you may argue with me as you wish to. You will tell me that your father is innocent. That you think I am a villain. And that I shall pay dearly for this dishonour to you. I have had business with your family before, and I have come through it all with a whole skin. Though you rant and rail, it shall be the same again, I am sure.’

  He reached over and yanked down her gag, pulling the handkerchief out of her mouth, and tossing it into her lap. She glanced down to see, in some relief, that the thing had been clean before he’d forced it upon her. And there, in the corner, the initials S and H.

  He nudged her. ‘Go ahead. What have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘Stephen Hebden?’ Despite her family’s attempts to keep her in the dark, she had heard his name.

  She knew she had guessed correctly, for he started a little as she called him by his real name. And then, he collected himself and returned to taunting her. ‘Some call me that. You may think of me as Stephano Beshaley, bastard son of Kit Hebden and Jaelle the Gypsy.’

  So this was the man that her brothers had been warning her about. And she had fallen easily into his clutches, just as they had feared. It annoyed her that she had proved herself to be the naïve girl everyone thought her to be. If she had any wit at all, she would need to use it to escape from this situation, for the man at her side was smarter than she had given him credit. She stared at him, trying to divine his true character and wondering how she might separate reality from facade. ‘Your half sister Imogen told me of you. You are the Gypsy child that Amanda Hebden raised as her own.’

  He rocked back in his seat as though a simple statement of fact bothered him more than the abuse he was expecting. ‘I am no longer a child. And I do not consider a few years of room and board to indicate any maternal devotion on the part of Hebden’s gadji wife.’ Hebden’s eyes blazed with a cold merciless light. ‘After my father was no longer alive to protect me, my step mother and her family could not get rid of me fast enough.’

  Was that pride in his voice, that his father’s family could not hold him? Or had their rejection hurt him? Because she could not believe that the feud between the families was all the result of a little boy’s injured feelings. She hazarded a guess. ‘If you did not like them, and they did not like you, then it was probably for the best that they sent you back to your mother and her people.’

  ‘Sent me to my mother’s people?’ He snorted. ‘They sent me to a foundling home and forgot all about me. When the Gypsies offered me a place, I returned to them with pride. And the Rom are not—’ his sneer deepened ‘—my mother’s people. They are my people, now. And they accepted me, even though I was a half-breed gaujo, whose mother was not alive to plead for my admittance to the tribe.’

  ‘Your mother had died, as well?’ she asked.

  ‘Of grief. Because the Hebden family did not want me, but neither would they return me to her.’

  Sympathy blotted the anger she felt with him. ‘I am sorry.’

  For a moment, he seemed genuinely puzzled by her response. ‘Sorry? Why should you be sorry?’

  ‘Why should I not be? It is a sad story. You and your mother were both badly served. Because I am only a girl, I have no say in the actions of my family. There is little I can do for you, other than to offer my sympathy for your loss.’

  She prayed that he under stood the fact, and agreed with her. For by the way he had been staring at her, the fact that she was an innocent girl had everything to do with the reason he had taken her. And she feared that he would demand far more than an apology, before the evening was through. ‘I am without value to you. Truly. But my father is rich, and powerful,’ she blurted.

  ‘I know who your father is.’ He smiled as though he had been waiting for the chance to reveal the extent of his knowledge. ‘George Carlow. Earl of Narborough. Betrayer of William Wardale. And true murderer of my father, Christopher Hebden.’

  ‘My father a murderer? You are insane!’ Any plan to reason her way to freedom was destroyed. But she could not let such an outrageous lie stand unchallenged.

  ‘Ha!’ he shouted back, as though he was satisfied with the revelation of her true nature, and twitched the reins to speed the horse. ‘My mother died with a curse on her lips for both the Carlows and the Wardales. Twenty years later, the Wardale children are thriving, and George Carlow sickens and dies.’

  ‘He sickens because he is old. Your continual harassment of my family is what weakens him. And he is not dying,’ she said, feeling the rising panic that had come so often in these past months. Be cause he could not be dying. Not now, when she was far from home and unable to be with him. ‘But you are trying to drive him into the grave, even though he has done nothing wrong.’

  ‘At best, your father was a meddling fool with no love for me or my family. At worst, he was a murderer. Soon, I will know the truth. Then the man who really killed my father will pay for his crime.’ He wrapped the rope around his hand and tugged it tight. ‘I will not bother with silk, or take the time to be gentle.’ And in that moment, he looked capable of murder.

  ‘But I had nothing to do with this. I was a baby when it happened. Let me go, and I will tell him what you said.’ Her voice sounded weak, pitiful. She struggled to control it so that he would not hear her fear and use it against her.

  ‘The children will pay for the sins of their fathers,’ he intoned, as though reciting scripture. ‘By my mother’s curse, you bear the guilt of your family
. If your father wishes to stay my hand against you, he will admit what he did.’

  She wished that she could raise her arms, so that she could put her hands to her ears and block out the man’s madness. If a twenty-year-old grievance and a dead woman’s curse had driven him to take her, then what hope did she have that he would be satisfied and release her, even if her father told him the lie he wished to hear?

  She looked ahead of the wagon, trying to guess where they might be going. The road had narrowed before them. And now, there were over arching trees to block out the stars. She wished she knew enough about such things to guess which direction they had gone. Although she suspected that the glow on her left might be the first light of dawn. They had been travel ling for hours, and she had not seen so much as a cottage.

  Then, in front of her, another faint glow. She sniffed the wind. Wood fires. A horse gave a welcoming whinny as they drew near. They passed another bend in the road. And there before them, in a clearing surrounded by beeches, was a Gypsy camp.

  She had never seen such a place before, but it must be that. There was a circle of tents, some of them big enough for a whole family, and also several curved roofed wagons that looked like small houses on wheels. But it was too early for the people to be awake. No lanterns were lit, and the cooking fires were banked. If she cried out, would anyone wake to help her? Or would they lie still in the dark, pre tending that they did not hear?

  The man who called himself Stephano Beshaley had driven close to the largest of the wagons, this one painted in green and gold. He slid out of the seat beside her, still holding the rope that bound her waist and hands. He tugged until she followed him to the ground, catching her as she almost fell. And then, he was pulling her towards the brightly painted wagon.

  She set her feet in the ground and wrapped her hands on the rope, pulling back to free herself. ‘No.’

  He laughed, and tugged back until she stumbled forward, into his arms. He held her, wrapping his arms about her waist, until there was no space left between them. ‘You will say yes to me, until I say otherwise.’

  ‘I will not,’ she shouted. But his touch made her feel so strange that suddenly she was not sure what would happen if he did not release her. ‘Let me go!’ She squirmed and pushed at his arms, trying to get away, but only succeeded in tearing a hole in her bodice when the net caught on the buttons of his coat. ‘Help me! Someone! Please!’

  There was a grumbling from one of the tents, followed by laughter from another, and a child’s murmuring of questions, which were quickly silenced. But no one appeared, neither to aid her, nor to be curious about the goings on.

  Her shouts made him hold her all the tighter, as though he meant to squeeze the air from her lungs. Perhaps that was what was happening, for she felt light-headed, almost to the point of faint ness. The contact of their bodies was more terrifyingly intimate than anything she’d experienced. But the fear she felt was not for the man who held her, but of the other more pleasant sensations he evoked. With a final shudder, she forced herself to stop fighting and lie still in his arms. For when she moved her body against the hardness of his, she could not remember why she wished to escape.

  He must have felt it, as well, for he stood very still, and his eyes seemed to go even darker. He was staring at her lips as though he could know the taste of them, just by looking. And for a moment, she thought the same. For though he had not moved, she could imagine the feel of his mouth on hers, kissing her with such force that she would beg to surrender to him.

  He moved suddenly, scooping her legs out from under her and carrying her up the little wooden steps of the wagon. He fumbled with the latch for a moment, then took her through and kicked the door shut behind them. It was too dark to see, but he had dropped her onto something soft that felt like a mattress.

  She lay still, sure that any movement would draw dangerous attention from him. She should have thrown herself out of the wagon—to her death if necessary—instead of listening to his bitter child hood stories. Now, he was standing between her and the door, fumbling to light a candle. If she tried to push past him, she could not help but touch him. And if she touched him…

  She was shaking, now. She told herself that it was only because she was cold and wet from her struggles in the bog. But she knew it was more than that. He was reaching for her.

  And she closed her eyes and trembled with anticipation.

  She felt his hands at her waist, untying the rope that was still attached there, drawing it out from under her body, and casting it away.

  When she looked up at him, he was staring down at her, his own face devoid of emotion. ‘Strip.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She scooted away from him on the bed.

  ‘Remove your clothing. To the last stitch. And then wash yourself.’

  ‘I will do no such thing.’

  ‘You will do as I say.’ He rubbed his thumb across his own dark skin, and then held it out to show her that is was clean. ‘You think me a dirty Gypsy? This does not wash off. But you?’

  He reached for her, and she flinched away from him. But he caught her under the jaw and held her face still, running his other thumb slowly along her cheek. Then he held it out to show her the mud. ‘You are filthy. And you are sitting on my bed. Your fancy dress is ruined, and as useless in a Gypsy camp as the woman it covers. Remove your clothing and wash yourself, or I will do it for you.’

  Then he turned away from her, going to a trunk in the corner. He began removing his own clothes, stripping off coat and waist coat, cravat and shirt, brushing away the dried mud from them and folding each piece and putting it on a chair in front of him. When he stood bare to the waist, he splashed himself with water from the basin, and towelled dry.

  Although she tried not to stare, it was almost impossible to look away. His body was lithe and his dark skin marked with a crisscross of scars. His shoulders were wide and strong, and she shivered as she saw the sinewy arms that had held her. The silver bracelet on his wrist almost seemed to glow against the darkness of his skin.

  Then he pulled off his boots and trousers, and continued to wash. She could see the long line of his well-muscled flank. The curves and planes of his body were as well defined as a Greek statue—and every bit as bare. And he was as casual in his nakedness as the statue might have been, for he paid no more attention to her, as if he was alone in the room.

  As she watched him, her insides gave a funny lurch and her heart beat un steadily in her chest. It must be the result of too much fear and not enough food or sleep, and the stress of not knowing what might happen to her in the coming hours. If he was not watching, and she could not manage the strength to escape, she should at least gather the energy to protest this most recent threat to her honour. She should not be sitting on the bed in a daze, thinking things that did not match with what she ought to be feeling, in her current and extremely precarious condition.

  She should not be staring.

  Perhaps it was the disinterest he was showing her, at the moment when she expected him to be the most threatening. But she was overcome with a languor, and the desire to lie back on the bed and continue to gaze upon him. For he was beautiful in his nakedness, and totally alien from anything or anyone she had known.

  He began to dress again, pulling on a pair of loose wool trousers, low boots, and a shirt of striped silk. Then he reached into a pouch at his waist and removed a gold hoop, fixing it in the hole in his ear. When he turned back to her, the English gentleman she had danced with might as well have never existed. This man was every bit a Gypsy.

  As he stared at her, his cold expression was softening into a seductive smile. Though he had not been bothered by it, he must have known that she had been watching him change, and known the affect the sight of him would have on her. ‘Well? Do not sit gawking at me, woman. Do as I say. Give me your clothing.’

  And for a moment, the idea beckoned to her. To be wild and carefree, and cast off her old life as easily as she had her clothes. Th
en the truth of the situation rushed back like cold rain, and she found her voice again. ‘Certainly not. Perhaps you have no shame and no sense. But I have no intention of removing my clothes for your entertainment.’

  ‘My entertainment?’ He laughed. ‘If I wished a naked woman in my vardo, I could have a new one every night, each more beautiful than the last. I do not need to take by force what will be freely given if I but ask. I have need of your clothing, and considerably less interest in the sight of your body than you had in mine.’

  Not only had he known she was watching, but there was something in his smile that made her believe he had taken more time than he’d needed to change, to pique her interest. If so, then his shame less ness knew no bounds. She shuddered in disgust. ‘Your desires in the matter are of little concern to me. I am here against my will. You may think and say and do what you will, but I do not intend to cooperate in your plans for me.’

  He stared at her, with the relaxed, almost lazy smile that a cat might give to a mouse. ‘Very well, then. If you will not remove your clothes, I must resort to force after all.’ He took a single step in her direction before she lost her nerve.

  ‘Leave me alone in the wagon, and I will do what you ask,’ she said hurriedly. ‘But if you remain…’

  What would she do? She had best not offer any suggestions, or he might remain and take the clothing himself.

  After what seemed like an infinity, he said, ‘I will wait outside. When you are finished, you will knock on the door and place your clothing on the step.’

  She nodded, and watched as he took himself out of her presence. As the door shut, she stared at it. She was rid of the Gypsy, for now, at least. And with his absence, sanity returned, and with it, her desire to escape.