Chapter 8
Had he abducted the wrong woman?
Wrestling with the door to the keep, Damien wanted to punch his fist through the wooden panel. Every latch in this godforsaken castle was corroded by the sea air. He gave the iron handle another mighty tug and it finally lifted with a loud, creaking protest.
Pausing in the open doorway, he glared back at the hooded figure marching toward him across the darkened castle yard. The storm was gaining strength, and she staggered several times under the force of the powerful gusts. But he resisted the impulse to go to her and offer his assistance. The little witch would only bite his head off.
Dammit, she had to be Lady Beatrice Stratham. He didn’t want to believe he’d made such a catastrophic mistake. He had tracked Walt’s sister for several days. He had waited for hours outside that damned modiste’s shop. He had grabbed her unawares and then smuggled her aboard one of his ships, a fast schooner with a loyal crew that had deposited them at this island without questioning the presence of an unconscious woman in his arms.
Damien had congratulated himself for pulling off the perfect plan.
Except maybe it wasn’t so perfect, after all. If what she said was true, then it was an unmitigated disaster.
When she’d awakened in the tower bedchamber the previous afternoon, he had shrugged off her protests as a feeble attempt to trick him. He had been cocky and contemptuous, certain that she was lying about her identity in order to secure her release. Granted, his captive had looked rather ordinary compared to the exquisite girl he’d watched from afar. But he’d attributed the discrepancy to the fact that he hadn’t ever viewed her up close. Anyway, how could she possibly be that middle-aged companion in the dowdy, shapeless garb? The slenderness of her body surely disproved that possibility.
Yet a few moments ago, she had catalogued the physical differences between her and her cousin: the hair and eye color and complexion. And he had heard the unmistakable passion of truth ringing in her voice. You yourself said that I’m not pretty. That’s because my cousin is the beauty of the family—not me!
Dread soured his gut. How in hell could he have made such a blunder? If this irksome female turned out to be Lady Beatrice’s spinster cousin—and he feared it to be true—then his plan to retrieve the stolen key from Walt was in serious jeopardy.
She approached the doorway where Damien waited. Though her features were shrouded by darkness, her manner radiated disapproval. When he stepped back to let her into the keep, she flicked her skirts aside to keep from brushing against him.
He caught a whiff of lilacs amid the cold sea air. That same feminine fragrance had enticed his senses while he’d held her imprisoned against the boulder.
He cursed the rise of heat in his blood. No matter who she was, it would be the height of idiocy to imagine himself in bed with her. He shouldn’t think of how supple and energetic she’d felt while struggling in his arms. Nor should he recall how her rounded bottom had rubbed him in exactly the wrong place. His business with her had nothing to do with seduction.
To hammer that point home, Damien banged the door shut. They were standing in the gloomy great hall with its rusty shields and the ragged tapestries on the stone walls. The only illumination came from an oil lamp sitting on a table and the glimmer of embers on the hearth.
“Follow me,” he snapped.
He tramped toward the massive fireplace and threw several logs onto the grate. Then he grabbed the poker to stir the glowing coals, using more vigor than was necessary. As tongues of flame began to lick at the wood, he turned around to find his prisoner lurking in the shadows while eyeing the iron implement in his hand.
Good God. Did she think he meant to use it on her?
Irritated, he propped the poker against the stones and then waved at a wooden bench near the hearth. “Sit down,” he said curtly. “You must be frozen.”
She remained standing. “Where is Mrs. MacNab?”
“Asleep, I’m sure. It’s after midnight.”
“I shouldn’t be here alone with you.”
“Considering this wild claim of yours, Miss Stratham, you’ll forgive me if I expect you to answer my questions straightaway. Would you prefer to do so here—or in your bedchamber?”
She pursed her lips and then seated herself on the bench at the end closest to the fire. “It isn’t a wild claim. It’s time you accepted that Lady Beatrice is still in London.”
As she stretched out her gloved hands to the flames, the hood of her leaf-green cloak fell back to reveal an untidy mass of wavy hair that glowed red in the firelight. Her complexion had been rather sallow when she’d awakened some hours ago, but now her cheeks were rosy from the cold. The faint scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose lent her an innocent look at odds with her shrewish, outspoken nature.
Damien stalked to the rough-hewn oak table and uncorked a decanter, pouring a liberal splash of liquid into a pewter goblet. He had always prided himself on paying close attention to detail. His skill at reading nuances of expression had enabled him to amass a fortune as the owner of a highly successful gentlemen’s club.
When it came to Lady Beatrice, however, circumstances had forced him to observe her from a distance. Did she have any freckles?
Calling up an image of her face, he conceded that her skin had appeared to be pure cream. He also was certain that her hair had been a paler strawberry blond beneath her bonnet. And given her classic English coloring, her eyes were surely blue.
Not at all like the disapproving brown eyes that watched him now.
The reality of his colossal error drenched him in a cold wave. The woman sitting in front of him truly was Miss Eloise Stratham. Ellie, she’d called herself. God! How had he ever mistaken this sharp-tongued spinster for a guileless, seventeen-year-old girl?
It was her apparel that had fooled him. Damien had barely given Lady Beatrice’s companion a glance, never bothering to look past her frumpish attire. Now, he felt perversely angry that she had dared to transform herself.
Striding forward, he thrust the pewter goblet into her hand. “If you’re the companion, you were garbed as Lady Beatrice when you went to the dressmaker. Why were you pretending to be her?”
“I wasn’t! She let me wear a gown and cloak of hers, that’s all. It was Lady Milford’s idea.” Looking down, Miss Stratham frowned at the contents of the goblet as if it were hemlock. “What is this?”
“Brandy. And why the devil was Lady Milford telling you what to wear?”
Damien remembered the beautiful woman from the time he’d spent in society as a wild young buck. After a rocky start at Eton, he’d realized the advantage of cultivating a bond with a select group of his fellow pupils, the more reckless of the noblemen. By the time he’d left the boarding school, he had been invited to numerous upper-crust parties despite his lack of a pedigree. He’d had a knack for cards even back then, winning more than enough to pay for the trappings of a gentleman.
Although Lady Milford had associated with a loftier circle, their paths had crossed from time to time. She had been unfailingly polite, yet he’d had the sense that those shrewd violet eyes were watching him, judging him. In particular, there had been one encounter that still twisted like a knife in his gut. She had sought him out at a ball, drawing him aside to warn him against his reckless courtship of Veronica …
Damien crushed the memory. Now was not the time to reflect on past mistakes. Lady Milford might be a grand doyenne of society, but she was just another meddlesome busybody. Less than a week ago, when he’d waited outside her town house to watch Lady Beatrice, and then had begun following the Stratham carriage, he’d heard someone rap on the window of Lady Milford’s town house. He had glanced up without thinking, to see only a twitch of the curtains. But it had been her, wanting a look at his face, no doubt about it.
Had she recognized him? He didn’t know.
Miss Stratham took a swallow from the goblet and screwed up her face at the taste of the brandy. “Lady Milford only meant to be helpful. She came to Pennington House to invite Beatrice to make an afternoon call with her. That’s why I kept the appointment with the modiste. Beatrice and I are the same height and it was the hems of her gowns that needed adjusting.”
“A likely story.”
Ellie Stratham stared disdainfully at him. “You’re one to accuse me of lying. You, who snatched me off the street and brought me here against my will. Well, I’ve some questions for you, too, sir. Are you so inattentive that you couldn’t distinguish me from my cousin?”
“Inattentive—!”
“Did you never stop to wonder why I had no carriage or footman awaiting me? Or why I would walk home alone at dusk, without the protection of a chaperone?”
Damien gripped his fingers into fists. At the time, he had wondered, then had convinced himself of Lady Beatrice’s na?ve nature. When fate had presented him with the perfect opportunity, there had been no time to dawdle. He had acted decisively and captured her.
Or rather, he had captured Miss Ellie Stratham.
He stomped back to the table and poured himself a glass of brandy, draining it in one swallow. Unfortunately, the burning heat failed to soothe his aggrieved pride. “Pennington House was nearby. It wasn’t inconceivable that Lady Beatrice would proceed there on foot. And I presumed her to be a modest, unassuming girl who didn’t wish to force servants to wait upon her.”
Miss Stratham stared a moment, then let out a peal of laughter. The merry sound echoed through the great hall, bouncing off the stone walls and adding warmth to the chilly air. “Unassuming? You truly don’t know my cousin, then.”
Damien stood transfixed by the way her ordinary brown eyes now sparkled like topaz. Amusement illuminated her whole face, erasing the pinched hostility and lending her a younger, prettier look.
The reality of her identity struck him anew. How had he ever believed this woman to be two decades older than Lady Beatrice? Surely no more than a handful of years separated them in age.
Just how old was Ellie Stratham?
The answer didn’t signify. Not when she was laughing at his expense. “Naturally, you’ve the advantage of me in knowing Lady Beatrice’s character,” he said stiffly. “I’ve never had occasion to meet her.”
Miss Stratham leaned forward, her gaze intent on him. “But you were watching her. You were sitting in your carriage outside Lady Milford’s house, and that’s why you should know Beatrice is hardly the meek, retiring sort. Did you not notice the way she was flirting with Lord Roland?”
The memory was crystal clear. From his perspective, Lady Beatrice had behaved as any typical young girl just freed from the schoolroom.
But that wasn’t the source of the unpleasant shock Damien felt now. “You saw me?”
“Quite. You looked rather sinister in your black coat and hat. And then you followed us home and stared at my cousin while she went up the walk.” Miss Stratham narrowed her eyes at him over the rim of her goblet. “I suspected there was something wicked about you—and I was right.”
So much for believing he’d been discreet. Damien cursed himself for discounting this woman, who had turned out to be a far greater danger to his plan than he could ever have imagined.
Brusquely, he said, “Then the very next day, you put on your cousin’s clothes and went to the modiste without her. Were you posing as her because you thought she needed protection from me?”
Miss Stratham blinked, then gave a firm shake of her head. “No, I already explained why I attended the fitting. Though even if Beatrice hadn’t had a change of plans, I’d been toying with the notion of taking her place anyway because…”
“Because?”
Her expression suddenly troubled, she glanced at the fire for a moment before returning her gaze to him. “The previous evening, Walt came to my chamber. He warned me to keep Beatrice at home for the time being. He claimed that my uncle—the earl—wanted her to be punished for calling on Lady Milford without his permission. But I had the impression that Walt was lying to me.” Those dark eyes bored into Damien. “Now I understand why. He knew that you were a threat to his sister. He knew that you meant to do her harm.”
“Not harm,” Damien objected. “I merely wanted to hold her here until Walt brought the ransom. Then he could take Lady Beatrice back home and no one would be the wiser.”
Miss Stratham gave an unladylike snort. “Did you think my grandmother and uncle wouldn’t notice her absence? Or that the servants wouldn’t gossip? The news of her disappearance would have been all over society within hours. Whether you’d seduced her or not, Beatrice would have been ruined before she’d even had a chance to make her debut!”
He ignored the tight coil of guilt in his chest. “Nonsense. The season hasn’t yet begun, so no one in society would have missed her. And before leaving London, I sent instructions to Walt on how to protect her reputation. I told him to concoct a story about his sister being called out of town to nurse a sick friend. If he has a brain in his thick skull, he did exactly that—for you.”
With a thump, Miss Stratham set down the goblet on the bench. “It’s you who have the thick skull, not Walt. No one will believe such a preposterous tale. You’d risk the reputation of a young lady just to line your pockets with gold.”
Damien resented being attacked when she didn’t know the whole story. He felt provoked into saying, “I haven’t asked for gold. I only want Walt to return something that he stole from me. I gave him the chance to do so last week. When he refused, he left me no other choice but to force his hand.”
“Stole from you? What?”
He prowled back and forth through the shadows. The less she knew, the better. He didn’t want this harpy poking and prying into his past. “Never mind. Just tell me this. How close are you and Walt? Surely he will feel an obligation to rescue you.”
Her lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. She glanced down, and the firelight illuminated the anxiety on her face. That look eroded Damien’s hope of salvaging victory from the jaws of defeat.
When she returned her gaze to him, her expression was as bleak as the winter sea. “Walt may be my cousin, but I wouldn’t describe us as close. As to ransoming me, I don’t know. It all depends upon the value of this item. Is it terribly costly?”
Damien had a sudden inkling of her lack of stature in the Earl of Pennington’s household. As a poor relation, she would be expected to serve the family members. But apparently her worth to them had a limit. And she knew it.
Damn Walt! The weasel might very well abandon his cousin to her fate. And what of the earl? If Walt hadn’t done so already, he’d eventually have to tell his father what had happened. Given his reputation as a stickler for propriety, Pennington would very likely consider his niece ruined. He might cut off all association with Miss Stratham lest Lady Beatrice be tainted by the scandal.
Damien raked his fingers through his hair. What the devil was he to do with her if no one delivered the ransom? He needed time to figure that out. For now, though, maybe she deserved a version of the truth.
“It’s a key,” he admitted. “It has no value to Walt—but it’s important to me.”
Miss Stratham gawked at him. The fire snapped in the silence, while a fist of wind knocked at the door. Then she surged to her feet and uttered incredulously, “You abducted me for a key?”
“It isn’t just any key. It was given to me as a child.” Damien had no intention of explaining his complicated background, how he had been left as a baby to the care of Mrs. Mims, or that the key was his sole link to the parents he’d never known. No one else could possibly understand this hunger he felt to uncover his past—and not just for himself.
For Lily.
Softness pierced the armor of his antipathy. His daughter might only be six, but someday she would ask him about her missing grandparents and he wanted to be able to answer her questions. He was determined to give Lily everything he himself had never had—including a knowledge of her ancestry.
Not that he would ever admit such a desire aloud, especially to Miss Ellie Stratham. She would only exploit his weakness.
He added aggressively, “I don’t take well to people stealing what belongs to me.”
“Yet you’d steal a woman away from her family.”
“Yes. I’ll do whatever is necessary to force Walt to return the key.”
Frowning, she thinned her lips, looking remarkably like a strict governess. “What does it fit? A treasure vault? I can’t think of any other reason why he would bother taking an old key.”
“It was pure malice, that’s why. He knew it was important to me.” Damien took a step closer to her. “You’ve known Walt all your life. You must have some sense that he isn’t the most honorable of gentlemen.”
Miss Stratham’s eyes widened slightly and a shadowy emotion flitted across her features. Then she snapped, “You’re one to speak. You’re hardly a bastion of honor yourself.”
Damien barely noticed her jab. He was too busy wondering at the source of that brief distress on her face. An ugly thought struck him. Had Walt made untoward advances toward her? Had the scoundrel tried to force his own cousin? Had he taken advantage of an impoverished woman who was reduced to living on the charity of her relatives?
Damien told himself it was none of his concern. Her private life had nothing to do with his purpose … unless it could be used to his advantage.
“I wonder if perhaps you might have seen the key,” he said smoothly. “It’s quite distinctive. One end has three teeth and the other, a brass crown stamped into an iron circle. It’s likely to be in Walt’s chambers at Pennington House.”
A flush crept up her cheeks. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I assure you, sir, I’ve never set foot in his bedchamber. Let alone snooped through his belongings.”
Damien didn’t know if her prickly response verified his suspicions, or was simply an expression of her hostility toward him. “Forgive me, I meant no insult. I merely thought you might have gone to his room to speak to him for some reason. If he’d left the key lying about—”
“If he did, I never saw it. But perhaps you and I could make a bargain. If you’ll take me back to London straightaway, I promise I’ll look for it.”
The determined glint in her eyes unexpectedly amused him, though he kept his face expressionless. As vexing as she was, he admired her pluck. Most women in her situation would have collapsed into tears by now.
He also knew that she might very well turn him in to the law. If she’d been Lady Beatrice, he’d have been safe, for the family would never have sought his arrest for fear of ruining her. But they might not be so willing to protect a poor relation.
“And why would I trust you to help me?” he asked.
“Because it’s your only hope of getting what you want,” she said tartly. “If I may be blunt, Walt isn’t likely to remove himself from the pleasures of London simply to deliver a key. He’d have done so for his sister, but not for me. You’d be wise to recognize that now and avoid being stuck here for weeks, waiting for a ransom that will never arrive.”
Damien saw her point, but he was too frustrated by the failure of his plan to acknowledge it aloud. Instead, he wanted to throw back his head and howl like the rising wind outside the keep.
He grabbed the oil lamp from the table and thrust it into her hand. “Go on back to the tower before this gale worsens. I’ll let you know my answer in the morning.”