A heavy quilt covered her. She swept a hand beneath the coverlet to explore her state of dress…or undress, as seemed the case. Good heavens! Her corset had been removed, as had her blouse and her skirt. Her flimsy cotton combination and her lace-trimmed petticoat were all that covered her. Someone had even taken the time to slip her shoes from her feet.
“So you’re awake. About time you decided to join us.” A man’s voice, deep and flavored with a subtle burr.
She pressed up on her elbows, wedging herself against the settee. A very handsome, very masculine man stared down at her. Jade eyes framed with dark lashes met her gaze. The same intense green hue as the devil named MacMasters possessed. Yet in the most subtle of ways, utterly different.
This man was taller, his build leaner. His tailored tweed jacket and pressed trousers bespoke a civilized gentleman rather than a renegade in ebony boots. But there was no denying the resemblance.
“Who…who are you? You look so very much like…him.”
“Him?” Amusement tilted the stranger’s mouth. “I presume you mean…” He cocked his head to the man marching through the door, each thud of his boots heavy against the wood floor. “Him.”
“Ye didn’t think I’d abandoned ye to those heathens, did ye, lass?” MacMasters towered over her. Gone was the heavy coat. He’d stripped down to his shirtsleeves, the white linen garment draping muscular shoulders and sleek, sinewed arms. Awareness surged through her, electric and dynamic and primal, and somehow, rather frightening. Something deep within warned her to protect herself from this man. Yet, his nearness stirred an innate need.
Her lips were dry, so parched she couldn’t resist moistening them with a flick of her tongue. Or so she told herself. An ordinary response, really. Nothing to do with her body’s instinctive response to MacMasters. Surely a sip or two of water was all she required.
“Why are you here?” Her question came out weak. Pitifully voiced, in fact. Squaring her spine against the hoodlum with a knife had not sapped her of spirit. What had come over her?
“I brought ye here after ye fainted.”
“Fainted?” Being careful to keep the blanket tucked around her, she scooted to the edge of the settee. “I am not a woman who swoons.”
“Then ye did a fine imitation.” His eyes gleamed with a good natured humor. Perfect. Precisely what she didn’t need. She didn’t want to like this man. He’d ruined the exchange she’d arranged, the delivery of the ransom that would save her niece.
MacMasters’s mirror twin brushed a tendril from her face. His touch was warm. Gentle. Blessedly, the contact did not propel a sensuous current through her as the devil’s had. “You were awake and aware, but a bit dazed when you arrived. I don’t doubt you’d lost consciousness at some point after the incident. You were in considerable pain.”
“Pain?” The word triggered a rush of memory. The preceding hours flooded her as if she were reliving the events in that single moment. “I remember now. The knife. That beastly man…he cut me. I even remember coming here, to this house. But I don’t know why…why I am here.”
“I am a physician, Miss Templeton. My brother brought you here because you were in distress.”
“Brother.” The word settled into her brain. So, that explained the similarities as well as the subtle differences between the two men.
“Seeing that you’d been hurt, I examined you to ensure you had sustained no other injuries. Thankfully, you were unscathed other than the laceration on your arm,” he went on. “I tended your wound and administered medication to ease your discomfort. The compound induced sleep, but now, I suspect it’s left you in a bit of a fog.”
Digesting his explanation, she struggled to steady her rampaging thoughts. Fog seemed an accurate description, indeed. But now, as the confusion lifted, questions bombarded her.
Finally, she settled on one.
“How do you know my name?”
“It is embossed on your traveling bag,” he answered matter-of-factly, as though it were every day that he treated a woman whose identity he’d discerned from the lettering on her valise.
The ransom. An invisible rock dropped into the pit of her stomach. She’d left the bag—and the book—unguarded. Heaven knew she’d no reason to trust that these men possessed a shred of honesty between them.
She plastered her features into a bland mask. It wouldn’t do to reveal her apprehension. “My valise…may I have it, please?”
A flash of understanding in the devil’s eyes told her he’d heard the concern in her voice. The rock in her belly grew heavy, massive as a boulder poised to tumble from the cliffs along the Cornwall coast. Without a word, he left the room.