“Do not speak of him that way.”
“How shall I speak of him?”
A shudder passed through her. So many lies, so many accusations. Nothing made sense and maybe she didn’t want it to. If Captain had lied to her all these years, if she wasn’t his daughter, mustn’t there be a reason? Something noble? Something good and right, from which she could draw all her respect and love for him?
The stranger jerked the counterpane from the bed. “I shall take this and sleep by the door. We are two stories up, so I do not advise jumping out the window.”
The window.Glass breaking, falling, crimson fluttering and fluttering and fluttering …
“What is the matter?”
“N–nothing.” She hurried to the bed and slipped into the scratchy bed linens. She drew them to her neck, but even when she closed her eyes, the ferocious half-human beast roared and screamed at her.
She would not go to sleep. Not tonight. She hadn’t the courage to face the nightmares already closing in. The nightmares she’d battled a thousand times.
The nightmares only Captain knew how to comfort.
Monbury Manor
Lodnouth, Northumberland
They had arrived.
Even when her kidnapper jumped down from the rented post chaise and offered his hand, she did not move. She kept her eyes out the window.Dear Savior, help me.
Because she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to walk alongside this man up the gravel path. She didn’t want to pass beneath the shadow of those tall nymph statues. She didn’t want to reach the door of the manor itself, with its fluted Greek columns and its endless glistening windows—as beautiful as anything she’d ever dreamed of.
Only it wasn’t beautiful now.
The stranger faced her in the carriage doorway. “You care nothing for the man inside this manor. Mayhap you hate him.”
“I hate no one.”
“Then of the same mercies you would bestow a hurting animal, be merciful to your father.” He outstretched his hand. “Now come.”
She placed her cold fingers in his bandaged one. She shouldn’t have. Not when this very hand had ripped her from everything she knew.
But even a touch as despicable as his brought her comfort.
And courage.
“You will remember him, I think.” His voice was soft. Reassuring, almost. “You were five when you left.”
She stopped three feet from the massive stone steps. “Who are you?”
“An enemy at current. Maybe someday a friend.”
“What is your name?”
“Felton Northwood. Perhaps you remember?”
Her heartbeat worked faster, and even when he tugged her toward the first step, she didn’t move. “And your advantage in bringing me here?”
“A question for another time.”
“I wish to know now.”
“I do not think you do.”
