CHAPTER 29
The faintest hue of inky dawn was just lightening the sky as Lord Ramsbury’s chestnut gelding plodded wearily through unfamiliar gates.
Hooves crunched along a white gravel driveway, the animal’s unsteady gait waking Selina from a slumber that may or may not have been voluntary.
She had a vague memory of Lord Ramsbury’s arm around her neck and an intense squeeze that had made her skull pound and her eyes bulge. Then, nothing.
Against her better judgment, she had continued to plead with him to take her back, and he had made good on his threat to silence her. Or so it seemed.
A pleasant manor appeared through a tunnel of leaning oak trees, but it might as well have been a terrifying Gothic castle for all the comfort it brought her.
“Where are we?” she asked thickly, her throat sore.
Lord Ramsbury’s arm was still wrapped around her waist, and her skin crawled at the unwelcome touch.
“We are home, my darling.” He paused. “At least for a few hours, so we might refresh ourselves before continuing on.”
“Continuing on? To where?” she croaked.
“I shall tell you later,” he replied, a smile in his voice.
Possibilities swarmed in Selina’s head until it buzzed like a wasp’s nest. Of course, he would want to get her as far from his country residence as possible. It was the first place that people would look for her if they discovered she had been taken.
If…
That tiny word sent a tremor through her.
What if her family, her friends, and Philip wasted time searching for her elsewhere? What if they did not deduce that Lord Ramsbury had kidnapped her? What if they went to London? What if they were too late in finding her before this wretched beast did something awful to her?
After all, there wasoneway to ensure that she could never be returned to Philip. Two ways, actually. Though at that moment,death was preferable to the other option. A possibility that made her stomach lurch.
The horse continued down the driveway, coming to a halt at the steps of a wisteria-draped porch. A beautiful entrance to what would undoubtedly be a unique hell.
Lord Ramsbury slid down from the saddle. He didn’t offer his hands to help her, but grabbed her roughly around the middle and all but pulled her to the ground. She stumbled, her legs locked after so long on the horse, but she would have preferred to fall flat on her face than be held tight to the Marquess’s chest.
Her nose and mouth were squashed against him, her lungs panicking as she sought to draw breath.
“Now, my dear, do not think about running,” he warned, releasing her just enough that she could gulp in some air. “I have taken great pains to bring you here, and you won’t get far.”
With his hand moving to her upper arm, his grip a manacle, he tugged her up the porch steps and through the main doors. She tried to drag her feet, but he was unreasonably strong.
Inside the manor, a staff of three awaited them: an older woman, an older man, and a young maid. Evidently, they had been expecting their arrival.
“I apologize for the small staff,” Lord Ramsbury said brightly, as if there was nothing wrong at all. “It is, sadly, a matter offinances. But once we are married, you will be able to hire as many as you please.”
“Married?” Selina choked out, though it was no great surprise.
However, there was a difference between fearing the worst and hearing it spoken out loud.
“No, Lord Ramsbury,” she said, mustering her strength. “There will be no wedding between us. I am betrothed to someone else.”
She eyed the doors behind her, but the older man—the butler, presumably—was already moving to close them. Her nerves shuddered as she heard the turn of a key in the lock.
“And I forgive you for your foolishness,” Lord Ramsbury said with a smile. “Rather, I forgive you for making a fool out of me. Our wedding will remedy the insult of your actions. Now, I suggest you rest some, have something to eat, refresh yourself, and then we shall set out for the north.”
“What?” she rasped.
“I have a friend there who will let us stay at his residence and be married in the church there,” he explained. “No one is coming to retrieve you, Selina. If they are concerned at all for your whereabouts, they will be headed in the wrong direction.”
