Page 71 of One Night with a Rake

“Only ye ruined it for me.” She laid her head on his chest and sobbed. “Ye told me ye loved me. Worse, ye said I deserve it. Ye stupid, stupid man.”

Mercy didn’t mean for it to happen, but the rest of the words poured out of her along with the tears. She’d never have said them if she’d thought he could actually hear her, but once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop.

She told him how her chest pounded each time she happened to round the corner and see his handsome face. How she arranged her days so that their paths would cross more often than needed. She confessed that even though she knew he was wrong, she longed for him to be right, that somehow even if she didn’t deserve it, she might still be able to make-believe that he loved her in any case.

“Because if ever a man had a shining soul to match his fine face, it’s you, Reuben Darling.” She lifted her head and looked down at him again, willing him to open his big brown puppy dog eyes.

She pressed a kiss on his lips, but there was no response.

“I don’t know if I can love anybody. I’d probably be hopeless at it,” she admitted with a ragged sob. “But if ever I was to try to love someone, it would be you.”

One of his eyelids moved and she sucked her breath in over her teeth.

“If you’ll try to love me, that’ll do, Mercy Atwood,” Reuben said softly. “That’ll do.”

***

Once Georgette was dragged from the carriage, she was forced to walk. She heard a door opening before her and she was ushered inside, surrounded by the bustling noises of a busy kitchen.

“Oh, my! What are you—” a matronly-sounding voice started and then stopped abruptly, as if her words had been strung on a thread snipped off by an unseen seamstress.

“Help me, whoever you are. I promise you’ll be rewarded,” Georgette pleaded. “I’m Lady Georgette Yorkingham and I’ve been taken against my will.”

Well, of course you have, ninny. Anyone can see that. You’ve a burlap bag over your head and your arms are bound.

She silently cursed herself for her outburst. Naturally, whoever had spoken was in her captor’s employ. No help would be coming from that quarter.

So she not-so-silently cursed her assailant with a number of choice phrases she’d picked up from Mercy’s colorful vocabulary as he forced her up a set of stairs. She was done pleading. She wouldn’t take another step willingly.

Which was how she found herself being carried upward with no gentleness at all. The man kicked a door open and they passed into a room. He dropped her without ceremony but instead of the hardwood she expected to land on, she sank into a mattress.

She’d been outraged. She’d tried to reason with him. She’d pleaded for help.

Now for the first time, real fear snaked down her spine.

Twenty-seven

The burlap bag was snatched off her head. The room was dim because heavy drapes had been pulled over the windows. She blinked owlishly for a moment, trying to get her bearings. The room was spartanly furnished, but the coverlet on which she rested was damask and of good quality. If her eyes didn’t deceive her, the landscape painting overhanging the small fireplace seemed to be a Gainsborough. The room was too conventional, too well-appointed a place to house a kidnapped victim.

Then Georgette looked up into the face of her abductor.

And was tempted to swear so vehemently even Mercy would have blushed.

“Nathaniel Edward Colton,” she said, spitting his name through clenched teeth. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”

“No, but I suspect you have.”

“Because I dare to leave the house without you dogging my footsteps?”

“For a start, yes.”

She struggled against her bonds, but he didn’t seem disposed to untie her.

“If I were so minded,” Nathaniel said, “do you realize I could do anything I want with you?”

“It appears to me you already have.” Georgette wiggled into a sitting position. The process wasn’t terribly dignified, but once she was upright, she felt more in control than when she was lying down.

“Only because you’re intent on endangering yourself,” he said with vehemence. “Don’t you understand? Anything could happen to you on Lackaday Lane.”