Anne had, in her life, known moments of terror. When she’d stabbed George and realized what she’d done—that had been paralyzing. When Daniel’s curricle had run wild and she’d felt herself sailing through the air after being thrown from the vehicle—that, too, had been terrifying. But nothing—nothing—had ever or would ever compare to the moment when, realizing that the horses pulling George Chervil’s carriage had slowed to a walk, she had leaned down to Frances and whispered, “Run home.” And then, before she had had a chance to second-guess herself, she’d wrenched open the carriage door and pushed Frances out, yelling for her to curl up in a ball when she hit the ground.
She had only a second to make sure that Frances scrambled to her feet before George yanked her back into the carriage and slapped her across her face.
“Do not think you can cross me,” he hissed.
“Your war is with me,” she spat, “not that child.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
Anne was not so sure she believed him. Right now George was so obsessed with ruining Anne that he could not see past the next few hours. But eventually, once the rage in his blood had cooled, he would realize that Frances could identify him. And while he might think he could get away with injuring—or even killing—Anne, even he had to know that kidnapping the daughter of an earl would not be treated so lightly.
“Where are you taking me?” Anne asked.
His brows rose. “Does it matter?”
Her fingers clenched the seat of his carriage. “You won’t get away with this, you know,” she said. “Lord Winstead will have your head.”
“Your new protector?” he sneered. “He won’t be able to prove anything.”
“Well, there’s—” She stopped herself before she reminded him that Frances could easily recognize his face. The scar took care of that.
But George was instantly suspicious of an unfinished sentence. “There’s what?” he demanded.
“There’s me.”
His lips twisted into a cruel mockery of a smile. “Is there?”
Her eyes widened with horror.
“Well, there is,” he murmured. “But there won’t be.”
So he planned to kill her, then. Anne supposed she shouldn’t be surprised.
“But don’t worry,” George added, almost casually. “It won’t be quick.”
“You are mad,” Anne whispered.
He grabbed her, his fingers grasping the fabric of her bodice and yanking her until they were nearly nose to nose. “If I am,” he hissed, “it is because of you.”
“You brought this on yourself,” she shot back.
“Oh, really?” he spat, tossing her back against the far wall of the carriage. “I did this.” He motioned sarcastically to his face. “I took a knife and sliced myself up, making a monster of—”
“Yes!” she cried out. “You did! You were a monster before I ever touched you. I was only trying to defend myself.”
He snorted with disdain. “You had already spread your legs for me. You don’t get to say no after you’ve done it once.”
She gaped at him. “You really believe that?”
“You liked it the first time.”
“I thought you loved me!”
He shrugged. “That’s your stupidity, not mine.” But then he turned sharply, regarding her with an expression that approached glee. “Oh, my,” he said, grinning with the worst sort of schadenfreude. “You did it again, didn’t you? You let Winstead plow you. Tsk tsk tsk. Oh, Annie, haven’t you learned anything?”
“He asked me to marry him,” she said, eyes narrowing.
George burst into raucous laughter. “And you believed him?”
“I said yes.”
“I’m sure you thought you did.”
Anne tried to take a deep breath, but her teeth were clenched so hard together that she shook when she tried to draw air. She was so . . . bloody . . . angry. Gone was the fear, the apprehension, the shame. Instead all she felt was blood-boiling fury. This man had stolen eight years of her life. He had made her scared, and he had made her lonely. He had taken the innocence of her body, and he had smashed the innocence of her spirit. But this time, he was not going to win.
She was finally happy. Not just secure, not even just content, but happy. She loved Daniel, and by some miracle he loved her in return. Her future spread before her in lovely sunrise shades of pink and orange, and she could actually see herself—with Daniel, with laughter, with children. She was not giving that up. Whatever her sins, she had long since paid for them.
“George Chervil,” she said, her voice strangely calm, “you are a blight on humanity.”
He looked at her with mild curiosity, then shrugged, turning back to the window.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
“It’s not far.”
Anne looked out her own window. They were moving much faster now than when she’d pushed Frances from the carriage. She did not recognize the area, but she thought they were heading north. Or at least mostly north. They’d long since left behind Regent’s Park, and although she’d never taken the girls there, she knew that it was located north of Marylebone.
The carriage kept up its brisk pace, slowing just enough at intersections for Anne to read some of the signs on the shops. Kentish Town, one of them said. She’d heard of that. It was a village on the outskirts of London. George had said they weren’t going far, and maybe that was true. But still, Anne did not think there was any way that anyone would find her before George tried to carry out his plan. She did not think he had said anything in front of Frances that might indicate where they were going, and in any case, the poor girl would surely be a wreck by the time she reached home.
If Anne was going to be saved, she would have to do it herself.
“It is time to be your own heroine,” she whispered.
“What was that?” George said in a bored voice.
“Nothing.” But inside, her brain was spinning. How would she do this? Was there any sense in planning, or would she need to wait and see how events unfolded? It was hard to know just how she might escape without first seeing the lay of the land.
George turned toward her with growing suspicion. “You look rather intent,” he said.
She ignored him. What were his weaknesses? He was vain—how might she use that to her advantage?
“What are you thinking about?” he demanded.
She smiled secretly. He did not like to be ignored—that, too, might be useful.
“Why are you smiling?” he screamed.
She turned, her expression carefully constructed to appear as if she’d only just heard him. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“What am I up to? I’m sitting in a carriage being kidnapped. What are you up to?”
A muscle in his good cheek began to twitch. “Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice.”
She shrugged, accompanying the motion with a dismissive roll of her eyes. He would hate that.
“You’re planning something,” he accused.
She shrugged again, deciding that with George, most anything that worked once would work even better the second time.
She was right. His face grew mottled with rage, sending his scar into sharp white contrast with his skin. It was gruesome to watch, and yet she could not tear her eyes away.
George caught her staring and grew even more agitated. “What are you planning?” he demanded, his hand shaking with fury as he jabbed her with his forefinger.
“Nothing,” she said quite honestly. Nothing specific at least. Right now all she was doing was setting him on edge. And it was working beautifully.
He was not used to women treating him with disdain, she realized. When she had known him, the girls had fawned and hung on his every word. She did not know what sort of attention he drew now, but the truth was, when he was not red-faced with fury he was not unhandsome, even with his scar. Some women would pity him, but others would probably find him dashing, mysterious even, with what looked like a valiant war wound.
But disdain? He would not like that, especially from her.
“You’re smiling again,” he accused.
“I’m not,” she lied, her voice but a quip.
“Don’t try to cross me,” he raged, poking her shoulder again with his finger. “You cannot win.”
She shrugged.
“What is wrong with you?” he roared.
“Nothing,” she said, because by now she had realized that nothing would infuriate him more than her calm demeanor. He wanted her to cower with terror. He wanted to see her shake, and he wanted to hear her beg.
So instead she turned away from him, keeping her eyes firmly on the window.
“Look at me,” George ordered.
She waited for a moment, then said, “No.”
His voice dropped to a growl. “Look at me.”
“No.”
“Look at me,” he screamed.
This time she did. His voice had reached a pitch of instability, and she realized that she was already tensing her shoulders, waiting for a blow. She stared at him without speaking.
“You cannot win against me,” he snarled.
“I shall try,” Anne said softly. Because she was not giving up without a fight. And if he managed to destroy her, then as God was her witness, she was taking him down, too.
The Pleinsworth coach sped along the Hampstead Road, the team of six pulling the carriage with speeds not often seen on the route. If they looked out of place—a large, opulent coach going breakneck speed with armed outriders—Daniel did not care. They might attract attention, but not from Chervil. He was at least an hour ahead of them; if he was indeed going to an inn in Hampstead, he would be there already, inside and thus unlikely to see them on the street.
Unless the room was facing the street . . .
Daniel let out a shaky breath. He would have to cross that bridge if he came to it. He could either get to Anne quickly or stealthily, and given what she’d told him of Chervil, he was opting for speed.
“We will find her,” Marcus said in a quiet voice.
Daniel looked up. Marcus did not radiate power and swagger, but then again, he never had. Marcus was dependable, and quietly confident, and right then, his eyes held a resoluteness that Daniel found comforting. Daniel gave a nod, then turned back to the window. Beside him his aunt was keeping up a steady stream of nervous chatter as she clutched Frances’s hand. Frances kept saying, “I don’t see it. I don’t see his carriage yet,” even though Daniel had more than once told her that they had not yet reached Hampstead.
“Are you sure you will be able to recognize the carriage?” Lady Pleinsworth asked Frances with a dubious frown. “One looks very much like another to me. Unless there is a crest . . .”
“It’s got a funny bar on it,” Frances said. “I will know it.”
“What do you mean, a funny bar?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t think it does anything. It’s just for decoration. But it’s gold, and it swirls.” She made a motion in with her hand, and it brought to mind Anne’s hair the night before, when she had twisted her wet locks into a thick coil.
“Actually,” Frances said, “it reminded me of a unicorn’s horn.”
Daniel felt himself smile. He turned to his aunt. “She will recognize the carriage.”
They sped past several of London’s outlying hamlets, finally reaching the quaint village of Hampstead. Off in the distance, Daniel could see the wild green of the famed heath. It was a huge expanse of land, putting the London parks to shame.
“How do you want to do this?” Hugh asked. “It might be best to go on foot.”
“No!” Lady Pleinsworth turned on him with visible hostility. “Frances is not getting out of the carriage.”
“We will go up the high street,” Daniel said. “Everyone shall look for inns and public houses—anyplace where Chervil might have hired a room. Frances, you search for the carriage. If we don’t find anything, we shall start on the smaller alleys.”
Hampstead seemed to have a remarkable number of inns. They passed the King William IV on the left, the Thatched House on the right, and then the Holly Bush on the left again, but even though Marcus hopped out to peer around the backs to look for anything resembling the “unicorn” carriage Frances had described, they found nothing. Just to be sure, Marcus and Daniel went inside each of the inns and asked if they had seen anyone matching Anne’s and George Chervil’s descriptions, but no one had.
And given the description Frances had given him of Chervil’s scar, Daniel rather thought Chervil would have been noticed. And remembered.
Daniel hopped back into the coach, which was waiting on the high street, attracting a fair bit of attention from the townspeople. Marcus had already returned, and he and Hugh were talking about something in animated, yet quiet, tones.
“Nothing?” Marcus asked, looking up.
“Nothing,” Daniel confirmed.
“There’s another inn,” Hugh said. “It’s inside the heath, on Spaniards Road. I have been there before.” He paused. “It’s more remote.”
“Let’s go,” Daniel said grimly. It was possible they had missed an inn near the high street, but they could always come back. And Frances had said that Chervil had specifically mentioned “the heath.”
The carriage sped away, arriving five minutes later at The Spaniards Inn, which sat practically within the heath, its white-painted brick and black shutters elegant amidst the wilderness.
Frances pointed her arm and started to shriek.
Anne soon found out why George had chosen this particular inn. It was on a road that went right through Hampstead Heath, and while it wasn’t the only building on the road, it was considerably more isolated than the establishments in the center of the village. Which meant that if he timed it right (which he did), he could drag her out of the carriage, through a side door, and up to his room without anyone noticing. He had help, of course, in the form of his driver, who guarded her while George went in to retrieve his key.
“I don’t trust you to keep your mouth shut,” George growled as he shoved a gag in her mouth. It went without saying, Anne thought, that he couldn’t very well ask the innkeeper for his key while accompanied by a woman who had a smelly old rag in her mouth. Not to mention hands tied behind her back.
George seemed eager for her to know all of his plans, and so he kept up a boastful monologue as he arranged the room to his liking.
“I’ve had this room for a week,” he said, shoving a chair in front of the door. “I wasn’t supposed to find you on the street last night without my carriage.”
Anne stared at him in horrified fascination from her spot on the floor. Was he going to blame her for that?
“Yet another thing you’ve managed to ruin for me,” he muttered.
Apparently, he was.
“It doesn’t matter, though,” he said. “It all worked out in the end. I found you at your lover’s house, just as I expected I would.”
Anne watched as he glanced around the room, looking for something else with which to block the door. There wasn’t much, not unless he moved the entire bed.
“How many have you had since I knew you?” he asked, turning slowly around.
Anne shook her head. What was he talking about?
“Oh, you’ll tell me,” he snapped, and he strode forward and yanked the gag from her mouth. “How many lovers?”
For about one second Anne considered screaming. But George was holding a knife, and he’d locked the door and put a chair in front of it. If anyone was near, and if that person cared to save her, George would still be able to slice her to ribbons before help arrived.
“How many?” George demanded.
“None,” Anne said automatically. It seemed amazing that she might forget her night with Daniel when faced with such a question, but what came to mind first were all those years of loneliness, of having not so much as a friend, much less a lover.
“Oh, I think Lord Winstead would have something else to say about that,” George sneered. “Unless . . .” His mouth slid into an unpleasantly gleeful smile. “Are you telling me he couldn’t perform?”
It was very tempting to give George a catalogue of all the ways Daniel had outperformed him, but instead Anne just said, “He is my fiancé.”
George laughed at that. “Yes, so you believe. Good God, the man has my admiration. What a trick. And no one will take your word over his after the fact.” He paused for a moment, looking almost wistful. “It must be convenient to be an earl. I couldn’t have got away with that.” He brightened. “Still, as it turns out, I didn’t even have to ask. All I had to do was say, ‘I love you,’ and you not only believed me, you thought it meant I’d marry you.”
He looked over at her and tsk tsked. “Foolish girl.”
“I will not disagree with you on that point.”
His head tilted, and he regarded her approvingly. “My my, we’ve grown wise in our old age.”
By this point Anne had realized that she had to keep George talking. It delayed his attack, and it gave her time to plot. Not to mention that when George was talking, he was generally boasting, and when he was boasting, he was distracted.
“I’ve had time to learn from my mistakes,” she said, taking a quick glance at the window when he walked to the wardrobe to get something out. How high up were they? If she jumped, could she survive?
He turned around, apparently not finding what he was looking for, and crossed his arms. “Well, that’s nice to hear.”
Anne blinked in surprise. He was regarding her with an expression that was almost paternal. “Do you have children?” she blurted out.
His expression turned to ice. “No.”
And just like that, Anne knew. He had never consummated his marriage. Was he impotent? And if so, did he blame her for it?
She gave her head a tiny shake. What a stupid question. Of course he blamed her for it. And dear God above, she finally comprehended the extent of his rage. It wasn’t just his face; in his eyes, she had unmanned him.
“Why are you shaking your head?” George demanded.
“I’m not,” she replied, then realized she was shaking her head again. “Or I didn’t mean to. It’s just something I do when I’m thinking.”
His eyes slitted. “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” she said, quite honestly.
“Really?” For a moment he looked pleased, but this quickly gave way to suspicion. “Why?”
“Well, you’re the only other person in the room. It makes sense that I’d be thinking about you.”
He took a step toward her. “What were you thinking?”
How on earth could she not have noticed how utterly self-absorbed he was? Granted, she’d been only sixteen, but surely, she’d had more sense than that.
“What were you thinking?” he persisted when she did not immediately reply.
She considered how to answer this. She certainly could not tell him that she had been pondering his impotence, so instead she said, “The scar is not as dreadful as I think you think it is.”
He snorted and turned back to whatever it was he was doing. “You’re just saying that to get on my good side.”
“I would say it to get on your good side,” she admitted, craning her neck to get a better look at his activities. He seemed to be rearranging everything again, which seemed rather pointless, as there wasn’t much in the hired room to rearrange. “But as it happens,” Anne continued, “I think it’s the truth. You’re not as pretty as you were when we were young, but a man doesn’t want to be pretty, does he?”
“Perhaps not, but I don’t know a soul who’d want this.” George made a grand, sarcastic gesture to his face, his hand sweeping down from ear to chin.
“I am sorry I hurt you, you know,” Anne said, and to her great surprise, she realized she meant it. “I’m not sorry I defended myself, but I am sorry you were injured in the process. If you’d just let me go when I asked, none of this would have happened.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault?”
She shut her mouth. She shouldn’t have said the last bit, and she was not going to compound her error by saying what she wanted to say, which was, Well, yes.
He waited for a response, and when he didn’t get one, he muttered, “We’re going to have to move this.”
Oh dear God, he did want to move the bed.
But it was a huge, heavy piece of furniture, not something he could move on his own. After a minute or so of shoving and grunting and a good deal of cursing, he turned to Anne and snapped, “Help, for God’s sake.”
Her lips parted in disbelief. “My hands are tied,” she reminded him.
George cursed again, then strode over and yanked her to her feet. “You don’t need your hands. Just wedge yourself against it and push.”
Anne could do nothing but stare.
“Like this,” he bit off, leaning his bottom against the side of the bed. He planted his feet on the threadbare rug, then used his body weight to shove against it. The big bed lurched forward, about an inch.
“You really think I’m going to do that?”
“I think that I still have the knife.”
Anne rolled her eyes and walked over. “I really don’t think this will work,” she told him over her shoulder. “For one thing, my hands are in the way.”
He looked down to where her hands were bound, still behind her back. “Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered. “Get over here.”
She was over there, but Anne thought it best to hold that quip in.
“Don’t try anything,” he warned her, and with a tug, she felt him slice through her bindings, nicking the base of her thumb in the process.
“Ow!” she yelped, bringing her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, that hurts, does it?” George murmured, his eyes taking on a glaze of bloodlust.
“Not any longer,” she said quickly. “Shall we move the bed?”
He chuckled to himself and took up position. Then, just as Anne was preparing to pretend to be trying with all her might to push the bed against the door, George suddenly straightened.
“Should I cut you first?” he wondered aloud. “Or have a spot of fun?”
Anne glanced at the front of his breeches. She couldn’t help herself. Was he impotent? She didn’t see any evidence of an erection.
“Oh, so that’s what you want to do,” he crowed. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to him, forcing her to feel him through the fabric. “Some things never change.”
Anne tried not to gag as he rubbed her left hand roughly over his crotch. Even with his clothes on, it was making her sick, but it was far better than having her face cut open.
George began to groan with pleasure, and then, to Anne’s horror, she felt something begin to . . . happen.
“Oh, God,” George moaned. “Oh, that feels good. It’s been so long. So bloody long . . .”
Anne held her breath as she watched him. His eyes were closed, and he looked almost trancelike. She looked down at his hand—the one holding the knife. Was it her imagination, or was he not holding it so tightly? If she grabbed it . . . Could she grab it?
Anne grit her teeth. She let her fingers wiggle a bit, and then, just as George let out a deeper, longer groan of pleasure, she made her move.