Chapter Two
Cathe jerked awake as the crack of lightning exploded somewhere nearby. She peered into the darkness, shivering against the cold. The power must be out.
Climbing from the bed, she glided her feet around in a circle in search of her slippers, only to come up empty. She’d obviously left them in the bathroom.
While holding both hands out in front of her, she inched across the room toward her dresser, hoping to find the candles she’d always kept in the top right-hand drawer.
“Damn it,” she cried, hopping around on one foot after slamming her toe into an immovable object. There shouldn’t be anything in the middle of her floor.
More lightning struck, temporarily illuminating the room.
Cathe froze. Her heart began to pound, and an overwhelming feeling of confusion paralyzed her brain. She wasn’t in her bedroom or anyone else’s that she recognized, and the woman staring back at her from an antique mirror…was far too young to be her.
She lifted trembling hands to her face, tracing her fingers over soft, smooth skin. How had she erased twenty years from her life in one night?
Panic took hold, making it hard to breathe. Her hands continued to shake as she wandered aimlessly toward a giant door she’d caught a glimpse of during the brief lightning strike.
She must be dreaming, she decided, feeling her way along a rough wall. That was it. She’d fallen asleep while reading the book the old woman had left in the store and was now in the throes of strange dream where she’d traveled back to her youth.
“Move, and I will gut you like a pig,” a man’s voice growled in her ear. Something sharp pressed against her throat, and she bit back a scream.
This sure doesn’t feel like any dream I’ve ever experienced. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The voice rumbled again. “Who are you?”
“I’m lost, I swear. I have no idea how I came to be here, and if you will point me in the right direction, I will be out of your way this instant.”
“What gibberish do you speak?” He pressed the sharp object more firmly against her skin.
“Gibberish?” She couldn’t place his accent. It was prominently English with an American undertone, if that made sense, which it didn’t. Maybe she imagined gibberish as well as spoke it.
“Move.” He gave her a shove, pushing her forward, never easing up with his sharp weapon.
“I…I can’t see. Look, there’s been a huge mistake. I don’t understand how I got here. Please, if you can just call me a cab, I’ll be out of your hair and we can forget this ever happened.”
The pressure suddenly disappeared from her throat, and she nearly dropped to her knees in relief.
“What is this cab?”
Cathe blinked. “Seriously?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “You know…a taxi. The yellow car that transfers people from one place to another.”
“What manner of speech is this? I do not know what taxi you speak of.”
What manner of speech? “It doesn’t matter. I can get a ride home if you’d be so kind as to show me to the door.”
A light from an oil lamp suddenly flickered and came to life, illuminating the room in a warm glow. Cathe turned to face the man whose bed she’d awoken in, and her breath caught.
His dark hair hung in waves, resting on the biggest pair of shoulders she’d ever seen. Full, sexy lips were twisted into a frown that didn’t deter from their sexiness in the least. But it was his gunmetal-gray eyes that held her attention the most.
Too bad he happened to be the world’s biggest asshole. “Where am I?”
“In my home,” he growled, his beautiful eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I’m not dreaming?” She glanced down at her smooth, young hands. This couldn’t be happening to her, but it was. The evidence of it stared back at her in shocking affirmation.
“How did you get into my home?”
“I don’t know how I got here or even who you are, for that matter.”
“I am Lord Bryne Adair.”
Cathe’s heart stuttered. “Did…did you say Lord Bryne Adair?” She had to be dreaming or at the very least the star of someone’s joke.
“Who sent you?” He leaned in close, and his sweet, warm breath fanned across her face.
“Please, listen.” She gripped the lapels of her robe and pulled them together, effectively covering the upper swell of her breasts. “I fell asleep in my bed while reading this book about you. I don’t know how I came to be here. You have to believe me.”
“Trickery,” he barked, gripping her arm. “I will deal with you in the morning. Now, walk.”
“Where are we going?” His clean, fresh scent suddenly surrounded her, engulfing her in its unique essence. He smelled incredible.
“Tonight, you sleep with Ansel.”
“What’s an Ansel?” When he didn’t answer, she tried again. “I don’t want to sleep with Ansel. Please, there’s been a mistake.”
They entered a large hall made of stone, with sconces attached holding small oil lamps that burned every fifteen feet along the wall.
“Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, it’s not funny,” Cathe whispered, taking in everything with a quick glance.
“You will return to William in the morning with a message.” He squeezed her arm for emphasis. “The next witch he thinks to send here will be sent back without a head.”
“You’re hurting me,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “The only William I know is my ten-year-old nephew, and I’d rather pass on becoming acquainted with your Ansel, thank you very much.” Anger was quickly replacing her fear.
He turned her around and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Where is this book you speak of?”
“I was reading it in bed before I fell asleep.”
He grabbed a lamp from a holder on the wall and moved back into the bedroom, stopping at the foot of the bed. “There is no book.”
Cathe followed close behind. “That’s because this isn’t my bed. Look. I don’t know how I came to be here or even what this place is. All I know is that an old lady dropped a book off this evening in my store. There was a raised key on the cover beneath a title that read Turn the Page. That book was a two hundred and fifty-year-old story, and it was about you. You have to believe me.”
He leaned down until their noses nearly touched. “Lies.” Gripping her arm once more, he propelled her forward.
“Wait!” she cried, digging her heels in. “Just hear me out. My name is Catherine Grier, and I live at 2201 Santa Rosa Street in Pensacola Beach, Florida. I own Fisher’s Book Store and my telephone number is 850-555-3003. Call the cops; they can verify who I am.”
“I know not what a cop is or these numbers you refer to.”
I’m in the Twilight Zone.
“I don’t know what is going on, okay? I only know that I went to bed last night in the twenty-first century, reading that book, and I awoke to this.” She threw her arms out in a wide arc. “I’m freaking out as much as you are.”
He led her back to the hall and gave her a little shove. “Walk.”
Cathe wondered if maybe she’d died in her sleep and was now in purgatory. “Am I dead?”
“Not yet, but that could change depending on Ansel’s mood.”
“Listen. You don’t want to do this Ansel thing. If you will show me to the door, I’ll find my own way home.”
He didn’t answer, just continued to shove her forward.
They reached a flight of precarious-looking stone stairs with no handrails, and the drop off the side had to be at least twenty feet in height.
Petrified, Cathe froze. She’d always been afraid of heights. “I can’t.”
He spun her around, bent, and threw her over his shoulder.
The wind rushed out of her on impact as his shoulder slammed into her abdomen. “Put me down,” she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the visual of the floor below.
He disregarded her plea and practically jogged down the incredibly steep steps.
“I’m going to be sick,” she moaned, gripping his shirt for support.
The sting of his palm against her rear jerked her out of her nauseous state.
“That hurt!” she yelled, slamming her fists against his back.
“Keep your mouth shut and do not think to be sick or perhaps I will change my mind and keep you in my bed for a time before giving you to Ansel.” He gently squeezed her behind for emphasis.
Cathe stilled. The feel of his warm palm caressing her bottom felt better than it should have, and it thoroughly pissed her off. “Take your hands off me this instant, you Neanderthal. And you can go on knowing that I will be pressing charges.”
The deep rumble of his laughter further enraged her, but she kept it to herself. There would be plenty of time later to watch him suffer behind bars.
They arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and he set her on her feet. “In there.” He pointed to a half-open door with a fireplace burning in the back.
“Please listen to—”
“Go!” he roared, cutting her off.
Cathe ran into the room without a backward glance, jumping at the sound of the door slamming behind her. She spun around and reached for the doorknob, only to find a strange contraption resembling a brass spoon resting above a skeleton keyhole.
She drew back her fist, preparing to pound the walls down if necessary. Hopefully she could make enough noise to draw someone’s attention. Anyone other than asshole Adair.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.” A nasally voice drifted from somewhere nearby. “The master don’t like that sorta thing.”
Cathe sucked in a breath and spun to scan the room. “Who’s there?”
A tall, lanky man came limping from the shadows, holding a candle in one hand and a rope in the other. “Get away from the door.”
Nausea rolled once again as she caught a whiff of his stench. The guy obviously didn’t believe in bathing. “If it’s money that you want, I have plenty of it. I just need to run to my house and get my purse. I can write you a check or—”
“Shut up,” he snarled, moving closer, setting the candle on a lopsided table.
“Please. You have to help me. I’m not supposed to be here. There’s been some kind of a mistake. I—”
He gripped the back of her head with one hand and covered her mouth with the other. The rope he held dug into her scalp while his putrid scent invaded her senses, triggering her gag reflex.
Her sudden bout of dry heaves forced him to take a step back. “What’s wrong with ya, woman?”
She couldn’t answer as another heave caused her eyes to water and her mouth to tighten with the effort of holding onto her earlier dinner. She shook her head instead.
He grabbed a wooden chair from nearby and forced her to sit as he jerked her wrists behind her back and bound them with the rope he held in his hands. “What he send ya down here for? Catch ya stealin or somethin?”
“He’s crazy. I didn’t do anything wrong, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Well, I ain’t listenin’ either. So shut yer trap before I shut if for ya.”
“Please untie my hands. I have no weapons on me.” She pulled at the restraints, but there was no give to the ropes. “Why are you doing this to me?”
The man known as Ansel left the room for a few minutes. She could hear voices outside the door and recognized the deep timbre of Bryne Adair’s.
Ansel returned carrying a dirty strip of cloth, and Cathe’s nerves ran up her stomach straight into her head. “What is that for? Surely you’re not going to—”
A scream trapped in her throat as the nasty material was suddenly stuffed into her mouth, cutting off her words. The unwelcome gag reflex abruptly appeared once more.
The tall, lanky guy stepped around the chair, stopping in front of her. “It don’t matter none to me who ya are. It only matters who the master thinks ya are.”
Cathe pleaded with him through her eyes, the only weapon she had left since he’d restrained her arms and gagged her. She might as well be pleading with a stump for all it got her. If she truly was in a bad dream, she’d give anything to wake up.