Julia Quinn: To Catch an Heiress

But in the meantime, she would have to settle for making his life miserable. As soon as he mounted the horse and settled into the saddle behind her, she elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.

"What now?" he snapped.

She shrugged innocently.

"Another move like that and I'm stuffing a sec­ond rag in your mouth. And this one is considera­bly less clean than the first."

As if that were possible, Caroline thought angrily. She didn't even want to think about where her gag had resided before her mouth. All she could do was glare at him, and from the way he snorted at her she feared she didn't look fierce enough by half.

But then he set his horse into a canter, and Car­oline realized that while they weren't riding toward Portsmouth, they also weren't heading anywhere near Prewitt Hall.

If her hands hadn't been bound she would have clapped them together with glee. She couldn't have escaped any faster if she'd arranged transport her­self. This man might think she was someone else-a Spanish criminal to be precise-but she could straighten all that out once he'd taken her far, far away. In the meantime, she'd be quiet and still, and let him kick the horse into a full gallop.

Thirty minutes later a very suspicious Blake Rav-enscroft dismounted in front of Seacrest Manor, near Bournemouth, Dorset. Carlotta De Leon, who had done everything short of hurl fire at his toenails when he'd cornered her in the meadow, hadn't put up even the tiniest resistance the entire ride to the coast. She hadn't struggled and she hadn't tried to escape. She'd been so^juiet, in fact, that the gentle­manly side of him-which reared its polite head all too often for Blake's liking-was tempted to remove her gag.

But he resisted the impulse to be nice. The Mar­quis of Riverdale, his closest friend and frequent

partner in crime prevention, had had previous deal­ings with Miss De Leon, and he had told Blake that she was deceptive and deadly. Her gag and bind­ings would not be removed until she was safely locked away.

He pulled her down off of the horse, holding her elbow firmly as he led her into his home. Blake em­ployed only three houseservants-all of them dis­creet beyond compare-and they were used to strange visitors in the middle of the night. "Up the stairs," he grunted, pulling her through the hall.

She nodded cheerfully-cheerfully?!?-and picked up the pace. Blake led her up to the top floor and pushed her into a small but comfortably fur­nished bedchamber. "Just so you don't get any ideas about escaping," he said roughly, holding up two keys, "the door has two locks."

She looked over at the doorknob but other than mat had no obvious reaction to his words.

"And," he added, "it's fifty feet down to the ground. So I wouldn't recommend trying the win­dow."

She shrugged, as if she'd never for a moment con­sidered the window a viable escape option.

Blake scowled at her, irritated by her noncha­lance, and looped her wristcuffs over the bedpost. "I don't want you attempting anything while I'm busy."

She smiled at him-which was really quite a feat with the filthy gag in her mouth. "Bloody hell," he muttered. He was utterly confused by her, and he didn't like the feeling one bit. He checked to make certain that her bindings were secure and then be­gan to inspect the room, making sure he'd left no

objects lying about that she might turn into weap­ons. He'd heard Carlotta De Leon was resourceful, and he had no plans to be remembered as the fool who'd underestimated her.

He pocketed a quill and a paperweight before shoving a chair out into the hall. He didn't think she looked strong enough to break the chair, but if she somehow managed to snap off a leg, the splin­tered wood would be a dangerous weapon indeed.

She blinked with interest when he returned.

"If you want to sit down," he said curtly, "you can do it on the bed."

She cocked her head in an annoyingly friendly manner and sat on the bed. Not that she had much choice-he'd bound her hands to the bedpost, after all.

"Don't try to charm me by being cooperative," he warned. "I know all about you."

She shrugged.

Blake snorted with disgust and turned his back on her as he finished his inspection of the room. Finally, when he was satisfied that the chamber would make an acceptable prison, he faced her, his hands planted firmly on his hips. "If you have any more weapons on your person, you might as well give them up now, since I'm going to have to search you."

She lurched backward in maidenly horror, and Blake was pleased that he'd finally managed to of­fend her. Either that or she was a prodigiously good actress.

"Well, have you any weapons? I assure you mat I will grow considerably less gentle if I discover that you have attempted to conceal something."

She shook her head frantically and strained against her bindings, as if trying to get as far away from him as possible.

"I'm not going to enjoy this either," he muttered. He tried not to feel like a complete cad as she shut her eyes tightly in fear and resignation. He knew that women could be just as evil and dangerous as men-seven years of work for the War Office had convinced him of that basic fact-but he'd never gotten used to this part of the job. He'd been brought up to treat women like ladies, and it went against everything in his moral fiber to inspect her against her will.

He cut one of her wrists free so that he could remove her cloak and proceeded to rifle through her pockets. They held nothing of interest, save for about fifty pounds in notes and coin, which seemed like a paltry sum for a notorious spy. He then moved his attention to her small satchel, dumping the contents onto the bed. Two beeswax candles- Lord only knew what she wanted those for, a silverbacked hairbrush, a small Bible, a leather-bound notebook, and some underthings that he could not bring himself to sully with his touch. He supposed everyone deserved some measure of privacy, even treasonous spies.

He picked up the Bible and flipped quickly through it, making certain there was nothing con­cealed between its pages. Satisfied that the book contained nothing untoward, he tossed it back onto the bed, noting with interest that she flinched as he did so.

He then picked up the notebook and looked in­side. Only the first few pages contained any scribblings. "Contubernal," he read aloud. "Halcyon. Diacritical. Titivate. Umlaut." He raised his eye­brows and read on. Three pages full of the sort of words that earned one a first at Oxford or Cam­bridge. "What is this?"

She jerked her shoulder toward her mouth, mo­tioning to the gag.

"Right," he said with a curt nod, setting the note­book next to the Bible. "But before I remove that, I'll have to..." His words trailed off, and he let out an unhappy exhale. Both of them knew what he had to do. "If you don't struggle I'll be able to do this faster," he said grimly.

Her entire body was tense, but Blake tried to ig­nore her distress as he quickly patted her down. "There, we're done," he said, his voice gruff. "I must say I'm rather surprised you weren't carrying anything other than that pistol."

She glared at him in return.

"I'll remove the gag now, but one loud noise and it's going right back in."

She nodded curtly, coughing as he removed the rag.

Blake leaned insolently against the wall as he asked, "Well?"

"Nobody would hear me if I made a loud noise, anyway."

"That much is true," he conceded. His eyes fell back upon the leather-bound notebook, and he picked it up. "Now, suppose you tell me what this is all about."

She shrugged. "My father always encouraged me to expand my vocabulary."

Blake stared at her in disbelief, then flipped through the opening pages again. It was some kind of code. It had to be. But he was tired, and he knew that if she confessed to something that night, it wasn't going to be anything as destructive to her cause as the key to a secret code. So he tossed the book on the bed and said, "We'll talk more about this tomorrow."