Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

“Frederick will have your head when he learns of this, and then you’ll find there’s nothing poor about him.” She tugged the coverlet higher. “Now that you’ve had your little amusement, would you please bring me my clothing so I might dress and go home?”

“I told you, Caro, you’re my guest, and I won’t part with your company just yet. But such a wifely, if belated, show of modesty!” Insolently his gaze flicked over her bare shoulders. “These last hours while you’ve been unconscious I’ve had time enough to acquaint myself with your most intimate charms.”

“But that woman…’’ She glanced at the grim serving woman across the room. Wherever her clothing had gone, she’d assumed that the woman had undressed her, not George.

George shrugged. “Oh, Mrs. Warren is paid well enough to watch—whether it’s you, me, or both of us.” He leaned closer over her, and she forced herself not to draw back. “Your husband is a far more fortunate man than I’d suspected.”

“You didn’t,” she said slowly. “Not even you would dare do that.”

He shrugged again, his very carelessness suggesting a one-sided intimacy.

Fighting against her own uncertainty, she refused to believe all that smirk suggested. Could she really have been that vulnerable? Surely she would know if he’d—he’d used her the way he implied. Unconscious or not, her body couldn’t have been so insensitive, so unknowing, that she’d feel no different now. She closed her eyes, unable to meet the implication in his, and instead she saw another man’s hands reaching for her, grabbing her, his gnarled fingers digging into her trembling, terrified flesh.…

George trailed his forefinger along her cheek, the nail grating just enough across her skin to jerk her back to the present. She was a woman now, not a child. She knew how to fight back. Furiously she struck his hand away from her face.

“Don’t you ever touch me again, George!” Anger and hatred made her voice icy cold. “Can you understand that? Never!”

George’s lips pressed together into a tight, narrow line, as all vestiges of his customary charm vanished. “Save your protests for when they’re justified, Caro. I haven’t laid a finger on your dubious virtue. You are, after all, merely a bit of garnish beside a much richer meal, and as delicious as you likely are, you’re not worth risking the whole.”

“You are vile!” She nearly spat the words.

“No, Auntie, I’m simply weary of waiting.” He pushed the chair back from the bed and walked over to the window, the morning sun making a bright halo of his golden hair. “Your room here has a most excellent prospect of the harbor. You’ll also note that you’re four stories above the ground. The door will be locked—to protect you from harm, of course—and Mrs. Warren will see to your meals and other needs. I’ll keep your gown and slippers myself, so they won’t become soiled.”

“You can’t keep me here, locked away as your prisoner!” cried Caro, fighting her panic. She must not show any weakness before George. “Weldon must have seen what you did to me. He’ll send for the authorities, and they’ll—”

Smiling to himself, George tapped lightly on the window. “Weldon’s no fool, Caro. He knows how his bread will soon be buttered. He saw nothing unusual in your departure, and he’ll tell the other servants that you’ve gone.”

“You bribed my servants!” Unable to lie still any longer, she flung the coverlet around her shoulders and slid unsteadily from the bed. “First you kidnap me, and then you poison my people against me with your own worthless promises! This time I will go to Mr. Perkins and swear against you! When he realizes I’ve disappeared—”

“But he won’t, you see. Perkins believes you have gone to visit a friend to the north.”

“Not Perkins, too!” she cried. “God in heaven, George, when I tell this to Frederick—”

“But you won’t, Caro, because Frederick is dead.” He turned away from the window and headed toward the door, nodding curtly at Mrs. Warren to follow. “The sooner you accept his death and agree to begin the proper proceedings, the sooner you can leave.”

“No, George, I won’t do it! Frederick’s not dead. I would know it in my heart if he were! Somewhere he lives, somewhere he’s waiting for me, I know, and nothing you can say or do will change that!” She lunged for George’s arm to stop him before he locked her away, but her feet tangled in the trailing coverlet and she stumbled forward, her knees and arms hitting hard on the bare floorboards. “Wait, George, damn you, wait!”

“How charming,” said George, pausing with the door half shut. “The curse of an illegitimate child prostitute, seducer of a man old enough to be her father. You let Mrs. Warren know when you’ve come to your senses, Caro, and then we’ll speak again.”

She looked up as the key turned in the lock, and with a muffled cry of despair she sank back down to the floor, burying her face in the coverlet.

She tried to think of Frederick, to remember how his smile lit his blue eyes with pleasure when she played the pianoforte for him, no matter how many wrong notes she struck, to recall the faint fragrance of his tobacco on his coat and the contented sigh he made when he sat in the bargello armchair at the end of the day. She tried to imagine what he’d say to her now, if she could once again kneel on the floor beside him with her head resting on his knees, how gently he would stroke the back of her head and tell her not to fuss and worry, that life was too dear to waste it on ill feelings.

Why, then, was such hatred and greed destroying everything that Frederick had valued most? Why, why had he left her when she needed him so?

With a little sob of loneliness she curled deeper into herself, striving for the elusive comfort that her husband’s memory might bring. And then, strangely, the memory shifted. It wasn’t Frederick’s voice she heard in her head, but a deeper one, rumbling thick with an American accent.

“I’ll set it all to rights, sweetheart,” Jeremiah Sparhawk was saying as he held her against the hard muscles of his chest. His large hands along her body were warm and sure, a caress that fired her blood and made her heart race. “I won’t let that thieving bastard hurt you.”

She gasped and sat bolt upright. What had come over her? It must have been whatever drug George had used to rob her of her senses, returning again to steal her wits. Only once had she let the man kiss her, and here she was daydreaming of him like some moonstruck serving girl! She certainly had no business looking to Captain Sparhawk to rescue her, any more than she had the right to turn to him for comfort. He’d been furious when she’d left him at Blackstone House. What must his temper have been when she didn’t return as she’d promised?

She sighed deeply, rubbing her fingertips across her forehead. The American had been her last hope for finding Frederick, and even then Jack had told her she’d only have two weeks to convince Captain Sparhawk before he sailed for home. Now most likely he wouldn’t even speak to her, let alone risk his life to help find her husband.

Slowly she pushed herself up from the floor, drawing the coverlet around her shoulders like a shawl as she went to the window. From the houses across the street, she realized George had brought her to the attic of his own lodgings. She was surprised that he’d be so obvious, but then why should he bother to take her to a more secretive spot? No one would suspect him because no one was looking for her.

She stared down at the paving stones in the courtyard four stories below and groaned with frustration. She’d never be able to help Frederick as long as she was locked away up here. Somehow, she must find a way to escape.