A Seduction in Scarlet (Aphrodite's Club 1)

“Duval Hall,” Marcus replied.

She’d heard the name before, but couldn’t think where. Maybe Minnie Duval had mentioned it—the family home? She allowed her eyes to close. Marcus was seated across from her, watching over her, and he would take care of everything. Portia felt safe for the first time in weeks.

Arnold expected to find the household sleeping when he finally came home around two o’clock the following morning. Instead, lights were blazing and Lara was up and smelling of sherry.

He’d spent a productive few hours with his friends, while he ate a good dinner and enjoyed a cigar with his brandy.

“I need to be very close to her when I pull the trigger,” he’d told the conspirators. “There’s no point in lurking in Hyde Park or hiding in a crowd of nannies and children and hoping for a lucky shot. I want to be certain.”

“Are you able to get that close to her?”

He thought of Portia. “Yes. Yes, I will be able to get close enough.”

Their glances reflected a mixture of admiration and fascination. Arnold was so certain in his own mind that he was doing the right thing, they thought him courageous and reckless beyond their understanding. But he knew that the queen must die. One could lobby and make speeches and write letters for a lifetime and get nowhere, but this action would blaze a trail around the world, and the assassin and his cause would be instantly famous and never forgotten. His father, if he were still alive, would have been proud of him. His father had always been his model and hero, and those who had scorned him and sent him away because of his beliefs would be sorry.

He had lifted his glass. “To the cause!”

They lifted their own, echoing him.

And now Lara was babbling at him about Portia and her mother missing. Eventually he got the story from a very worried-looking Deed.

It seemed that after Portia went to the ball at St. James’s, Lara had retired. The next thing she knew, one of the housemaids was shaking her and saying that Lady Ellerslie hadn’t come home and neither had her maid. And then, when they looked in on Mrs. Stroud, thinking she might know what had happened, they found that her bed had been vacated and she was gone, too.

Arnold knew he’d been outwitted. He wondered how, a short while ago, he could have been king of the world, and now…he would be a laughingstock among his fellow conspirators. Or worse, they would consider him a danger to their plans!

He would not have it.

Arnold swore that Portia would pay for this. No matter how long he had to wait, he would be patient and find her. And then, by God, she would be very sorry.

Chapter 22

Portia was dreaming again. She was in a boat sailing on the blue ocean beyond St. Tristan. The sky was bright above her and someone was holding her in his arms and she hadn’t a care in the world. It was only when the boat hit a hole in the road and rocked dangerously that she realized she was actually in a coach traveling through the night. Running away from everything she’d become with the man she hardly knew. The man who was her lover, or had been before they said good-bye.

She sat up, wide-awake.

Marcus was kidnapping her. He’d admitted it. He was acting against the law of the land. If Arnold found out, if Victoria found out, he’d be arrested and taken back to London. What was the sentence for something like this? Years in prison, at the very least, if the public did not tear him apart first for daring to lay a hand on their angel in widow’s weeds.

What had she been thinking of to let him do this?

“Bad dream?”

He was awake, too, leaning back in his corner, legs stretched out and head tilted to rest against the padded leather. He looked sleepy, as if he was barely awake. The dawn light was slanting through the window, shining across his handsome face and tussled dark hair. He looked so perfect that for a moment she couldn’t speak. She wanted to remember him like this; her unreliable, reckless, untrustworthy hero.

The temptation was to climb onto his knee and wind her arms about his neck and kiss him. To forget everything but the physical excitement he created in her. She glanced at her mother and Hettie, both sleeping, to reassure herself she wasn’t alone with him. Just in case she did something silly.

“You can’t do this.” That was better. She sounded firm and determined; a woman in charge of her destiny.

“Can’t do what?” He didn’t seem in impressed with her tone.

“Kidnap me.”

“I already have.” He closed his eyes again and folded his arms. “And I’m enjoying every moment of it.” One eye opened. “You were fine with it a moment ago, why have you changed your mind?”

“

I was thinking—”

He groaned.