“What is the meaning of this outrage?” her aunt exclaimed in her iciest voice. “I demand you unhand my niece at once!”
But Raven’s assailant paid no mind to the order. Instead he wrenched her around and snaked a thick arm about her waist from behind, lifting her bodily off her feet.
Gasping in fury, she fought back, struggling to be free of this rough, crude oaf, but her slippered heels made no dent in his beefy shins. When she bent her head in desperation and bit his shoulder through his tweed coat, her defiance earned her a cuff to the temple from his fist, a blow so violent that she saw stars.
Dazed, she glanced back to see the look of horror on her aunt’s face, the fear on her grandfather’s.
Her own fright grew as she realized the direness of her situation: she was being abducted in broad daylight!
Then she saw O’Malley struck down with the cudgel. Raven gave an anguished cry of protest, a cry that was cut short as she was shoved roughly inside the coach and facedown on the floor. She felt her gown rip at the shoulder as the coach door slammed behind her.
Stunned, the breath knocked from her, she scarcely comprehended the shouts from outside the coach as the vehicle lurched forward and began to move off. Groping the swaying seat to brace herself, Raven dizzily scrambled onto the rear-facing leather cushions.
She was not alone.
“You!” she exclaimed, recognizing the black-haired gentleman who sat opposite her. He was the same obsessive brute she’d barely escaped from once before: an unwanted suitor who’d assaulted her after refusing to accept her rejection. When she last saw him, he had been fighting O’Malley, who had come to her rescue.
Sean Lasseter’s savage smile held unmistakable menace, but it was the pistol aimed at her chest that made her heart jump to her throat.
“So you do remember me, Miss Kendrick, after all these months. I am flattered.”
“What do you want?” she demanded breathlessly, eyeing the pistol.
“Simple revenge,” her abductor replied, his own tone silken.
“Revenge? For what?”
Drawing a flask from his coat pocket, he raised it to his lips and drank deeply. She could smell the strong liquor in the close confines of the coach, could see the alcoholic glaze in his eyes.
“Surely you know,” he said, his voice grim.
Suddenly he lifted the butt of the pistol, and Raven flinched, knowing he meant to strike her. Frantically she raised her arms to protect her face from the threat, but he rammed the butt into the side of her skull, and she saw no more.
Chapter Two
“Doubtless you have a good reason for summoning me from my fencing match,” Kell Lasseter remarked mildly as he reached the second floor of his gaming house.
His beautiful hostess, Emma Walsh, awaited him at the head of the stairs. “A most urgent reason,” she replied in obvious agitation. “Your brother…”
Kell felt a prick of alarm, his familiar protective feelings suddenly roused. “What’s amiss? Has Sean been hurt?”
“No, not hurt. But he brought a lady here, Kell, and I fear he means her harm. He has a whip, and he has bound her to the bed.”
Kell’s dark eyebrows snapped together, a different kind of alarm coursing through him. His charming rogue of a younger brother could be wild at times, even dangerous when driven to it-yet he’d never known Sean to act with physical violence toward a woman. Still, during these past months Sean’s black moods had come more and more frequently…
“Our reputation.” Emma shuddered in horror. “If he rapes her…”
Emma was as desirous of protecting the club’s renown as he was, Kell thought grimly, but she would doubtless feel sympathy for any vulnerable female because of her own harsh past. Yet his own stomach knotted at her talk of rape.
“You must stop him, Kell. Miss Kendrick is well-known in society, and she has powerful connections.”
At the notorious name, he felt himself stiffen. Miss Raven Kendrick was the darling of the ton, and for a time last summer, she had turned his brother’s life into a living hell-delivering him to the unspeakable brutality of the British navy.
“Where are they?”
“In your bedchamber.”
Kell clenched his jaw, striving not to leap to conclusions. Sean had struggled with his inner demons for years, but since his impressment in the navy, he’d been bitter, brooding, vengeful. Had the torture he’d suffered during his enforced service finally driven him over the edge?