Gl

ad? He should be bloody well chanting hallelujahs.

She’d flee to Monks and Filey and they’d take her back to where they’d found her. This distasteful farce would end.

Except Monks and Filey had gone to a deal of trouble to fetch the trollop. They wouldn’t be pleased to discover she’d changed her mind. When they weren’t pleased, they were inventive in expressing their disappointment. He carried scars from occasions when their inventiveness had exceeded even its usual bounds.

The girl would be at their mercy.

The girl was here to spy on him.

He bent to pick up his book. She’d involved herself in his uncle’s schemes. She deserved whatever happened to her.

But as he sat and found his place on the page, his mind focused not on the Latin treatise but on large dark blue eyes that silently begged for his help.

He should abandon her to her fate but she’d be frighteningly defenseless against his uncle’s thugs.

“Christ,” he grated out, slamming the book shut.

He had a sudden piercing memory of her disapproval for his uncouth language.

The chit had courage but courage wouldn’t save her from his jailers. Knowing he was a fool, but unable to stop himself, Matthew surged to his feet and went in search of his unlikely harlot.

Chapter 3

Grace buckled over at the waist and struggled for breath. Late afternoon sun shone warm on her bare head while bitter hopelessness sapped her determination. Since her husband Josiah’s illness, despair had become a familiar visitor. But never before had despair dug its icy fingers so deep into her craven soul.

She’d hardly believed her luck when her unsettling companion had left her alone. Fear had lent a spurious strength when she’d leapt from the sofa and run. Since that euphoric moment, she’d searched doggedly for a way out.

There was no way out.

The decorative but hostile marquess took no risk in letting her go. The boundary wall stretched before her as it had stretched since she’d reached it. High, white, and polished to a slippery smoothness that offered no handholds. Even so, she’d tried several times to deny the evidence of her eyes and scale it. Now the harsh truth battered at her that someone worked extremely hard to keep the young man a prisoner.

And she was as trapped as he.

The walls enclosed a small estate, mostly woodland, although she’d noticed well-tended gardens and orchards close to the house. In other circumstances, she’d find her surroundings appealing, even beautiful. In this nightmare of compulsion and dread, the burgeoning spring growth encroached and threatened.

The sheer efficiency of these walls was most terrifying of all. This prison indicated wealth, endless resources, cleverness, determination. It indicated someone formidable enough to take an innocent woman captive and ruthless enough never to release her.

This place was impregnable. She’d passed only one gate, chained and barred, constructed of solid oak. Near the gate there was an untidy huddle of buildings, barns, stables, yards, a cottage.

Her jailers had been sitting on a bench against the cottage wall, passing an earthenware jug between them. The purposeful intensity of their drinking had been obvious even from where she crouched in the bushes a hundred yards away. Their laughter held a lewd note that made her shudder. Although she couldn’t hear what they said, she knew they gloated over what they imagined the marquess did to her.

She didn’t fool herself they were inebriated enough to let her slip past. Living in a poor farming community, she’d met men of their ilk, although she’d never encountered quite their level of viciousness. Pigs like her abductors didn’t become insensible with spirits, they became mean.

She’d taken a deep breath in a futile attempt to quell her rioting stomach. Then she’d crept away to continue her search.

Now she was back where she’d started. No closer to escape than when she’d fled the beautiful madman with his cold voice and hungry eyes.

The wretched realization battered at her that she could die within these walls and nobody would know. Her aching belly cramped with another surge of panic. She was lightheaded with hunger and thirst, and her stomach still heaved with nausea. Under her now-buttoned collar, sweat prickled uncomfortably at her neck.

Dear heavens, she was weary to her very soul. She slumped to the dusty ground. Even if her unsteady legs carried her further, there was nowhere to go.

“Think, Grace, think,” she whispered, seeking courage in the sound of her own voice.

The words faded to nothing. Trembling with exhaustion and fear, she bent her head to stave off tears. Her eyes were still scratchy from the crying she’d done over Josiah and the loss of the farm. Tears had done no good then. They’d do no good now.

She desperately needed food. Even if her stomach revolted at the mere idea. Perhaps after dark, she could sneak closer to the house and steal from the gardens.

Tags: Anna Campbell Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net