Damaris pounded on the door, her stomach clenching frantically, watching the two men running toward her. The door was opened by a liveried footman. His carefully trained face did not change at the sight of Damaris’s disheveled state, though there was a cautious note in his voice as he said, “Yes? May I help you?”
“Rawdon!” Damaris cried. “I must see Lord Rawdon.” She cast a glance back. The men were only yards away. Heedless of propriety, she jumped through the doorway, shoving the footman aside, and slammed the door shut behind her.
“Ma’am!” The footman stared at her in shock and consternation.
“Rawdon!” Damaris called, then turned to the footman. “Do not let those men in! They must not—” She gestured toward the door. “You must lock it! Where is the key?”
“What? What men?” The footman planted himself in front of her again. “Madam, I am afraid that I must—”
Damaris went around him, calling Rawdon’s name again, and at that moment Lady Genevieve popped out of the drawing room. “What is—Mrs. Howard!”
Her grandmother appeared beside her in the next
moment, and the two women stared at Damaris in astonishment. Damaris swallowed against the hysteria bubbling up in her throat, about to break out into uncontrollable laughter or tears, she was not sure which.
“I—I beg your pardon for—for bursting in on you this way. But I’m—I must see Lord Rawdon. Is he here?”
“My dear Mrs. Howard,” the countess began icily, “a lady does not come calling on a gentleman. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by—”
“Damaris!” Rawdon appeared at the top of the stairs. “What is it? What is the matter?”
“Oh, Alec!” Tears sprang into her eyes now; she could not keep them out. She started toward him. “Thank heavens you are here.”
He ran down the stairs and pulled her to him. “What has happened?”
Damaris went limp with relief against his hard chest, closing her eyes.
“Alec!” If Lady Rawdon’s tone had been icy before, it was positively glacial now. “This is most irregular. What is this woman doing here? Let go of her at once. I will not allow—”
Rawdon sent the countess a single swift look, and she stopped speaking, astonishment clear on her face. “Pray have a cup of tea brought for Mrs. Howard, Grandmother. We will be in my study.” He turned, keeping one arm curled around Damaris’s shoulders, and began to walk with her toward the back of the house. “Come, sit down and tell me about it.”
Behind them, the countess made a choked noise of protest
at this social solecism, but she did not try to stop them. She and Genevieve watched in shocked silence as Rawdon led Damaris along the hall and into his study.
It was a dark, masculine room, obviously in frequent use. A comfortable chair and hassock sat beside the fire, a book open on the low table beside it. Alec steered Damaris to the chair and sat down across from her on the hassock, taking her hands in his. “Now, what happened?”
“I—I’m not sure. These men—I was coming home.” Damaris stopped and drew a breath, looking into his eyes. The cool blue gaze somehow steadied her, and she began again. “I had been shopping, and I got out of my carriage in front of my house and started toward the door. Two men came toward me and—and they seized me and threw me into a carriage.”
“The devil!” Alec’s eyes blazed, and his hands tightened on hers. “Were you hurt?”
“No. I mean, well, of course, a little, but they did not hit me, just pushed me into the carriage, and we took off. One of them drove, and the other man got in the carriage with me.”
“What did he do to you?” Alec looked thunderous. “Did he dare to touch you?”
“No, nothing, really; he just sat there. But when the carriage stopped, he pulled me out. So I hit him and ran away.”
Rawdon’s brows went up. “Did you, now?”
Damaris reached into her reticule and pulled out the embroidery scissors and coin purse, holding them up for him to see. “I used these.”
Alec smiled faintly. “Ah, I see.”
“They were all I could find in my reticule. He wasn’t watching me in the coach; I was on the floor—”
“The floor!”
She nodded. “Yes. When he threw me in, I fell.” Alec let out a low curse, but Damaris shook her head. “No, it was good that I did. I cracked my head a bit on the door, and he thought I had been knocked unconscious, I think. I was able to hide from him that I was searching in my reticule. He’d thrown a cloak around me, you see, to immobilize me.”
She shuddered at the memory of the enveloping cloak around her, and the rest of her story came tumbling out of her. “I couldn’t move at all, and he threw the hood up over my head so no one could see me. I couldn’t scream because he stuffed a rag in my mouth. But I pulled it out in the carriage, and I got these out of my bag. When he reached in to take me out of the carriage, I kicked him, and—”
Rawdon, whose expression had grown ever more fierce as she talked, let out a sharp bark of laughter. “You kicked him? Good girl!”
Damaris grinned at him. “It felt quite nice, I don’t mind telling you. I stabbed him in the arm with these scissors, and I hit him with my other hand.” She looked at the slightly mangled coin purse in her hand. “It added a bit of weight to it.”
Rawdon laughed again. “Good for you.”
“Then I ran. He and the driver pursued me, but they collided with someone or I wouldn’t have managed to get away. I hid; it was dark, and they couldn’t see me in the bushes. I didn’t know where I was, but I just kept running and running.
Finally I managed to find my way home, but they were already there ahead of me! So I turned and ran again, and they came after me. Then I saw the park, and I knew you were here.” Damaris wavered to a halt. She felt suddenly, unutterably weary, and she realized how disheveled she must look. Her hair was straggling down around her face, and she suspected that her cheek was probably smudged with dirt. Leaves and twigs littered her clothes. She reached a tentative hand to her hair. “I—I am sorry for barging in on you like this. Your grandmother must think I am some sort of madwoman.”
“Nonsense. Don’t worry about the countess.” Rawdon dismissed the problem of his grandmother with a wave of his hand that Damaris knew would have incensed that aristocratic woman had she witnessed it. “Coming here was exactly what you should have done. You are safe now. I promise.”
He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her forehead. His lips were warm and soft against her skin, and their touch made Damaris shiver. She was tempted to throw herself into his embrace once again.
“You’re cold. Here.” Rawdon took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.
The jacket was much too large for her, but it was warm and smelled reassuringly of Alec. Damaris pulled it more tightly around her. “Thank you. You are very kind.”
A grin lit Rawdon’s face for an instant and was gone. “I doubt you will find many to support that theory.”
At a discreet noise in the hallway, Rawdon raised his head.
The butler stood in the open doorway, holding a tray. “Ah. Dunworth. Good. Set it down over here.” He nodded toward the small table beside the armchair.
Turning back to Damaris, he reached for the scissors and purse still clutched in her hands. “Now, if you will allow me to take your weapons… I don’t think you shall need them here.”
Damaris released the objects, and he tucked them into a pocket. Going to a cabinet on the other side of the room, he picked up a decanter and brought it back to pour a healthy splash of brandy into her tea. “No doubt you could use a bit of a restorative.”
She wrapped her hands around the cup, soaking in the warmth, and took a sip. Even forewarned, the strength of the doctored tea made her eyes water, but it also sent a trail of heat down her throat to warm her from the inside out. She continued to drink, grimacing a little at the taste. Glancing over at Rawdon, she saw the spark of amusement in his eyes, and she almost chuckled. He was right, she thought: the brandy-laced tea was quickly restoring her spirits.
The butler had brought in a plate of dainty breads and cakes along with the tea, and when Damaris’s gaze fell upon it, she realized how very empty her stomach was. Not only had she been running across the city, but she had missed teatime as well. She dug into the delicious-looking comestibles, reflecting that it no doubt reflected her plebeian blood that she was able to eat heartily after such a misadventure. A true noblewoman should have been laid prostrate from the experience, unable to eat a bite.
Rawdon, however, gave her an approving nod. “Good. Now, I am going to leave you in Genevieve’s care. I am—”
“Rawdon! No!” The last thing she wanted was to be stuck in a room with his disapproving sister and grandmother. “I mean, truly, there is no need. I will return to my house.”
He gave her a long look. “Do you really think I would send you back alone to your home after what just happened?”
“Well, no,” Damaris admitted. “Frankly, I hope you will escort me.”
“And so I would… if you were going there. But I am going to look for your abductors right now, and I want you to be here and safe while I am gone. The servants will have instructions to open the door to no one. You need not worry.” He turned away from her and went to his desk, where he pulled a box from the lowest drawer and opened it. Inside lay a set of dueling pistols.
“Alec! What do you mean to do?” Damaris’s voice rose in alarm. “Do you plan to shoot those men?”
“I don’t
plan
to. I intend to deal with them at closer than ten paces.” A chilly smile whispered across his lips. “These are just a bit of insurance, since you said there were two of the chaps.” He began to load the guns with a cold efficiency.
Damaris sprang to her feet. “No, you mustn’t go after them alone. There were only two who seized me, but there is nothing to say there were not more where they were taking me. You could get hurt.”
His face softened fractionally as he looked at her, and he reached out to take her hand. Bringing it to his lips, he kissed her knuckles gently. “It is good of you to worry. But I shall be
fine. I promise. I shall take Myles, if that will make you feel easier. He and I were planning to go to our club, anyway, so he should be here at any moment.”
He released her hand and went back to the desk. Damaris watched him, unconsciously caressing with her thumb the spot his lips had touched. Alec opened a drawer of the desk and removed a sheathed knife, which he slipped inside the calf of his boot. Damaris’s eyes widened a little.
“My. You seem to be quite, um, lethal.”
“I learned to take care of myself.” He turned back to face her. “Now… tell me about these men again. Did you recognize them? Do you have any idea who they were?”
“No.” Damaris shrugged, frustration edging her voice. “I had never seen them before. At least, not that I remember. I have no idea why they would try to kidnap me.”
“I can think of one or two,” he responded drily. “Though it does seem most peculiar that they would simply snatch you off the street in broad daylight. And in Mayfair.”
“Yes. It seemed so… so planned. Organized. It wasn’t just two men walking along and deciding to grab the first woman who came along. They came at me from either side. I think they had been waiting for me. Oh!” She straightened. “I just remembered! He called me by name.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. I’d just gotten out of the carriage, and I was about to go up the walk to the house, and he called out, ‘Mrs. Howard!’ That is why I turned toward him. Then he walked toward me, and the other fellow came up from behind and wrapped the
cloak around me.” The memory of that terrifying moment curled through her, and she squared her shoulders against the shiver of fear. “Rawdon… I am going with you.”
“What?” His eyebrows vaulted upward. “No. That’s out of the question.”
“I thought there was not going to be any danger.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t think it would come to shooting. I’m handy enough with my fists, and Myles spars regularly at Jackson’s. But I cannot take a lady into a mill.”
“But there won’t be a mill, or even a possibility of one, unless you take me,” Damaris countered. “How do you intend to identify the culprits? I can tell you that they were two average-size fellows wearing brown coats and caps. And the man who threw me into the carriage had light-colored eyes and a large nose and was a bit unshaven. I did not see the other man as closely, so I do not know his eye color. I would recognize them if I saw them, at least the one who was facing me, but I cannot describe them to you any better than that. Nor can I tell you where they took me. They did not say the address, and I don’t know London well enough to know what area I was in. I think I might be able to find my way back there—though I would not swear to it—but I am
certain
that I could not tell you how to get there.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Bloody hell.” There was the sound of voices down the hall. “That will be Myles, no doubt.” Rawdon let out a sigh of frustration. “Very well, then. It seems you are coming with us,” he told her rather ungraciously, and took her arm. “Let’s go find your kidnappers.”
T
hey found Sir Myles in
the drawing room with the ladies of the house. He was standing by the fireplace, elbow propped on the mantel, clearly in the midst of telling a story. Lady Genevieve was smiling, and for an instant her lovely face warmed with humor, blue eyes dancing. Even the countess looked amused. But almost immediately Alec’s sister pulled her face back under control, returning to her usual icy beauty.