A shudder racked her now as she searched the chamber frantically. In her state of half-wakeful confusion, she was desperate for the answers she had been seeking ever since she had regained consciousness.
Who had tied the knots on her wrists while she slept, cradled in the arms of the opium her jailer fed her?
Whoever it was, Bridget knew one fact without question: she needed to escape.
Now.
Her first instinct—tugging at her bindings—only served to draw them tighter. A sudden, damning prescience settled over her then. When she had first come to, she had been caught up in her last lucid memories—of Mr. Ludlow imploring her, his wife racing through the forest. Of the lad trembling in her arms. She had imagined Mr. Ludlow had delivered her to the authorities, that he had secreted another weapon upon him somehow.
But an awful, niggling sensation within her told her she had been wrong. Horribly, foolishly wrong. She had no doubt who had brought her here, to wherever she now was. No doubt as to who had tied the devil’s knots digging into her flesh. No doubt either as to whose bullet had burned through her body, leaving her weak and wounded and sick.
It could be none other than the Duke of Carlisle.
Though she knew it was futile, she tugged harder with her uninjured arm, an animalistic sound of desperation hatching from her throat. Of course it would have been him who had shot her. What else would he do to her now that she was completely at his mercy?
John’s words pricked the edge of her memory.The Duke of Carlisle is as black as they come. A heartless killer. One of the most dangerous men in the League. He is our greatest enemy, one that must be challenged with great caution.
As if he had been conjured, the door to the chamber opened, and Carlisle himself stalked over the threshold. His dark gaze settled upon her with searing scorn. Long, elegant fingers slammed the portal at his back. He did not resemble a duke in the slightest. He was dressed in black trousers and white shirtsleeves, nary even a waistcoat.
“You are awake, madam?”
She said nothing, but his presence was enough to make her instinctively tug at her bindings once more, even as a raw and terrible pain ricocheted from her wound all over her body. Nausea swirled in her stomach at the sudden virulence of the agony.
“I would not do that were I you,” he said calmly. “It will only make the binding tighter and more painful.”
Fear blossomed inside her, for she recognized the face of a predator when she saw one. This was not the same man who had kissed her with passionate persuasion at Harlton Hall. The man before her wanted to tear her apart, piece by piece.
Despite his warning, and though she knew she should remain still, she pulled again savagely. A fresh, stinging pain cut through her, beginning at her wrists and surging up her arms. The wound reminded her with a vicious intensity that she was a fool. So too did it remind her of her abject failure. She had faltered when she could have bluffed. She had doubted when she should have stayed her course.
She had been bested by the man before her, and she did not like it. Bitter, futile anger coursing through her, she jerked again, with all the force she possessed. She bit her lip to stifle the cry of agony she would have otherwise emitted, not wanting to give him the pleasure of her pain.
He had crossed the room with calm, purposeful strides and stood at her bedside. “You would be wise to remain still. You suffered a great deal of blood loss with your wounding, and after that, infection set in. I should hate for you to tear open your stitches, forcing us to begin this process again. I’ll be no one’s nursemaid, and I am told by Annie she grows tired of being yours.”
“I will not be still,” she seethed, pulling at her restraints once more. “You shot me, you madman.”
“Mm.” He reached out, stroking one of her wrists over the cruel, cutting rope. Back and forth, his touch at once soothing, yet terrifying. “Says the madwoman who held a gun to an innocent child’s head.”
She would not have hurt the young duke. Never. But she would not defend herself. Not tohim. Bridget maintained her silence, telling him with her eyes what she thought of him. He was the enemy. A ruthless, cunning man. A fearsome opponent. Here now, after all her days of recuperation, was the devil to collect his due.
“Do not touch me,” she spat when his fingers curled around her wrist, his thumb rubbing tender circles over her pulse.
“Are your fingers burning?” he asked.
Yes.
“I feel nothing,” she vowed.
“Do you know what I find odd, madam?” He continued rubbing her wrist, as if he sought to ameliorate her pain, which she knew could not be farther from the truth. “You attempted to spirit a young duke away from his family, and yet your pistol was empty.”
“You disrobed me,” she charged instead of responding.
“You were bleeding.”
“Because of you.”
“Because you absconded with an innocent boy,” he returned coldly. “I shot you because you were holding a pistol to the lad’s head, and I had no other recourse.”
Yes, much to her shame, she had done that. The fearful breaths the boy had taken, the accusing brightness of his gaze, the trembling in his small form…all these remembrances added to her shame. She had never meant to involve the boy or cause him alarm in any way. If she had not been desperate, she would not have used him as she had done. She would never have done John’s bidding in the first place.
