The inscription was still emblazoned upon his mind.
Miss Isabella Hilgrove
From her most ardent and affectionate friend
Lambert
Grounding his molars, he plucked his pocket watch from its pocket in his waistcoat once again. Five minutes had passed, and still no Isabella. He had been clear in his instructions to Young, had he not? A servant was to notify him of her arrival the moment she crossed the threshold into his domain.
He thrust his watch back into his pocket, then turned and paced his study two more times. His irritation with her was gradually turning to a fear that only increased with each step he took and each new second she failed to arrive. What if the reason for her tardiness was not her stubborn nature, as he had initially supposed? What if Isabella had failed to arrive because something ill had befallen her?
It stood to reason.
By God, she had nothing and no one for protection. A pinch-faced maid who attempted to drown her guests in tea, and that was all. Did those who lived around her know she was a woman alone? Did her maid share quarters with her?Bloody hell, what if Isabella lived there all by herself?
His mind moved to the worst, until the hackles on his neck stood on end. If anyone dared to harm her, he would rip them limb from limb. What was she thinking, living on her own as she was, a beautiful woman with no protection?
Nearly out of his mind with agitation, he stalked toward the door of his study and threw it open, intending to tell Young to prepare his carriage. He was shocked to discover the redoubtable servant already there, his ordinarily phlegmatic expression a mask of concern.
“What the devil is it, Young?” he demanded.
Fear rose within him, along with dread that threatened to choke.
“There is a lady demanding an audience, Your Grace,” said the butler.
This moment was frightfully similar to the last occasion when Isabella had barged into his study. What the devil was the meaning of it?
“As you are already aware, Miss Hilgrove should be directed to the library,” he told the servant with as much composure as he could muster.
“The lady in question is not Miss Hilgrove, Your Grace,” Young told him, looking grimmer. “It is a lady purporting to be her maid.”
All the fears he had entertained, only to banish with logic, slammed into him once more as Isabella’s ashen-faced maid appeared.
“They have taken her, Your Grace,” the woman said tremulously. “Two men took her and bundled her into a carriage before I could stop them.”
And, like that, everything changed.
Chapter Eleven
Isabella woke toa pounding head within a swaying conveyance.
At least, she thought she woke.
Her mind roused, but she saw only blackness.
She had been blindfolded, she realized. Panic seized her along with gradual remembrance. Her mind felt as if it had been infected with a fog. She had been on her way to Westmorland House, and she had scarcely made it out her door when she had been beset upon by two men. Thieves, she had initially supposed.
Until the sharp pain delivered to the back of her head. The world around her had suddenly dimmed. There had been no time to react, to escape. The suddenness of her loss of consciousness and the torpor afflicting her mind now pointed to one obvious source. She had been attacked. And now, she was being taken somewhere.
Head throbbing, she struggled to move and made the grim discovery that her wrists and ankles had been lashed together. She was helpless, at the mercy of the men who had taken her captive.
Worse, she was not alone. Her senses were heightened in the absence of sight, and she could hear the shuffling of cloth, along with the breaths of another, even above the clopping of the horses’ hooves and the jangling of tack.
Her first instinct was to scream. So she did, as loudly and shrilly as she could muster. Until a hand clamped over her mouth, drowning out her cries.
“I told you we should have gagged her,” grumbled a man, presumably to his accomplice.
What struck her instantly was her attacker’s accent, for it was distinctly American.
