“One of the men hit me,” she said softly. “I was screaming for help. I…I did not know where they were taking me, only that we were in a carriage. I was blindfolded, my wrists and ankles bound. I was desperate to escape.”
To hell with tearing them limb from limb, he thought grimly. He would beat them to within an inch of their lives with his bare fists as retribution for daring to harm her. By the time he finished with them, they would be begging to swing on the gallows.
“How did you get away, Isabella?” he asked, aware this informal interrogation was being conducted with a twofold purpose. He needed to report the information he gleaned back to Scotland Yard, the League, and the Home Office. But he also needed to know personally.
His first concern was not in an official capacity at all, but as a man who cared about the woman in his arms very much.
So much.
Too damned much.
More than he had realized prior to her disappearance. Though he admitted to himself now that he was a fool for ever thinking she did not have him in her thrall. No woman had ever intrigued him, challenged him, or excited him in the way Miss Isabella Hilgrove did.
“I did not escape them at all, in the end,” she said haltingly, as if searching for words, or mayhap struggling to make sense of the terror she had just endured. “When I did not give them the information they sought and proved myself too much trouble, they left me on the pavements not far from here. Before they left me, they cut my bindings. They warned me if I did not wait until they had gone to remove my blindfold, they would return for me, and this time they would not treat me as kindly.”
“Kindly,” he all but spat, his hold on her tightening as if he could protect her from the horrific experience she had just endured. “I will hunt them down and kill them like the villains they are for this.”
“I-I waited until I no longer heard their carriage,” she said then. “I waited so long. When at last I thought it safe, I removed the gag and the blindfold. I found myself in an alleyway behind a bookseller not far from here. I did not raise a cry, just as they demanded of me. I simply walked until I was home. I have no wish for them to return for me.”
“You need not fear,” he reassured her, his mind decided. “I will make certain detectives are stationed in this area should they make a reappearance. Regardless, do not let them concern you. For the nonce, you will be staying with me.”
She stiffened in his hold, back going straight as a fire poker. Here, at last, was a hint of the return to his tart-tongued lady typewriter. She was a mystery to him, so small, and yet so damned strong. He was in awe of her.
How had he ever dared to believe he could make a magnificent woman like her his mistress? It had been a base notion. Rash. He had been thinking with his cockstand instead of his brain.
“I cannot stay with you, Your Grace,” she told him, interrupting his self-castigation.
But still, she clung to him as if he were the bank of a flooded river and she was trapped in the uncompromising currents, about to be swept downstream. He did not mind, for he was similarly disinclined to release her. She felt too good in his arms, just as she always had.
She felt, quite honestly, as if she belonged there.
He was beginning to suspect she did. He would worry about what the devil he was to do with that disconcerting realization later.
“You can and you must.” He continued stroking her rigid spine, fancying he could calm the stubbornness out of her. “Do not think to argue with me on this matter, Isabella, for you will lose.”
“I did not give you permission to speak to me so familiarly,” she reminded him, but her words held no sting.
“You feel like Isabella to me now.” He tightened his embrace. “Perhaps I might feel like Benedict to you.”
Her head jerked back, and he saw for the first time the sheen of tears in her luminous eyes. “This changes nothing, Your Grace.”
“This changes everything.” He cupped her face with one hand, tracing the elegant ridge of her cheekbone.
Her skin was still cold, but soft. So soft, so perfect. Upon closer inspection, he noted the redness had not fled from her opposite cheek. There was a faint tinge of purple mottling the surface.
“I have already given you my answer.” She swallowed, looking as if she wanted to say more.
He longed to kiss the tears from her spiked lashes, but he knew he did not have the right. “I put you in danger. The responsibility to see you safe is mine and mine alone.”
Her chin went up. She had never looked more beautiful than in this moment, the defiant goddess who had just survived a terrifying ordeal and still stood up for herself in spite of everything.
“I am my own responsibility,” she insisted.
He grazed the growing bruise gently with the backs of his fingers, taking note of her wince. “This is where one of them hit you.”
“Yes.”
A fresh surge of bloodlust thundered through his veins, nearly overwhelming him. “These men are violent, Isabella. They will harm anyone who stands in their way. They lay bombs on the railway, on the London Bridge, outside the homes of members of parliament, any damned where they can, thinking nothing of the innocents they harm. I will not allow you to remain here on your own, not even with detectives on duty. There is only one place where I am assured of your safety, and it is Westmorland House.”
