But then, had she? Incoherent sounds likely didn’t signal acquiescence. By God, Eugenia would hear from him after this colossal monstrosity.
Suddenly, Torrie felt the sharp nip of teeth sinking into his fingers.
He removed his hand, shaking it, scowling at the mystery woman he had mistakenly spirited away. “Why the devil did you do that? I’ve told you I won’t do you any harm.”
“Untie me!” she cried, ignoring his question.
Torrie watched her struggling with her bindings in an impressive show of temper and bravado. He suspected he would be dodging flailing fists if he surrendered to her demand. There was something oddly rousing about her pique.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be wise. You seem to be in rather a state, my dear. Would you care to tell me who you are?”
“Miss Brooke,” declared the woman he’d carried from Worthing’s town house. “I’m a respectable governess in the employ of Lord and Lady Worthing, and I demand you return me to his lordship’s residence at once.”
He stared at her, aghast, a sinking weight of dread lodging heavy as a stone somewhere in the vicinity of his conscience.
Good God, he had stolen agoverness.
And a furious one, at that.
He opened his mouth, intending to say something intelligent. An explanation. Perhaps, even some nonsense with which he might placate her.
Instead, all that emerged was two words, low and growled. “Damn it.”
There went his evening.
Her nostrils flared. “Sirrah, your language.”
It was, he thought, a castigation only a governess would make in such a moment. He would have laughed, were their circumstances not so perilous. Perilous for her virtue. A gentleman didn’t kidnap a governess, an innocent, and cart her away into the night without ramifications. And here she was, still bound in his carriage, protesting his epithet. Hadn’t she any notion of how dire the mistake he’d made this night was?
“You’re fretting over my language?” he asked her calmly.
Torrie had an ability to stay unruffled in the face of others’ unwieldy emotions. Perhaps because from the moment he had awoken, a broken, painful stranger to himself, mind wiped free of memories, he had felt nothing inside but a great, gaping hollowness. A complete lack of emotion. It was easy to remain composed when one felt nothing. When oneknewnothing.
Unfortunately, he knew enough of his present predicament to understand he was about to find himself mired in rather a lot of trouble.
“You might untie me,” she said coldly.
“Yes, but at present, I wish very much not to have my eyes clawed out by an angry governess,” he pointed out dryly.
“Why have you taken me?” she demanded.
He noted she hadn’t argued that she had no intention of doing him bodily harm.
Yes, best to keep her bound for now.
Also, he wasn’t inclined to admit that he’d been attempting to kidnap the wife of her employer and had taken her in error.
“Perhaps we would be wise to begin in a more proper vein,” he suggested wryly, attempting to distract her from her query. “I am Viscount Torrington. At your service, Miss…”
Blast, he’d already forgotten her name.
The lady didn’t appear to be impressed by his lapse.
She scowled. “Miss Brooke.”
“At your service, Miss Brooke,” he amended, offering her his most charming grin.
“What do you intend to do with me?” she asked next, clearly undeterred from her course by his attempt at distraction. “And why have you taken me, my lord?”
