He thought of the questions she had asked him on the riverbank. About why he couldn’t manage his siblings. And about his experience of his own family. She’d caught him off-guard because no one had asked him such personal questions before.
Not even Imogen. For years, she had been the only one in his corner, and she didn’t like to speak of unpleasant things. And Severin’s life had been unpleasant. There’d been no polite way of sharing that hismamanhad whored for their survival. That she’d drowned her miseries in blue ruin. That she’d become mad from the drinking, lost control of herself, and he’d failed to save her from living out the rest of her life like an animal in Bedlam.
Thus, he had never told Imogen any of it, and she hadn’t asked. Yet Fancy Sheridan, whom he’d known for precisely four days, wanted to dig into his darkest corners? The old scar on his chest tautened in warning.
He needed to stay away from her. Far. Away.
Shifting onto his side, he tried to find sleep. To his disgust, he couldn’t stop thinking about the tinker’s daughter. He wondered if he would see her before he left…if he would ever see her again. Either option left him feeling unsettled. He mulled over the strange lightness he felt in her presence. Her endearing candor and odd mix of shrewdness and innocence. Her sensual mouth and pretty tits…
He must have drifted off for noises yanked him from the murky depths of a dream. Years of living in the stews had trained him to wake fully, and he sat up, alert. It was still dark, not yet dawn.
Urgent voices and footsteps sounded in the corridor.
His neck prickling, he got out of bed, pulling on his dressing gown. He opened the door and stopped a maid who was racing by. The lamp she held illuminated the worried lines of her face, the disheveled strands slipping from beneath her cap.
“What is going on?” he asked.
She bobbed a hasty curtsy. “Pardon the disturbance, Your Grace. But it’s the mistress’s friend, Miss Sheridan,” she said in a shaking voice. “She was working in the village last night, and ’er pa says she never came ’ome.”
Fancy opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, shapes wavering in and out. She tried to move—and white-hot pain forked through her head. Waves of agony washed over her, nausea pushing up her throat. She tried to breathe, realizing with burgeoning panic that she’d been gagged, a thick piece of cloth secured around her mouth. A rope bound her to a tree.
Eyes stinging, she inhaled through her nose until the pain subsided. She blearily took in the trees and brush around her. She knew these woods…an isolated stretch that straddled Bea’s and the neighboring squire’s estates. The memory plowed into her: she’d been walking home, thinking about Knighton when someone had attacked her. Her left temple pulsed where she’d been struck. After that, she had no memory of how she’d arrived here, what had happened in the time she’d been unconscious.
Terrifying possibilities flooded her. She was no sheltered miss; travelling daughters were raised with cautionary tales of what could happen to a girl if she wandered off alone. Fancy’s gaze swept downward, a muffled sob of relief escaping when she saw she was fully clothed, still wearing the dress of the night before. She forced herself to do a mental check of herself nonetheless.
The throbbing pain at her left temple. The gag wedged in her mouth. The chafing at her wrists where the rope bound her to the bark. She made herself take inventory of more private parts, and relief seared her eyes when she felt no new or odd sensations there, no feeling of…violation.
A shudder passed through her.Thank you, Lord.
But her travails weren’t over yet. She was trapped in the forest…and who knew what her assailant intended? Had he tied her here, with the intention of returning? Was her attacker even a man? She could not recall any identifying details of her assailant, only a sense of looming menace.
Worry about that later. For now, try to get out o’ here.
She struggled with the bonds; they were knotted and wouldn’t budge. She tried wriggling her hands free but only succeeding in scraping her wrists further. Her legs were equally immobilized. Next, she bent her head, trying to get at the rope over her chest with her teeth. Maybe she could gnaw her way through…but she couldn’t reach.
She tried calling for help, her shouts diminished by the gag.
Panting and lightheaded, she paused to catch her breath. As she did, thoughts swarmed her.
Am I to die alone in the woods? Surely Da and the boys will be looking for me, but ’ow will they know to look ’ere? Is my life going to end this way, in fear…and disappointment?
Severin Knight flashed in her mind’s eye. Stupid to think of him at a time like this. In fact, if she hadn’t been so blooming distracted by him last night, then maybe she would have heard her assailant’s approach. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this predicament if she didn’t have her head in the clouds, dreaming of a prince who didn’t even believe in love. Dreaming of a faerie tale ending that would never be hers because she wasn’t a princess but plain ordinary Fancy Sheridan.
A tinker’s daughter who just wanted to live.
Please, God, let me survive this,she bargained desperately.I promise to give up my silly dreams. I promise to be grateful for whate’er you intend for me, to be content with my lot in life.
A breeze brushed her cheek. A distant rustling raised the hairs on her skin.
Was the attacker returning? Was it a wild beast? Or someone who could help her?
“’Elp! Someone ’elp!” she shouted desperately into the gag. “I’m over ’ere!”
She yelled until her throat was raw, until her voice faded into hoarse, animal sounds. Still, no one came. Her face wet with tears, she slumped against the tree. The pounding at her temple spread to the rest of her head, blackness flickering at the edges of her vision.
“Miss Sheridan, I’ve got you.”
Her head was tipped back, and she stared up woozily…at Severin Knight? He wasn’t his usual impeccable self. His head was bare, his black hair disheveled, his jaw shadowed with a night beard. His eyes weren’t remote as they scanned her face; they were stormy, emotion flashing like lightning.
