Page 39 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

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He had locked her in the summerhouse. A lovely place under any other circumstances.

Circumstances that did not include Prunella being kidnapped and held hostage. Again.

“This is getting rather tedious,” she muttered, making one more circuit of the room.

It was large and comfortable, shaped like an octagon, with doors set in opposite walls and sashed windows set in the remaining bays, letting in light but not air, as they were all thickly glazed and currently locked. A lovely motif of vines and doves twined along the cornice decorating the ceiling. The floor was paved stone, like a terrace, and the wrought iron furniture was heaped with cushions and arranged to invite conversation.

All in all it was a retreat designed for elegant leisure, which made it more maddening that Prunella was currently a prisoner.

The doors were also locked, the iron key in a pocket of Calvin Vaughn’s coat. He stood before one of the portals, watching her with an expression that mingled amusement with something darker.

He looked a man who was being hunted. He looked like a man who might do something desperate.

“Edwin did not owe you any money,” Prunella said for the fifth time, as stubborn as she’d been from the beginning. She would not show Calvin Vaughn that she was terrified. He was a man who preyed on women.

“Your husband, the Viscount Penrydd, borrowed heavily from the Black Hound to pay his gambling debts.” Calvin turned a watch over and over in his hands, a nervous habit. “I am the new Black Hound. Ergo, I have taken over all his assets, operations, and accounts.”

“It cannot work like that,” Prunella said. “One cannot pass along gambling debts like…like a pension, or a trunk. I am sure it must be illegal.”

“You were his wife. Did he not endow you with all his worldly goods?”

“Perhaps at the time,” Prunella said, feeling a touch of bitterness. “But Rhydian has those now.”

“Then the new Viscount Penrydd shall pay me.”

Calvin began pacing before the door, fury replacing all the bland pleasantness he had been pretending to display until now. “He has it all, doesn’t he? The lands and the estates and the title. Then he marries that little Welsh whore and so he has the mines, too. Wouldn’t you think he already has more than his fair share? Don’t you suppose you ought to have a piece of all that good fortune?”

“I ask only for my widow’s portion,” Prunella said.

Calvin wheeled to face her with a narrow stare. “And has he provided it?”

“He will.” She tried to bolster the waver in her voice. “He is only getting everything sorted, after remembering who he is and getting married and all.”

But it had been months since Rhydian’s marriage, and she had had no word about how he might supply the funds she needed to live on.

That cottage in the country. Oh, how she longed for that refuge, that safety. That place of her own where life could be quiet and simple, and men could not just pull her about here and there, promise her one thing and then die or disappear before delivering.

Prunella made a circuit of her own, her skirts sweeping the stone floor as she turned. She would imagine her cottage, calming herself with the vision. A sweet golden parlor like the morning room in Rowan Hill, with perhaps a harp or a spinet. She furnished the room in her mind and found Pete lounging on a long chaise, coat off, sleeves rolled over his forearms, waistcoat outlining his enormous chest. He smirked at her.

Prunella dismissed him with a wave of her hand, continuing with her pacing. She imagined the garden of her cottage. She would lay it out much like the gardens at Rowan Hill, with the long low wall draped with honeysuckle and wisteria. Pete was in her garden, trimming a mock orange bush. He turned, shears in hand, and smirked at her again, the light catching glints in his hair that burned bronze like the autumn foliage.

This would not do. Prunella snapped her fingers. She needed calm. She needed strength. She would imagine the bedchamber of her own cottage, a home of her own at last. The tall tester bed draped with hangings of persimmon. Crimson and apple-red coverings with golden tasseled trim. Pete lounging against the pillows, smiling at her, his eyes smoky and heavy-lidded, inviting her to join him in bed.

Prunella sank into the cushions of a chair, covering her hands with her face. Pete was her source of calm and strength. Pete was part of her dream for her life. It had only taken falling into his arms again to know she had found the place she wanted to stay forever.

She wished she were wrapped in Pete’s arms at this moment and he would make the insufferable Calvin Vaughn go away. She wished he could storm in and rescue her the way he had on the Black Hound’s boat. But Pete had little notion where she was, because she had intentionally been vague about her business, so he would not know where to find her. And what had happened to poor Jenny, who was continually being put in harm’s way by Prunella’s thoughtless kidnappers?

“I thought you had a place of your own,” Prunella said through her fingers. “Son of the Vaughns of Greenfield. Wasn’t your father a knight? Isn’t your brother supposed to be the hero of Acre or some such? I should think your place in the world is assured.” He should have no reason going about trying to extort debts that didn’t exist from Prunella.

“My brother.” Calvin’s expression turned into a snarl. His eyes narrowed, he swung his head about the room as if searching out a hidden adversary. “My mother. Who does one trust in this world?” He ran his hands through his thin blond hair and stalked back and forth before the door.

“I made a recent discovery. Care to hear? My mother is not my blood. The whore who gave birth to me was some tart of my father’s. He ran her off, but he wanted another son, so he made her ladyship take me in. Never told me, of course.”

He curled his hands into fists. “So all along m’mother cherished her own throw, Hewitt, who should have come home to a court-martial from Acre. But no. He becomes the fancy boy of the Duke of Beaufort, wins a knighthood to outrank m’father’s, gets a promotion in the Royal Artillery, and he gets the Sutton girl and her rich aunt’s inheritance. Probable she’s heir to her father’s estate too, now that her brother’s to be in prison for a solid length of time.”

Prunella blinked and lowered her hands, trying to follow this diatribe. “Anne? Anne Sutton married your brother?”