than your petticoats, Miss Kensington.’
‘Miss...Kensington?’ Her voice sounded rusty, the fright evident in every single syllable for she trembled as she took in breath. ‘I think...you are indeed...mistaken.’
‘Acacia Kensington?’ He heard the horror in his tone. ‘You are Miss Acacia Kensington, the paramour of my cousin Thomas, are you not?’
She shook her head hard, the long blonde hair falling loose now in a swathe across her shoulders and down over her chest.
‘I am not, sir. I am... Lady Florentia Hale-B-Burton...youngest daughter...of the Earl of Albany.’ Each breath was raw with the effort of talking.
‘Hell.’ He could not believe it. ‘Hell,’ he repeated and like the tumblers in a safe all the clues fell into place. The servant running down the road before the park screaming. The ring. The priggish dress. Her voice.
He’d kidnapped the wrong woman, rendered her unconscious, stripped her almost naked and subjected her to the sort of danger and terror she’d probably never ever manage to recover from.
For the first time in his life he was almost speechless.
‘How old are you?’
‘Eighteen. This...was my...first...Season.’
Young. Unprotected. Defenceless.
‘Are you married?’
His eyes searched the fingers on her left hand and saw them bare.
‘I am...not, sir...but I soon...may be. I...have a...suitor...who...likes me and I am...sure that we...will...’
She didn’t finish for shouts filled the courtyard of the inn as another conveyance reeled wildly into view. Several men alighted and came towards them and as the door was snatched open all James felt was pain as a firearm exploded into his face, the smell of gunpowder one of his last and abiding memories.
* * *
He was dead.
Her father had killed him, the blood oozing from his neck and his mouth in a slow dribble of frothed red.
The sound of the shot had deafened her so that all she could see were people with open lips and corded throats and wildly gesticulating hands.
She felt him fall and she went with him, the green-eyed stranger who had taken her. She saw the spurt of his blood and the quick steps of the horses as they danced against the movement. She saw the rough broken face of her father above her, too.
Crying.
That single thing shocked her more than anything else had, his tears against her face as he tried to pull her up.
Everything smelt wrong.
The blood. The gunpowder. The fear of the horses. Her sweat. The last tinge of vomit in the air.
It smelt like the end. For him and for her. A quick and final punishment for something so terrible she could hardly contemplate just what might happen next.
He lay on the ground beneath her, her abductor, young and vulnerable, one arm twisted under himself, a bone sticking out through the linen shirt and blood blooming. She wanted to hold on to him, to feel the lack of pulse, to understand his death, to allow him absolution, but her father was dragging her away, away from the people who had gathered, away from the driver who was shouting and screaming, away from the light of a rising moon.
The smell of peppermint followed her, ingrained and absolute, the heat of it sitting atop her heart which was beating so very fast.
He had rubbed the ointment there. She remembered that. He had lifted her on to the seat and placed his jacket around her shoulders to cover her lack of clothing, to keep her hidden. He had removed her dress so that she might breathe, protecting her as he done against the threat of the dogs.
The wrong person.
He had said so himself.
The wrong punishment, too. She began to shake violently as her father discarded the jacket she’d clung to before calling to his driver and footman. Then the horses jolted forward as they left the country inn and raced for the safety of Mayfair and London.
A warm woollen blanket was tucked carefully about her and she heard the soft sound of her father praying. Outside it had begun to rain.
* * *
‘Is she ruined, John?’ Her mother’s voice. Tear filled and hesitant.
‘I don’t know, Esther. I swear I don’t.’
‘Did he...?’ Her mama’s voice came to a stop, the words too hard to say out loud.
‘I do not think so, but her petticoats were dishevelled and her dress was disposed of altogether.’
‘And the cuts all over her legs and arms?’
‘She fought him, I think. She fought him until the breathing sickness came and perhaps it saved her. Even a monster must have his limits of depravity.’
‘But he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was he?’
‘God knows. Florentia could hardly draw breath and so we left. I don’t want to send anyone back either to the inn to make enquiries in case...’
‘In case our name is recognised?’
‘Milly said the Urquharts saw Florentia in the park a moment before the abduction and that she had spoken to them. They are not people who would keep a secret easily. I doubt Milly is a girl of much discretion, either. But they did not see our daughter as I did. They did not see her so underdressed in the company of a stranger, her gown gone and her hair down. There might be some hope in that.’
Her mother’s sob was muffled and then there were whispered words of worry, the rustle of silk, the blown-out candle, the door shutting behind them and then silence.
She was in her room in Mayfair, back in her bed, the same bunch of tightly budded pink roses bought yesterday from the markets on the small table beside her. It was dark and late and a fire had been set in the hearth. For heat, she supposed, because all she could feel was a deathly cold. She wiggled her toes and her hands came beneath the sheets to run along the lines of her body. Everything was in place though she could feel the scratches incurred during her flight through the woods.
She breathed in, glad she could now gather more air than she had been able to in the carriage. Her neck throbbed and she swallowed. There was a thick bandage wrapped across her right thumb and tied off at her wrist.
He was dead. All that beauty dead and gone. She remembered the blood on the cobblestones and on her petticoats and in the lighter shades of his hair.
The beat of her heart sounded loud in a room with the quiet slice of moonlight on the bedcovers. A falling moon now, faded and low.
Was she ruined because of him? Ruined for ever?
She
