Nell discovered that it was raining. She had noted the heavy clouds late that afternoon, but she had hoped that they had been merely threatening and would blow over.
Damp from the dash to the carriage and listening to the pounding rain on the carriage top, Nell pulled her velvet cloak closer around her and grimaced. If it was a big storm and lingered, by the time they left on Monday, the roads were going to be atrocious.
A bolt of lightning crackled across the night sky and she flinched. Oh, bother. It was probably, she decided, going to be a long, wet, muddy and, no doubt, harrowing journey home.
A few moments later Nell and Sir Edward were home and rushing inside to escape the rain. After bidding her father a fond good night, Nell hurried up the stairs to her rooms, eager to get out of her finery and crawl into bed.
Twenty minutes later, she was cozily abed, having shed her ball gown and slipped gratefully into a nightgown of soft cambric. Sleep came at once.
At first, she slept dreamlessly, but then, gradually she became uncomfortable, her breathing heavy, her limbs feeling trapped. She moaned in her sleep and twisted in the bed, seeking to escape the invisible bonds that held her. Another nightmare, she thought, as she fought her way up through the layers of sleep.
A particularly nasty one, too, the sensation of smothering, of drowning in blackness almost overpowering. Still half-asleep, she struggled to escape the oppressive blackness, but her hands tangled in the same enveloping darkness of her dream.
Feeling herself sliding across the bed her eyes snapped open and to her horror she discovered that she was trapped—in a smothering mass of heavy fabric—and being swiftly hauled out of her bed. Panicked, she writhed and thrashed, her fingers clawing against the cloth that engulfed her in its folds.
“Be still!” hissed a voice she recognized immediately.
“Tynedale!” she gasped. “Are you mad? My father will kill you for this—if I don’t first!”
He gave an excited little laugh. “I will take my chances. Once you are my wife, I think that your father will change his mind.”
“But I will not!” she swore and increased her struggle to escape.
The breath was knocked from her as she was lifted and suddenly flung over his shoulder. Keeping one arm clamped across her buttocks, he strode across the room.
Wide-awake now, Nell’s brain raced. There was only one way he could have gained entry to the house: from her balcony and in through the unlocked glass doors. But how had he known in which room she slept? A chill slid down her spine. He must have spied on her, followed her home tonight from the Ellingson ball. He would have guessed her father would not retire immediately, but that she probably would. She had as good as told him that she would. Anger poured through her. All he had to do was watch the upper floor and observe in which room the candles were soon blown out. Blast him! And how lucky for him, she thought grimly, that hers was one of the few that possessed a balcony. Her heart sank. It appeared from both sounds and movement that he was taking her out the same way he had entered.
Knowing that every second counted, aware that once he had her away from the house and her father’s protection, that all was lost, she dragged in a deep breath and screamed.
His nerves razor-edged, Tynedale jumped at the sound. Cursing, he half-fell, half-climbed over the balcony rail. “Bitch! Do that again,” he snarled, as they started the perilous journey down to the ground, “and I shall throttle you.”
Nell squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly terrified as she felt them swaying wildly in the air. He must have used a rope, she thought. Attached it somehow to the balcony and climbed up it. And now, dear God! We are going down it!
Frightened by the knowledge that if Tynedale’s grip on her or the rope slipped she would go crashing to the stone terrace below, Nell remained frozen as he made the descent. The instant she felt his feet thud against the ground, she screamed again, kicking and twisting wildly on his shoulder.
“I warned you,” he growled.
His grip shifted and she slid upright. The next instant there was a blinding explosion in her head and the world went dark.
But Nell’s screams had not gone unheard. Above the sounds of the storm, Robert barely heard the first scream. But he had heard something and, about to enter the house, he stopped at the door and listened. He had just decided he was imagining things when a faint sound came to him again. The wind and rain and the bulk of the house distorted the sound, yet Robert was convinced that he had heard something. A kitten? A dog howling?
Frowning, he entered the house. Sir Edward was just crossing the black-and-white-marble-tiled floor of the main hall and he smiled in his direction.
“Drew buy the horse?” he inquired with a lifted brow.
Robert laughed. “It was a near thing, but Henry and I convinced him that it would not be wise.” The frown returned. “Have you heard anything strange tonight?” he asked.
“Strange? No. Just the usual shrieks and creaks of the storm. Why?”
“I thought I heard something…” He shrugged. “It is probably nothing, but I think I’ll take a look around before I seek my bed.”
Finding nothing amiss, Robert was feeling rather foolish several minutes later when he tapped on Nell’s door. He was not alarmed when she did not answer; Sir Edward had mentioned that she had retired just as soon as they had returned home. She was, no doubt, asleep. Robert smiled. Nell was known to sleep like the dead and even with a storm howling outside it was unlikely that anything short of a lightning bolt next to her bed would disturb her. His smile faded. A lightning bolt or one of those damn nightmares.
He stood there, undecided whether to intrude upon her, but prompted by some instinct, he tapped again and hearing no reply, opened the door and entered. Crossing the sitting room, a small candle held in his hand, he peered into her bedchamber, the bed and furniture outlined by the light of the dancing fire on the hearth. A sudden flash of lightning jerked his gaze to the double doors.
He noticed two things simultaneously: Nell’s bed was empty and the glass doors to her balcony were thrown wide. Calling her name, in three swift strides he covered the distance to the balcony. It was empty. Only the storm howled back in answer to his next frantic cry of her name.
A terrible feeling came over him as he remembered those nights when she had awakened the entire household with her screams from the nightmares that haunted her. In the grip of who-knew-what horrors, had she stumbled to the balcony and fallen? Standing in the rain-lashed darkness, his heart frozen in his breast, he forced himself to peer over the short railing to the ground below. Relief swept through him when the flickering flame of his candle showed him that Nell’s body was not lying crumpled on the stone terrace beneath the balcony.
His relief was short-lived. If Nell was not in her bed, then where was she? A quick search of her rooms did not reveal her presence. He called her name again and again, his voice more urgent each time he called out, but only the sounds of the storm met his ears. Uneasiness growing by the second, he raced downstairs. Finding his father pouring himself a brandy in the library, he demanded, “Are you certain Nell went to bed?”
“Said she was,” Sir Edward replied, surprised by Robert’s interest in his sister’s whereabouts. “Did you look in on her?”
“Yes—and
