Captive Surrender (20 page)

The family resemblance
was evident in the shape of the face but, in everything else, the
two women were poles apart. He knew that madness didn’t run in the
family. Prudence was by far the most collected person he knew.
Whatever had turned Agatha’s mind had been something that had
occurred in her life, and nothing she had been born with. He sighed
and watched, unsure whether to just leave them to it or offer to
help.

He was about to turn to
leave when a loud screech suddenly broke the silence. His gaze flew
back toward the window and he watched in horror as Prudence only
just managed to duck the Agatha’s clawed fingers as they grasped at
her face. She visibly winced when they caught strands of her hair
instead and yanked hard. Prudence immediately placed her hand over
her mother’s and tried to free herself, all the while trying to
dodge her mother’s desperate hold. It was a desperate dance that
she knew she would win for no other reason than she was younger and
fitter.

A gasp escaped her when
suddenly, out of nowhere, a hand appeared and she was suddenly
free. Long arms swept her mother clear off her feet and deposited
her on the bed with the stern authority of someone who was not
going to be crossed. Agatha seemed to realise his strength
outclassed hers and she merely lay perfectly still and silent, and
stared up at him meekly.

“
You will
stay there and you will stop this.” He kept his voice calm and
matter-of-fact, but ensured that there was a level of harshness
there that broke through the hysteria to reach the mother beneath.
“You will not do this to Prudence. Rest for a while.”

He turned to Prudence and
saw the tears that shimmered on her lashes. “How long has she been
like this?”

Prudence sighed and
struggled to keep her voice steady. In a few short minutes, he had
managed what would have usually taken her an hour, if not more. It
was strange, the way he managed to achieve so much with such little
effort, and she had no idea whether to be irked by it, or relieved
that he was there to help.

“
She has been
like this since my father left. When he disappeared, something
inside her broke,” she whispered solemnly. “She has grown steadily
worse ever since.”

“
She needs
help,” he hated to say that she needed to be locked away, but he
knew Prudence understood when she nodded.

“
I know, but
we cannot just confine her like that. It is more complicated than
you realise.”

“
How? How can
it be, Prudence?” He pointed one long finger to the ghost of a
woman on the bed. “Look at her. She is a danger to herself as well
as to you and your sisters. What happens when she deteriorates even
more? How much worse does she have to be before you realise, and
accept, that she cannot remain here?”

“
She is our
mother. We cannot just cast her out because she is poorly,”
Prudence argued. She hated the weakness in her own voice but
couldn’t find any anger to strenuously object to what he said. If
she was honest with herself, he only echoed her own thoughts to the
letter.

“
She is more
than poorly, Prudence. She is dangerous.”

“
We cannot
afford a doctor,” she whispered and felt more alone, humiliated and
helpless than ever before. Even if they could afford one, they had
to think very carefully about the repercussions to them all, and
the house, if Agatha had to be locked away somewhere for her own
safety.

“
I know.” It
was on the tip of his tongue to offer to pay for her treatment but
decided to keep that to one side for now. He had already won one
battle today over the food; he didn’t want to offend her by
offering to pay for everything. However, he was fairly certain that
they both knew the woman on the bed was beyond recovery. He could
only hope that Prudence would allow him to help find the best
solution for them all when the time came.

In all of his life, he
had never come across anyone in Agatha’s condition before and had
no idea what to do other than send for a Doctor and see what
treatment there was available to her, if there was any.

Now that Agatha had
stopped her ranting and subsided into a watchful wariness, he felt
the tension in Prudence slowly recede, and was glad that he had
intervened. He carefully escorted Prudence to the door only to stop
when Agatha began to speak.

“
I am sorry,
Prudence,” Agatha whispered weakly. She frowned at her daughter as
though she couldn’t quite make sense of what had just happened
herself.

“
It’s
alright, mother,” Prudence replied with a sad smile. “It will be
alright.”

“
I know. I
don’t know how yet, but it will. I know it will. You just have to
be more observant.”

Prudence frowned and
turned slowly to face Agatha. It was one of the most lucid comments
she had ever heard from her mother, and its suddenness was more
than a little startling.

“
What do you
mean, more observant?”

“
They are
here, you know. They are. You just don’t see them.”

Feeling a little
deflated, Prudence couldn’t raise the energy to argue and merely
nodded quietly before she left the room.

“
Is she like
that often?”

“
She gets a
little fed up being confined to her room sometimes, that’s all.
Unfortunately, we can’t let her out, especially now that Levant is
in the area.”

“
I agree. She
has to be confined to her room for now. Even if Levant wasn’t
around, you are too close to the sea to allow her to wander.” The
agility the older woman had revealed when she had lunged at
Prudence had been a stark reminder never to let looks deceive him.
He was glad that he had been there to prevent Prudence from being
seriously harmed.

“
I hope that
it is just you, and Eloisa, who usually see to her
needs?”

“
Everyone
does do their bit to help with her. Robbie loves to read, and does
so whenever mother is having one of her lucid moments, although he
isn’t comfortable being in there. Georgiana and Madeline usually
take her food up and help her with it. Maggie usually cleans the
room, while Eloisa and I do the rest. Between us, we
manage.”

Stephen could hear the
almost defensive tones in her voice and decided to let the matter
drop for now. The woman had just been attacked; it would be foolish
to prod her into making decisions that could change all of their
lives right now.

“
Tell me
something?” Stephen sighed when they were at the top of the
stairs.

Prudence turned to look
at him questioningly.

“
How many
bedrooms does this house have?”

“
Eight, why?”
She frowned at the sudden change of subject.

“
Are they all
furnished?”

Prudence nodded slowly. A
look of wariness stole across her face. “Yes, but the spare room
hasn’t been used in an age. It certainly hasn’t been aired or
anything.”

“
Let’s go and
take a look, shall we?”

Stephen had no intention
of using it for himself. Most of his work was carried out under the
cover of darkness when everyone else was tucked up in bed. It was
usually the best time to catch most of the criminals he usually
hunted, and it served his purposes well to be able to hide in the
shadows and protect his identity. However, he knew that
reinforcements would arrive soon, and they would need somewhere to
sleep, especially given that he had already commandeered the only
decent chaise in the house that was sturdy enough to bear his
weight.

He followed Prudence to
the room opposite hers. As soon as she opened the door, he knew
that she had told him the truth. The room hadn’t been used in some
considerable time and held an air of dank mustiness about it that
made him shiver. Still, the fireplace was still there, and the
furniture, even if it was all more than a little dusty.

“
Well, it is
fit for purpose. All we have to do is a little bit of cleaning,” he
sighed and placed his hands on his hips as he started to mentally
catalogue what they would need to do.

“
A
little
bit of cleaning?”
Prudence echoed dubiously as she eyed the thick layer of heavily
dusted cobwebs that hung in all four corners of the
room.

“
Scared?”
Stephen grinned, relieved to see the small trace of a smile on her
face.

Prudence rolled her eyes
and disappeared into the kitchen only to return minutes later with
a bucket of water, and enough cleaning materials to make the entire
house sparkle. She handed him a broom and pointed to the
cobwebs.

“
Off you go,”
she ordered cheekily and stood back to watch. Once he had started
to bring the worst of the webs down from the ceilings, she set to
work with the scrubbing brush.

Over an hour later the
stood by the door and looked back at the highly polished room that
had been scrubbed, brushed, polished and mopped to within an inch
of its life. A brisk sea wind blew through the room and was
efficiently drying the sodden woodwork.

“
Once the
curtains have been freshly laundered and clean sheets put on the
bed, the room would befit a prince,” Stephen declared proudly and
chuckled at the state she was in. He had been too busy evicting
spiders and dragging furniture around to pay too much attention
but, now that the work was done and he was able to take a good look
at her, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of tenderness sweep
through him.

Large clumps of her hair
had fallen out of the bun at her nape and fell in abandoned
ringlets around her dusty face. There was a large smear of dark
soot along one porcelain cheek, and a smudge of dust on her nose
that when combined with the wet patches on her skirts and the
cobwebs on her elbow, made her look like a bedraggled
pixie.

Awareness began to
heighten the tension between them as they stood side by side in the
doorway. Stephen calculated that Rufus would have reached town by
about now and would only just be ready to start to shop with the
ladies. Even if they hurriedly purchased everything they needed
within the next hour, it would at least be three hours before they
returned to Cragdale. He stood for a moment and silently
contemplated the best course of action to take.

If he was a gentleman, he
would brush the dust off her cheek, kiss her on the nose and lead
her downstairs for a companionable cup of tea. However, this was
Prudence; the woman who had haunted his dreams since the first
moment he had set eyes on her in her own garden. It had only been a
week ago, but it felt to him as though he had known her for a
lifetime. Her likes, and dislikes, feelings and thoughts mattered
to him. He felt as though he knew her so well already and was
certain, deep down, once his work with the Star Elite was finished
and Levant was behind bars, or dead, he was going to stay with
Prudence and her siblings and make Cragdale his home.

There was a lot about the
windswept house sitting high above the small village of Marchwell
that had captured his imagination and made him want to stay, not
including the wonderful family who lived there, and the deliciously
tempting woman before him.

“
Do you mind
if we use it?”

Prudence’s heart leapt
into her throat and she glanced at the room beside them blankly for
a moment. “It needs to be decorated first. The curtains need to be
laundered for a start.”

“
I was
talking about when it was done. Do you mind if we use
it?”

She felt her cheeks blush
but nodded anyway. “Of course, you and your colleagues are welcome
to it for as long as you need it,” she replied somewhat awkwardly.
“I will take those curtains with me.”

He propped a shoulder
against the door frame and watched as she drew a chair toward the
window, climbed onto it and stood on tip-toe to reach the top of
the curtain. He studied the window that was so close to her and
shook his head. Did the woman not see danger?

“
If you fall,
you will go straight out of that open window. Let me do
it.”

“
I am fine,”
Prudence grunted, and stretched to try to reach the end of the
pole. She yelped when a pair of strong hands grabbed her waist and
she was hauled bodily off the chair and dropped unceremoniously on
her feet. She spun around and opened her mouth to tell him off only
to find herself hauled into his arms.

His mouth captured any
protest she intended to make and encased the room in silence for
several long moments while he plundered her senses. He had no idea
what was driving him to be so forthright with her so suddenly. The
last thing he wanted to do was frighten her, but she brought about
such deep and tender feelings in him, so easily, and without even
being aware of it, that he just had to make her realise, and
understand, just how much of a profound effect she had on him, both
physically and emotionally.

He wouldn’t ordinarily
call himself an emotional man, but the feelings this woman created
within him shook him to his core. Although he would never shy away
from it, he desperately needed to know if she felt the same for
him. Did they have a future together? Was she attracted to him in
the same way?