Ruined by Moonlight (5 page)

That was some information but certainly not enough. So their abductor was wealthy…though Ran had already come to that conclusion just from the quality of the bedding and the beauty of the stained-glass windows in their intimate little prison.

“I am Viscount Andrews and the young lady is the daughter of an earl,” he said through his teeth, taking a
step forward, gauging the distance. “What the purpose of this abduction is escapes me, but—”

“Don’t try it,” the man said with emphasis, brandishing the pistol. “You’re expendable, milord. I’ve orders to shoot ye if there’s trouble. Stand back and don’t move.”

He
was expendable? That was interesting. Up until this moment he’d thought he was the target of the abduction, but perhaps not. “Whose orders?”

“Never you mind. Just stay where ye are.” The barrel pointed directly at his chest.

Still, he tried one more time. “Why are we here?”

“Enough with yer questions.”

As incredible as it seemed, there was enough evident sincerity in that terse statement that he believed it. Ran stood there woodenly while the older man and the boy scurried past him. And then the door shut, the bar scraped back into place, and once again they were imprisoned.

Wonderful
.

It had all happened so fast, he wasn’t sure whether to swear blasphemously or sit down and put his head in his hands. “Damnation,” he muttered, as much under his breath as possible, unclenching his fists, not even aware he’d made them.

“He actually pointed a gun at you.” Lady Elena’s voice quivered, and when he glanced over, her face was ghostly pale.

“I noticed.” He consciously loosened his jaw. He wasn’t just a privileged aristocrat—he’d served in the Peninsular War. That gave a man a sense of when the enemy was serious, and their jailor with the firearm had been very committed to his purpose, if he was to judge. “Our captor
is quite lethally determined to hold us here, as far as I can tell.”

“I am having difficulty making sense of all this,” Elena murmured, her eyes glimmering in the multicolored illumination. “Why would he possibly do that?”

“I’m no more enlightened than you are.” His smile was crooked and he tried to make light of what happened. She was obviously shaken and he was a bit off balance too. “But he did have a point. At least there’s food and drink. Perhaps I am not happy over being dragooned, threatened, and made an unwilling captive, but we both need to eat, and I, for one, could use some wine. Can I pour you a glass?”

Even as he refilled her crystal glass in a gentlemanly display of civility, Elena could sense the frustration in the man who then seated himself across from her at the small table.

Not that she blamed him, since someone had leveled a gun at him. Though she’d been shocked, he merely seemed angry, settling into his chair in an impressive ripple of muscle, his dark eyes shadowed.

“That was delicious.”

“I agree.” His tone was sardonic. “I suppose we should send out our praise to the chef. It seems incredible to say it under these conditions, but the meal was superb.”

It had been. Roast duck, cherries in a tart sauce, creamed potatoes, tiny peas in butter, and they’d found under one of the covers a pudding studded with dried fruit with a sweet vanilla glaze over the top. Between them they’d devoured almost every bite of each course.

Elena contemplated her empty plate and then nodded,
fingering the slender stem of her glass. “You are perfectly correct, my lord. It was a lovely meal.”

Even to her ears it sounded ridiculously stilted. The sudden curve of his smile confirmed it in the first surfacing of that infamous charm. “I see we are in character,” Lord Andrews said, still clad only in his breeches, his dark hair boyishly tousled, faint dark stubble on his lean jaw giving him a rakish look. “Trying to be painfully polite despite our unusual circumstances. How very British of us.”

“I suppose it is.” A small laugh escaped. It had been impossible to eat and at the same time keep the sheet clutched around her, so she’d settled for letting it slip down to cover her bare legs, trying to tell herself that ball gowns had low necklines so her shift was not so very different. And, as notorious for his lascivious pursuits as he might be, Lord Andrews had kept his gaze scrupulously on her face as they ate, the bared upper curves of her breasts apparently not of interest. She had to admit after a few moments it put her at ease, and she’d been hungry enough that it was a relief to just enjoy her food without worrying so much about her modesty.

So far he was
not
living up to his wicked reputation.

For which she was grateful, she assured herself, gazing at him over the rim of her glass as she took another sip of wine. And it was true: while the whispers about his affairs were frequent and it was common knowledge that he’d bedded numerous of the
ton
’s most dazzling beauties, his aversion to marriage was also common knowledge. Certainly that had been his first reaction to being locked in a room with
her
.

It made Elena a bit curious as to why someone like Lord Andrews, who was reputed to be very wealthy and
had a title, was so opposed to taking a wife. True, he was still young—she doubted he’d seen his thirtieth birthday yet—but most men in his position understood about duty.

Not that it mattered. She most definitely did not want a promiscuous rakehell for a husband, no matter how good-looking or smooth-mannered, so his fears were entirely unfounded.

“I must admit I am out of my element.” He sat back, his eyes heavy-lidded. “I don’t have a lot of options.”

Having absolutely no idea as to what specifically he was referencing, Elena just looked at him.

He gestured at the window above with his half-full glass. “The sun is going down. The light is fading.”

She wasn’t enlightened.

“The floor or the bed?” he elaborated with a slight ironic lift of a brow. “Soon it will be pitch-dark in here, I imagine. Where will I sleep? It is up to you.”

“Oh.” It was disconcerting to realize exactly what he was saying and even more so to face the reality that he was absolutely right. A cold stone surface was not particularly fair to him when the bed was large, but the alternative…

“I will take the floor,” he told her, effectively reading her mind. “Or you can take my word that I won’t touch you.”

The pragmatic tone of his voice moved her. That, as well as the fact that so far he’d been remarkably restrained and not overcome with lustful urges. Just the opposite. She couldn’t decide if she should be piqued or not that the normally scandalous Lord Andrews was more interested in a decent night’s sleep than in her.

But if he was as tired as she was perhaps that was
understandable. It could be the wine and the rich food or the aftermath of the kidnapping, but she was already drowsy, relaxed in her chair, though she had to acknowledge that even as sleepy as she was growing—and he was right; the illumination was fading—she couldn’t imagine huddling on the hard floor.

Or making someone else do so either.

It seemed fair enough, even in the company of London’s most notorious libertine, when she offered, “We’ll share the bed.”

H
e’d never thought of a doorknob as an ominous thing. It was just a household fixture, one that operated a simple mechanism, but at the moment it represented much more.

How much more?
Ben had to wonder as he eyed the closed door between his wife’s bedroom and the earl’s suite he currently occupied. He handed his cravat to his valet. “Has Lady Heathton returned yet this evening?” he asked as casually as possible.

Morton nodded, taking the snowy white cloth and folding it neatly. “An hour ago, my lord.”

Ben made a noncommittal sound and sat down to take off his boots. Alicia had attended a rout with her sister but he’d declined, preferring instead to stop over at his club, with a calculated side trip to the theater where Lady Elena had last been seen the night before. There was no performance that evening but a rehearsal was in progress, and he’d persuaded the caretaker to let him in. He’d examined the lobby, finding that indeed there were side doors behind the thick crimson curtains that led to service corridors that had access to the back of the building. Amid the chaos of the sets and props and
dressing areas for the actors, there was certainly ample opportunity to hide if one wished, and he had strolled through unnoticed, no one giving him a second glance. The alley behind the building was dark but wide enough for a carriage, and there were several doors to allow the cast to arrive and leave without having to use the main lobby meant for the patrons.

An orchestrated escape would be easy enough.

Slip through one of those doors, go through the backstage bustle and out to a waiting vehicle…he still wasn’t at all sure the beauteous Elena did not run off with a lover. The difficulty was how to gain information about her personal life without spreading her disappearance all over London society like wildfire. Lord Whitbridge wanted discretion and Ben could not blame him. His daughter’s reputation was at stake. Her maid had been questioned and sworn to secrecy and paid well to keep that promise, but apparently the girl had known nothing.

And somehow Ben was supposed to keep the news from his wife. That didn’t bode at all well for a mutually satisfying reconciliation of their current rift.

“Is there anything else, sir?”

Startled, Ben glanced up, realizing that Morton was looking at him inquiringly and his dressing gown was laid neatly on the turned-down bed. “No, thank you,” he murmured with a slight nod.

“Good night, then, my lord.”

The young Irishman left and Ben began to unbutton his shirt, but his gaze went again to the door into the adjoining suite and his fingers stilled. “Damnation,” he muttered, indecision not something he usually struggled with, but this afternoon and his wife’s ultimatum were very much on his mind.

Perhaps Alicia was asleep, in which case it was only polite to leave her alone. His pride actually urged him to simply ignore her presence in the very next room and let this whim of hers pass.

On the other hand, he
was
her husband. In their world, that meant he controlled everything in her life: her pin money, the events she chose to attend, where she resided.

But, truth be told, he had never considered exerting that level of autocratic control over her. However, it chafed to admit he hadn’t really considered their marriage in terms of friendship either, and that seemed to be what Alicia had been saying earlier.

Were husbands and wives meant to be friends?

It wasn’t at all what he intended when he married her. He didn’t wish for a companion; he wanted a wife, a mother for his children, and a hostess for his guests. It was a simple equation.

But he’d be damned if he was not reluctant to try that connecting door, in case she rejected him.

The decision was taken away from him as the door opened and Alicia came into his bedroom without so much as a knock, her dark glossy hair hanging loose and brushing her hips, a light pink silk dressing gown tied at her slim waist, just a hint of lace at her bosom telling him—disappointingly—that she wore her night rail under her robe.

“Did you have a nice evening, my lord?” She stopped a few feet away, the single lamp throwing shadows on her cheekbones. “I’d retired, but was up reading and heard you come in.”

Did
he have a nice evening? He wasn’t sure if probing into the disappearance of a missing young woman who
happened to be one of his wife’s relations—all the while forbidden to say a word about it—and a drink in the stuffy confines of one of London’s most exclusive men’s clubs qualified. He said neutrally, “On the whole, it was uneventful.”

“I suppose I should not be all that surprised at your answer.” She glanced around with interest, though for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what there was to be interested
in
. A framed map on the wall, two upholstered chairs in dark green velvet—he hadn’t even realized that was his favorite color until she’d pointed it out, but she must be right, for he’d selected the fabric himself—an armoire in the corner, the bed, of course, and a small display of elegant snuffboxes in an antique cabinet.

To his chagrin, she focused on that singularly uncharacteristic ornamental collection and wandered over, the hem of her dressing gown fanning out and the sway of her hips provocative. “I have not been in this room more than once or twice. Yet I have always wondered about this. They are quite decorative, I must admit. Where did they come from?”

What was decorative was her compelling beauty, all raven hair and silken skin, and when she turned to look at him, Ben almost forgot she’d even asked him a question. Her eyes shimmered in the flickering light, and her lips looked soft and tempting.

Very tempting.

She still needs that romantic kiss I’ve supposedly neglected.
…

“My lord?”

His attention riveted on her feminine allure, it took a moment before he answered. “The snuffboxes? They belonged to my father.”

“Now, you see how much we do not know about each other? I had no idea you were that sentimental. What was he like?”

A certain masculine affront rose at being called sentimental and he evaded the question about his father. “I kept them because they are valuable,” he said coolly, admiring the graceful line of her neck. “I assume he acquired them for the same reason.”

She reached out and picked up an agate piece, cradling it in her palm and running a fingertip over the polished stone cover. “I would think he collected them because they are both lovely and interesting. Did he have other hobbies?”

“I have no idea.”

There was a hint of reproof in her dark blue eyes when she glanced over, and he relented. After all, the walk in the garden might have been a mystifying turn of events, but it had not been unpleasant, and, he reminded himself, she’d come to
him
this evening. He would do what he could to encourage her affection toward him. “His horses,” he told her. “A love of racing his stable. Something, I do admit, I inherited.”