Underground Captive (33 page)

    
             
Jared threw a blanket on his back and backed him fully into his stall.  Then cursing viciously and wondering what else could go wrong, he looked disgustedly at the urine and grabbed a pitch-fork.  He walked over to the stall where the straw was kept.

    
             
Intending to get a generous amount to cover the urine, he dug down deep with the pitchfork.  An agonizing feminine scream emanated from the straw.  Startled, he dropped the pitchfork.  Nicki tore out of the stall in a flash, almost knocking him down.  Running past him, she promptly slipped in the urine he in
tended to cover up.

    
             
For a moment, Jared was too stunned to say anything.  He looked down at Nicki, struggling to get up.  He refused to help her.

    
             
"Ohhh! You,
Monsieur
Fleming, are a brigand and I hate you!" she shrieked as she stood up, a great portion of her dress wet with urine and covered with straw.  Her long black hair was dull, lusterless, and in tangles, with almost as much straw in it as was on the floor.

    
             
Jared grabbed her roughly by her arm, already bruised and aching from hiding in the straw most of the after
noon.

             
"What the deuce do ye think ye're doing?" he stormed.

    
             
"Getting out of here! What have you done to prevent my father from coming after me? I know he'd be here by now, you blackguard.  You miserable sonofabitch!"

    
             
Jared's copper eyebrows arched.  "Nicollette, ye must curb this propensity ye have for using bad language."

             
Nicollette glowered at him.

    
             
"So ye figured out that ye aren't going to be rescued?  And ye're right, Nicollette, yer father thinks ye're safely tucked away at
Parc Les Deux
.  And the Clemenceaus think ye are upriver attending a friend's wedding.  Face it!  Ye are going to stay here until I can figure out what to do with ye!"

    
             
"Why don't you just kill me?  I imagine that's what you will finally figure out."

    
             
"Don't tempt me, ye grimy little vixen!" Jared yanked her roughly against his chest.  Looking into her face and at her lips, his blood heated, a different kind of emotion assailing him.  "Ye little witch!"  Pulling her roughly, almost angrily, to him, his mouth swooped down to claim hers with a punishing ravishment.

    
             
Nicki inhaled sharply at the contact of his mouth to hers.  She twisted in his arms, fighting to free herself from his embrace.  He held her tighter to him, allowing her no room to move.  Her flesh prickled at his touch.  Her emotions swirled, then faltered.  A familiar shiver of awareness seized her.  Though her mind lamely told her to resist, his hungry kisses dazed her.  Their tongues danced together.  Her blood rapidly pulsed through her veins and her limbs grew heavy with need.  Even through her volumous skirts, she felt his growing need.  The feel of his hard, pulsating shaft pressing against her brought her back to her senses.

    
             
He was her enemy now and she hated him.  He had deceived and betrayed her.

    
             
She pushed him away with all her strength and swung at him.

    
             
Anticipating Nicki's protest, Jared caught her hand.  Without another word, he pulled her along the cobbles
tones and out of the stables.

    
             
Jared's fingers dug into her already sore muscles.  Nicki felt the power, the barely controlled tension in his grip.  He was hurting her intensely.  Refusing to let him know of her pain, she bit her lip as she half ran and was half dragged across the grounds to the house.

             
How she loathed him!  Yet, she felt a strange, primordial pleasure in his touch.  Something so deep, so subtle, it frightened her.

    
             
Jared swung the door open with such force pots and pans were knocked off the shelves.  "Elizabeth! Mary Douglas!" he growled.

    
             
Mary Douglas and Elizabeth came running from wherever they had taken refuge from the wrath of their master.

    
             
"Saints preserve us!" Elizabeth exclaimed.  "What 'as 'appened tae the lass?"

    
             
"She bit off more than she could chew," Jared snorted.  "Fill the tub with water, Mary, and see to it that this filthy little beggar is thoroughly washed.  Let me know when ye're finished.  Then bring something up for her to eat.  And don't let her out of yer sight.  She's to be watched twenty-four hours a day!"

             
"Aye, Master," Mary Douglas said, curtseying.

    
             
"I know now that I'm your prisoner," Nicki whispered, choking back a sob.

    
             
Jared looked at her a moment.  He could abide anything but her tears, especially when he knew he was the cause of them.  "I prefer to think of ye as my guest," he retorted ir
ritably, guilt and a sense of loss stealing into him.  "Ye will be treated well,
Mademoiselle
Duplantier.  Any discomfort ye endure will be of yer own doing, yer own lack of cooperation.  Be prepared to suffer the consequences.  Come, I'll escort ye to yer bath."

    
             
Meekly, Nicki let Jared take her by the arm and lead her up the stairs.  The porcelain tub was already filled with water in an
ticipation of Jared's bath.  Two more buckets of hot water were added to make sure the water was at a comfortable temperature.

    
             
Jared stopped at the bathing room and deposited Nicki at the door.  "I can have a tub put in yer room if ye like,
mademoiselle
," he told her in an attempt to conciliate her.  "'Twill give ye more privacy."

    
             
"You needn't offer me an olive branch,
Monsieur
Fleming," Nicollette said in clipped tones.  "This arrangement will suffice."

    
             
"As ye wish,
Mademoiselle
Duplantier," he said curtly.  Turning his back on her, he walked across the hall to his bedchamber, leaving the door open.  Before he got two steps in
side, Mary Douglas screamed for help.

    
             
He dashed out as Nicollette ran to her bed
chamber and locked the door.  He had a moment of indecision about which way to go when he heard Mary pleading for help once again.  Going into the bathing room, he found Mary stuck in the tub.  Her feet were dangling on the floor and she was in a sitting position in the tub.

             
"Forgi'e me, Master Jared, but the lassie pushed me in the tub when I

tried tae gi' 'er tae undress," Mary wailed.

    
             
Fury flared Jared's nostrils and curses fell from his lips.  "Give me yer hand, Mary Douglas," he said.  With a mighty tug, he had her out and on her feet.  "'Tis all right, Mary.  Just go and get yerself changed into dry clothing."

    
             
"Aye, Master," Mary Douglas said, too stunned over Nicollette's action to say anything more.  She waddled down the hall, dripping wet.  "I willa be back tae dry the floor, master," she called.

             
Jared went to Nicki's room and tried the knob.  Locked!  "Open it!" he

snarled, his voice edged with unrestrained violence.

    
             
"
Non
!" Nicki replied defiantly.  "I will not!  I want to go home!  The only way I will come out is if you promise to set me free!"

  
             
"If ye mean that,
mademoiselle
, ye have a long, lonely stay in there. Because I cannot make that promise to ye, and since I will not lie to ye, I ask ye once again to come out."

    
             
"And I'll tell you once again,
I will not
!" she responded adamantly, girding herself with resolve.

             
"Is that yer final answer,
Mademoiselle
Duplantier?"

             
"
Oui
,
Monsieur
pig bastard!"

    
             
"Very well," Jared growled, ignoring her labeling of him.  "Since ye're so set on staying behind locked doors, I'll have ye padlocked in until such time as ye consent to come out on yer on.  By the way, Nicollette, I carry keys for all the locks in this house.  So yer locked door was a futile gesture.  But, believe me,
mademoiselle
, 'twill be no gesture on my part.  Ye'll get to know what it means to be a prisoner behind locked doors!"

24    

             
Jared ordered Robert to put the padlock on Nicki's door, instructing his servant not to lock it.  Her pride would keep her from asking him to let her out.  Within the hour, however, the smell of her urine-soaked clothes and hunger pains would force her out.

    
             
"Nicollette, if ye cooperate ye'll not be locked in," Jared informed her, testing the waters of his idea.  “I don't relish treating ye like a common criminal.  Ye're free to come out and attend to yer needs.”

             
"
Merci
,
monsieur
.  I-I'll take advantage of your generosity," Nicollette answered feebly, making no move to come out.

    
             
Jared summoned Mary Douglas to sit at Nicki's door and guard her while he went down for his supper.  When he returned thirty minutes later, Mary still sat guard. He sighed regretfully, his anger abated. "She still refuses to come out, eh, Mary?" 

    
             
"Aye, Master Jared," Mary Douglas replied, sadly shaking her head.  "She dinna even answer me when I talk tae 'er.  She jus' pulled and pushed furniture around.  Verra angry, the lassie is."

    
             
Staring at the door, Jared's eyes narrowed.  He scowled at Mary Douglas.  "Ye heard furniture being moved?"  Not waiting for an answer, he tried the knob then pushed on the door.  The knob turned but the door didn't budge.  Letting forth a string of curses, he spun on his heels and headed for the stairway.

     *  *  *

             
Nicki’s assigned room was on the back corner of the house.  Two windows faced the back and two faced the side.  After struggling for twenty minutes to push the heavy armoire against the door, she spent another ten minutes tearing her bed sheet into strips, breaking her fingernails, and cramping the muscles in her hands from pulling the strong muslin material.  When she finished tearing the strips she tied them into a long rope, securing one end to the bedpost.  Opening one of the windows, she looked out into the cold, quiet, deserted darkness.

    
             
Grabbing her wrap from over one of the trunks taken off her carriage, she  threw it out of the window. Climbing through the window with the other end of the sheet-rope as leverage, she descended inch by inch toward the ground.

    
             
Less than two feet from the ground, a voice edged with granite shattered her thoughts of freedom.

             
"Going somewhere,
mademoiselle
?"

             
Jared’s cold voice startled Nicki and she released her makeshift rope, falling

backward into his arms.

    
             
"I should have let ye fall," he snarled, his mouth set in a hard line.

    
             
"But you couldn't, could you?" Nicki hissed, stiffening in his arms to ward off the wayward emotions the feel of his arms around her caused.  "Because then not only would you be accused of betraying my father's trust, but also of breaking a
vow
. You promised my father that you would always keep me safe."

    
             
Jared fixed his angry, hot gaze on her face, smudged from an unknown origin.  She was as beautiful as he had ever seen her.  Her eyes, wide, misty, and angry, played havoc with him.  He wanted to kiss away the hurt and confusion he saw there, and taste the sweetness of her, to plunder and ravish her mouth.  He
couldn't
give in to that urge again.  This time, if he did, all would be lost.  And he'd vowed nothing and no one would come between him and his vengeance for Ricard Duplantier.