desperately clinging to a raft in the middle of a stormy sea, as the door slowly creaked open.
“You’re awake,” her kidnapper said in surprise. “I thought you’d still be sleeping.”
Percy’s eyes narrowed on him over her shoulder. While she was still wearing the same yellow dress as yesterday, he had changed into gray trousers, a navy blue waistcoat with pewter buttons polished to a dull shine, and white cravat with a silver pin stuck through. If not for the length of his hair or the bristle on his jaw, it might have been easy to mistake him for a member of the peerage. Or at the very least, a gentleman.
But Percy knew better.
“I was kidnapped, thrown in a carriage, taken across town, locked away in a strange room for hours on end, and you thought I’d still be sleeping?” She whirled around. “Where have you been? Where have you taken me? What are your intentions?” She spat out each question with all the force of a bullet, and then waited, arms crossed, small bosom heaving, for the answers.
Unfortunately, her captor did not seem to be in any great rush to supply them.
“I’ve brought you sweet muffins,” he said, holding up a white square box tied with a simple red bow. “Blueberry.”
“I don’t want muffins,” she cried. “I want to go home!”
The hard brackets around the edges of his mouth softened. “I’m sorry, love. I can’t let you do that.” He put the box on the dresser besides the dinner tray, then glanced at her feet. “What happened to your shoe?”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “By your own accord, I am not leaving.”
He shrugged. “Sheer curiosity, love.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what?” he said innocently.
“Love. It implies a certain level of affection between us that most decidedly does not exist.”
A roguish grin claimed his lips. “And here I was under the impression you adored me.”
“Hardly.” Although Percy was forced to admit she was oddly comfortable around him. It didn’t make any sense. She should have been quaking in her shoes. Well, her one shoe.
Even before Andrew had raised his hand to her the first time, she’d been nervous around men. Nervous around everyone, really, but the opposite gender in particular. She had never liked the way they’d looked at her. As if she were a possession instead of a person. A pretty thing to be admired, but never taken very seriously.
Once her marriage had dissolved into cruel taunts and closed fists, her unease had rapidly manifested itself into crippling anxiety. Even after she’d left Andrew, she had still gone stiff as a board whenever a man entered the room. It hadn’t mattered whether they were friend or foe. Their very presence had been enough to steal the breath from her lungs, and she’d been frozen with fear until they went away. Which was what made her reaction–or rather, her lack of a reaction–to her captor so very strange.
Fingers curling into the soft folds of her muslin gown, the garment wrinkled beyond repair and streaked with dirt from her brief foray into the bushes, she scowled at him. “I want to know what you plan to do with me.”
“And I want to snap my fingers and find a thousand pounds under my pillowcase,” he replied cheekily, “but we don’t always get what we want, love.”
Oh, she did wish he’d stop calling her that! It made her feel all warm and flush, as if she’d stepped out into the afternoon sun without a hat.
She didn’t like it.
Not one little bit.
Or maybe…maybe she didn’t like that she did like it.
More than just a little bit.
Setting her jaw, she turned her head away from him to stare blankly at the wall. “My friends will be searching for me, you know.”
“I know,” he said, not sounding the least bit worried. “But they won’t find you.”
Percy gasped. The sheer arrogance in his tone was breathtaking. Who did he think he was, this dark-haired criminal with golden eyes and a ruffian’s smile? Where had he come from? What did he want, if not to turn her over to Andrew? She could only imagine what the duke was paying for her return. Why, then, wasn’t she on her way to Glastonbury Park? Unless her husband was coming here.
And there it was. The fear she’d somehow been keeping at bay. It swept over her in a heavy wave. All of the blood drained from her face, leaving her dizzy and pale. She blindly reached for something to hold her upright,