Ruined By The Reckless Viscount. Sophia James

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СКАЧАТЬ the third finger of her right hand, the diamonds winking in the light. No false gold or cut glass either, the patina and shape of the piece telling him this was the real thing. Perhaps a paramour had gifted it to her. Tommy had the funds to procure such a bauble, should he have wished it, so maybe this was his doing. He was a man inclined to the grand gesture.

      The anger that had been his constant companion threatened to choke him and he pushed back the familiar fury. Once he would have told his cousin exactly where to go with his hare-brained schemes of procuring women, but now...

      The war had knocked the stuffing out of him and he had returned from Europe and the first Peninsular Campaign unsettled. He did not fit in here any more, having neither property nor much in the way of family, save a father who had taken more and more to the drink. He wanted to be away from the London set and its expectations, but most of all he needed to be away from the brutality of war. It had settled into him the aftermath of violence, making him jumpy and uncertain, the ghosts of memory entwined even in the ordinariness of his life here.

      * * *

      He swore again twenty moments later as sky-blue eyes opened and simply looked at him, the paleness of her cheeks alarming.

      ‘I think... I am going...to be...sick.’

      And she was, all over his boots and on her dress, heaving into the space between them time after time and shaking dreadfully. Her eyes watered, her nose ran and the stench of a tossed-up lunch hung in the air as she simply began to cry. Not quietly either.

      Banging his cane against the roof, James was glad as the conveyance drew to a halt, the countryside all around wide and green, the road empty before them and behind. He didn’t stop her hurried exit as he threw water he carried for the journey on to the carriage floor, drying what he could with great bunches of wild grasses pulled from the side of the road.

      She was gone when he had finished, disappeared into a tract of bushes behind a stone fence. He caught the hue of her red gown at some distance dashing between the trees of a small grove.

      Part of him wanted to simply leave her there and go on, but it was getting late and dusk would soon be upon the land. If she fell into a ditch or in with the company of someone who might really hurt her...

      Cursing again, he bade Thomas’s driver to wait for him and went in after her.

      * * *

      Florentia ran from tree to tree, her breath ragged as the asthma she had had since childhood came upon her with this unexpected exertion.

      She was crying and running and trying to draw in breath, sharp branches tearing at her gown and at the exposed skin on her arms and legs.

      Would her kidnapper follow? Would he kill her? Would he chase her and trap her here in the woods and the oncoming darkness and so very far from London?

      She tripped and went down hard, then got herself up again, the pathway more difficult to discover now, the sound of a stream further on and dogs.

      Dogs? Her heart leapt in her throat. Big dogs? The horror of it kept her still, the sound of crashing feet drawing nearer as two enormous black and brown hounds padded out from a break in the undergrowth and came towards her, lips bared and teeth showing.

      ‘Keep very still.’ His voice. The man from the carriage. Raw. Brutal. Furious. He sounded as though he would like to kill her along with the canines though the hackles of each dog were raised along bony spines, ready to spring.

      He’d stooped to pick up a few of the bigger stones around his feet and threw one hard and fast. A direct hit to the flanks had the lead dog crouching down and slinking backwards. Two long scars at the back of her abductor’s head were easily visible in the fading light. She wondered how anyone could have survived such wounds as that.

      ‘Get back, damn it.’ His words seemed to be having some effect as the second dog followed the other.

      ‘Walk slowly towards me.’ This was directed at her now. ‘Don’t run. They are hunting dogs trained to protect and defend. Any quick movement will have them upon you and my pistols are still in the carriage.’

      ‘You...would...shoot them?’

      He laughed at that, a harsh and savage sound. ‘In an instant, were I armed and they were attacking. Now do as I say.’

      She did because just at that moment the slobbering teeth of the hunting pair were infinitely more worrying than the possibility of this stranger hurting her. Again. She was pleased when he stood before her shielding her from the threat. ‘Now, walk backwards, keeping my body in a direct line with the dogs. Don’t make eye contact with them. Don’t trip. Look as if you are in charge until you get through the green shelter at the edge of the clearing and then turn and run for the carriage as fast as you can go and get straight in. Do you understand me?’

      ‘And...what...of...you?’

      ‘I will be fine.’

      He picked up another of the big rocks with one hand and a dead branch from the ground as a weapon and planted it before him. One of the dogs growled loudly in response and the noise had her moving back past the shelter of the bushes and away. As she scampered through the scrub at the edge of the clearing she simply turned and ran for the carriage, screaming at the driver about the dogs and the danger and slamming the door shut behind her.

      It was wet inside and smelt like hay, though the dress she wore bore the stronger stench of vomit. Taking a flask of water from a shelf at the back of the conveyance, she poured it across the skirts of her gown, the cold seeping through the red-sprigged muslin and making her shiver.

      Her breathing was worse. She could barely take in air now and the panic that she knew would not aid her was building. Placing her head back against the seat, she closed her eyes. This sometimes helped, but she needed the expectorant and the anti-spasmodics that her mother procured from Dr Bracewell in Harley Street. She needed calm and peace and serenity.

      Would she die here on the side of a country road and alone? Would her family even know what had happened to her? Would her body be left to the dogs to devour after strangers had stolen her jewellery and books and her dress?

      Not to mention her virginity.

      The dreadful terror of it all had her sweaty and clammy and she began to feel strange and distant from things. It was the air...she couldn’t get enough of it.

      Finally, and with only the slightest whimper, she fell again into the gentler folds of darkness.

      * * *

      Hell, this whole journey was turning into a fiasco, James thought as he rejoined Thomas’s mistress in the carriage. She was on the floor now in a puddle of water, the cold liquid seeping into the red dress and darkening the fabric to scarlet. She was breathing strangely, too, the skin at her throat taut and hollow and a blue tinge around her lips.

      Finding his blade, he leaned forward and slit the tight fabric of her gown from bodice to hem, peeling it away from her. Without hesitation he threw the stinking wet dress straight out of the window and tucked his jacket about her before lifting her to sit up on the seat opposite. An erect position would make breathing easier, he thought, for he’d seen a soldier once with the same ailment on the icy roads between Lugos and Betanzos, and the man had insisted his head should be above his lungs or otherwise he would perish.

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