An English Lord's Love Affair

Chapter 4.1.3. Ransom Note

   Uncle Humphrey," she called out, "please come—"

   Her uncle did not hear her. She realized her cry for help had failed even before she could finish calling to him.

   She did not see Benedic spring forward; a flash of motion in her cheval glass was her only warning. The next thing she knew, his heavy weight was pinning her to the door. The impact would have echoed through the house with a telling bang had the wood not been warped.

   Caught between the door and Benedic, Charlotte found it impossible to move. She could feel the coiled energy in his iron-hard body, and hoped he would not lose control. As for her, she had no choice but to stand perfectly still and pray she would stop shaking. He wasn't exactly hurting her, but the weakness that rushed through her, the heat of his body felt like an attack of sorts. She was embarrassingly aware of how male he was.

   If she hadn't experienced the gentle devastation of his kiss that day in the rain, she would have felt differently. Would have been more afraid of him. Perhaps she had imagined his tenderness toward her. Even the memory of it made her dizzy. The sensual power he had wielded had been all too real.

   "Is it really necessary to handle me in such a dramatic manner?" she demanded in a burst of anger.

   He stared down at her with considerably more self-composure than he had shown before. "As long as you disobey me, I'm afraid it is."

   She tensed at the faint pressure in her midsection and looked slowly down in dread. It took her a few moments to realize that the sharp object poking her in the ribs was not a gun, but a pen. Her own favorite pen! The nerve of him to take her prisoner with a pen. She snatched it from his hand.

   "What were you doing in my desk?" she asked indignantly.

   He drew away from the door, pulling her firmly by her forearms into the center of the room. His gaze never leaving her face, he reached behind him to calmly throw the bolt. "I was looking for writing materials."

   She stared at him in stark disbelief. Somewhere in her closet he must have found a comb to attend his thick black hair, and a clean bandage to cover—

   "Is that my pink Honiton lace petticoat you're using on your wound?" she asked in a scandalized voice.

   He gave her a wry smile. "I apologize, but I really had little choice. It was that or another one of your intriguing corsets." His gaze swept up and down her curvaceous form in amusement. "I didn't think I'd fit."

   His audacity stole her breath.

   She noticed that his gun had disappeared. At least she could not see it on him, and she supposed she could take a measure of comfort in that. But helping himself to her pen and petticoats. What would he demand of her next?

   He circled her. The dark was kind to him. Playing dead had not diminished his personal magnetism in the least. Aside from the wadded pink lace beneath his blood-stained shirt, he could almost pass for a gentleman.

   "Writing materials," she said. Her brain was beginning to function again, coming to a rather nasty conclusion. "For a ransom note?"

   "A what?" he asked, as if he couldn't believe his ears. She cleared her throat. "A ransom note?"

   He stopped directly behind her. He was rubbing absentmindedly at the pink lace stuffed under his shirt, and Charlotte remembered how that petticoat had always given her an itchy rash on her behind. She could only hope he suffered as much.

   "And pray what would I write a ransom note for?" he inquired, his head bent close to hers.

   The dark, her state of undress, imparted an intimacy too distracting to ignore. She could feel her "ghost" smirking over her shoulder. Playing with her, he was, in a very ungentlemanly way.

   She straightened her spine and said, "You are aware that my brother is the Marquess of Scotney, a man whose wealth is common knowledge. It is logical to assume he would pay well for his sister's safe deliverance."

   He stepped away, kicking the stool out from the dressing table. Contemplating her rigid form, he swung his tall body around and sat to regard her. His heavily lashed gray eyes moved over her like mist.

   "Is it logical?" he asked in a low voice that seemed to verge on laughter.

   She glanced down in disdain at his shadowed form. "Despite your evil intentions, you ought to be warned that there is a good chance my brother would instruct you to keep me."

   "To keep you?" he repeated. "Now why on earth would the marquess do such a thing? Why would a brother not want a sister who gets herself in trouble every time he turns around?"

   Charlotte frowned. If she managed to survive this ordeal with Strathmere, she was going to make Geordo very sorry for sending her to Chistlebury. "It is true that I have not pleased my brother lately," she said reluctantly.

   His eyes gleamed in the darkness. "So, I understand."

   She glared down at him. He sat astride the stool like a prince who enjoyed torturing his subjects. To think she had actually wished that day in the rain that he would ravish her. Charlotte cringed at the foolishness of that fantasy. "What do you mean?" she asked in hesitation.

   "I know why you were banished to our humble  village, darling."

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