My Favorite Marquess. Alexandra BassettЧитать онлайн книгу.
“I hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon.”
The cold steel bit harder into her skin.
“Th-that would be lovely.” Violet chirped. “But now, I am sure you will understand my hurry…”
“Certainly.” The man looked disappointed to have their tête-à-tête brought to a conclusion, but he finally stood back and slammed the door of the carriage shut.
Old Hal immediately whipped the horses, and they were off.
Gun or no gun, Violet grabbed the smuggler’s hand, which had come to rest just under her bosom (not by accident, she would wager), and gave him a shove. She yanked the lap robe away from him. “There, you are safe. Now kindly get away from me, you cretin!”
The man laughed and gave her waist a last, lingering squeeze before getting up and settling on the seat next to her. His gun, she could not help noticing, remained trained on her.
“Put that thing away before you hurt someone. There is surely no need for it now that you have escaped the dreaded excise men.”
The man grinned and, quite surprisingly, did as she asked, tucking the weapon back into his jacket. “I must congratulate you on ridding us of that pesky ass, Mrs. Treacher.” He seemed to take great amusement in her name.
“Yes, indeed, Violet,” Hennie piped up. “You behaved wonderfully. You may not have noticed, but I was just the teensiest bit nervous.”
Robert the Brute sneered. “Were you now?”
Hennie nodded. “At one point I was almost afraid that I had said too much!”
“Impossible!” the Brute said with broad sarcasm. “The soul of discretion, you were.”
Violet asked sweetly, “And now, sir, where may we drop you?”
“Oh, just a few miles up the road. “The Brute winked at her. At least it looked like a wink; it was hard to be sure with that mask.
Those few miles seemed to take a lifetime. For the first time in over a week of travel, Peabody and Hennie were both blessedly silent. I should have picked up a fugitive days ago, Violet told herself with rising hysteria.
The Brute continued to stare at her as the carriage rattled along, until Violet thought she might scream. Those eyes, that leer, that mask! Not to mention the sheer bulk of him. It was affecting her strangely, making her flush. It had been so long since she had…well, bodily contact…with a man. And never had any person of the opposite sex looked at her with such frank interest.
Finally, when Violet thought she could take the smuggler’s grinning presence not a moment longer, the man banged on the roof for Old Hal to halt.
After he descended from the carriage, he took Violet’s hand as if to kiss it good-bye. Violet was so relieved at this sign of his departure that she made no protest, but then he tugged strongly on her arm and had her to her feet. When she resisted, he reached over and lifted her bodily from the carriage. A sharp cry escaped her lips, and the carriage’s other inhabitants squawked in protest. Peabody lunged and grabbed her sleeve, so that for a moment there was the briefest tug-of-war between the two men, with Violet playing the role of rope.
The Brute won, and held her before him like a cumbersome trophy.
“Just what do you think you are doing?” Violet demanded.
“Taking you with me as insurance, you might say.”
As the words sank in, Violet went cold with fear. “Y-you can’t seriously be planning to abduct me?”
“Can I not, Mrs. Treacher?” He then dumped her to the ground and barked at Peabody. “You there, grab that hat with the black veiling and come here.”
Peabody appealed to Violet. At her nod, he reluctantly approached them.
“Tear the veil off the hat and tie it around your mistress’s hands. I don’t want any trouble from her.”
“I am so sorry, ma’am,” Peabody said as he ripped at the hat. At the rending sound, Hennie began to weep—she had been quite proud of this particular bonnet. Peabody then tied Violet’s hands together—much too tightly, Violet thought crossly. But then, Peabody had always been a stickler for following directions to the letter.
“Now get back into the carriage,” the Brute barked at Peabody. “If you want to see your mistress again alive, you will head directly for Trembledown and await her there. Without notifying the authorities. If all goes well this evening, she will be returned to you in a few hours.”
Hours? Just the past thirty minutes seemed to have crawled by like months. How was she ever to survive hours with this ruffian?
Then again, what choice did she have?
Peabody and Old Hal looked mutinous at these strictures and Violet feared that they would head straight back toward the government men. She had no doubt that in that case the man would be as good as his word and kill her.
Robert the Brute yanked her arm.
“Do as he says, Peabody,” she blurted out. “If I am not home by tomorrow morning, you have my permission to call in the authorities. But don’t worry, I am sure I will see you there long before then.” Violet gave them all a wobbly smile.
The heroic effect of this speech was spoiled when the smuggler grabbed her elbow and she tripped as he jerked her off the road. Violet threw several longing glances back toward the carriage, the confines of which she had been so eager to escape not so long ago. She squinted in the darkness, eager to keep her eye on the last connection to her life.
She felt a pang of remorse mixed with the numb fear and awful uncertainty churning inside her. What she wouldn’t do now to be back in the carriage, listening to Hennie and Peabody’s tedious prattle! But within moments she lost sight of both the carriage and her companions as the heavy paw of her captor dragged her along in the direction of the sea, and her uncertain fate.
Only Hennie’s voice drifted out through the darkness to her, carried on the wind. “Whatever you do, Violet dearest, do not disturb his mask! Remember, to look upon Robert the Brute’s face is certain death!”
Chapter Two
Her captor’s gloved claw shackled Violet’s arm as he tugged her over the rough terrain. The smell of the sea grew sharper by the moment, and yet it felt to her as if they would never reach the water. Instead, the vast ocean seemed to send a stinging wind as its surrogate. The damp cold cut right through her cape and dress, and the salty air pierced each of the thousand little scrapes she had already accumulated since being dragged away from the carriage.
Exhaustion and fear raged in her. She could not say if she had been stumbling along for twenty minutes or two hours. It seemed like an eternity to her already. Her legs were numb, her feet hurt, and the crazy pounding of her heart would not abate.
Where was the Brute taking her? Worse, what did he intend to do with her when they got there?
Perhaps it was just as well that she had only been half listening to Hennie’s yammering about the notorious smuggler. No doubt ignorance was bliss, given her current situation. Still, she couldn’t help recalling that death had featured prominently in her cousin’s tales of terror. And in the back of her mind, she wondered what other atrocities the man was capable of.
Certainly the fact that he was nicknamed the Brute did not speak comfortingly for his character or bode well for her own prospects.
She cursed as a sharp stone—not the first—penetrated the sole of her left shoe. When she had dressed that morning, she could not have anticipated that her footwear would need to stand up to jagged rock and thistles. It felt as if she had set out on a breathless country hike in dancing slippers. A persistent throb had taken up residence in her left big toe.
If she did not remove her shoe, she would spend the rest of her life hobbling about like an old