Stealing the Heiress (The Kidnap Club Book 2) Read online

  THE GROUND RUSHED past her so fast, Rosamunde grew dizzy. The man’s thighs pressed hard into her stomach and she imagined if she were not being jostled about so aggressively, she might find the desire to vomit.

  If only she could. Maybe then her kidnapper would fling her away in disgust.

  He moved fast and she could scarcely breathe, let alone fight her way from the saddle. Even if she did, she would likely end up trampled. Far better to live and fight another day. If only she had not dropped her knife. She could have hurt the blaggard and bought them enough time to run away.

  Or not. The man was an excellent horseman and would likely have caught up with them. Curses, she should have tried to fit a bigger knife in her garter.

  He slowed the pace, and she gulped down breaths. “Put me down,” she managed to gasp.

  The world tilted and for a moment, she thought he might have changed his mind, but she found herself flung into the interior of a dark, creaky carriage, her bottom landing hard on the floor.

  The door slammed shut, and he thrust a finger at her. “Stay,” he ordered, his words slightly muffled by the glass.

  She frowned. Stay. What sort of a kidnapper was he that he expected her to simply stay? She eased herself up from the floor with a hand to the velvet seats and wrinkled her nose. The interior smelled of perfume. Just how many women had this man kidnapped?

  Rosamunde pressed a hand to her bruised ribs and winced. The brute likely did it all the time. She recognized fine clothing and fabric when she saw it. No doubt all his poor victims funded quite the luxurious lifestyle.

  She watched her kidnapper through the window, keeping an eye on the pistol in his hand. He could have shot her earlier, but she took a gamble on his greed. Would he shoot her now, though? Oddly, the man had strangely soft blue eyes—not the eyes of a cold murderer, but if she knew anything from the many, many books she had read, one should never judge a man by appearance and especially not by a pair of intriguing eyes. He might well shoot her if she tried to escape too soon.

  He hitched up the horse next to another. She had to admit, when she heard of highwaymen, this was not what she pictured. Of course all of them were dark and charming with rakish smiles and a flattering tongue. She couldn’t see if he had a rakish smile underneath the scarf, but she had seen no hint of amusement or flirtation around his eyes.

  Nor had she imagined a kidnapper might have a carriage. She twisted around. Set out with cushions and a blanket, nonetheless. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot her.

  The carriage jolted forward, and she fell back onto the seat. She pushed herself up and readjusted her glasses. This was all her fault. She should not have been dreaming of adventure. Perhaps God was playing a perverse trick on her and giving her what she had been craving.

  “Not this sort of adventure,” she muttered to the ceiling of the vehicle.

  Admittedly, she had thought of being taken away by many a man but certainly not involuntarily.

  Drawing in a breath, Rosamunde eyed the passing scenery. They moved swiftly, aided by the dry roads. If it was autumn or winter, he would have a much harder time moving so swiftly. It seemed as though everything was in his favor.

  Except, she would not go easily. No doubt he was used to women who would swoon at the mere sight of a gun. Well, she knew how to shoot thanks to Uncle Albert giving her secret lessons and she had never swooned in her life. Maybe this was not God playing a trick on her but giving her a chance to prove herself. She would get out of this situation alive and without this wretch of a man getting any coin from her family.

  She shoved open the door and watched the ground pass by in a blur. It would hurt, there was no doubt about that. Her main problem would be jumping far enough so that she did not get run over by the carriage wheel. Her useless gown would not help matters much.

  Rosamunde eased off her slippers and flung them aside. As tempted as she was to fling them out of the carriage so she could find them later should she need to walk far, it might draw his attention so she would have to walk barefoot. Then she bunched up her skirts as best as she could, holding them in one arm while she gripped the edge of the door with the other.

  The grassy verge whipped by. If she could just land carefully enough, she could miss the hard road and be somewhat cushioned by the grass. She had heard that one should relax when one fell to prevent breaking bones, but she was not certain she had it in her. Every muscle felt tight already. The sound of the wheels rattling and the creaking of the vehicle competed with the heavy thud of her heart in her ears.

  “Well, I have to try.”

  It was jump or put her fate in her kidnapper’s hands and he was no beautiful pirate or braw Scotsman. Just a regular criminal with hauntingly blue eyes.

  She uttered up the briefest prayer, clutched her skirts tightly, and jumped.

  Chapter Three

  “Damn it.”

  Russell glanced over his shoulder and hauled the carriage to a halt. He thought he’d been imagining it when he heard the thud and the carriage door slamming hard against the side of the vehicle. Nothing about capturing Miss Heston felt normal and he was simply on edge.

  But no.

  The bloody woman had fallen from the carriage.

  Or most likely jumped.

  He leapt down from the driver’s seat and sprinted back down the road. He cursed under his breath—repeatedly. What the bloody hell was wrong with her? First, all the play-acting, then nearly cutting him. Guy, the leader of their kidnap club, never told him he was kidnapping a madwoman.

  He cursed some more when he spied her crumpled form on the side of the road. Great. Now he had an injured madwoman to deal with.

  Or worse.

  He kneeled next to the spread of petticoats and crumpled fabric and touched the curve of her neck. A pulse beat strongly.

  Not dead. One thing to be grateful for, he supposed.

  Her hat was long gone, a splash of straw tucked in a tree some distance away. Well, he had no plans to retrieve that. The woman deserved to lose it as far as he was concerned. Behind her glasses, her eyes remained closed, dark lashes splayed against pale skin and the occasional freckle dashed across her nose.

  He leaned in. If this was a trick, she was damned good at pretending. He ran his gaze down her, noting the rise and fall of her breasts and the gentle curl of her fingers. He’d met many a women who enjoyed playing pretend in his lifetime. Mostly, they were trying to get into his pocketbook. But why this one wished to make this kidnapping far too real, he could not fathom. Anyone would think she didn’t want to be kidnapped.

  At least it didn’t look like anything was broken. All limbs were at the right angles and when he pushed a hand under the mesh of dark hair, his fingers came away clean. She’d likely received a good knock to the head but nothing a little rest would not cure.

  Or she’d awaken even more crazed.

  When this was over, he was demanding danger pay, for certain. Facing down armed drivers and hired brutes was far less dangerous than this woman.

  Sighing, Russell eased an arm under her shoulders and legs. He braced himself for some tirade from the madwoman or perhaps another knife, stashed away in her bodice, only to be revealed as she came alive and slashed at him, but she remained limp.

  He stashed her in the carriage, laying her out on the seat. He paused a moment.

  God damn, bloody hell, hellfire and brimstone. Who cared if she was pretty? He’d kidnapped pretty women before. Beautiful ones, even. All that mattered was he got her to Nash and then he could wipe his hands of the crazed creature.

  Stomping back to the front of the carriage, he climbed up to the driver’s seat and urged the two horses on. He kept the pace slower, not daring to jostle her any farther. A traveler’s inn was only a mile or so up the road, so he’d stop there until she woke up. With any luck, she’d be suffering a mild headache and nothing more and then they could be on their way.

  And he’d be rid of her.

  Once he arrived at the inn, he
drove through the gates into the carriage entrance and eased open the door. Miss Heston remained knocked senseless, a curled-up bundle of silk and lace. He scooped her up once more and stared down the stable hand who gawped at him. Moving swiftly, he barged through the doorway and stopped in the taproom. “A room. With haste. My, uh, wife is injured.”

  Wide-eyed, the chap behind the bar nodded and handed over a key. “Y-you’ll have to sign in.”

  “Later.” The innkeeper didn’t argue with him or try to stop him as Russell navigated the stairs to the room and fought to get the door open through the masses of fabric that curled around his arms and tickled his nose. “You could have worn a simpler dress,” he muttered. What sort of a woman wore silk and petticoats and fine broaches to a kidnapping?

  Oh, yes, a mad one, remember?

  He laid her on the bed and spread out her skirts. He paused. Her breaths were steady, and she showed no signs of being in pain. But he should probably check properly for injuries.

  That meant touching her, though.

  He smirked at himself. He’d touched plenty of women. Hell, he was hardly a rake like Nash had been before settling down, but he was no trembling virgin either. Running his hands over a little silk to ascertain she was well hardly counted as being sordid.

  He glanced down at his hand. “You can stop that,” he ordered the limb when he saw the slight quiver.

  Not a virgin, but still trembling, apparently. What a fool.

  Shaking his head, he started at the top of her, running his hands down each arm, feeling for breaks or swelling.

  Damn it, he should have started from the bottom. Then he wouldn’t be trying to steal a look down the inviting shadows. Madwoman or not, he should certainly not be using this opportunity to lust over her.

  No, not lust. He didn’t do lust. He occasionally had brief relationships with women to satisfy his basic needs, but he would never go so far as to say he lusted over a woman. He appreciated them—occasionally—and that was that. Entanglements were most certainly not for him.

  He forced his gaze onto the expensive fabric of her gown while he felt down her ribs, following the curve of a shapely waist, down to hips that sat perfectly in his hands.

  Not. Bloody. Lust.

  It had been a while, that was all.

  When he got down to her legs, his difficulty was no longer looking down, but up. He’d seen that flash of thigh above her garter and spotted the shapely length of her legs when she’d waved that knife at him and even then, he’d been intrigued. Now she was all spread out for the taking, and trying to keep his gaze from darting up to the darkness between her thighs made his chest tight.

  He curled a hand around an ankle. No breaks here. He moved his hand up to her calf. Nor there. She stirred and released a slight moan when he moved his hand up.

  Good Lord. She almost sounded as though she enjoyed his touch.

  He snatched his hand back swiftly. If she was waking, she could tell him if she hurt anywhere. He was no gently bred man but even he had little desire to touch a woman without her permission.

  Nor did he want to touch her with it, he reminded himself.

  The Kidnap Club made a rule. They did not touch the women they took.

  Well, Nash touched the last one and had ended up married to her.

  Russell sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen. He did not do marriage. He certainly did not do love.

  And he was not, under any circumstances, going to lust over this woman.

  ROSEMUNDE SMILED. IT had been a while since she’d dreamed of a new hero. This one had dark, tousled hair—a little long perhaps but she rather liked it that length—and piercing blue eyes. Her imagination was really quite spectacular, even if she did say so herself. Who would have thought she could make up a little scar on the forehead of her hero and another pale line just by his ear? Or the stubble sprouting on his chin. In fact, this had to be about the most accurate daydream she had enjoyed for a long time.

  She stretched and winced. Goodness, her head hurt. What on Earth—

  Oh.

  The carriage.

  The fall from the carriage.

  The rush of ground and a hard thwack then darkness.

  Oh.

  Her kidnapper! She blinked a few times and fixed her gaze upon the man.

  The man who currently straddled her.

  Good God, he had kidnapped her to ravish her!

  “Let me go,” she demanded breathlessly. His weight practically crushed her, pinning her down to the bed of some unknown place. “Let. Me. Go,” she insisted, wriggling against him.

  “Keep still, damn it, you hit your head.”

  She opened her mouth then shut it. Why should he care if she hit her head if he had simply taken her to ravish her?

  Rosamunde pushed against a firm chest. “You may take my body, but you will never possess my soul.”

  “What?”

  When he failed to budge, she tried to swipe at him, her nails extended, but he grabbed her hand and pinned it onto the bed by her head. She tried with the other hand, but he did the same, keeping her pinned and vulnerable against the mattress.

  Her heart pounded hard, her breaths coming fast. It didn’t matter if he was handsome, didn’t matter if his brute strength made something deep inside her twinge. This was not a fantasy, she reminded herself. He would not be gentle with her or make love to her then declare he must have her help him on his quest to find a lost treasure in South America.

  Here was a criminal. A blackguard. The scourge of society. And it did not matter if he smelled like soap and a little ginger, nor should she let it confuse her that his generous lips appeared rather kissable or that she was extremely aware of his muscles straining the seams of his jacket.

  “Leave me be,” she uttered, wriggling her hips while trying to free her legs from the confines of her skirts. If she could just lift a knee, she could connect with his ballocks and he’d go down, surely? She’d heard men found it quite excruciating to be struck there and had imagined using such a method when she had to go and rescue her pirate or help the archaeologist escape the band of ruffians who wished to steal the antiquities.

  “Will you keep still?” He grunted. “You hit your head, woman. You need to stay still.”

  “So you can take advantage of me? I think not.”

  “I have no desire to take advantage of you,” he muttered but a flash of something in his gaze made her heart jolt.

  “You’re lying. I can tell. I know when people are lying.”

  “I am not damn well lying,” he said through a clenched jaw. “Now keep still.”

  “No. Never. I shall never be still. I shall fight and fight until my last breath.” She twisted and thrashed until she could scarcely breathe against his weight and the tightness of her stays. She paused and gulped down a breath. “You haven’t won. I merely need to rest.”

  What a silly thing to admit to her kidnapper.

  “Yes, you bloody well do.” He kept his hands pinned around her wrists, his weight atop her, but he eased his grip slightly.

  She swallowed when she met his gaze. His eyes darkened and the air around her felt thick, as though the room had suddenly filled with water and she could not breathe nor move. In her fantasies, her heroes tended to have rather vague features. There was nothing vague about this man. His face was an arrangement of hard angles—his eyebrows fierce slashes upon a furrowed brow. The only softness that existed were those lips. Lips that she could not stop herself from looking at.

  When she met his gaze again, she saw he was doing the same. His gaze darted down to her mouth then back up.

  God Lord, surely she wasn’t going to let her kidnapper kiss her?

  He lowered marginally so that she felt the warmth of his breath. She frowned. It smelled like mint. What sort a kidnapper chewed mint leaves before refinishing his captive?

  She lifted her chin. They were mere inches apart. If she closed her eyes, he might do it.

  No. No, no,
no. This was no fantasy. This was dangerous and real.

  She wrenched her hands suddenly from his grip and shoved him back. Grappling with her skirts, she tried to squeeze out from underneath him, but he pinned her again, this time forcing his hand up her skirts. She scrunched her eyes shut. “You’ll never possess my soul,” she murmured.

  “What is it?” he said. “Another knife? Another bloody weapon concealed in your garter?”

  She opened her eyes and scowled. He fumbled around her garters, half buried in her skirts.

  “There’s no more knives,” she admitted.

  He shoved down her dress and blew out a ragged breath. “Good. I didn’t sign up to this to be stabbed, Miss Heston, no matter how much you enjoy this play-acting.”

  Rosamunde pushed up onto her elbows. “Miss Heston.”

  “Keep still,” he ordered. “You really should not be moving in your condition.”

  “But I’m not Miss Heston.” She shook her head and winced when a dull pain thudded through her head. “Do you not see?”

  He eased back from her, moved off the bed, and folded his arms. “See what?”

  “You have kidnapped the wrong woman!”

  Chapter Four

  “If this is part of your game…”

  “What sort of a game would I be playing?” She shoved her skirts down and sat upright then adjusted her spectacles. “What sort of game did you think we were playing? Because I must tell you, sir, I did not find it amusing.”

  Russell scraped a hand over his face. The wrong woman. He had the wrong damned woman. Unless, she really was insane, and she thought it would be funny to trick him. He eyed the rosy-cheeked woman and curled a hand as he briefly recalled the feel of soft thigh on his fingertips.

  Slightly older than he had expected her to be. Check.

  Fought him like a damned wolf. Check.

  Flung herself out of a carriage with little regard for her own life. Check.

  Oh, yes, don’t forget she had nearly stabbed him.

  Which meant, the little hellcat had every intention of hurting him and it hadn’t been part of her act.

  He narrowed his gaze at her. “Who exactly are you?”