Miranda understood—had understood since she’d been given away as a child—that her life wasn’t to be normal.
But this was surpassing her expectations.
Before her, with an ale bottle in his hand, stood a man who overpowered the room. As the filtered light increased, the space inside the room lessened. The man didn’t realise how much space he used with just the simplest movements.
She glanced around, trying to remember the past. The room had seemed bigger. In her memories, the cottage with the old gamekeeper and her grandmother had seemed big enough for the three of them and a fine home. Now it seemed so small and cramped.
The table and chairs were gone. There had also been a little stool for the gamekeeper’s feet. And a chest that they’d stored things in and sometimes sat on.
She gulped. The bed. Oh, heavens, she knew what her grandmother had in mind. She pretended not to see the only furniture in the room besides the stump.
Her grandmother had said she would be bringing a husband.
She doubted the man had realised her grandmother’s matchmaking methods. They were faulty. At best.
Now her companion shoved against the door, the windows, and tested the walls. He disappeared into the other room for what seemed to be an hour before returning.
After he’d examined the room three times and tried to push through the boards over the windows, he fixed his attention on the door.
‘I assume we’ve dispensed with the proper manners we have learned since birth and they don’t apply,’ he said, ‘as I would like assistance with the door.’
Spotting the broken shard from the bottle bottom lying beside the bed, she retrieved it, tossing the broken glass into the pile he’d made of the other pieces. ‘I suppose that fledgling left the nest when I tried to knock you senseless.’
‘Based on that, I’m trusting you have strength. Together we might be able to break the door.’ He appraised her with a judgmental glance. ‘We must get out.’
His hair hung uncombed around his eyes. The lashes rimming them could have made him attractive, she supposed, and the smudges under them gave him a reckless air. But the sharp nose, the unshaven face and the harsh mouth took away any appearance of gentleness. She could not imagine humour on his face. Or peacefulness. This man’s face blended with the disarray of his clothing, although perhaps the day before both had belonged in a different world.
Now, his shirt tail had escaped his waistband, leaving behind the wrinkles to prove its former tidiness, and hanging to the length of his coat.
It should have taken away from him. Made him look worn. Instead his square jaw and determined stance made him seem bigger, stronger and more determined.
He moved to the door, pushing, shoving again, then stopping to take another drink.
She could sense him reining in his fury. His eyes had darkened and the lines forming at his mouth didn’t make the slaking of his thirst seem refreshing. Instead, he appeared to be building his power so he could achieve his goal.
He moved to the door. ‘Do you have any strength remaining?’
‘Of course.’
‘Let’s try to move it.’ He beckoned to her.
She watched as he hefted a shoulder near the door and positioned his legs for thrust. The sight shook her. By the way his trousers tightened, he had more muscle in one thigh than she had in her whole body. Her eyes skittered away from him, but her mind remained locked around the image of him poised to knock away the wood. A fortress of restrained power and muscle.
‘Shall we?’
She heard impatience in his voice and a summons.
Miranda didn’t think a man had ever viewed her so directly. But in a room of this size, he could do little else.
Quickly, she moved to the door and leaned her shoulder against it. She put both hands tentatively on the wood. His presence behind her, out of her sight, magnified him. Maleness and strength and she felt a hand claim her waist, sending bolts of warmth throughout her body. She froze. He pulled her so her frame stood at a right angle to the door. He didn’t release her.
‘You’ll need to get some hip into it as well.’ His voice rumbled over her shoulder and he moved a hand to her hip, an impersonal guide which caused every bone in her body to tense.
‘Of course.’ She pressed her hands tight. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘I’ll count to three.’ His hand lingered, but his voice was so matter of fact she wondered if he knew he still pressed against her. ‘At the sound of one, you’ll sway towards the door slightly.’ His fingers applied slight pressure when he said ‘one’. ‘Then at two, you’ll sway in again.’ He pressed, then released her. ‘At three we’ll give it our all.’
She gave a quick nod of her head, trying to keep her concentration on the door and not her reaction to his hand. She’d not pulled her mind away from him resting his grasp on her hip. The grip was lighter than what one might feel from a waltz, but much more personal.
‘One.’ Pause. ‘Two.’ Pause. ‘Three.’ The words hit her mind and pulled her back to the task.
She pushed with all her might. Nothing happened. No creak. No groan—except from her arms.
‘Again,’ he commanded and they repeated the movement. She heard his curse. ‘No use. The door and the boards over the window have been reinforced.’
All these words were spoken into her back and his voice deepened, closer to her ear.
‘The door is old.’ She examined the wood, then stepped away from it and watched him.
‘Except the way it is placed.’ He pointed to two marred edges where hinges had been removed. ‘It was taken off and moved to open to the outside. So, a bar could be placed across it to keep prisoners inside. This wasn’t an idle abduction. At least—the planning of it wasn’t.’
That didn’t surprise her. Her grandmother always had a plan. Or a machination and then a lie to go with it. Lies. Plans. Anything.
After her grandmother had left her at the road, Miranda had had to have the difference between lies and truths explained to her. Several times. But, finally, she understood. The rule that her grandmother had told her had been false—that truth usually brought bad luck with it.
He placed his knee against the door, flattened his palms, and shoved. He grunted and heaved, bringing the coat tight against his shoulders, surprising her that the seams didn’t burst. But the wood still didn’t budge.
Miranda put a calming hand on his shoulder. Even through his clothes, the heat of his anger burned her hand, but she stood firm.
He whirled to face her. ‘I’ll not let them get away with this. Particularly the old woman. She’ll answer for this. She plotted this. I know it.’
‘Why do you think that?’
He jerked his head towards the bed. ‘When they were capturing me, they said she’d been planning this for a time. Had a bed for me. She checked the strength on my arm. It was as if she was making sure I was a right fit for the bed.’ Anger flared in his eyes. ‘Her neck will be a good fit for the noose.’
Miranda stepped back. Fear plunged in her. She could imagine her grandmother hanging from a scaffold.
She saw the instant he read the emotions on her face.
He raised both his palms slowly. ‘I didn’t mean—’ He took half a step back, placing him against the wall. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. Forgive me.’
She nodded. He flattened himself against the door again, one knee raised so his boot rested against it and purposely bumped his head on to the wood.
‘Truly...’ his voice had a deep tiredness. He stared forward ‘...the captivity has taken my freedom as well as my mind. To be caged.’ His voice lowered. ‘And I don’t even know why I’m here. I perceived I’d angered someone—which made sense, of a sort. But now I’m convinced it is the possibility of a ransom that connects us.’
He took a few seconds before speaking ‘I’ve been gathering support for funds to improve our water systems. Do you have any ties there?’
She glanced down, thinking, then raised her head. ‘No. I am more orphan than not since the woman who took me in died. Her husband was pleased to see the last of me. I have not heard from him since I became a governess.’
To speak such personal things. Things she had never voiced before and say them to a stranger surprised her, but he didn’t even appear to notice anything unusual about them.
‘I can’t understand it.’ His brow furrowed. ‘The criminals acted as if—’
She saw him study her.
And she relived her grandmother’s words—speaking as if she would bring Miranda a husband. ‘What did the abductors say to you?’ she asked. ‘How did they act?’
‘The old woman pinched me. She seemed to want to check my health.’ He tapped a quick blow to his own shoulder where she’d clenched it. ‘I might have assumed I was in a fable, about to be poured into a pot for a beast.’
Again, he examined her. He touched his lip. A small cut. ‘I wasn’t to be mangled. And she worried about the time it would take me to heal.’
Miranda used both hands to push her hair back towards her bun. The heat and the exertion had made her hair frazzle, tickling her face, and amazement filtered into her voice.
‘She...pinched you?’ Miranda bit the inside of her lip. ‘And seemed concerned about your...safety?’
She remembered how her mother had told her time and time again about the wondrous fortune-teller.
Miranda’s mother never forgot the day when she’d had her palm read and been told that her childlessness would end. Some day soon she’d have a child in her life and she must accept and love it as her own.
The old woman saw the future so well that she’d predicted a little girl just like Miranda would some day appear. Her mother’s husband had scoffed at such nonsense, then, then, not one week later, on the way home from Sunday services, Miranda was sitting beside the road, lost and sobbing.
One day, when her mother was repeating the story, Miranda realised exactly what her grandmother had done. She’d picked out a family for her. A woman who would keep a child left sobbing and alone.
No one had claimed her and they’d not been able to find her parents. Just as the fortune-teller had claimed. Miranda was a miracle, her mother insisted. A gift. And she’d refused to hear of anything else.
Miranda never told her new mother that her grandmother’s palm reading was a trade she thrived at and that she’d placed her granddaughter beside the road, telling her about the toys she’d some day have.
That had been true.
Now, she comprehended that an unsuspecting husband had been selected for her.
He stood before her, glowering, and she again clasped her fingers together.
‘Miss—’ His eyes darkened and his voice softened, as if he was trying to take away the sting from what he might impart. ‘We can’t stay here waiting to find out what’s in store. For all we know, a third person might be added. We can escape from this dungeon, I know it.’
He went to the broken bottle, took a hunk of the thick glass and walked to the door. He knelt down and chipped away where the door and the frame joined.
Despair invaded her. She would never be allowed to be a governess to Dolly and Willie again. Their father often complained about how untrustworthy servants were. She had only obtained the position because of her father’s ties to society. If her employer ever found out who her grandmother was, and what was happening, she would be tossed from the house. She would lose Willie and Dolly. And their next governess might be someone unworthy.
But no one could tie her in to her grandmother. No one could—as long as her grandmother wasn’t apprehended and didn’t talk.
She’d not told Nicky or anyone else that her grandmother was said to be dying. And the words the culprit had told had been a lie. It would be no untruth if she told everyone later that she’d been misled into going with the man. That he’d claimed a member of her family was dying and she’d believed it.
She could survive this secret, if she was released soon.
She would explain to the man with her that she could lose her position in life. Her reputation could be ruined.
All she needed to do was get them free and get them free quickly. She could return to Mr Trevor—he was a kind man, if distracted at times. And he would let her remain with the children.
Without the haze of fear disrupting her, and with hope growing, she examined the man with her.
Yes, he would be exactly what her grandmother would choose.
Likely, her grandmother would have chosen him for his boots alone. Her grandmother had once told her that she often charged fees based on the footwear of the prey. Said that was why she always wore old boots, which was nonsense. But her grandmother could assess people in an instant.
Miranda glanced again at him. Yes, she could easily see him being chosen based on his clothing. And his form.
He would likely not take it well to find out he was part of her grandmother’s scheme.
‘I’ll get you to safety.’ His voice calmed her, and she stared into his eyes and knew he would fight to save her; she just hoped later he didn’t fight nearly so hard to find out who had kidnapped him, then throw her into gaol.
The sooner they escaped the better. She had to find a way to get them out. She paced, keeping far from him, which didn’t give her room to manoeuvre.
‘Miss...’ his voice held exasperation while he used the glass to chip at the door frame ‘...might you be still for a few moments?’
She stopped and propped herself against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She pressed her hands to her temples to brush back the hair which had loosened. ‘I have nothing else to do but pace and try to think of a way to get us out.’
‘I understand.’
He stood, leaving the glass on the floor, and he braced his hands on his knees and bent, stretching, then raising and rotating his shoulders.
At the window, she tried to pull the boards apart enough to see out. Her grandmother was out there somewhere, perhaps even just beyond the window.
She could feel it.
He just couldn’t stop moving either.
‘Your employer must appreciate your inability to be still. You likely get much more work done than anyone else,’ she observed.
He stopped. In the dim light, his eyes found her, sitting now at the side of the bed. ‘I was born with this air. Did you gain yours from your employment?’
She took a deep breath, aware of the scent of ale and the overbearing heat.
‘I’m a governess, but I was raised in a wealthy home. I just always knew I wasn’t born into that life of privilege. And now I am trapped with a man such as—’
‘A man such as...me?’ One brow rose.
She couldn’t tell him he was likely to be someone her grandmother had seen, decided on, then set about altering his life.
‘You’re rather proud.’
‘If you say so.’
He stood, a wall inside the room. ‘And you know nothing of this you haven’t shared with me?’
She saw the challenge in his stance.
Her mouth opened and she contemplated him. ‘I’ve done nothing to give anyone reason to do such a thing.’ The word almost sounded like an admission of guilt to her ears.
He interrupted her—seemingly unmoved by her less-than-pleasurable glance his direction. ‘You don’t have any reason why you could have attracted unsavoury attention?’
She didn’t want to tell him her true past. He had no right to know.
‘The man who raised me isn’t poor. He has always allowed me to call him Father, but it is because he thinks it makes him appear more benevolent. Besides, his first wife insisted I call her Mother shortly after they took me in. She was more than a mother to me—a near saint—but she passed on.’
Soon after her mother died, her father almost completely moved out of his country estate, until he remarried.
The man waited for her to continue.
‘My father would prefer not to hear from me more than from a vast distance and my stepmother considers no location is far enough away.’
She moved to sit at the foot of the bed, back stiff and arms crossed. They could have been an ocean apart.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. He threw his head back, starting another stretch. A long, slow unfurling stretch which almost took him to where she was sitting, although he was careful not to let his arm drift close to her.
‘If you change your mind about me and decide to attack again...’ he said. ‘I’d prefer a slap.’
‘You’d likely break my hand.’
She turned away. She couldn’t face him. ‘It is just nonsense. A folly by a person who is mad...’ She let her voice trail away. She felt words on the tip of her tongue. But this time, she had a memory trying to form in her mind and she couldn’t grasp it.
He waited. The wait of someone holding themselves in check—ready to pounce at any provocation.
She stole a glance at him, afraid he could read the truth in her face that she was hiding something. ‘But my father does have holdings,’ she admitted, straightening the folds of her skirt. ‘He’s wealthy enough.’
Let him suppose this happened for ransom, but Miranda understood her grandmother’s ways. A grandmother with no scruples was worse than any determined matchmaking mama. She’d tossed Miranda out once, securing her a mother. Now, she intended to secure her a mate.
‘Ransom, I suppose.’ He returned to his pacing. ‘Why risk a noose for only one crime? Get two and save time. More rewards.’
She squinted at the pitiful ceiling. ‘But my stepmother would not pay a pence to recover me. She would never let Father do that.’
‘The kidnapper is likely not to know what your family is like. And you can’t know your father won’t pay a ransom.’
She dropped her shoulders. ‘Doesn’t the fact that I am a governess tell the world something?’
‘It may have just made you appear easier to nab.’
‘And why were you so easy to take?’
‘I tend to walk the same path most days. I had planned to stay a little while with my cousin. I had wished my mother a happy birthday and her friends had arrived to spend the night. The house became a big burst of perfumes and pomades and powders. So, I decided to be elsewhere. No one has likely even noticed I’m gone. I told the butler not to expect me home that night.’
Butler? Oh, that did not sound good.
The fear inside her blossomed into anger. Her grandmother’s plans were evil. It was wrong to twist around her granddaughter’s life. And doubly wrong to twist around strangers’ lives.
‘We must get out of here.’ He stretched yet again, his fingertips touching the ceiling.
His next words lacked emotion. ‘I just want to kill them.’
From the look in his eyes, she believed him. ‘That’s wrong. It’s unjust. You will hold them steady while I slap them senseless and, when I am finished, you can do the same, then they can go to gaol.’
‘You would not want them punished?’
‘I might.’ She challenged him with her face. ‘I did not get to be this old without learning trust is not to be given to many. Some people start out cruel and never transform as they age, except to become worse.’
‘How old are you?’
She raised an eyebrow and gave him her governess’s mischief-stopping stare. ‘My age is not your concern.’
‘Twenty-one,’ he guessed.
She didn’t speak or acknowledge him.
A dash of mischief slipped out from between overdone innocence in his eyes. ‘Twenty-seven?’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Somewhere around those numbers. This parlour game is not freeing us.’
He again sat on the bed and the dip in it caused by his movements jostled her. The man overwhelmed her, yet deep inside his presence comforted. He wouldn’t wish to harm her, yet she stiffened instinctively. She’d never been on a bed with a man. Ever.
He glanced at her with the same boredom her charges would have. ‘I’m not reaching for you, Miss—Governess. Nor,’ he added with a hint of too much sweetness, ‘do I plan to.’ Humour lingered in his voice. ‘If I recall correctly, you are the only one with those inclinations.’
The words reassured her, even with the not-so-hidden barb. They were on the same side and she would try to find a way to get them released.
With her fear of him gone, she studied the cottage. She put her palm to the back of her neck and absently pushed up tendrils to the knot of her hair.
When she focused on him, the steadiness of his perusal startled her. She wagered she could put a hand over her ring and, if asked, he could tell her she wore a small silver band with a blue sapphire in it.
She couldn’t place his origins in her mind. He had mentioned a ransom and his clothes did have quality about them. But he didn’t have the refinement, to her eye, of the guests who had visited the mansion she lived in. No, she could never see this man taking tea with Willie’s father, or even sharing a brandy or game of cards.
Gamblers sometimes wore fine clothes, she knew. Tradesmen who’d done well. Even some of the lower classes sometimes managed to afford well-made clothing. But he’d mentioned a butler.
‘How do you make your way in life?’ she asked.
He levelled a gaze at her. ‘I manage properties.’
‘I suspected your boots were of high quality.’
‘I am thankful not to have been wearing inferior clothing and embarrass you or the criminals who took me.’ Even though his eyes showed a hint of humour, the upturn of his lips showed none. He glanced at his feet. ‘I never knew how much attention a pair of boots brought. I just had them made and my friends hardly noticed them. I am used to my hats being noticed. But my boots are simply functional.’
He rose, stretching his legs and tapping his feet against the floor as if to get blood flowing. ‘Superior ones, though.’ At the wall, he leaned against the structure, propping himself into a restful position.
He studied her and she could see the moment the question formed.
‘Your name?’ he asked.
‘I am usually called Governess.’ She kept herself firm. Once, she’d only been called Child. She dwelled on her mother asking for her name, and she’d answered Child. She’d cried when her mother had kept insisting that she had another name, as if something was wrong with Child.
Then her mother had quietened and said Miranda could have two names. Or three, or four. Several days later she had asked Miranda if that name would suit her. Miranda would have agreed to any name at that point.
‘Does Miss Governess have another name?’ He spoke sweetly—too sweetly.
‘Miss Manwaring.’ Her eyes tightened at the corners. ‘And your name?’
He didn’t answer her question, seeming surprised that she didn’t know him. ‘Will anyone be searching for you?’
‘Perhaps my employer, but I cannot see him devoting much effort to it. He might contact my father—but if he does so, he will likely be told he is better for the loss.’
‘Parents don’t always see the joy of having children. My mother calls me Chal.’ He peered at her. ‘And she says it suits me because I can be a bit of a challenge. But most people call me Chalgrove.’
‘Thank you, Mr Chalgrove.’
He studied her more closely than Willie did when he was planning something irritating. He ducked his head and raised it after erasing an abashed grin. ‘You have put me decidedly in my place, Miss Manwaring. I, perhaps, deserved it.’
She paused. He seemed to think she should know him, yet he’d not even given her his surname, only a nickname his mother called him.
‘The name sounds familiar, Mr Chalgrove.’ He must be one of her employer’s friends or her father’s. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t recall our meeting.’
One side of his lips twisted up. ‘I’m certain our paths haven’t crossed or I would recollect it. I’ve given you two options, which is more than I give most people. Chal or Chalgrove. And you can leave the mister off.’ He took the command out of his words with a smile. ‘You choose.’
‘I will not address you...’ She widened her eyes. ‘Unless I must. And then I will make my choice. I suppose if we are friends I can call you Chalgrove.’
‘You are hanging tightly to those manners, aren’t you?’
‘No.’ She made a tossing movement towards the window. ‘They’re gone.’
‘Thank you for accommodating me. I had suspected that would be impossible for you shortly after you swung the bottle at me.’
‘I was simply not thinking correctly. I hope to mend that and to thank you for softening the blow. The bottle will never be the same and my arm still aches.’ She rubbed her arm. ‘You jarred me and nearly knocked me off my feet.’
She saw his mouth relax and maybe a hint of humour, real humour, hid behind his eyes.
‘My pardon,’ he said. ‘Any time you need my shoulder, it is here for you.’ The silence grew. ‘Even if you’ve a weapon in your hand.’