The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae Read Online Free PDF Page A

her and carried her to the carriage.
    And his eyes . . . she wouldn’t have said they were cold, not as she’d seen them, but she could imagine that, if he so wished, their expression might grow chilly . . .
    She dragged in a strangled breath. She could barely believe what her wits were screaming.
    She’d been kidnapped, possibly by the laird.
    Definitely by her hero.

Chapter Two
    T he carriage rocked and rattled over the cobbles. Angelica lay on the seat, grappling with the realization of what had just happened. Of what was happening now.
    She dragged in a breath, held it, then wriggled and fought furiously against the restraining blanket.
    It eased not at all; her fiendish captor had tucked the ends in tight. The carriage rolled around a corner, and his prediction nearly came true; flinging herself back, she only just saved herself from falling off the seat.
    Abandoning all thought of immediate escape, she huffed out a breath, lay still, and tried to think. Tried to decide what was what, so she could then decide what to do.
    She’d been kidnapped by a man who bore a striking resemblance to the supposedly dead laird, the mysterious nobleman behind her older sisters’ kidnappings. Heather had been kidnapped first, then several weeks after Heather had escaped, Eliza had been snatched from inside St. Ives House. Angelica tried to imagine what Heather and Eliza had felt on realizing they’d been captives. Shock, horror, terror, fear—some combination of those?
    Studying her own roiling emotions, all she could find was anger, in several shades, some of it directed at herself, various threads of incredulity and disbelief, and beneath all else an incipient feeling of betrayal. Debenham was her hero, yet he’d trussed her up like a package and stolen her away. Just the thought sent her temper spiraling. If he truly was the laird come back to life, then, as she’d warned him, he would pay.
    The carriage turned ponderously again, and the light from the streetlamps faded. Darkness closed in. Tipping back her head, she shook her hair off her face and peered out of the window in the nearer carriage door. The carriage slowed, then halted, settling on its springs. Eyes adjusting, she saw a shadowed wall of old stone.
    Debenham had said his house wasn’t far; given the very short distance the carriage had traveled, he’d spoken the literal truth, and said the house was near Cavendish House, which in turn was just around the corner from Dover Street. She had to be within minutes of her home.
    The coachman and groom remained on the box, quietly talking. She listened, but couldn’t make out their words.
    Debenham had said the carriage would take her to the mews behind his house, that he would come to fetch her after her disappearance from the soiree was noted.
    She’d gone to Cavendish House with her mother, Celia, her aunt Louise, and her cousin Henrietta. Given the crowd in the salon and the nature of the gathering, she doubted any of the three would notice her absence until they were ready to depart; only then would they look for her.
    Which meant she had at least an hour in which to decide how to react to Debenham when he reappeared.
    Should she be frightened?
    No matter how deeply she dredged, she couldn’t find any fear. Even in those minutes when he and she had wrestled beneath the trees, she hadn’t been afraid. Shocked and furious, yes; fearful, no. At no time had her instincts, until that night invariably reliable over alerting her to men with undesirable intentions, detected any threat emanating from Debenham; they had detected what she’d read as sexual interest, but no threat.
    She thought back to the moment she’d first seen him, when he’d been watching her so assessingly . . . she inwardly squirmed. She’d interpreted his interest in her as personal, while he’d been studying her as a target.
    Ouch . She grimaced around the gag,