Chapter One
England
Late Summer 1883
If there was a hell, then surely he was in it.
"Do sit still, Jack," whispered Annabelle, nudging him
hard in the ribs.
Jack regarded his sister sullenly, struggling to
reposition his enormous frame within the confines of the
ancient pew. "We've been trapped in this godforsaken
mausoleum for over an hour and the bloody wedding hasn't
even started yet. The stench from these flowers is choking
me, I'm ready to strangle the choir, and I've lost all
feeling in my backside."
"That old man over there looks like he's dead." His
brother Simon frowned.
Charlotte gave her siblings a mildly reproachful look. "I
think the flowers are lovely," she countered
softly. "Genevieve said the bride's mother, Mrs. John
Henry Belford, designed the arrangements herself,
stripping bare nearly every conservatory in England in the
process. It must have cost a fortune."
"Roses and orange leaves were a good choice for the Gothic
arches." Her sister Grace studied the four extraordinary
floral arches that soared over the aisle, creating a
magnificent canopy of blossoms beneath which the bride was
to make her much-anticipated appearance. "And the fence of
lily of the valley and mums at the altar rail is
stunning."
"Jamie, go over to that old man and make certain he has a
pulse," said Simon, still concerned for the elderly
gentleman a few rows across who sat frozen with his eyes
closed. "He may need a doctor."
"He's just asleep," his brother assured him. "I saw him
scratch himself."
"Lucky bastard," muttered Jack.
"Jack!" Annabelle regarded him with exasperation, while
Charlotte and Grace giggled beneath the brims of their
enormous hats.
"Perhaps you should step outside for a moment and stretch
your legs, Jack."
Haydon Kent, Marquess of Redmond, regarded his son from
the next pew with equal measures of empathy and amusement.
At sixty-one he had learned to endure many of the tedious
social ordeals that his status demanded of him, but Jack
could see he would have dearly loved to escape the
suffocating church as well. "Given the funereal pace with
which things have progressed, I'm sure you've got a few
minutes before we get started here."
"Just make certain you return before the bridal party
begins to walk down the aisle," added Genevieve. His
mother smiled fondly at him. "No bride wants a wayward
guest stumbling over her train as she enters the church."
The colossal organ above blasted the cavernous space once
again as the sixty-member choir wearily rose.
"I'll just be outside." Not waiting for the protest that
was sure to come from Annabelle, Jack escaped down the
aisle, ignoring the disapproving glances of the women in
the church and the mournfully envious stares of the men
sweating profusely beside them.
The overwhelming stench of the thousands of blossoms
within had seeped beyond the church doors and saturated
the hot summer air outside, forcing Jack to seek refuge at
the side of the ancient stone building. He loosened his
necktie and inhaled a deep breath, ridding his lungs of
the cloying sweetness.
What madness had possessed him to let his family persuade
him to attend this ridiculous wedding? he wondered
irritably. He scarcely knew the Duke of Whitcliffe, and he
had never met Amelia Belford, the fabulously wealthy
American heiress the aging duke had finally deigned to
make his wife. If not for the fact that Jack was so
anxious to see his family after having been away at sea
for three months, he would never have agreed to endure
what was turning out to be the most excruciating social
torture of his thirty-six years. The lavishness with which
the church had been decorated did not bode well for the
festivities to come. Five hundred guests were invited to
the duke's estate following the ceremony for three
interminable days of entertainment. That had to be at the
expense of the bride's parents, Jack decided, for it was
well known that old Whitcliffe had been struggling to
maintain his decrepit family estate for years. Today His
Grace would gain a handsome fortune through his blushing
bride's dowry. What the sweating guests inside were about
to witness was purely a business transaction, with Miss
Belford gaining the dubious prestige of an archaic title
and Whitcliffe reaping riches that far surpassed any he
might otherwise have hoped for in this lifetime or the
next.
Jack withdrew a silver flask from inside his morning coat
and swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. He didn't care how
many spoiled, social-climbing heiresses elected to race
across the ocean to set their hooks into some doughy,
impoverished aristocrat with yellowing teeth and a
pitifully receding hairline. All that he asked was that
they show up for their own goddamn wedding before he died
of asphyxiation and boredom.
"Dear God," a small voice suddenly whispered urgently from
somewhere above him, "please don't let me be killed."
He looked up in astonishment to see a slender, ivory-
stockinged leg hoisted over the gray stone balustrade of
the balcony that ran along the side of the church. A snowy
cloud of fabric followed it, wadded into such an enormous
profusion of petticoats and skirts and lace that it
entirely obliterated the wearer. The shapely leg fumbled
about with the toe of its delicately fashioned shoe,
frantically searching for a hold in the thick, woody vine
that grew in a twisted green lattice up the gray stone
wall. Having found a branch that seemed to suffice, the
small foot tested it once, bending the dangerously
makeshift step as it applied more weight. Then another leg
swung over to join it, and a veritable snowstorm of bridal
finery began to awkwardly creep down the leafy trellis.
All at once the vine began to give way. The frothy
confection yelped with fright and crashed into the bushes
below in an explosion of silk and leaves. His heart
pounding, Jack sprinted toward the tangle of vines and
lace, certain the foolish girl had snapped her neck.
"Mercy!" she exclaimed, sounding more breathless than
broken. "That was a real cropper!" Her head bobbed up and
she began to quickly extricate herself from the crushed
bushes.
Relieved that she was not gravely injured and curious to
see what she would do next, Jack quietly slipped behind a
tree to watch her.
Unable to free herself from the trappings of her
extravagant gown, she jerked mercilessly at the hand-
stitched fabric, causing it to tear broadly. Finally she
had rent it sufficiently that she was able to scramble out
of the bushes. She balled up the cumbersome length of her
tattered train and veil, then darted as quickly as her
fashionable little shoes would permit over to the edge of
the church wall. Cautiously, she peered around the front.
The choir had finished its hymn and the bishop was
assuring the melting assemblage that the marriage ceremony
was about to commence. Jack thought that unlikely, given
that the bride had just hurled herself off a balcony and
was in the process of making her escape. He watched her
spy the long line of handsome carriages arranged down the
laneway. The first of these was the bridal carriage, a
gaudy affair of ebony and gold bedecked with fat satin
ribbons and gigantic white flowers. Evidently deciding
that it would be unseemly to flee from her groom in his
wedding carriage, the bride raced toward the next
available vehicle.
"Quick, drive away!" Amelia managed breathlessly as she
scrambled inside, slamming the carriage door behind her.
She glanced anxiously through the window to see if she was
being followed. Then, remembering her manners, she
graciously added to the driver, "Please."
A wizened little man with sleepy eyes and a scraggle of
snowy hair turned and regarded her incredulously. "Here
now, lass, what's this about?"
"Good afternoon, Miss Belford," said Jack, casually
opening the door to the carriage. "A pleasant day for a
ride, is it not?"
"Forgive me sir, but this carriage is already engaged."
Amelia struggled to remain calm as she glanced nervously
out the window to see if anyone else had noticed her
escape. "I'm afraid you will have to find another one."
"The lass is wantin' me to drive away with her," the
driver reported to Jack, sounding thoroughly rattled.
"Really, sir, I must insist that you find your own
carriage," Amelia protested. "This one is already spoken
for."
"Unfortunately, this is my own carriage," Jack informed
her.
Amelia's heart sank. "Forgive me--I didn't know. In that
case, I shall have to find another one."
She wadded up the voluminous trappings of her gown once
more and scooted toward the door. Suddenly the mournful
strains of the organ within the church stopped and
agitated shouting rent the air.
"It would seem," Jack began, cocking his head toward the
church, "someone has noticed the bride is missing."
The blood drained from her face, making her alarmingly
pale. For a moment Jack feared she might actually faint.
Instead, she jerked off her emerald earrings and tossed
them to him. "Will those combined with this necklace be
enough for me to purchase this carriage from you?" she
asked, unhooking the strand of diamonds around her neck.
Jack stared at her in astonishment.
"You may have this ring as well," she added, straining to
pull an enormous ruby surrounded by a glittering halo of
diamonds off her right hand. "Lord Whitcliffe said it had
been in his family for generations. Of course I've been
told that he has been forced to sell the most important
Whitcliffe family jewels over the years to meet his debts,
but I don't think he would have given it to me unless it
was worth quite a bit. He is extremely concerned about
appearances."
"I don't want Whitcliffe's ring," Jack protested,
flustered.
Her expression fell. "You're right, of course--it doesn't
really belong to me. But the necklace and earrings are
mine," she vowed fervently. "My father gave them to me for
my nineteenth birthday a few months ago. You may take
them, sir, feeling absolutely confident that no one will
ever come after you and challenge your--Quick, get in,
they'll see you!" She grabbed him by his coat sleeve as
people began to spill from the church shouting her
name. "Hurry!"
Jack reluctantly climbed onto the seat opposite her and
closed the door.
"Miss Belford," he began, adopting what he believed was
his most reasonable tone, "you are clearly distraught and
overcome with emotion. I'm sure that if you take a moment--
"
"What is your name, sir?"
He regarded her in exasperation, aware that it would be
scant minutes before someone decided to orchestrate a
search of the carriages. "It's Jack," he told her. "Jack
Kent."
"Tell me, Mr. Kent, have you ever been utterly, hopelessly
trapped?"
Her eyes were wide and filled with emotion. They were the
color of the sea, Jack realized as he studied her, the
dark, unfathomable blue of the ocean when the sun sparkled
like fallen stars upon its softly rippling waves. Long,
smoky lashes veiled her upper lids, which on closer
inspection were puffy and rimmed with scarlet, and
crescent-shaped bruises of sleeplessness stained the
delicate skin below. Her features were small and
beautifully rendered, her complexion as fine as creamy
silk, save for a playful splash of freckles that slipped
across her nose, which Jack found disconcertingly
charming. Her once artfully arranged hair was spilling in
pale gold around her shoulders, a hopeless tangle of
wayward pins, tattered veil, and bits of leaf. His runaway
bride was tall, and her escapade down the wall suggested
that she was fairly strong, but in that moment she seemed
achingly small and fragile amidst the copious layers of
her ruined bridal finery.
"Have you ever felt that you were about to be sentenced to
a horrible existence you knew you could not bear," Amelia
continued earnestly, "because the world wanted to imprison
you simply because of who you were?"
His jaw tightened. The wounds of his past were buried
beneath the years of Genevieve and Haydon's gentle care,
but Miss Belford's words still cut him. Some wounds could
never heal, he reflected bitterly, no matter how many
years or how much money was layered in protective bandages
over them.
For a moment Amelia feared she had offended him. A flash
of anger had heated his gray gaze, and she noticed an
almost imperceptible clenching of his jaw. There was a
harsh wariness to the man before her that she had not
encountered in any of the other scores of preening men she
had met since arriving in England. His features were
handsome but ruggedly cut, his tall physique lean and
muscular, which was unlike the indulged softness she had
come to expect from most of his peers. A jagged scar
marred the darkly stubbled skin of his left cheek, and it
seemed to have grown whiter as he considered her
question. "Perhaps you have never known what it is to feel
absolutely desperate," she continued, shrinking back from
the window as dozens more people flowed from the church to
join the search for her. Her maid was now standing on the
balcony from which she had made her escape, and a crowd
had gathered to point excitedly at the telltale broken
vine and crushed bushes below. "So desperate that you
would risk anything, and everything, just for the faint
chance that maybe there was another life waiting for you
somewhere, if only you could break free and find it."
Her eyes were luminous with a haunting mixture of frail
hope and overwhelming fear. Jack cursed silently. He was
not in the habit of rescuing runaway heiresses. He had
only agreed to attend Whitcliffe's nuptials as a way of
spending some brief time with his family before heading
back to Scotland. There he would spend a quick day or two
getting updated on the status of his shipping business
before departing for Ceylon. He did not have time to get
involved in Miss Belford's romantic dilemma, however
unfortunate or compelling it might be. The only rational
thing to do was to open the door at once and escort her
out of the carriage and into the welcoming arms of her
betrothed, who was no doubt currently overcome with
concern for her welfare.
He stole a glance out the window. Amidst the crowd he now
saw the imposing figure of Mr. John Henry Belford, her
father, bellowing her name, whether with alarm or profound
irritation Jack could not be sure. A heavily jeweled woman
draped in pale peach silk trimmed with sable, which was
utterly inappropriate given the blistering heat of the
day, stood at his side, her face twisted into a mask of
tightly affected calm. The bride's charming mother, he
decided. And standing off to one side was pompous old
Whitcliffe, his bulky, sagging form sweating in an ill-
fitting wine-colored morning coat and trousers, his
flaccid face nearly purple with apoplectic rage.
Perhaps her betrothed's arms were not so welcoming after
all.
"I take it then, Miss Belford, that this match was not of
your own choosing?" Jack ventured, not quite ready to
abandon her to her fate.
Amelia shook her head miserably. "My mother was very
determined that I marry an aristocrat of no lesser rank
than a duke. But unfortunately there aren't that many
dukes running about, and fewer still who are actually
available for marriage. Lord Whitcliffe was the best she
could find, and he was willing to take me on, despite the
fact that he believes me to be common and foolish."
"He told you that?" Jack felt a sudden irrepressible urge
to grab Whitcliffe by his almost nonexistent neck and
choke an apology from him.
"I overheard him telling my father. At first I thought he
was only saying it because he was trying to get my father
to pay him more for the privilege of my marrying him. It
may surprise you to learn, Mr. Kent, that for an American
girl to marry an English lord costs quite a bit of money.
But then Lord Whitcliffe cited some examples of what he
called my 'crass and unseemly behavior,' and I knew he
really did think that I was frightfully uncouth." She
lowered her gaze and made a halfhearted attempt to
straighten the torn cocoon of satin and silk surrounding
her.
Jack thought of her scuttling down the side of the church
in her wedding gown. Whitcliffe would have probably had a
heart attack had he been witness to that particular
escapade. He repressed the impulse to smile.
"If you won't sell your carriage to me, Mr. Kent, would
you consider permitting me to hire it for a day or two?"
Amelia persisted, hopefully. "I promise that I shall take
very good care of it, and will send it back to you
directly."
Jack avoided her imploring gaze. His family had exited the
church and was standing in a cluster, searching the crowd
for him. His three sisters looked extremely pretty in
their elegant outfits, which had been designed by Grace.
Each of his sisters was happily married to a man of her
own choosing. Although Jack was familiar with the practice
of arranged marriages, particularly amongst the nobility,
Genevieve's gentle upbringing had always stressed the
principles of independent thought and freedom of choice,
and she had instilled those values in her children. The
idea of Annabelle or Grace or his beloved Charlotte being
offered up like prized lambs to be purchased by the
highest bidder was utterly abhorrent.
"Mr. Kent?" Amelia's voice was strained.
A party of men was fanning out to search the carriages.
Jack noticed Simon and Jamie making their way toward his
vehicle. Genevieve had probably asked them to take a look
inside, not to search for the missing bride, but to see if
their wayward brother had taken refuge within and fallen
asleep. The minute they discovered Miss Belford, the
carriage would be swarmed. His determined little heiress
would be hastily extracted and marched into the church to
meet her fate with Whitcliffe, willing or not.
And there wouldn't be a damn thing he could do about it.
"Please, Mr. Kent," Amelia whispered.
She reached out and laid her hand upon his, beseeching him
with her touch.
He stared at her hand in surprise. It felt cool and soft
upon his skin, despite the sweltering heat of the day and
the sudden closeness of the carriage. It was a small hand,
made even slighter by the enormity of the ostentatious
ring Whitcliffe had elected to bestow upon it. The fingers
were slender and immaculately manicured, as one might have
expected of a bride on her wedding day, and the skin was
pale and silky smooth, indicating that it had spent much
of its existence safely swaddled in expensive gloves. But
it was the profusion of thin, scarlet scratches hatched
across it that captivated his attention. They must have
occurred during her fall, Jack realized, as she
desperately struggled to cling to the vine before
plummeting helplessly into the bushes below. He took her
hand and slowly turned it over, only to discover a deeper
cut slashed into the tender flesh of her palm. It oozed a
thin stream of blood which had smeared his own skin.
She had asked him if he had ever known what it was to be
hopelessly trapped. The bitter truth was, he did know all
too well. Until he saw that ruby stain of blood marring
his own skin, he had not understood how desperate she was.
And suddenly he remembered with piercing clarity how it
felt to be alone and terrified.
"Oliver," he began, the steady calm of his voice belying
the enormity of what he was about to do, "turn the
carriage around and slowly drive away."
The driver's aged eyes widened in disbelief. "With her?"
Jack nodded.
"But--she's the bride!" Oliver protested, as if he thought
that Jack must have overlooked that particular detail.
"I realize that."
"They'll come after us!"
"Only if they think that Miss Belford is hiding in the
carriage," Jack countered. "As long as we drive slowly and
give no cause for suspicion, I believe they will continue
to search the surrounding area and the remaining
carriages." His body tensed as Simon and Jamie drew
near. "We have to go now, Oliver."
The old man hesitated barely a second, then obligingly
snapped his whip lightly over the glossy black
hindquarters of his horses. Jack leaned out the window as
the carriage rolled forward, blocking his brothers' view
of the distraught, rumpled bride hidden within.
"Too bad no one had the wit to check upon the bride
earlier," he complained irritably. "I could have left for
Scotland an hour ago." He pretended to stifle a yawn.
"You're not going home now, are you?" Simon looked
disappointed.
"Miss Belford is certain to be found shortly," Jamie
added. "She's probably just having an attack of nerves."
"I don't really give a damn," Jack replied, looking
thoroughly bored. "I don't have time to stay for the
celebrations anyway. I'm heading back to Inverness, and
then I'm sailing for Ceylon. If you don't stay in England
too long, I might see you before I leave. Tell Whitcliffe
I'm sorry he lost his heiress," he added, waving to the
rest of his family. "Maybe next time he should try to find
a bride who isn't American--I understand they can be
trouble."
With that he slouched wearily against his seat, folded his
arms across his chest and closed his eyes. He didn't so
much as look out the window as the carriage ambled down
the shaded laneway, leaving the others to frantically
continue their search for the elusive Miss Amelia Belford.