Christine Bell - A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

Only now, with the proof of his duplicity literally staring her in the face, did she realize the truth—John had staged the fire so he could get his hands on the purviewers. Her hands trembled with repressed fury as she thought of what he’d put her through.

John gave her a chilly smile and inclined his head. “I wondered if I’d have to spell it out for you. I should have known better.” He regarded her for a long moment before turning his attention to the pretty blonde on his arm. “Emily, why don’t you go and rejoin the party. I’ll see you later this evening.”

The young woman nodded, scowling at Charlotte as she passed. Charlotte moved to follow her, but John stepped smoothly in front of the French doors and closed them with a snap, trapping her with him on the balcony. He was near enough for her to smell the liquor on his breath, and she drew back instinctively.

She squashed the sudden blast of fear that rose within her and instead focused on her ire. “You’re drunk. I won’t speak with you under these conditions. Besides, you got what you wanted—the purviewers. I cannot imagine why you would return to London or what you would want with me now. Let me pass, John. This instant.”

As his handsome face screwed up in fury, she braced herself.

“Always wanting to be in control, bossy wench. Not this time.” The stranger who would have been her husband by now pulled a gun from his waist and aimed it directly at her heart. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “Your contraptions have stopped working. Now you’re going to fix them.”

“Why would I help you?”

“Because I have your precious Alistair. He’s chained to a chair in Emily’s house as we speak. I’ve set up a lab for you there so the two of you can repair the purviewers. I’ll even be generous and give you forty-eight hours to complete the task.”

The riot of emotions scrambling Charlotte’s brain instantly gave way to calm determination at his words. He had Alistair and beyond that, nothing else mattered. There was no alternative. She would go with John and figure out a way to save both the only man she’d ever loved and her invention, or she would die trying. The whys or hows didn’t matter.

“I’ll need more time than that. I don’t have my notes, they were burned—”

“In the fire? No, darling. I have them.”

She barely restrained a snarl. “And if we still cannot manage it?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Then I will kill you both.”

Well that was certainly clear enough.

“Then we’d better move along,” she said, bustling over to the doors and eyeing him expectantly.

Confusion furrowed his brow. “That’s all you would say to me? Aren’t you ashamed I deceived you—the brilliant Charlotte Phillips—so easily?”

It was a real kick in the bloomers, to be certain, but she’d never admit it to him. John’s signet ring and some charred bits of bone had been the only indications that he’d been in the lab during the fire. She hadn’t even considered why the brass goggles had succumbed to the flames so completely when his gold ring had remained fully intact. The inspector had ruled that she must have left a burner on, accidentally causing the inferno and John’s death. She’d been so overcome with guilt that she hadn’t thought it through. Or noted the fact that in fifteen years of experimenting, she’d never once left a burner on. Now the ruse seemed as plain as day.

She poked around for some heartache over her fiancé’s betrayal, but all she found was anger. In any case, it wasn’t as if she’d ever loved him or expected his love in return. She wanted a family, more than anything, and that meant marriage. He had the title, she had the money, and they got on well. Alistair hadn’t wanted her, so what did it matter who she married?

John slipped the weapon into his pocket and tried to move her toward the door, jostling her with the cloth-covered revolver. She made a silent vow to work on her instincts.

She looked down her nose at him. “I would appreciate if you would not do that again.”

“You and that haughty stare. As if you’re so much smarter than the rest of us,” he spat.

“Not the rest, John. Just you.”

He was quick as a viper, rapping the butt of the pistol smartly against the side of her already pounding head. Pain exploded at her temple and she gasped.

“I’ve always wanted to do that, silence that sharp tongue for a change. I should have married you and killed you off after the wedding. That was my mistake. Emily didn’t like the idea of blood on my hands. Last time I listen to a woman, mark me.”

Angering the lunatic with a pistol was not one of her better ideas and she vowed to bite her tongue moving forward. So long as they kept their heads, surely she and Alistair could outwit John Rotham before the two days were up. They had no choice. 

A door slammed shut overhead and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Alistair sat up on the stool as best he could and pasted a bored expression on his face. No sense in giving Rotham the satisfaction of knowing just how painful the manacles around his wrists had become. The bastard was pleased enough with himself for capturing Alistair in the first place.

If he hadn’t been so distracted, it would never have happened. He had suspected Charlotte’s fiancé was alive for a few weeks now. Some of the gossipy chaps at The Wakefield Gentlemen’s Club had begun whispering about Rotham’s disgruntled creditors. While John and Charlotte weren’t yet man and wife, news of their betrothal had rocked London, and the money grubbers hoped to capitalize on her guilt and extreme wealth by asking her to honor Rotham’s debts. Strange when a man, deep in arrears, dies in a tragic accident at the same time that a priceless invention is also lost. Once Alistair had realized the purviewers were destroyed and there was so little found of Rotham’s remains, his suspicions had grown. He’d already begun looking into the “accident” and had just hired an investigator to handle the legwork when Rotham had accosted him from behind and coshed him on the head.

The door to the makeshift laboratory swung open, and his heart stuttered as Charlotte stepped in, resplendent in a stunning red gown. Her sharp gray gaze flickered around the room until it landed on him.

“Alistair.”

She breathed only the one word, but the look on her face said so much more. Her relief was almost palpable and he worked up a smile for her. It wasn’t difficult. Bloody hell, she was alive, and that was all that mattered. He’d clung to the belief that Rotham hadn’t harmed her, but it hadn’t made the hours pass any quicker. He’d needed to see her in the flesh, and now that he had, everything was right with the world. Aside from the pesky manacles and the gun pointed at them….

“If the two of you are finished making eyes at one another, you might want to pay mind to the man with the gun,” Rotham groused. He sounded like a petulant three-year-old, but Alistair reminded himself that such a person would be even more dangerous than a proper man wielding a weapon. He tore his gaze from Charlotte and reluctantly focused on their captor.

“Very good. Now, Charlotte, you will have free reign of the laboratory tonight and every night. At dawn, I will chain you and release Sinclair to do his part. That should keep you both in line, because if one of you attempts to escape while you are unrestrained, the other will be left behind to face my wrath alone. At the end of two days, I expect the purviewers to function as they’re meant to. Then, you will be free to go. It’s quite simple, really,” he said with a casual shrug and a flash of perfectly straight, white teeth.

Alistair vowed to knock them out the moment he had the chance.

“It would assist in our task if we knew how they were damaged,” Charlotte said.

“They worked perfectly for a few weeks. I’d made my way through all the gaming hells in France. Cards, games of chance, horse races, I wagered on them all, and won. Small stakes, you understand, to keep from being noticed. I was on my way to creating a whole new life there. Almost had enough to send for Emily to join me. Then one evening I was peeking through the purviewers right before a bout of boxing, and someone walked by. In my rush to take off the goggles before they were seen, I dropped them on the cobbles.”

He curled his lip in disgust as he tossed the brass on the worktable. “They haven’t worked since. I’ve lost every sou I won and then some. Tried to read your stupid notebook to fix them. A load of gibberish, that.”

“The goggles aren’t meant for rigorous use. Besides, if we fix them, what’s to stop you from resorting to this should they break again? I refuse to live my life in fear, John. What guarantee do we have that this will be at an end in forty-eight hours?” Charlotte crossed her arms over her breasts—plumping them up against the scooped neckline of her dress—and eyed their nemesis pointedly.

“You’re not in a position to demand guarantees. But, I will only require the purviewers for one more use. I’ve worked out a plan that will make me rich as Croesus. You have my word, fix them this once and I shan’t trouble you again.” He started toward the door. “I will be back early to release Sinclair and secure you for the day. Use your time wisely. Two days,” he sang as he exited.

Charlotte called after him, “Just so you are aware, milord, the wedding is off!”

Alistair shook his head in amazement as the door slammed behind Rotham. Even in the face of a crisis, Charlotte Phillips’s dry wit did not fail her. He loved that, and everything else, about her. Alistair gave her a proper grin, then looked closer at her pale face. She was not quite as unaffected as she seemed.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded and attempted a weak smile. “Yes. A little shaken, is all. It’s not every day one’s intended comes back from the dead, kidnaps your colleague and threatens to murder you, but I’m managing. You?”

Colleague. That stung, but he probably deserved it. He’d had the chance to be so much more to Charlotte but he’d turned her away. Now it was too late.

“Alistair?” She pinned him with her too-perceptive gaze as she picked her way across the cluttered room, muttering a curse as she stumbled. “I asked how you were fairing.”

“Same as you, taken aback, I suppose,” he said with a shrug.

“To tell the truth, I feel rather a ninny for trusting him in the first place.” Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

John Rotham had been a bit of an unknown from the start, and while Charlotte had trusted him, Alistair had not. The second son to Charles, the late Duke of Rotham, John had spent most of his time in France up until his brother’s death the year before. He’d returned to London to claim his title, but there had been rumblings of his poor judgment with money early on. His sudden and relentless interest in Charlotte had been a surprise—and very suspicious to Alistair—but she had taken his courtship as sincere. John had suited her purposes; more than anything, Charlotte wanted a child, and at eight and twenty, time was growing short. She’d lived in America for almost a decade, leading many of the bachelors in London to question her morals. Her willful nature and sharp wit had scared off the rest despite her wealth.

Weak-minded pratts, all of them. He would have done almost anything to have Charlotte as his wife, but marrying him could have cost her her most precious of dreams. And that, he would not do.

He bit back a sigh and tried to reassure her. “He was a fine actor. It wasn’t your fault.”

She met his gaze full-on then and gave a weary shake of her head. “You are a true gentleman for saying so, Alistair, but it was my fault entirely. Better that I accept it and learn from my mistakes than repeat them.”

He pretended to consider that, and gave a solemn nod. “Well then, if you insist, it was rather silly of you. What in the blazes were you thinking?”

She laughed, and the sound warmed him. She had the most inappropriate laugh. A bawdy, throaty chuckle that vibrated in her throat long before it spilled from her lips. It called forth visions of silky skin and dueling tongues, of curvy hips and creamy thighs. Today, though, the sound was soothing, a balm to his soul. When he’d awakened, chained in the lab, he’d been terrified. Until she’d walked through the door, he hadn’t been certain if she was alive or dead.

The thought of John killing her skewered his guts like a lance, but Alistair willed the nightmare away. She was here now, and very much alive. Now they just had to keep it that way.