Thea Devine - Captivated

Fleetingly she wondered what Robert had done to the crock of butterif he had put it back into the cupboard or if he had stuck it inside the basket. Just as fleetingly she wondered if Mr. Thomas had told his wife of finding Miss Abigail and her "mister" frolicking naked in the rain.

But of course Mr. Thomas would have told her.

The mortification that Abigail should feel would not come.

The road to the station meandered around the ocean. At one spot a slip of the carriage wheel would plummet the vehicle over the cliff and into the water below.

"Stop!"

Mrs. Thomas nervously sawed on the reigns to stop the horse. Abigail reached into her reticule and grabbed the key to the trunk that carried her every fantasy.

How ironical that it should be dreams that had kept Robert alive these last twenty-two years.

They had given Abigail nothing but pain, isolating her from those she should emulate.

Before she could think about what she was doing, about what she was leaving behind, she stood up in the carriage and threw the key as far as she could.

It sparkled for a second, arcing over the water, then it disappeared. Into the air. Into the ocean.

It mattered not.

From this day forward Abigail had no dreams.

It was, after all, why she had chosen the isolated cottage, to say good-bye to the erotica that fueled impossible desires.

She closed her eyes against the sparkling clarity of the sea and made the decision she had been unable to make a week ago.

When she returned to London, she would accept the hand of the first man who her meddling siblings presented her with.

"You bloody horse, I should sell you to the glue factory."

Softly whickering, the horse looked over its shoulder.

And allowed Robert to grab its halter.

After a two-hour chaseand a three-hour hunt.

Robert stared into the horse's soft brown eyes and felt a melting sensation all the way down to his toes.

Toes that now sported a set of blisters, thanks to this great beast.

He had indeed lost his mind if every pair of brown eyes reminded him of Abigail, he thought in disgust.

Grabbing the pommel, he swung up into the saddle.

The sun was brilliant, the sky a cloudless blue as it can only be in the aftermath of a storm.

The melting sensation flowed from Robert's spine to his testicles at the thought of the storm… and Abigail. And of how they would spend the rest of the day.

She would read from her erotica while he soaked his feet. Afterward, he would brush her hair as he had earlier promised. Then he would lick her and suckle her until she begged for mercy. And then…

Then he would propose to her. She wouldn't dare refuse him, hanging on to the edge of release.

It was well after noon by the time Robert returned to the cottage.

He should have been warned by the lack of smoke trailing out of the chimney pipe in the thatched roof. He should have known that a cottage that appeared so utterly alone and desolate was just that. Being a military man, he should have noticed the fresh wagon tracks outside the cottage.

And he did. He merely attributed the lack of smoke coming out of the chimney to Abigail's exhaustion. And the wagon tracks only incited his hungerfor food. He had had nothing to eat since yesterday evening.

Stomach roiling, he burst inside the cottage.

Only to find emptiness.

The bedding had been ripped off the mattress. The floor near the sink was bereft of the hip bath.

For a second he wondered if he had gotten the wrong cottage.

One coastal cottage looked much like another. He could have gotten the wrong one…

But of course there was the cupboard barring the window. And the small trunk at the foot of the bed.

Abigail was gone.

Pain filled his chest; it took his breath away. For a second he wondered if he had caught pneumonia from the storm.

But then the pain was washed away in a flood of rage.

Damn her. She had planned it this way, from the moment he had introduced himself. While he had told her his full name, she had said her name was merely "Miss Abigail."She had known then that with the end of the storm she would be gone.

How could she walk away from him after what they had shared last night?

He had felt her pleasure.

She had felthis pleasure.

Damn her to hell, she had accepted him,all of him, his body, his past, his fantasy.

She had taken his pain and turned it into pleasure.

For the first time since Robert had killed theSepoy with a pair of drumsticks twenty-two years earlier, he felt like crying. Bawling like the gullible thirteen-year-old boy he had once been, forever searching for an easier way to live.

Fool that he was, he had allowed Abigail to become more than his fantasy woman. She had become a part of his soul.

Whilehe had given her the weapon that she needed to sever the union. Ladies might dally with men raised on the streets of London, but they didnot marry them.

No wonder she had fled. Last night he had asked her if she accepted himand she had said yes. No doubt when she had awakened alone, she had expected him to return with a preacher.

Angrily he jerked at the lid of the trunk.

It was locked.

He kicked it.

Only to burst a blister on his toe.

He hopped up and down.

Damn, damn, damn!

His hopping led him to the sink.

The hip tub was empty, propped up against the wall beside it. The water bucket sat in the sink. And the sponge…

Was gone.

He distinctly recalled placing that sponge inside Abigail.

Either she wore it still… or she had taken it with her.

And with the incongruous thought came reason.

He had left her at the crack of dawn to hunt down the cursed horse that had thrown him two nights ago. She had been curled against him, soft and replete.

He had thought to find the damned horse by the time she was awake. Instead, it had taken half the day.

The bargain had beeneverything for as long as the storm lasted.

If he had been Abigail, what would he have thought if he had awakened, alone, in a cold bed with sunshine pouring through the window?

Damn. Why hadn't he asked for her last name? Or even more importantly, where she lived?

But the old caretakers would know.

It took Robert three hours to locate the Thomass. He was met with stoic silence.

"Her didn' leave no address." Mrs. Thomas's weathered eyes were full of hostility. "I drove 'er to the train station an' that be that."

Robert clung to his patience. "Then give me her family name. You must have that information."

"It 'pears to me, ye bein' 'er mister, ye should know that yerself," Mr. Thomas said craftily.

Short of beating the information out of the old man and woman, there was nothing Robert could do. Except try the train station.

Which was closed.

He returned to the cottage by the sea.

There were candles in the cupboardbut no butter; Mrs. Thomas's doing, clearing out the perishables. Lighting a candle, he contemplated the stripped bed and the trunk at the foot of it. Then, calmly, methodically, he retrieved the pistol from his saddlebag and blew the lock off.

The sponge lay on top ofThe Pearl, edition number twelve.

Blistering pain enveloped Robert's chest.

Grimly he picked up the sponge. It still smelled of brandy and hot, wet woman.

How does the sponge feel?

It feelsthere.

I'll take it out for you… After I soak you in hot water to relieve the soreness.

Bottomless brown eyes alight with amber fires stared out of the sponge.And what then, Colonel Coally?

Then I'll put it back in for you.

A wave of exhaustion rolled over him.

It was immediately followed by a rush of rage.

By leaving behind the trunk and the sponge Abigail had made clear her decision.

He should let her walk away. He should let her have her cold, passionless reality.

But he wasn't going to allow that.

Abigail would not get away from him that easily. He was a soldiera damned good oneused to tracking down far more wily quarry than a genteel lady.

He would find her. If not tomorrow, then the next day. Or the next.

Robert picked up the journal. It was marked by a dark wet circle.

And when he found her… he would know every sexual act that she had ever read about. That she had ever fantasized about.

The next morning found Robert a thoroughly educated man. Acting on impulse, he packed the twelve copies ofThe Pearl into his saddlebag.

Old man Thomas was tending a pig and a dozen squealing piglets when Robert reined in his horse.

"Miss Abigail left a trunk inside the cottage. Store itI'll arrange to send it to her later. Meanwhile, I will give you a sovereign if you will take me to the train station and feed and care for my horse until I return."

Old man Thomas upturned a bucket of slops into the sty. "Miss Abigail said we wus to throw that trunk away. Ain't no need to store it. 'Less you care to buy it, of course…"

Robert grimly dug out another sovereign.

"I don't suppose Mrs. Thomas remembers what town Miss Abigail was getting off at?"

The birdlike eyes fastened onto the gold. "We don't keep track of renters. In an' out like flies, they are."

"And of course you don't know the name or address of the owner of the cottage," Robert remarked cynically.

Thomas licked his lips. "We just does what we're told."

The old man stuck to his story all the way to the station.

The ticket seller was more helpful. He remembered selling a ticket to a lady"going to London Station. She didn't look too happy going there, neither. Her eyes were all redlike she'd been crying. You her husband?"

Robert hardened his heart at the image the ticket seller painted.

Abigail had given him everythingand had left him with nothing. Tears seemed a cheap price for the pain she had caused.

He purchased a ticket without answering.

In London a cab drove Robert to an affordable hotel on a quiet street like the ones on which he used to work when helping his father sell ices. After visiting a tailor, he commenced his search.

The thought of Abigail turning thirty without him there to celebrate with her spurred him on.

Unfortunately, he was not of the upper ten thousand. Nor had he ever made friends with commissioned officers who belonged to that prestigious club.

After three weeks in London, Robert was no closer to finding Abigail than he had been when questioning the Thomass. Until he picked up a newspaper.

There was her face, in the society section.

Underneath it hailed the news that Lady Abigail Wynfred, sister of the Earl of Melford, was marrying Sir Andrew Tymes, eldest son of Baron Charles Tymes and Lady Clarisse Denby-Tymes.

The wedding was to be a small family affair, the article went on, that would take place on the twenty-seventh of June at the Earl of Melford's London town house.

Robert could feel the color draining out of his face.

Abigail was the sister of an earltheWilliam who would die of an apoplectic fit should her trunk of erotica be discovered.

No wonder she had not offered Robert her last namea liaison with a common colonel would rock society.

Had she been simply a woman born into gentility, Robert could afford the simple luxuries due to her station in life. But she was of the aristocracy.

There was nothing a man like him could offer a woman like her.

He studied the picture of her fiancé.

Sir Andrew Tymes had side-whiskers framing plump, round cheeks.

No doubt he and Abigail would own several pianos.

And every one of them would be draped with ruffles.

Ikilled my first man three months to the day of my enlistment, Abigail, and I have been killing ever since.

You had no choice, Robert.

He crumpled the paper between his fingers.

Perhaps hehad had no choice twenty-two years ago. But he did now.

Abigail did not deserve ruffled pianos.

Today was the twenty-fifth of June.

Robert hoped the earl's town house could accommodate one more guest.

contents

Abigail stared into the full-length mirror and knew that she had accomplished her goal.

The pale, brown-eyed lady with her hair pulled back in an elaborate French bun did not read erotic literature. She did not have forbidden fantasies.