“That won’t do you any good.” As if to confirm what she’d already guessed, a man spoke from the garden doorway. “I should know. I’ve tried to break those bonds often enough.”
She whipped her head around in his direction. Light dazzled her. All she could make out was a tall figure with broad shoulders.
But she heard the voice clearly.
A deep voice smooth and rich as the cream she scooped from the new milk on her farm in Yorkshire. That beautiful cultured baritone frightened her more than all Monks and Filey’s ribald speculations.
Then she realized what he’d said. “They’ve tied you to this table too?”
The man stepped into the room. “Of course,” he said mildly as if the admission held no consequence.
The gold-limned shadow resolved into a gentleman in his middle twenties wearing a loose white shirt and buff breeches. He was more than six feet tall and overly slender for his height, although she didn’t mistake his physical strength. He might be lean, but it was sinewy leanness.
He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Even terrified as she was, she couldn’t help measuring each detail of his appearance.
Fine dark hair grew back from his high forehead. A long straight nose. Sharply cut cheekbones, prominent because of his thinness. His eyes remained downcast under his winged dark brows. He looked like one of God’s angels humbly awaiting direction from the Deity.
Except no angel would study her prone body with quite that level of curiosity.
The heated inspection licked its way up her form with leisurely thoroughness. It lingered at her breasts, making her burningly conscious of her gaping neckline. Every muscle contracted in fear and refusal.
Grace had lived with fear long enough to know facing it down was her only strategy. She glowered at the man. “Are you Lord John?”
His mouth quirked in an unamused smile. “No. Lord John is my uncle.”
“If you’re not Lord John, will you help me? Your uncle has brought me here for…” Words failed her, although she doubted any description she chose would shock this superb and lascivious angel.
That ghost of a smile again. Like the rest of him, his mouth was perfect. Wide enough to be expressive. A sharply defined upper lip. A generous sweep of lower lip.
“His amusement?” The deep voice darkened with irony as he chose the innocuous term for something they both knew was anything but innocuous. He shifted closer so his shadow fell across her. She fought another wave of panic.
Her fingers curled beneath the restricting straps. “Yes. You must help me get away.”
“Must?” The young man stretched out one long-fingered hand to stroke her cheek. His touch was cool but she jerked away as if scalded. He took her chin and held her for his scrutiny. “Hmm. Pretty.”
He terrified her. But he was her only chance of escape before the unknown Lord John arrived. She moderated her tone. “Please, sir. Please help me.”
She’d closed her eyes. Although somehow she knew that fleeting smile flickered and vanished again.
“Better. Much better.”
The monster toyed with her. He’d toyed with her from the first. She swallowed nervously. “I appeal to your honor, sir. You cannot…” No, insistence hadn’t worked. “I appeal for your help.”
“Ah, I knew you could manage the right note. I find myself moved, madam. That slight break in your voice is a masterstroke. Well done.”
Her eyes snapped open. Strange to be both so annoyed and so scared at the same time. “I protest, sir. You speak like I’m an…an actress trying out for a part.”
“Do I indeed?” He bit out the words. With a flick of his fingers, he released her as though touching her offended him. “How remiss of me when it’s quite clear you’ve already been cast for this particular role.”
He swung away from her with a restlessness she noticed even through her fear. Knowing as she spoke that she’d fail, Grace made one last try for this singular young man’s help. “Your uncle means to rape me. You cannot just abandon me.”
He turned back to her, his remarkable face a mask of well-bred contempt. “This confusion charms, madam. And almost convinces. But we both know you’re here for my use, not my uncle’s. Unless one discounts your purpose as his cat’s paw.”
She licked dry lips. “You must be mad.”
He gave a short huff of humorless laughter and met her gaze for the first time. He had rich brown eyes marked by a sunburst of gold. Beautiful, unusual eyes, colder than anything she’d ever seen.
He spoke quite gently as those strange striated eyes stared into hers. “Of course I am, my dear. Unquestionably and incurably mad.”