Pursuing this elusive heiress will be the ultimate temptation. . .
Lady Elizabeth Shield is used to saving herself from trouble. And even if dashing private inquiry agent Dougal Alexander just rescued her from white slavers, she's definitely not returning to her stifling aristocratic life and unsuitable suitors. Not when there are other women in danger—and a secret promise to keep in Edinburgh. But outwitting Dougal's tactics to return her to London and her family will be easier than staying away from his intoxicating kisses. . .
He's a baron's second son accustomed to making his own way and uncovering the truth. Now Dougal must keep Lady Elizabeth close for her own protection, but her spirited wiles are proving scandalously irresistible. His most difficult case yet will be showing her that he's everything she truly desires—and that love is the greatest of adventures. . .
"Before I realized it, the unusually strong and well-developed characters of The Kidnapped Bride had sneaked up on me and captured my full attention. This is one of the best shorter books I have ever read." --Delle Jacobs, author of Lady Wicked
39,700 Words
Release date:
September 1, 2014
Publisher:
eKensington
Print pages:
126
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“I’ll take you to Lord Judah’s office right away, Mr.—” The young man who had escorted him into the back passages of Redcake’s Tea Shop and Emporium paused and frowned at the telegram he held.
“Alexander. Dougal Alexander.” Dougal put his hand out for the telegram he’d received, requesting him to travel from Edinburgh to London today and meet with Lord Judah Shield, his employer for the Cross case. As he needed to come to London for the case regardless, he had no problem agreeing to the voyage.
“Quite a shocker that Manfred Cross has finally been found. Lady Judah must be so happy to know her brother’s whereabouts.”
“I doubt it,” Dougal said, following the man up a steep flight of steps. “Given his circumstances.”
The man turned back, startled, an electrified sconce highlighting the sheen of his pomaded hair. “Oh, dear. I didn’t realize there was trouble.”
Dougal said nothing. As a private inquiry agent, he found it best to let others do most of the talking.
“Lady Judah is employed here too, you know, though we haven’t seen much of her of late. Unusual women in the Shield family. The marchioness owns this establishment. Then there’s Lady Elizabeth, who disappeared almost a year ago and has never been heard from again.”
“Quite.” His life had been consumed by the young and beautiful noblewoman for months. He saw her achingly lovely face, memorized from her brother’s photograph, in his dreams.
“Have you found her?” the man asked. “We’d all assumed she was with Mr. Cross.”
“Are you a member of the family?” Dougal asked coldly.
“No, of course not. I’m Ewan Hales, Lord Judah’s secretary.”
“Then I will leave that discussion tae the family,” Dougal said, as they crossed the landing and went up another flight of steps. In truth, he had not found Lady Elizabeth, though locating a vanished lady of nearly twenty years old, the Marquess of Hatbrook’s sister, was a higher priority than recovering a jewel thief. But a police case and this private one had collided. The lady, after all, had run off with or run after Manfred Cross. Accounts varied. Either way, Lady Elizabeth had proved to be an uncommon specimen of female, and an intriguing one.
When they reached the third floor, Hales opened the door and led him down a passage, then went through another door into a spacious anteroom. Steam curled from an iron teapot hung on a hook inside the fireplace. The warm, almost humid room offered a pleasant contrast to the rainy spring morning outside.
Hales opened another door, this one leading to the inner sanctum of the manager’s office. Two men were seated in armchairs to the left, on either side of a small fireplace. Between them rested a tray with a teapot, cups, and soup bowls recently emptied. Crumbs decorated a plate in the center.
Dougal’s stomach growled. He had not eaten since he had emptied his hamper on the train the previous day. But that did not trouble him. No, the faces of the two men in front of him, clearly brothers, were the issue. While the men had dissimilar hair and eye coloring, as well as slightly different physical forms, their facial features, noses, cheekbones, and eye shapes, were identical. He had seen those characteristics before, and recently. Where?
Both men stood.
“Hello, Alexander,” said the taller of the men.
Dougal had met him before. Lord Judah Shield, brother of Lady Elizabeth. The man had hired him in person in Edinburgh the previous year, after weeks of fruitless searching on his own. He shook hands with his employer.
“This is my brother, Lord Hatbrook,” Lord Judah told him.
Dougal shifted his gaze and shook hands with the other man. While Lord Judah had been a soldier, evident in his penetrating gaze and fast reflexes, Hatbrook surprised him. No pampered aristocrat, he had the callused hands of a laborer and his clothes molded to a powerful, muscular form. These Shield men were not like the usual aristocrats.
Lord Judah’s striated amber and brown eyes were unforgettable, but he knew he’d seen Hatbrook’s sea-blue eyes somewhere recently.
As he shook hands with Dougal, the marquess commented, “I’m not used to being stared at so frankly.”
“As if I’m a collection of parts?” The marquess quirked a brow.
“It’s not that. You look very familiar.”
“I’ve never met you.”
Dougal crossed his arms over his chest. “I know that. You aren’t the person I’m thinking of.”
Lord Judah interrupted, gesturing to Ewan Hales. “Bring a fresh pot of tea and another round of soup and bread, will you, Hales?”
“Yes, my lord.” Hales shut the door behind him as he went out.
“You look as though you could use it,” Lord Judah said sympathetically. “Long night on the train?”
“Yes.” Dougal scratched his chin. “No sleepers available. I had tae sit up. But still, far more comfortable than what Manfred Cross is facing about now.”
“Please tell us the full story,” Hatbrook urged. “We had a letter from him a month ago. I’ve been desperate for a substantive update ever since.”
Dougal sighed and put his hands on his hips. “He must have posted it just after I spotted him. Perhaps he thought about returning tae London, but it was already too late to escape the police. His capture was due to a routine canvas, really. I take cases from the police, you understand, not just private clients, and they had me going door-to-door in some of the lands on a wynd near the castle.”
“The lands?” Hatbrook asked. “I am not very familiar with Edinburgh.”
“Buildings with flats,” Dougal explained. “The old town is built up very densely with tall buildings. I was looking for a jewel thief. An informant of mine indicated he lived on this particular street.” As he spoke, he remembered coming to Manfred Cross’s door. A maid-of-all-work had opened the door. A young woman with a pretty, angular face, black hair, and, yes, piercing, sea-blue eyes.
He put his hand to his forehead and swore under his breath. “Ya numpty.” Surely the maid couldn’t have been the missing Lady Elizabeth? A marquess’s sister with the reddened, sore-looking fingers of a scullery maid? And yet, the facial features matched, though not the hair.
She’d had an Edinburgh accent as well, though now that he thought about it, something had seemed off to him. The vowels were right, but she didn’t use enough cant for a poor servant. Had she been faking it? Dying her hair? Lord Judah had said she was blond, though her hair looked darker in the photograph.
“Your informant was obviously correct,” Lord Judah said, interrupting Dougal’s frantic interior catalogue.
“Yes. His maid refused tae let me inside to see her master, which seemed suspicious to me. She didn’t indicate he was ill or anything of the sort. So I watched the building from a shop across the street. You can imagine how surprised I was to see Manfred Cross coming out of the door the next morning.”
“I believe we had been concentrating our efforts on New Town?” his employer said.
“Of course. People don’t live in lands by choice. Frankly, even a jewel thief could afford better than a flat in a crumbling building. But he was hiding for more reasons than one.”
“My sister.” Hatbrook snapped his fingers. “Do you think she was inside? Had the maid been told never to let anyone in?”
“I went back with the police.” Dougal’s cheek twitched. “I had the complete dossier on Cross, of course, and you, my lord, had particularly remarked on his connection tae Lady Mews, a lover of fine jewelry. I made the connection that Cross might have been a procurer.”
“My sister wasn’t there when you entered?”
“No.” He paused significantly, measuring his words. “Just Cross and his maid.”
“There’s something you aren’t saying,” Lord Judah said.
Dougal took a deep breath. “It occurs tae me now, gentlemen, seeing you together and the similarities of your appearances, that Lady Elizabeth may have been the maid.”
“What?” Lord Judah exploded. His hand slapped down on the mantelpiece, rattling a collection of tea tins.
“Preposterous,” Hatbrook spluttered.
“Playacting?” Lord Judah asked, visibly calming himself by breathing deeply. He turned to Hatbrook. “Would she do that?”
“I am afraid not,” Dougal interjected. “You cannot fake the damage done tae hands by housework. This young woman, this black-haired, Scottish-accented young woman, was clearly a maid. And yet—”
“And yet—” Hatbrook prodded.
Dougal shook his head. “I have a very good memory for faces. I am afraid she looked like both of you.” That photograph had shown a dreamier woman than he remembered, a soft, young face. He now realized it had been out of focus, certainly out of date. Seeing these men had clarified Lady Elizabeth’s appearance in a way the photograph could not.
Lord Judah swore pungently. “So Manfred had her all along.”
“Where is she now?” Hatbrook demanded.
“Still in the flat, if the rent is paid up. She’ll be tossed out otherwise.”
Hatbrook shifted. “Where is Manfred now? In a prison in Edinburgh somewhere?”
“No, he’s here in London. I thought ye would know that, since Lord Judah is married tae Cross’s sister.”
“London?” Hatbrook said, confused. “I thought all these thefts were in Scotland.”
Dougal grinned. “Unlikely. But he’s in Newgate because when he was interrogated, he said he knew things that could bring down the government.”
Lord Judah’s eyelids drooped. He sat down. “I liked him, you know. I really did. But I don’t even recognize the person you are describing.”
“I saw another side of him,” Hatbrook said, following suit and gesturing for Dougal to take the third armchair. “He had a very twisted relationship with Lord and Lady Mews.”
“The Scandalous Cross legend will live another generation, I’m afraid. Are we going to be able to see him?” Lord Judah asked.
Dougal sat. “We’ll have tae, if we want to get to the bottom of this business with your sister.”
“Did she seem to be frightened, like she was being held against her will?” Hatbrook asked.
“No, she was quite saucy and sure of herself. Maybe even that should have been suspect. Instead of yelling at me or threatening me, she wielded humor as a weapon.” What a woman.
“Was she wearing a wedding ring?” Hatbrook asked after a short pause.
Dougal flashed back to the girl’s reddened hands. “N. . .
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