“No counterbid,” the man snarled. “Get that light out of my face!”
“Sold to the persistent man in the back!” the auctioneer called out, followed by the loud bang of a gavel and the eruption of applause.
“Come on,” Nigel said, appearing by Beatrice’s side once more. “Time to say your goodbyes.”
“Goodbyes to whom?” Beatrice asked as she was pulled off of the stage and down a set of stairs.
Nigel didn’t answer, just walked her to an uncrowded corner of the room where Beatrice found her father sitting with another masked man.
“She’s a pretty one,” the man beside Simeon praised as he looked her up and down. “Fetched a mighty pretty penny too. Got any more at home you would be willing to part with?”
“Just this one,” Simeon said, sounding bored as he looked Beatrice up and down. “Pity though. If I had known she was going to fetch such a good price, I would have tried for more.”
Beatrice had run through a multitude of emotions that night—in fact she was sure that she touched on every single one that existed—but as she heard her father’s laissez-faire tone and words, she realized that there was one she had indeed missed.Rage.
Forgetting her fear, forgetting that the man before her was one she was raised to obey and respect, Beatrice put her hands on the table and leaned her face close to his.
“You are a horrible, sorry excuse for a man,” she stated, her tone hard and clear. “On my mother’s grave, I swear to you right now I will make you pay for all the foulness you forced upon me. Do you hear me? By the time my vengeance is paid through—You. Will. Be. Nothing.”
Simeon’s brown eyes glowered at Beatrice, but this time instead of flinching away from him, she smirked and moved toward him with a quickness that made not just him but the man beside him lean back.
“You want to hit me again?” she dared to ask. “Go ahead. I invite it. Because I assure you, youbastard,that you will never lay a hand on me again after this.”
Simeon sneered as he raised his hand, and even as he pulled back, Beatrice did not flinch or move away, determined to show him that she feared him no longer.
Yet, as she braced for the impact, a hand appeared around Simeon’s wrist and slammed it into the table with great force. A moment later, a bag of money was tossed down from over Beatrice’s shoulder. A shiver ran up Beatrice’s spine, and she turned.
Her eyes roamed up a wide, muscular physique draped in a tailored black suit. Wavy brown locks stuck out in tufts from under a black top hat, and a black eye mask sat atop a straight nose, revealing chiseled lines of a no-doubt handsome face. Green eyes, deep and mystical as the forests the druids used to live in, met her own.
“Do not touch what is mine,” the man snarled.
Even though Beatrice was frightened… Even though she felt deeply betrayed by the only man she’d ever loved, the voice of the man that purchased her sent a strange, warm shiver down through Beatrice’s chest to her belly and curling deliciously into her sex.
“Say your goodbyes,” the man’s deep voice rumbled, his dark green eyes finally breaking from hers. “We take our leave. Now.”
Beatrice looked over her shoulder, her lips curling into a sneer as she saw her father’s hate filled eyes glaring at her. Without a word, she turned away and followed the masked gentleman out of the gambling hell.
CHAPTER THREE
“Sir,” the woman implored from behind him.
Algernon Fiztroy, the Duke of Morcaster, did not answer as he kept walking. She would follow. He was certain of it. She wanted out of the filthy place as much as he did. Algernon’s powerful strides carried him out of the auction room, through the gambling hell and bar, and finally, out into the street where his unmarked carriage was waiting.
His footman, dressed down in everyday clothes, opened the unmarked carriage door for him just as he approached, and it was only then that Algernon turned to look at the woman he’d just bought. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was panting a little from trying to keep up with him. Her complexion was getting better now that they were in the open air, but her pale skin still held a slight tinge of green. Her eyes, a startling and rare cobalt blue, looked around anxiously, as if she could not trust a single thing about the world. Not that he could blame her. He couldn’t imagine what she was feeling.
He’d caught her little speech to the man that had sold her, and while he had been impressed by her brief bout of bravery, he was tainted with guilt. It was clear that this particular woman had no hand in her sale and that it had happened completely against her will. She was a woman, he gathered from the fine but outdated yellow silk dress she wore, who was some sort of outcast nobility—which was precisely what he needed.
“You should get in the carriage quickly,” Algernon suggested. “You do not want anyone recognizing who you are.”
The woman’s wide, blue, terror-filled eyes relaxed and narrowed a little as she stepped away from him and towards his carriage.
“What will happen to me once I am there?” she asked, crossing her armsin front of her, as if it could ward him or any other off.
Despite his growing discomfort and annoyance, Algernon put his usually demanding nature in check. It was obvious that was going to get him nowhere, and the last thing he wanted was an even bigger scene.
“Nothing untoward, I promise you.” His deep voice reached a foreign gentle tone. “In fact, we need not touch at all, nor will anyone else lay a hand upon you, on my honor as a gentleman.”
She studied him mistrustingly for another long moment then slowly she lowered her arms and her chin.