Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Kate

Lady Kathryn Fairchild stared at the inside of the closet where she was being held and swallowed down her lump of fear. Near as she could tell, it had been four days since she and her sister Anna had been taken from their carriage on the way to the finishing school Anna had been attending.

They'd been fed sparsely and not allowed out, but at least they'd been unharmed.

She could thank the lord for that.

Anna whimpered next to her, and Kate automatically wrapped her arm tighter about her sister.

Anna was just eighteen. And though Anna had always seemed older than her age, the last four days, she'd been clinging to Kate.

Kate understood. If their older sister Isabelle had been here, Kate would cling to her too. As the middle sister, she wasn't certain strength was her forte.

She should have worked on being stronger instead of depending on others to see to her needs. If she had, could she have saved her and Anna from whatever fate awaited them on this boat?

If they made it out of this, she promised herself, she was going to be a different woman. One who faced life's uncertainties and shaped the world into what she needed it to be.

Because her fate at home had been nearly as terrible as it was on this boat. Her parents had sold her oldest sister off to a crooked merchant and received an infusion of coin that had allowed them their preferred lifestyle. Her sister had managed to escape the marriage, a fact for which Kate was very grateful.

Except now that they'd spent the money from her sister's match, they'd turned to Kate.

It was her turn to marry to the highest bidder. And her parents had already proven when it came to picking suitors, they didn't care how foul, just as long as he paid.

Feet stomped up above, but something about the pattern was different. More insistent, hurried.

Voices filtered from above, filling the darkness with an ominous tension.

She looked up at the ceiling and held Anna tighter. "Something's happening."

"What?" Anna asked, craning her head up to peer at the floor.

"I don't know."

"Do you think it's good or bad?"

"I don't know," she repeated, not wishing to give her sister any false hope. The crew above seemed worried, but perhaps it had nothing to do with Kate and Anna.

Perhaps it had everything to do with them.

The closet was not quite big enough for Kate to sit against the wall and stretch her legs out.

So she stood, training her ear above to try and catch a few words.

The only ones she managed to hear were "bait" and "trap." Neither made her feel better.

"Maybe they're going fishing?" Anna whispered.

"Or hunting," she replied back, her trepidation climbing up her throat. Were she and Anna the bait?

Her fears did not ease when a moment later, the door to their closet yanked opened, light filling the closet as one her captors thrust a torch in the doorway.

She cringed away as she squinted, tossing her hand up over her face, her eyes having adjusted to the dark.

But her hand was quickly seized as she was jerked from the confines of the closet and pulled into the hall.

A second man grabbed Anna, who let out a cry of protest.

Kate heard the slap, and she knew her sister had been hit.

She tried to tug away from her captor but four days in confinement had made her legs weak.

She only managed to make herself stumble in her attempt to escape.

The man holding her wrist in a vise-like grip yanked her forward, nearly causing her to trip and fall again. "Behave and you just might get out of this alive."

"Where are you taking us?" she gasped, knowing that her insolence might earn her a good smack as well.

He didn't answer as he wrapped a rough arm about her waist, hauling her up the shipman's ladder to the deck above.

Anna and her captor were behind them. Kate tried to catch Anna's eye, but the man tossed her sister over his shoulder as he started up the ladder behind them.

Her stomach clenched as the setting sun shone in her eyes, her chin dipping and her eyes squeezing shut.

"Here's your proof," her captor called out, dropping her onto the deck. She wished she could see the person he talked to, whomever had asked for proof that she and Anna lived.

Her legs weren't ready to support her weight and she collapsed onto the deck, Anna being dropped next to her. She scooted closer to her sister, wrapping an arm about Anna.

"Now, where is our wine?"

"We'll have to show you," a man called back. "Just like you'd hidden your treasure away, we've hidden ours."

Her captor leaned down and with a hand at her collar, hauled her back up, choking her as he did.

She clawed at his hand, trying to get air, even as he started dragging her back toward the hatch.

Inwardly, she revolted, as she attempted to get her feet under her. She knew, somehow, that if he got her back to that hatch, she'd never come out again.

"Wait." A deep voice called from over the rail.

Her captor stopped as suddenly as he started.

"I'm not taking you to the wine without the girls. We'll trade there or we won't trade at all."

Kate wanted to cry out, please trade!

But she held her tongue. After a moment's pause, the captor dragged her back toward the rail.

Would he throw her over?

The sun was fading, and her eyes had adjusted. Her captor let her go and she half fell into the rail.

They were out to sea, the beach in the distance. To their left, another boat bobbed on the open water, several men standing at the rail.

"Could be a trap," one of the nearby men whispered.

"It's definitely a trap. I told you this was a shit idea," her captor replied.

Kate said nothing, she didn't even lift her head. Instead, she wilted over the railing. What if she fell in?

Could she make it to shore?

Her captor grabbed her by the hair, yanking at the strands and causing her to cry out in pain as he pulled her back to standing.

"Load up the dinghies," her captor called. "We're going to shore."