Chapter Two

T hey rode, her captor's muscled chest a wall at her back, his arms wrapped around her in a hold that rendered escape impossible unless she wanted to risk a fall and a broken neck.

They rode until Celandine's body was sore and aching. Until the rope binding her wrists had chafed them raw and red. Until her stomach grumbled embarrassingly with protest from lack of food. For some reason, it was the latter that had the most potent effect on her. It was silly, for she had far more pressing concerns than whether her kidnapper overheard her body's impolite response to the fact that she had forgone breaking her fast that morning.

And yet she shifted on the saddle, seeking a position that would lessen her discomfort, hoping he hadn't heard the loud rumble.

"Hungry?" he asked, his voice deep and pleasant.

"Not at all," she lied, because she refused to show him a hint of weakness.

"Your body betrays you."

He sounded almost amused. Or perhaps as if he were taking pleasure in her disquiet.

"I'll thank you not to speak to me with such unwelcome familiarity," she snapped, stiffening her spine so that she might escape from the warm strength of him at her back.

So that she could escape too from the vague sense that there was something about him that she recognized.

Because that was also foolishness. How would she be acquainted with a masked ruffian who stooped so low as to steal a marquess's daughter on her wedding day? He was a villain who bound her with crude rope without a thought for her comfort, who had pointed a flintlock at her, forced her to ride for hours, taking her far from the bosom of her family. And only heaven knew what his plans for her were. No, she did not know this vile creature at her back. Did not know him at all.

"And how would my lady have me speak to her?" he asked.

She held herself away from him as best as she could—no easy feat, given that they shared the saddle. "I would have you not speak to me at all."

"How does your betrothed speak to you? Perhaps I'll earn your favor if I aspire to such courtly charm."

There was an undeniable sharp edge of mockery in his tone.

"I don't wish to speak of my betrothed with you," she said icily.

Humberton possessed appallingly little charm. He spoke to her with the supercilious air of a man who expected his wife to be docile and biddable. Or as if she were a child incapable of complex thought.

"Why not? You must love him, if you are marrying him today. One would think a new bride would be ready to extol all the virtues of the gentleman who owns her heart."

He didn't speak like she imagined a vagabond would. His words were crisp, enunciated with the polished perfection of any lord at court. How strange he was, her captor. It was almost as if he had been waiting for her in the woods. As if he had somehow known the route she took on her morning rides. But how could that be?

And he had known her name. But then, perhaps he had somehow heard of the wedding from some coaching inn or another traveler. It was possible he had hoped he might capture the wealthy Earl of Humberton's bride and hold her for ransom. If so, there was hope he might release her without harm.

"My lady?" he prodded when she didn't answer him. "Tell me about Humberton. Why do you love him?"

"I don't love him," she blurted before she could think better of it.

"No?" her captor asked softly, his lips perilously near to her ear. "Why not?"

Was it her imagination, or had he shifted in the saddle so that their bodies were pressed closely together again? He radiated such heat at her back. The air bore a chill, and that was why part of her longed to lean into his warmth, to settle herself against him as if it were where she belonged. There was no reason for her to be drawn to her captor, a man who had ruthlessly taken her prisoner.

None at all, she reminded herself firmly.

"It's hardly any of your concern, sirrah," she told him sharply.

"But it is my concern. If I'm not spiriting away a brokenhearted bride, I ought to know why."

"Where are you taking me?" she asked instead of answering his question.

"Wherever I like. Now, tell me—whom does your heart belong to, if not to your betrothed?"

She didn't want to speak of Westley with this callous stranger. It felt desperately wrong. The tears that always rose whenever she thought of him returned, welling in her eyes. Celandine blinked at them furiously.

"I won't speak of it."

How she missed her beloved. She would mourn him forever. Neither time nor death had changed the way she felt for him. And she knew nothing would. She would never love anyone as she had loved her Westley.

"Tell me," her captor demanded, his voice harsh.

"The man I truly love is gone," she said, a tremor in her voice that she couldn't control as more tears rose, pricking her eyes, making her vision blur. "And that is why it's no concern of yours."

Gone.

How she loathed that word. Such a simple, bloodless means of conveying the vast chasm of emptiness inside her. Westley was gone. One day, he had been in her life, in her arms. And the next, he had ridden away, never to return. She had told herself for weeks after the ship he'd been on had sunk on his way to his Grand Tour that it had been a mistake. That somehow, he might have escaped and survived. That he would return to her. But as the weeks had turned into months, she'd had to reconcile herself to the fact that her Westley—her handsome, charming, wonderful Westley—was dead.

And a part of her had died with him.

"Gone, you say? Where?"

"He died," she forced out, tears clinging to her lashes, rolling down her cheeks.

"Ah, and your idea of mourning your love was to marry someone else? May God spare me from the inconstant heart of a woman who claims to be in love. How long did you mourn him before agreeing to become another man's wife?"

This time, there was no mistaking the bitterness lacing her captor's voice.

She cast an angry look at him over her shoulder. "You dare to judge me? You, a criminal who has taken an innocent woman as your captive? You don't even know me, sirrah."

His blue eyes were cold behind his mask. "You are correct in that, Lady Celandine. I don't know you. Not at all."

There was a dig in those words that she didn't understand. Now that the initial fright of her kidnapping had worn off beneath the grueling pace of their journey, she took a moment to study him. To truly look at him, from the angular jaw to his finely molded lips. Lips that reminded her of another's. Much like his eyes.

Her heart seized. Her captor bore a startling resemblance to Westley. She hadn't seen it in the forest, shade from the centuries-old trees and her fear mingling to obscure the features hidden beneath his mask.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

But no, how could that be? This stranger, this villain who had captured her, was not the man she loved. Westley had gone overboard at sea. He'd drowned. Likely, it was just her desperate heart wanting her to believe.

His mouth curved into a disdainful smile. "I've already told you, my lady. I'm Hades, come to spirit fair Persephone into the underworld."

She stared at him, disbelief warring with dawning realization. Her neck pained her from looking over her shoulder, but she couldn't wrest her gaze from him, this stranger dressed all in black who looked—and sounded, now that she thought upon it—remarkably similar to her Westley. Although almost a year had passed since she had last seen him, she hadn't forgotten him. As impossible as it seemed, she swore that it was him.

"Westley?" His name was torn from her, part plea, part demand.

But his grim smile remained firmly in place. "Is that his name, this lover of yours?"

She longed to reach for him, to touch his face, to rip off his mask. But her hands were bound together and he'd fastened the rope to the saddle, making it unachievable.

"Westley," she repeated, desperation making her voice rough. "Is it you?"

"Of course not. Your Westley is dead. Now turn around, my lady, lest your lovely neck cramp. We've a long journey yet ahead of us."

He spurred Buttercup on, and they continued riding.

But that incipient burst of hope remained stubbornly lodged in her breast, and with each fall of her horse's hooves, it grew.