Page 2 of A Kiss Gone Wylde
“You are so brave,” Nancy said, her voice a reverent whisper. “I’d give anything to be like you.”
“You can!” Jenny insisted. “All you have to do is take yourself off to Vauxhall when they are having one of their midnight dances.”
“When is that?”
Jenny laughed. “The first Saturday of every month… Now help me return this gown to the laundry before anyone realizes Iborrowedit.”
Benny stepped back into the shadows as quickly and silently as possible. The two maids rushed past her, heading for the stairs that led down into the kitchen and laundry. The light from Nancy’s lamp revealed a dress of very familiar peach silk gracing Jenny’s far more voluptuous form. It piqued her temper instantly.
Benny didn’t care that the dress Jenny had borrowed was one of her own. She didn’t care in the least. She was a little perturbed that the dress looked so much better on the maid than it did on her. Jenny’s much more abundant bosom was all but spilling out of the top of it when she had to add padding to her stays just to make the fabric lay properly. That was certainly lowering. But given what she’d learned, she was inclined to be forgiving. After all, had it not been for Jenny, she would not have been inspired to do something so out of character, so exciting and, at once, so terrifying.
She’d been bemoaning the fact that nothing ever happened to her. Perhaps it was because she never put herself in a place where something could happen? And the first Saturday of the next month was not so far away. There were plans to be made, Benny thought. Vauxhall awaited.
1
It was not at all what she’d expected. Nancy had tried to warn her, Benny thought. Jenny had gone on and on about how beautiful Vauxhall had been. And it was beautiful. So were tigers. They’d still eat you if you were foolish enough to go into one’s cage.
Well, she had certainly been foolish. She’d ignored every dire warning and tearful plea from the ladies maid that she and Cordelia shared and she had adamantly refused to listen. Now, in the midst of Vauxhall’s Pleasure Gardens, well after midnight, she could safely assume that the offer Jenny had received had not been an offer of marriage. Rather it had been for an entirely different sort of arrangement. Being there alone, she’d had more masculine attention in one night than she’d ever had in the entirety of her life. But none of it was the sort of attention she’d wanted.
“This is most assuredly not the sort of adventure I had been looking for,” Benny murmured to herself as she tried rather desperately to find the exit. She’d ducked around a darkened corner to escape a particularly zealoussuitor. When he’d shown no signs of giving up the search, she’d gone deeper and deeper into the unlit paths that surrounded the central entertainment area. Based on the noises she kept hearing, the paths might have been unlit but they were clearly not unoccupied. All she wanted was to escape. She wanted to find her way back to the main area and make her exit. That was proving far more difficult than she could have imagined.
Part of the problem was that the mask she wore kept slipping, obscuring her vision. But if she were to take the mask off she would be ruined entirely because someone would recognize her. No, she was not popular or well known, but the truth of the matter was thatthe Tonwas really very small. Everyone knew everyone and everyone knew her aunt. By extension, she, her sister and her cousins were all easily identifiable even if not especially noteworthy.
Leave the mask on and stay perpetually lost or take the mask off and be utterly ruined? Decisions, decisions!
As being lost, at least for the short term only affected her but her ruin could have negative ramifications for both Charity and Cordelia, there was really only one choice. She would continue to stumble around in the dark while trying desperately to extricate herself from a terrible muddle entirely of her own making.
In the distance, fireworks boomed, a shower of sparks lighting the night sky for a few seconds. She stumbled forward and when the last of the light had faded, halted once more. Another remarkable display and she progressed further along the path. It would be dawn at that rate by the time she found her way.
Dancing and lights and music, Jenny had said. There had been no mention of how scantily clad the performers would be or that men and women would be engaged in such liberties with one another—some in full view. It was beyond scandalous. And for a young woman such as herself, one who had always attended to every propriety, it was beyond shocking.
A lull in the fireworks had left her stranded for the time being. Waiting for the next flash, she shivered. It wasn’t cold. The night was, in fact, unseasonably warm. The shiver was something else entirely.Fear.It came upon her suddenly, the sensation of being… hunted. Stalked. Watched.
Benny drew in a deep breath and held it, not daring to even exhale as she listened for the slightest sound.Snap.A branch on one of the many hedges or bushes that lined the paths had broken. Cocking her head, she strained to decipher the exact direction from whence it came.
Hands grabbed at her roughly, tearing at the silk of her gown. She let out a sharp scream. “Unhand me, you scoundrel!” As insults went it was not very effective. She didn’t know any curses to make it appropriately offensive. Twisting side to side, Benny struggled to get away until he simply seized her, hauling her up against him with a bruising grip. They were so close that his breath fanned over the bare skin of her neck as he exhaled raggedly from his exertions.
The man let out a harsh chuckle, his breath reeking of spirits “Oh, I like them with a bit of spirit! Scoundrel is it?”
He spoke like a gentleman, but that was perhaps his only claim to the title. He smelled of sweat and liquor, his breath foul. But his smell was even more so. Strong spirits, old sweat, and general filth. His hands groped at her, pinching and cruel while a group of men laughed in the distance. They knew what he was about. They had to have heard her scream. And they were not helping, which could only mean that they were with him.
“Let go of me!”
“Oh, no, pretty. We are just getting started… why would you be on the Dark Walk if you didn’t wish for a tryst?”
“I didn’t come here on purpose! I was lost. Unhand me!” She attempted to stomp his toes, but with her slippers and his boots it was a pointless waste of energy. Then he simply lifted her off the ground. Out of desperation, she jabbed backwards with her elbow, catching the man in the softest part of his midsection. With a startled, “oof”, his arms fell away and she dropped to the ground once more.
Benny turned to run but his hand snagged her wrist, yanking viciously to spin her back into his wretched embrace. As she whirled around, she brought her other hand up, fingers curved like talons and raked her fingernails over the fleshy skin of his cheek. She could smell the blood and knew she had marked him. He let go of her, his hand flying up to cup his wounded cheek.
“Bitch!”
Not wanting to waste what little advantage she had gained, Benny took off in the fastest sprint she could muster. In full darkness and with no notion of where she was going, she simply ran as fast as she could. Ripping the mask from her face, she tossed it to the ground. It did nothing to improve her vision but at least she didn’t feel as if she were fighting a blindfold.
As she ran, she could hear footfalls and trampling brush behind her. The man who had grabbed her, and his lads, were in pursuit.In pursuit and gaining.
Her side was beginning to ache. Her feet hurt from running in slippers that had never been intended for such a thing, the hard and sharp gravel tearing at the thin leather and delicate satin. And then a pair of strong hands grasped her, pulling her not backwards but sideways. Sideways into the thick bushes that flanked the path. They tore at the fabric of her gown. She could feel them scratching her face and arms. She would have screamed again, but a hand slid over her mouth as she was pulled back into the shadowy space between two large hedges. Against her ear, her abductor whispered, “Hush. They cannot see a thing out here and if you remain quiet, they may well pass us by.”
There were several reasons for her to comply almost immediately. First, he was holding her in such a way that he was causing her no pain or discomfort at all. His touch, though firm, was still gentle. Secondly, he’d made it quite clear that he was not in league with the first man who had grabbed her. Third, and perhaps the most damning for her, he smelled quite nice. If one had to be held against one’s will, then certainly a captor who did not stink to high heaven was the lesser of two evils. In the end, he might be just as much a villain as the others, but with him she was not outnumbered and he’d at least had a bath recently and had more than a passing acquaintance with tooth powder.
