Page 1 of An Unbending Lady for the Desperate Earl
Prologue
Lady Helena, daughter to the prominent Duke of Pelsley, stirred in her slumber as silver moonlight glanced in through the parted drapes. The fabric billowed in a ghostly fashion, pushed by an errant breeze that slipped in through the window. Beyond, in the darkened landscape of her Mayfair home, foxes shrieked in the most terrible fashion. A bestial cry that might have made Helena shudder in fear, had she been awake.
She murmured in her sleep; her body suddenly overcome with a violent twitch as though in the throes of a disturbing nightmare. A soft groan escaped her lips, her forehead furrowing in consternation. Her fist gripped the bedclothes, the violent twitches spasming through her.
“No… no…” she whispered, still deep in unconsciousness. Something perplexed her in the dreamworld behind her closed eyes.
A creak of a floorboard splintered through her bedchamber, and those closed eyes opened slowly. Panting breathlessly, she peered over the edge of the sheets and viewed the shadowed room in perspiring terror, for the lines between her nightmare and reality had grown somewhat blurred.
“Hello?” She curled up under the covers, as if the thin fabric could somehow protect her from the monsters of her nightmare.
Silence echoed back.
It is but a dream,she told herself sternly.I ate too much clotted cream with my apple pie, that is all.It would not be the first time she had dreamt of terrible things after ingesting too much rich food. And yet, she knew she would not be able to drift off again. She did not want to re-enter that land of shadow and monsters.
“Hello?” she said again, to ease her mind. Her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and searched every crevice for any lingering creatures of the night. But everything seemed as it ought to be.
“What a fool I am.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “There is nobody here but me.”
Satisfied, she lay back down upon her pillow and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. It would be hard won, but she was determined not to let her foolish terrors prevent her from resting. Her home was safe. Her mother and father slept in the bedchamber down the hall, and her brother slept in his, to the other side of Helena’s. Not to mention the multitude of staff who resided here, many of whom would still be awake—the kitchen maids, for one, who would be preparing the morning’s bread. If there were any disruption, they would know of it. And since the house rested in a serene silence, she encouraged herself to draw strength from that.
Pulling the covers up to her chin, she started to hum quietly. A quaint tune that she had heard some days ago, from a passing errand boy. It had been stuck in her head ever since.
The notes died on her lips as another creak ricocheted through the quiet like a musket shot. She bolted upright, shivering. The curtains billowed wildly, the window somehow open, though she was certain her lady’s maid had closed it before she went to bed.
“Hello?” she rasped into the bedchamber, pulling the covers tighter about herself.
Once more, no sound echoed back, and every shadow was in its place. Nothing moved. Nothing creaked. Yet she could not swallow the terror that lodged in her throat, that someone was in here with her.
She was about to coax herself back down onto the bed, when a strange, slithering sound crept into her ears. No, not a slithering… more of a hiss, or a rustle, as though something, or someone, were sliding along the floor. Her heart lurched. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out—her throat had clenched with utter terror.
Mustering all the courage she possessed, she shuffled as far toward the edge of the bed as she dared. Tilting her head down, she peered at the floor below. But it lay empty. As did the rest of the room within her field of vision. And that strange hiss had stopped… only to be replaced with the sharp, blood-freezing strain of a heavy weight upon the floorboards. Not ahead of her… but behind her.
The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She didn’t want to turn around, for fear of what she may face if she did. A breath that most definitely was not hers whispered through the atmosphere. Low and harsh. Her heart beat faster, her mind urging her to scream at the top of her lungs to bring the cavalry. But no sound came out. Fear had rendered her throat silent.
Turning at a painstaking pace, Helena’s stomach plummeted. Cold sweat shivered up her spine. Indeed, she near fainted as she beheld a shadow looming over the far side of the bed. Dressed all in black, the face masked with some sort of material, she could only make out two glinting eyes.
Her mouth opened, to scream at last, but the figure lunged before a single sound could emerge. A rough hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her cries of despair. Indeed, the fingers closed so tightly that she began to struggle for air, that coarse palm covering her nostrils, too.
With the hand still rendering her silent, an arm snaked about her throat. It pulled her closer into a firm chest, her skin crawling as the assailant breathed hard in her ear. But she didn’t have time to think of what may happen to her, as the arm squeezed tighter around her throat. Her eyes bulged and she strained for breath, but it would not come. She flailed and writhed, but it did no good. Her attacker held fast.
Black spots danced in her vision, as a sneaking oblivion edged into her mind, numbing her panic and sending her away into a strange serenity. Like drowning, she supposed. Everything slowed, as though she were drifting off to sleep again, at last.
Indeed, as the world turned to darkness, she did not know if she would ever see the light of day again.
Chapter 1
London’s high society lay gripped in a storm of terror and uproar, with fathers keeping their daughters behind locked doors and the streets emptying of life the moment evening fell. A vain attempt to keep the horrors from darkening their own doorsteps, despite the knowledge that at least three young ladies had been stolen away from their very beds while the rest of their households slept.
“Terrible business, isn’t it?” A valet paused on the front step of his employer’s townhouse, speaking with the butler next door.
The butler nodded. “Terrible indeed. How many have there been, now that the Duke of Pelsley’s daughter has been taken?”
“She makes six, in total.”
“And the Bow Street Runners are not aiding in the investigation? Surely, someone must know who is doing these atrocious things? Why, whomever this wretch is, they have gone into the sanctuary of one’s own residence and stolen the ladies away. It is despicable!” The butler blew into his hands to stave off the bitter cold that rolled in with the oncoming dawn.
The valet shrugged. “I don’t know if them Runners have the means to do anything. I can’t say I’m fond of having them around. It were much better when we took matters into our own hands, as they don’t do much, so far as I can tell. You mark my words, if I were in charge of hunting this animal down, I’d have him in chains by nightfall.”
