Page 60 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
“She’ll want to look pretty for Faucon,” said Maurice with a lewd light in his watery eyes.
“True,” offered the woman. “Faucon may treat you well if you are kind to him.”
Giselle sent the woman a look of damaging rebuttal. Whoever this so-called “Falcon” was, whatever power he had, she would give him no quarter.
The woman clapped her hands to hurry her along. “No more delay! Take it all off, lovely Giselle. That gown is ruined. Do not worry. What do you say if we replace this tattered rag with a very nice sarsenet of blue? I will, and soon. You do look best in very pale sky blue. I knew it the best color for you the first time I saw you.”
Giselle’s lashes flickered. She could not help it.
“I see that you wish to learn where and when it was I first laid eyes on you?”
Giselle would not give her the satisfaction of an answer.
“Ah, yes. Here in Hastings. But you were so involved in your own thoughts, you did not notice me. And that was good. Paul, Maurice, you two go outside. The lady will disrobe!”
As the two men closed the front door, her lady captor swung her hips this way and that as if she danced her way toward Giselle. It was the first movement that told Giselle her female captor was no aristocrat. Perhaps an actress. Or a courtesan.
She put her face in Giselle’s again and sneered. “You still have that superior way about you. Your mother taught you that.”
This woman knew her mother? How? When?
“I will leech it out of you. Humility is such a useful emotion.Levels us all, no matter to which class our parents we were born. Strip. Get in that tub.”
Anger burned into Giselle’s veins at the lady’s hauteur. But, grateful to have only females for her audience, she did as she was told.
“No corset? Huh,” remarked the lady, her full attention on Giselle’s body. “Nice breasts. Full.” She reached out and caressed the curve of one.
Giselle set her teeth.You will die for that.
“Ever had a woman to your bed?”
Giselle remained stoic.
“Tell me!” La Mère pinched Giselle’s nipple.
She lost her breath, but her voice was strong. “Non.”
“You might like it. Hmmm. So might I. Ah, but that is for another day. For now, you must wash away the grime of your journey. When we leave here, you will be not only clean but pristine. We like a lady to look and smell like one. Even one who has spent her last few weeks in the bed of her very attentive lover.” She leered at Giselle, her cold jade-stone eyes tracing her form.
Her words only made Giselle ache for the sight of that dear man. She prayed as often she could these past few days that Clive had recovered from his injuries. She put a hand to her forehead, a sob of despair rising in her throat. She hoped that no one hired by this woman found him on the floor of their rooms and hurt him even more.
Wherever he was, how ever he was, she prayed he was safe. That he searched for her, she believed with her heart and soul.
Would he find her? Could he?
He’d been thoroughly surprised by their attackers, despite all their precautions and his two hired men. Despite his own connections to agents of his own and the prime minister.
Yet there was hope.
Ah, my darling man, what do you know, what can you learn that you might help me escape from this band of cutthroats?
*
The days woreon. Days grew to weeks. Two, three.
Giselle grew weary of the wait. She was not the only one. The three men grew testy, arguing with each other about who took up the watch. At night, they drank after dinner. La Mère warned them if they fell asleep on watch or missed the approach of a foe, she would see they never worked for her again. She’d send them back to Paris—and Vaillancourt.
Giselle began to welcome the respite from traveling. She was still tied to a chair and to her bed each night. But that was small discomfort after what had come before.
