Page 39 of Her Beast

If she had her way about it—and she intended to—Julia would spend a goodly part of the year with Richard at Brookfield.

Julia’s happy musing were shattered when the coach swayed wildly, as if something had knocked it off balance. She grabbed for the hand strap but her fingers fumbled when the carriage jolted to a stop so abruptly that she slid from the leather seat and landed on her knees hard enough to make her eyes water.

She’d barely scrambled up to her seat when the door swung open and a huge brutish man appeared in the opening.

“Who are you?” she demanded shrilly. “Where is Carl and what is—”

“Hush now, Miss,” he soothed, reaching for her with gloved hands that were as big as shovels.

Julia scuttled to the far end of the bench seat. “This necklace is all I have—here, take it!” She yanked the slender chain and cross from her neck and flung it at him, but he kept coming.

“Help!” she screamed, fumbling for the door handle on the opposite side, not wanting to take her gaze off the giant. “Somebody help me!”

The door she’d been struggling to open suddenly did just that and an arm slid around her waist. “I got ‘er!”

“Unhand me!” Julia shouted, squirming against her unseen captor while kicking at the brute coming toward her and tipping the carriage as he climbed inside.

“Shhh.” Her assailant lifted what looked to be a large white handkerchief to her face. “You just have a whiff o’this and all will be fine.”

“Please, stop—”

The cloth pushed over her mouth and nose and Julia gasped for breath, filling her lungs with air that was sweetly astringent.

“That’s a good lass. Take another sniff. Just a few more, eh?”

“No!” she shouted, but the word was muffled.

Julia struggled but the four hands were too big—too strong. The interior of the carriage shimmered and somebody lifted her.

Up, up, up, up …

And then she floated away into darkness.

∞∞∞

“She came without much of a fuss,” Joe said, offering up the bundle in his cradled arms for Malcolm’s inspection.

She was swathed from head to toe, no part of her showing. Malcolm lifted the corner of the blanket and stared at Julia Harlow’s ethereally beautiful face.

He frowned. “Is she all right? She looks so white and still.”

“Aye, sir. It’s that drug—works like a charm it does, but it won’t hurt her permanently.”

Malcolm lowered the blanket and nodded to Norris, who hovered in the background. “Carry her to her chambers, Norris.”

His valet complied with his usual aplomb, as if collecting unconscious girls at three in the morning was unexceptionable.

Once Norris had gone, Malcolm turned back to Joe. “And Sheehan?”

Joe chuckled. “Ahh, well, he was a scrapper. I’m afraid we mighta broke his arm.”

Malcolm didn’t care if he’d broken his damned head. Still, he wanted the man alive when he went to speak to him. “Fetch Doctor Cartwright to see to him.”

“Already done, sir.”

He should have known; Joe might look like an oaf, but he was sharp as a cobbler’s awl.

“We’ve got him all right and tight at the cottage, sir. When’ll you want to speak to him?”

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