Fascinated Read online

  “I…I don’t know anything.” The mists of her mind beckoned, offering her rescue from this sudden boiling emotion, the bright light, and the horrible, horrible words she had screamed to her lost parents.

  “No, Alicia!” Edward caught her up in his arms, holding her hard against him. “Don’t let it take you.”

  But he didn’t understand. It was too terrible. Too dangerous. She needed shelter.

  Then come to me. Come to me, Alicia. I will shelter you.

  Edward?

  Yes. His mouth pressed against hers in a hot, hard kiss. His earlier touches had more than readied her body for this kiss. Even through the fear and the tumult, she could feel its sweetness. She leaned toward it, pressing her breasts and hips against his hard, strong body. Alicia opened her mouth, hungry for this sensation that had nothing to do with the fear boiling up from the depths of herself.

  Hold on, Alicia, he commanded her. Hold tight.

  But the wall was too strong, and the mists too close. They rose to engulf her, to keep her away from him. I can’t. I can’t!

  Fight, Alicia! Your heart has been taken from you. You can win it back, but you must fight!

  Fight. Break the wall. See Edward clearly again and feel more than just this brief, torturous burst of passion. She wanted it; she needed it, as badly as she had needed his touch. But already she was slipping away.

  Edward, help me!

  I will, Alicia, I swear it. They will not keep hold of you.

  Those words were the last she heard before darkness overwhelmed her.

  Six

  Alicia crumpled against Carstairs’s chest in a dead faint. Cursing, he lowered her to the grass. She was pale, and her skin felt cold and damp under his fingertips as he searched for the pulse at the base of her throat, right below the white velvet ribbon with its bloodred amulet that was the token of her enchantment.

  “They’ll not keep you,” he whispered as he laid his hand across her too-cold brow. “I swear it, Alicia. I swear it.”

  “Damn, Carstairs, you need to learn when to give over,” came a voice behind him. Bracken rustled as Thomas Lynne pushed through the thicket.

  Like Carstairs, Lynne was one of Smith’s agents. Lynne was not himself a magic worker, but he had intimate knowledge of the Fae and their plans. He also had a strong back and a sailor’s ability to take orders, so Carstairs had asked him to come along as lookout and backup.

  Lynne crouched down beside Carstairs and Alicia, his sharp, green eyes darting from her still face to the screening trees. But Carstairs didn’t give him any time to voice an opinion of the situation.

  “We need to get Miss Carstairs to my house immediately,” he said, scooping Alicia into his arms. “Is the carriage ready?”

  Lynne nodded. “Rathe’s minding the horses. How does Miss Hartwell?”

  “Just unconscious,” he said, but uncertainty coiled in his gut. He did not like either her pallor or the chill of her skin. She felt far too light as he scooped her into his arms, and her head lolled loose against his chest.

  If Alicia died, he would be the one who killed her. He was a fool, a greedy, lust-filled fool. He’d felt her fighting her confinement, and in his desire to help her win her freedom, he’d forgotten she’d never before made a trial of her own strength. He’d gotten careless, pushed her too far, and this was the result.

  Lynne, displaying the casual chivalrousness of his buccaneer past, reclaimed Alicia’s bonnet and pin before leading the way through the trees. Cursing himself in all the languages he knew, Carstairs followed.

  Just as Carstairs had instructed, his compatriots had a closed carriage waiting with the horses harnessed and ready. Corwin Rathe had the lead horse’s head. Lynne held the door while Carstairs laid Alicia on the carriage’s plush seat. He climbed in beside her and arranged himself so he could hold her and prevent her from slipping off the seat.

  Rathe climbed in and latched the door. “Ready?”

  Carstairs nodded. The carriage rocked slightly as Lynne clambered onto the box and touched up the horses. They started forward at a pace slow enough to be inconspicuous. That was the right choice. They did not want to give any passersby cause to remark on their passage. At the same time, Carstairs had to grit his teeth to keep from calling out to Lynne to hurry. He needed Alicia safe in his house, where he could help her.

  As they trundled forward, Rathe slipped off his seat and knelt at Alicia’s side. Like Carstairs had, he took her pulse, and laid a hand across her forehead, feeling the chill.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Carstairs did. Rathe was not a man to be shocked or embarrassed, and he understood how sexual passion could help to make or break an enchantment. He was also able to keep strict confidence, so Carstairs felt no compunction at telling him about the snatches he had learned of Alicia’s past.

  When he’d finished, Rathe remained silent for some time. Then the Sorcerer took hold of Carstairs’s arm with one hand and laid the other on Alicia’s forehead. Carstairs felt Rathe’s internal senses open, and he opened his own in response, as if he were opening his eyes to darkness. Rathe would now be able to feel what Carstairs himself had experienced when he touched Alicia’s mind—the crawling gray mists that stifled her mind, the cold, glass coffin that confined her spirit.

  “Damn it all, but somebody took their time with this,” said Rathe through gritted teeth.

  “Can you do anything?”

  Rathe was silent for another long moment. “No,” he said at last. “If I try to break this from outside, I’ll hurt her. I might even kill her.

  “One thing we can say for certain, however,” the Sorcerer went on as he settled back into his seat. “Whatever this is, it’s got nothing to do with you personally. This was not the work of a moment. She’s been laboring under this enchantment for years.”

  Carstairs found that very cold comfort. Although Rathe had withdrawn his magic, Carstairs again cast his senses over that cold evil surrounding Alicia, searching for some seam or crack, any weakness he could call to the Sorcerer’s attention. But there was nothing. The wall was solid, and the mist beyond engulfed Alicia’s spirit. The carriage jounced over a pothole and Carstairs tightened his arm more firmly around her. Alicia didn’t even stir. It barely seemed possible that just moments ago she had been so aroused and responsive, watching Freda and Marcus take their pleasure in each other. Carstairs kicked that memory behind him. He needed to focus now on Alicia’s safety, and her freedom. This was his mission as an agent of the Crown, and his duty as a gentleman. But even as he schooled himself to consider his next steps with logic and detachment, he knew the sensations of holding Alicia Hartwell and feeling her rise to her first tastes of pleasure would not be quickly banished.

  “It’s a fiendishly well-thought-out prison; I’ll give the maker that,” Rathe was saying. “If I had to guess, I’d say it can only be broken from the inside. To do that, the prisoner has to have the desire to escape, but what would she be escaping to? From what you said, what she remembers of sense and feeling is a child’s terrors. Why would she want to return to that?”

  “But she does want to escape,” insisted Carstairs. “I felt it.” I felt her passion, her desire. I felt her wanting to be whole.

  The carriage turned a corner. The rocking motion caused Alicia’s hand to slide from her belly and dangle loose alongside the seat. Carstairs reached for it and laid it gently on her breast. She was still too cold. He should have stocked this carriage with thick quilts. She might take a chill.

  Rathe was watching him closely. “You need to take care here, Carstairs.”

  “Why? You just pointed out this enchantment could have nothing to do with me.”

  “But that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with us, with the Service. An ensnared woman would be an enticement to any of our people. But you especially.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Rathe. Alicia’s enchantment can’t be both a trap for anyone and a trap for me in particular.
”

  “Are you sure?” replied the Sorcerer mildly. “Since the Fae killed your brother, you’ve made sure you had nothing but duty in your life. You were even planning to marry for duty. Now, that’s no bad thing and I’ve always admired your commitment. But the combination might leave you especially open to…the allure of a beautiful and helpless maiden thrust suddenly into your care.”

  Carstairs knew his anger flashed in his eyes. If Rathe thought him unable to complete this assignment, he was much mistaken.

  “Then we must consider the danger you pose to the girl herself,” Rathe went on before Carstairs could formulate a reply that was not directly insulting.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Rathe smiled tightly. “I mean you’ve chosen a…singular way to raise her feelings against her enchantment. If you needed to rouse emotion in her, you could have picked anger, or even simple happiness, but you chose passion. If she does successfully break free of this thing…she’ll be brand-new to her own feelings. She may become dependent on the person who freed her. She may even believe herself to experience deeper feeling than truly exists.”

  “You’re saying she might believe herself in love with her rescuer? With me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. By her age most of us had been in and out of love a dozen times, but not Miss Alicia Hartwell. Not only does her enchantment isolate her from strong feeling; she’s been lodged with a large, careless family. She’s been contracted into a carefully arranged marriage with a stranger, the sort that will at best yield cordial friendship.” Rathe paused, letting that sink in. Edward’s thumb brushed restlessly against the back of Alicia’s gloved hand. He could not seem to stop himself. “If you’re the one who frees her, Edward, particularly if you persist in using the strength of desire to do it, you will be responsible for her in more ways than one.”

  Carstairs knew he should listen to Rathe. After all, he had been warning himself against the dangers of too much feeling. Hadn’t he carefully avoided attachment for years? Oh, he sought the pleasures of the flesh readily enough, and he did his best to treat his partners with respect and consideration. But they had all been fully grown to their experiences of pleasure and never expected anything lasting from him. He’d never found virgins a source of fascination as some rakes did. But then, he’d never met a virgin who was excited or emboldened by the sight of erotic play. Abruptly, he found himself wondering how far she would be ready to travel passion’s journey with him. What would it be like to have Alicia naked under his gaze as he commanded her pleasures?

  The very idea caused his cock to stir under his buckskins. Carstairs cursed his traitorous member. Could it be just the simple allure of unexpected lust that drew him to her? He’d meant his marriage to be a business relationship, a mutual fulfillment of social necessities. That was why cool, practical Alicia had seemed so ideal for him. In their first—call it “encounter”—in her uncle’s conservatory, he’d thought he’d tumbled on a pleasant secret that could be enjoyable for them both. But if she might actually fall in love with him, when he could not return that love, he would be hurting her in a way he had never intended.

  Rathe was right. He should give Alicia over to another’s care. In getting her away from her family, he had done enough. Rathe’s Miranda was a strong Catalyst, and with their partner, Darius Marlowe, the trio was truly formidable. They would not only break the enchantment but care for Alicia kindly afterward. As he thought this, though, Edward’s hand tightened over Alicia’s. He remembered her as she had been in his arms, flushed and animated first with desire, and then with anger. When their minds had touched, he was the one she’d cried out to for help. How could he abandon her?

  “I’m responsible for her,” Carstairs said slowly.

  Rathe sighed. “Considering I’m helping you abduct an unmarried girl, I suppose I can’t argue that. But you still need to be careful.”

  Carstairs drew a deep breath. He needed to remember who and what he was, and how very little he knew about the woman lying on the seat beside him. There remained countless ways she could be bait at the center of a Fae trap. And even if he did help bring her all the way out of this enchantment, what then? Rathe was right; she would be unused to emotion. Look how openly she’d responded to her first taste of desire. How far would gratitude take her? She would not have any experience telling that feeling from true love, especially if it came mingled with the sweet and highly spiced passion he had rashly shown her.

  And what if that passion wasn’t truly her choice? What if, as their minds and magics touched, he had projected his own particular desires upon her? The idea hit like cold water. Carstairs had seduced others and permitted himself to be seduced, but never once had he sought a lover who did not know her own mind. Even the idea that he might do so was repugnant.

  Alicia stirred against him. She was waking. Carstairs let go of her hand and sat her gently up so she rested against the seat back. Rathe watched him closely but Carstairs didn’t bother to smooth the grim expression from his face. It would not do for her to awaken and find him holding her. Not now.

  Slowly, Alicia’s eyelids fluttered open. She looked directly at Carstairs, but her gaze was flat, cold and uncomprehending.

  “I fainted,” she said, at once mildly puzzled and faintly annoyed.

  “You did,” Carstairs agreed. A thick lock of dark golden hair had tumbled free of her pins and slanted across her cheek. He longed to brush it back, but he could not reach for her while she looked at him so devoid of feeling and memory.

  “It must have been the sun. I’m terribly sorry, my lord. I…” Alicia noticed the direction of Carstairs’s gaze and put her hand up to her bared head. She saw her bonnet lying on the seat next to Rathe. Then she saw Rathe. “Where are we? Who is this? Where is Verity?”

  “We are in my carriage. This is my friend Mr. Corwin Rathe. You met him at our engagement party.”

  “Yes, of course. How do you do, Mr. Rathe?”

  “Very well, I thank you, Miss Hartwell,” Rathe answered calmly.

  “As for Verity,” Carstairs went on. “At this point I expect she is looking for us and raging at me for being the worst sort of libertine.” That was something else to deal with. He would not only have to calm Verity down, but convince her to trust him again.

  One problem at a time, Carstairs told himself.

  Alicia touched her curls again, but her gaze roved the carriage, taking in the covered windows. Understanding gradually dawned behind her blank, amber eyes. “You are abducting me.”

  “I’m afraid so, yes,” said Carstairs.

  “Why? We were to be married in just three weeks!”

  Because whether they know it or not, your family has been abetting your jailers. Because I want to know who you really are, and find out what you truly desire. “I find I am out of patience,” he said. “Before another day has passed, I mean to have you safe.” That much, at least, was true.

  As he spoke, Carstairs felt something shift inside Alicia. Now that he had touched her mind, it seemed the brutal enchantment could no longer entirely hide her from him. She heard that single word safe, and she yearned toward it. He longed to take her hand and reassure her that all would be well.

  “My family will come looking for me. Verity will sound the alarm.” Whatever she might be straining toward inside, Alicia spoke with cool rationality, as if she could make him change his mind about her kidnapping by force of pure reason. It was almost absurd, but Carstairs found himself far beyond laughter.

  “Of that I have no doubt,” said Carstairs. “And it will be a long time before she forgives me for playing her for a fool.”

  “I could scream.”

  “You could,” he agreed. “And I could stop your mouth, although I’d rather not.”

  For the first time since she woke, the fire of anger kindled behind Alicia’s words. “I did not expect you would stoop so low, sir.”

  “You have no idea,” Carstairs replied evenly, even
as he struggled to keep the anger from his own expression. Carstairs had been to war. He had seen men die next to him and he had killed without a second thought. But he had never truly hated any enemy as he hated the unknown person who bound Alicia with this enchantment.

  Despite this, Carstairs had to admit the enchantment that so disordered her heart and mind had some advantages. Probably, Alicia would not throw hysterics at them, or even fight very much. To fight, one needed to be roused strongly to anger or desperation, and those were the very things denied her. As it was, she had only a light furrow between her brows as she reclaimed her bonnet and occupied herself in retying and re-pinning it. She kept her face turned toward the covered window so she would not have to look at either him or Rathe. At least, that was what Carstairs thought at first. Then he noticed she was craning her neck carefully, trying to see around the thick shades.

  “And I ask you to entertain no thoughts of running away once the carriage stops,” Carstairs said. “I would also have no compunction about tying you down.” I would probably enjoy it far more than is good for either of us, he added silently, and instantly cursed himself for it. She was entirely in his power, and ensnared by forces even he could barely comprehend, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking of how delicious her body had felt as she melted back against his chest.

  Maybe Rathe is right. Maybe I should leave this now. Because I’ve clearly lost what few wits I ever possessed.

  “You need have no fear,” she replied coolly. “I am not fool enough to risk a broken neck, or pointless indignities.” But she did not turn her face from the window and Carstairs could see nothing of her but the straw bonnet with its ridiculous ribbons and flowers.

  Look at me, Alicia. Carstairs clamped down on the thought before he could stretch it toward her. He wanted to move closer, to touch her and kiss her until her desire, her self, shone through. He wanted to touch again the Alicia Hartwell he had glimpsed beyond the enchantment, the woman filled with passion and power. And yes, he wanted to feel her leaning against him, to draw out the subtle nuances of her pleasure and teach her all he knew of desire. But until he had that cursed brooch off her, he had to endure the fact that she could not remember any but the most banal of events that passed between them.