Читать книгу An Improper Companion - Anne Herries, Anne Herries - Страница 4

‘Charles!’ The Earl of Cavendish stared at his friend in disbelief. He scarcely credited what he was being told. It was too shocking. ‘You cannot truly believe that Sarah has been abducted?’

Charles Hunter raised his tortured gaze to meet Daniel’s eyes. ‘We found her shawl lying on the ground at the edge of the park, and it looked as if there might have been a scuffle—there were foot marks as well as those of carriage wheels.’

‘But who—why?’ Daniel looked at his friend in a puzzled manner. They had known each other all their lives and Sarah Hunter was almost like another sister to him. He was fond of her—had danced with her in the parlour of her home only a few days previously, helping to prepare her for her debut into society that summer. ‘Surely…’

His voice fell away into shocked silence as he saw the look of agony in Charles’s face. ‘I don’t know, Daniel, I don’t know,’ Charles said, his voice breaking with emotion. ‘Sarah is so young. She doesn’t have a beau as far as I know. Besides, I should not have denied them the right to see each other if they had come to me. She must have known that—surely she knew? No, I do not believe she has run away from her family. I believe she has been stolen.’

Daniel was almost too stunned to answer. He was a man of the world and knew well that there were men evil enough to snatch young, pretty girls for their own foul uses. To think of Sarah, whom he thought little more than a child, in the power of such rogues was past bearing. It was no wonder that Charles looked so desperate and he could only imagine the agony that Sarah’s mother must be enduring.

‘You must not give up all hope,’ he said, his hand on Charles’s shoulder, his fingers gripping hard as the emotion turned in him. ‘We shall find Sarah. I swear it, Charles. We shall not rest until she is found.’

‘And what then?’ Charles asked. ‘What if she…?’ He shook his head, unable to continue.

‘We shall face that when we come to it,’ Daniel said. ‘Have faith, Charles. It may be that we shall find her safe…’

It was a nightmare! Surely she was having a bad dream? What was happening to her could not be real. Her sight was blurred as she stared up at the creatures cavorting about her. She was lying on the ground on some kind of silken robe, but where was she? She seemed to be in a wood and it was dark save for the light of a full moon.

A figure was coming towards her. It loomed over her, looking huge to eyes clouded by the foul drugs they had given her and…it was a man and surely he was naked? What was happening? She must be dreaming! Yes, yes, it was simply a bad dream. She was in her own bed and quite safe. And yet through the fog that misted her senses, she dimly recalled being captured. She knew that she had been abducted, which meant that she was not dreaming and that she must wrench her mind from the cloud that bound it.

Giving a scream of terror, she forced herself to stand, her legs trembling with the effort. She had to get away from here or she was done for, she knew it instinctively although her mind was unable to function properly. She did not know how she had come here or who these people were. She only knew that she must run as fast as she could to escape them.

If they caught her, she would die…