reluctantly focused on their captor.
“Very good. Now, Charlotte, you will have free reign of the laboratory tonight and every night. At dawn, I will chain you and release Sinclair to do his part. That should keep you both in line, because if one of you attempts to escape while you are unrestrained, the other will be left behind to face my wrath alone. At the end of two days, I expect the purviewers to function as they’re meant to. Then, you will be free to go. It’s quite simple, really,” he said with a casual shrug and a flash of perfectly straight, white teeth.
Alistair vowed to knock them out the moment he had the chance.
“It would assist in our task if we knew how they were damaged,” Charlotte said.
“They worked perfectly for a few weeks. I’d made my way through all the gaming hells in France. Cards, games of chance, horse races, I wagered on them all, and won. Small stakes, you understand, to keep from being noticed. I was on my way to creating a whole new life there. Almost had enough to send for Emily to join me. Then one evening I was peeking through the purviewers right before a bout of boxing, and someone walked by. In my rush to take off the goggles before they were seen, I dropped them on the cobbles.”
He curled his lip in disgust as he tossed the brass on the worktable. “They haven’t worked since. I’ve lost every sou I won and then some. Tried to read your stupid notebook to fix them. A load of gibberish, that.”
“The goggles aren’t meant for rigorous use. Besides, if we fix them, what’s to stop you from resorting to this should they break again? I refuse to live my life in fear, John. What guarantee do we have that this will be at an end in forty-eight hours?” Charlotte crossed her arms over her breasts—plumping them up against the scooped neckline of her dress—and eyed their nemesis pointedly.
“You’re not in a position to demand guarantees.
Charlotte called after him, “Just so you are aware, milord, the wedding is off!”
Alistair shook his head in amazement as the door slammed behind Rotham. Even in the face of a crisis, Charlotte Phillips’s dry wit did not fail her. He loved that, and everything else, about her. Alistair gave her a proper grin, then looked closer at her pale face. She was not quite as unaffected as she seemed.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded and attempted a weak smile. “Yes. A little shaken, is all. It’s not every day one’s intended comes back from the dead, kidnaps your colleague and threatens to murder you, but I’m managing. You?”
“Alistair?” She pinned him with her too-perceptive gaze as she picked her way across the cluttered room, muttering a curse as she stumbled. “I asked how you were fairing.”
“Same as you, taken aback, I suppose,” he said with a shrug.
“To tell the truth, I feel rather a ninny for trusting him in the first place.” Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.
John Rotham had been a bit of an unknown from the start, and while Charlotte had trusted him, Alistair had not. The second son to Charles, the late Duke of Rotham, John had spent most of his time in France up until his brother’s death the year before. He’d returned to London to claim his title, but there had been rumblings of his poor judgment with money early on. His sudden and relentless interest in Charlotte had been a surprise—and very suspicious to Alistair—but she had taken his courtship as sincere. John had suited her purposes; more than anything, Charlotte wanted a child, and at eight and twenty, time was growing short. She’d lived in America for almost a decade, leading many of the bachelors in London to question her morals. Her willful nature and sharp wit had scared off the rest despite her wealth.
Weak-minded pratts, all of them. He would have done almost anything to have Charlotte as his wife, but marrying him could have cost her her most precious of dreams. And that, he would not do.
He bit back a sigh and tried to reassure her. “He was a fine actor. It wasn’t your fault.”
She met his gaze full-on then and gave a weary shake of her head. “You are a true gentleman for saying so, Alistair, but it was my fault entirely. Better that I accept it and learn from my mistakes than repeat them.”
He pretended to consider that, and gave a solemn nod. “Well then, if you insist, it
She laughed, and the sound warmed him. She had the most inappropriate laugh. A bawdy, throaty chuckle that vibrated in her throat long before it spilled from her lips. It called forth visions of silky skin and dueling tongues, of curvy hips and creamy thighs. Today, though, the sound was soothing, a balm to his soul. When he’d awakened, chained in the lab, he’d been terrified. Until she’d walked through the door, he hadn’t been certain if she was alive or dead.
The thought of John killing her skewered his guts like a lance, but Alistair willed the nightmare away. She was here now, and very much alive. Now they just had to keep it that way.
Chapter Three
Charlotte pressed her hands to her sides, quelling the urge to straighten Alistair’s tousled black hair. She was just so damned glad he was all right. His warm, hazel eyes looked tired and his clothes were a wrinkled mess, but other than that he appeared none the worse for wear. She swallowed a sigh of relief.
“Any ideas on how we might get out of this alive?” she asked.
Alistair’s frank gaze collided with hers and he shook his head grimly. “I’ve been working on it but nothing foolproof yet. You?”
Neither bothered pretending that Rotham was going to just let them go. They knew far too much, maybe even enough to see him hanged. No, he planned to string them along with the promise of freedom, but the moment they handed him the repaired purviewers, they were as good as dead.
“I’m still trying to digest this whole thing, myself. Have you tested the chains?”
He grimaced. “Probably more than I should have.”
She moved behind him and bent to look at his bound wrists that were wrapped around a wooden post. “Oh, Alistair. You’re a bloody mess.” She took his hands gently in hers and examined them closer. “I’ll see what we have here to treat them and then wrap them in cloth. Don’t move.”
He let out a crack of laughter. “Where would I go?”
Removing her evening gloves, she scanned the lab. After some poking around she found some carbolic acid and a hand towel in the mix, which she tore in half. Locating a pitcher of water, she doused a piece of the cloth. She dampened the other piece with the chemical. “This should do. Once we get you cleaned up, I’ll work on the lock. Maybe devise a corroding agent? There are some tools we might use as a pick, as well.”
“Fine idea.”
He let out a hiss as she applied the damp cloth to his torn skin.
“Sorry about that. What about the head wound?”
“No blood, just a lump, I think.”
She wiped away as much blood as she could from his wrists and made quick work of cushioning the manacles with a bit of the antiseptic cloth and stepped away, admiring her efforts.
“There. I’m going to take stock of what we have in the lab. I suggest we spend half our time working on an escape, and the other half on the goggles. John will be checking on our progress, and I don’t want to give him an excuse to shoot us both dead any sooner than he plans to. Besides, if by the time we fix them we still can’t figure a way to get out, at least we’ll have them as a bargaining chip of sorts.”
“Agreed.”
She turned to get to work, and the hem of her gown caught on a pile of debris. “Bother. This dress is going to be a hazard in such a tight space, and there is hardly enough room for my bustle. Besides, being trussed up for a few hours at a ball is one thing, being trussed up for two days is another kettle of fish. I hope you don’t mind?”
She deftly began unhooking the numerous clasps on the back of her dress but froze when she caught the
