Emmeline was finally fully awake. She came to with her head pounding hard and a very strong feeling of nausea. She opened her eyes little by little, squinting so as not to draw attention to herself. She knew that Kent Fitzgerald was in the room with her, but she did not, at that moment, want him to realize that she was awake. Instead, Emmeline wanted to get the lay of the land, to see exactly where she was and, more importantly, how she might escape.
The room they were in was large, almost as big as her own bedroom at Tarlton Manor. However, there the similarity ended as she looked at the very poor furnishings. The room was a little damp, and she could see that the walls were peeling here and there, most particularly in the corners. The walls were white, although it was clear that it had been many years since they were painted and far from being brilliant, they were grayish in appearance, dirty looking.
Feeling a tightness at her wrists, she surreptitiously cast her eyes down to see that she was, indeed, still tied tightly. Her wrists were bound together with thin rope which bit into her skin angrily. From the bindings at her wrist, another thin rope was tied around the bedstead, effectively anchoring her to the spot.
Emmeline had been laid on her side on the bed, and she shuddered as she remembered Kent Fitzgerald and his dreadful, liquor-soaked driver pushing her down onto it. They had walked her up the stairs almost between them, that much she remembered. But she had felt as if she were in a dream, hardly herself at all, and wondered how on earth she had managed to put one foot in front of the other.
Hearing Kent move about, Emmeline hurriedly closed her eyes almost completely, leaving just the slimmest gap for the sake of safety. With much of the room now just a blur to her, her other senses took over, and she became aware of just how dreadful the bedding smelled, not to mention the room in general. Everywhere was an air of fustiness, of dampness, which smelled almost rotten. Wherever her cousin had bought her, it was hardly the most salubrious of surroundings. But, of course, he was not yet a wealthy man, not for the next few weeks, at any rate.
With her head still pounding, Emmeline allowed her eyes to close altogether, and she lay as still as a stone statue, the only movement seemingly inside her head. Again, her other senses took over, and she was aware of voices outside on the street. They were angry voices, two or three men deep in an argument, their slurred words informing Emmeline most distinctly that it was a drunken argument.
But the accents were not of her own county. They were neither northern or southern, but that very distinct and unique accent of the Midlands. So, Kent Fitzgerald had driven her a long way, all the way back to his own home town.
At that moment, Emmeline almost wept. She really was so far away from home, and there was nobody to know where on earth she was.
“Open your eyes, I know you are awake.” Suddenly she heard movement, and her eyes flew open to see Kent striding across the room towards her.
“My head hurts terribly, cousin,” Emmeline said, hoping to remind him of their familial connection just in case there was any chance of appealing to his sense of decency.
“Well, it would not hurt so had you simply come along with me in the first place. And we would not be here now in this room which seems to displease your delicate nostrils so, my dear, had you taken better notice of my earlier regard for you. Instead of being here, we might already be husband and wife and living at Tarlton Manor. Instead, you have forced me to overpower you and bring you here. You have nobody to blame but yourself.” Kent looked at her disapprovingly.
Emmeline noticed that Kent did not look as smart as ordinarily he did. His clothes were the same as he had worn when he had entered her drawing room the day before, but he was very much more disheveled. His nondescript brown hair seemed to stand up in tufts here and there as if he had slept very badly, and his pale chin had all the signs of a burgeoning growth, giving him a somewhat swarthy look.
But more than that, his eyes told their own story. He was a man who was clearly determined to carry through whatever plan he had come up with, and yet, at the same time, that same plan seemed to be torturing him. Emmeline felt certain that it was not his conscience, however, which upended him so, but rather his own fear. In truth, he seemed both determined and a little lost all at the same time.
His demeanour at that moment was vastly different from the one he had displayed in her drawing room. And when she had begun to come to after he had first struck her, her eyes fluttering painfully open, Emmeline had been aware of that determination.
She had realized immediately that they were in transit, feeling every bump of the road as she lay in the middle of the carriage on the floor between the seats. Her hands had been bound in front of her, and a scarf had been tied tightly and painfully around her mouth. Her head hurt dreadfully, and she felt dizzy and nauseous. When Emmeline had tried to entreat her cousin with nothing more than her eyes, he had looked away from her. But what she had seen on his face before he looked away was self-satisfaction, plain and simple. As the carriage continued to roll along, Emmeline could almost feel his determination and confidence. However, after many hours of dipping in and out of consciousness, Emmeline could now see something else altogether. Whilst the determination was still there, the confidence had gone entirely. She could not help wondering if its lack would make him less of a threat or more of one.
“Why have you done this? I do not owe you marriage, Sir, and you know it. Was it not enough for you that you were to inherit everything that had once belonged to my family? Was it not enough foryou to see the pain that that would cause? Why could you not have stayed away from us and allowed us to spend our period of grace in privacy?”
“You are being extraordinarily ungrateful, given how much I have tried to help you.” Kent, in breeches, boots, and shirtsleeves, began to pace the floor backward and forwards.
He had discarded his tailcoat and waistcoat carelessly over the back of a moth-eaten velvet covered chair which looked almost as if it was once situated in a fine drawing room in a fine house
before it had become so devastated by time and misuse.
“Ungrateful?” Emmeline could not hide her anger. “You insult me with your proposal; you refuse to accept my own wishes on the matter, you beat me on the head with the butt of a rifle, and then you kidnap me. Please do tell me exactly at what point I should have become so very grateful to you, Sir!”