The Abducted Heiress. Claire Thornton

to challenge his trespass into her private domain.

      Jakob was contending with some surprises of his own. He had been told that Lady Desire Godwin lived a reclusive life in her grand mansion on the Strand. He’d assumed her reticence was the result of sensible prudence, since apparently she had neither father or guardian to protect her. He had also been told that Lady Desire was usually to be found in her rooftop garden. He had therefore imagined her reclining gracefully in a shady bower, attired in silks and satin.

      Instead he’d surprised a work-dishevelled woman wearing simple, unfashionable garments. Her skirt had obviously been torn and mended several times in the past. To Jakob’s pleasure, the soft fabric of her bodice revealed the natural contours of her slim, shapely body. It seemed the lady had chosen not to endure the discomfort of heavy boning while she worked. Jakob admired her good sense, even as he wondered whether she could possibly be the woman he sought.

      Her hands were stained with earth. Her face was beaded with perspiration, and there was a streak of dirt across her forehead. He had been told that Lady Desire was thirty years of age, but this woman appeared to be several years younger. Her chestnut hair was pinned haphazardly on top of her head in a style that owed more to convenience than fashion. The low sunlight burnished her errant curls to a rich red. A few tendrils, which had escaped the pins, were darkened with perspiration and stuck to her damp face.

      Far more startling than her clothes were the scars on her face. They were blemishes that had no place on a woman so young, shapely and obviously full of healthy energy. The pale scars ridged one cheek, puckering skin that should have been smooth and youthful. The fairness of her other cheek revealed the beauty that should have been her birthright. The comparison between what her appearance could have been, and what it was, was cruel in its simple starkness.

      Confusion held Jakob silent for several long seconds. How had she come to be so badly injured? Smallpox scars were not unusual among all sections of the population, but these scars looked more like the wounds a soldier might receive in battle. He felt a surge of pity for her, even as the analytical part of his mind strove to make sense of what he’d discovered. Was this the heiress he sought? Were the scars the reason for her seclusion? Or was this simply a maidservant toiling in the lady’s garden?

      The lady stared at him in equal confusion, for which he could hardly blame her. But there was an expression of wonder, almost awe, in her warm, velvet brown eyes he didn’t understand at all. By rights she should have been haranguing him for his trespass or calling her servants to throw him out.

      Instead she gazed at him as if he were a mirage, or some kind of ghostly vision. Jakob wondered briefly if the accident that had marred her body had also robbed her of her wits.

      At that very instant, her expression changed. From wonder to horror. A variety of shifting emotions flickered in her eyes. Distress, shame, anger.

      Her hands half-lifted towards her face. Then she turned her back on him.

      The soldier in him was profoundly shocked that she chose a response which left her so defenceless. The man in him noticed the graceful line of her slim neck, exposed by her upswept hair. The skin of her nape was pale and soft, emphasising her vulnerability. Jakob cursed himself as his body tightened with unexpected desire for hers—even as he felt an equally strong, conflicting compulsion to comfort her.

      He kept his hands resolutely by his sides and cleared his mind of everything but the reason he had scaled the wall of Godwin House. He was running out of time. He needed to make sure of the lady’s identity. He cleared his throat.

      ‘Do I have the honour of addressing Lady Desire Godwin?’ he asked.

      Desire’s head jerked up. The stranger had spoken to her. There was an exotic quality to his words, as if English wasn’t his first language. Perhaps he really was an angel of the Lord.

      It had been so long since Desire had had contact with the outside world that the notion of an angel coming to call on her hardly seemed more unlikely than the sudden appearance of a strange man in her personal Eden.

      But, if he was an angel, she thought chaotically, he ought to have descended down on to her roof from the heavens—not climbed up to it from the ground. Maybe he was a fallen angel…

      ‘Lady Desire?’ he repeated, with soft urgency.

      She took a deep breath. It was time to regain control of events. This was her roof. Angel or no, she was entitled to an explanation for this intrusion. She turned around slowly, clutching her hat before her in both hands like a shield. But she held her head resolutely high, making no effort to conceal her face. It was too late to hide. She’d already gaped in amazement at the stranger for so long he’d had time to trace each of her ugly scars.

      ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

      As she spoke, she forced herself to look up and meet his eyes, expecting to see revulsion or pity in his gaze. When she’d momentarily forgotten her own appearance, it had been easy to gaze at his male beauty—now it was hard to look into his face.

      But she saw nothing in his clear blue eyes except puzzlement and a certain amount of impatience.

      The sun had fallen below the horizon and he no longer glowed with angelic radiance. He looked entirely like a mortal man. A very tall, powerful, athletic man who had scaled her wall like a brigand.

      ‘Who are you?’ Fear sharpened her voice. ‘What do you want?’

      ‘Jakob Smith,’ he replied. ‘My lady—’

      ‘You aren’t English,’ she said, suspicious that a man of such exotic appearance truly owned such a commonplace name.

      She saw another flicker of impatience, or possibly exasperation, flash in his beautiful eyes.

      ‘My mother is Swedish, my father was English,’ he replied crisply. ‘My pedigree, however, has no relevance to the current circumstances.’

      ‘Are you suggesting mine has?’ Desire demanded, astounded by his effrontery.

      Despite the bizarre nature of their encounter, she no longer felt overawed by him. She was well aware of the hazards of fortune hunters. Her steward, Walter Arscott, had impressed upon her the need for caution. Only a few months ago Arscott had told her about Lord Rochester’s recent attempt to abduct an heiress from her carriage as she travelled through Charing Cross. Lord Rochester had botched the abduction and been put in the Tower for his pains, but he was not the only fortune hunter in England. The stranger on her roof, handsome though he appeared, was probably just a more enterprising example of the breed. It was time to exert her authority

      ‘Did you invade my garden to—?’ she began.

      ‘Are you Lady Desire?’ Jakob Smith snapped, startling her with his urgency. As he spoke he threw a quick glance over her shoulder.

      Desire automatically followed his gaze, feeling a flutter of uneasiness as his impatience communicated itself to her. To her relief, there was no one else on the roof, but it gave her an idea.

      ‘My servants will be here soon—to carry down the orange trees,’ she improvised. ‘Stout fellows. They have to be to lift such burdens. You should escape before they get here.’

      Jakob Smith grinned briefly, a dazzling expression on his already handsome features. ‘If that were true, you wouldn’t warn me,’ he pointed out. ‘You’d keep me here so they could seize me.’

      ‘I would?’ Desire rubbed her temple with gritty fingers, then realised she’d probably put a dirty mark on her face. She snatched her hand away and glared at him. ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ she reminded him. ‘What are you doing—’

      ‘But you’ve answered mine,’ he replied, smiling faintly. ‘Your servants, your orange trees, my lady,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘And we don’t have much time.’ He glanced beyond her again and swore softly.

      Desire threw a quick look over her shoulder—and this time her cold shiver of apprehension was justified. There were two more