The Duke's Covert Mission

Damn, the man’s silence was unnerving. It distracted her from thinking. She could only react.

“Is this how you killed Paulo?” The man’s head jerked up. “Did you poison him?”

The only sound she could hear was her heart pounding.

Just when she thought she might scream from the tension in the air pulling at her, the man took the packet from her hands and tore it open. He stuck his finger inside, scooped out a dollop of beige paste and lifted his mask high enough so she could see him eat it.

She caught a flash of inky black beard stubble, but nothing more. Even before the image registered, he’d covered his chin and handed her the packet.

She’d barely touched her dinner the night before because of nervous anticipation of the ball and had slept through any other meal since. Food might help her headache. And she’d need sustenance of some kind to keep up her strength and keep herself mentally sharp.

Her companion’s watchful stillness made her think she’d need every ounce of strength and intelligence she could muster in order to survive this…this…

“Why have I been kidnapped?” she demanded, tilting her chin up with an authority she didn’t really feel.

His shoulders lifted with a cocky bit of “don’t care,” but he gave no answer.

“Why won’t you say anything?”

She dipped her finger into the packet and scooped out a bit of the dry paste. Tentatively she carried it to her mouth and tested it with her tongue. If she used her imagination, she could taste something that reminded her of apples and sawdust. But it was hard to imagine anything with her keeper standing so utterly still just a few feet away.

The goose bumps that had assailed her earlier pricked her skin again at his eerie silence. “You know, it’s very rude not to talk.”

And nerve-racking and frightening and out-and-out intimidating.

Ellie had never been one to complain. She’d been raised to make the best of things. To solve her own problems. To endure.

But the words came tumbling out now. “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t have much money. The jewels you took don’t even belong to me.” The man was made of stone. “I can’t help you if I don’t know why I’m here!”

Her little outburst left her feeling flushed and useless. And, damn it all, she had always found a way to make herself feel useful. She so desperately hated feeling helpless and unnecessary.

Expendable.

“Are you going to kill me, too?”

For a moment she thought he might actually speak. She heard a sound from behind his mask, a quick intake of breath. Ellie caught her own breath and held it, waiting for his answer. But…

Nothing.

Her breath whooshed out, along with her defiance.

Like the good, dutiful girl she’d been raised to be for the twenty-six years of her life, Ellie opened the bag and squeezed out another bite. She allowed the dry applesauce to sit on her tongue a moment, letting her saliva add enough moisture to make it palatable.

Now that she had done what he asked, the man began to circle her. While she ate, Ellie followed him with her eyes, noting any details that a man dressed in black from head to toe might reveal.

He wore black cargo pants, with a shadowy camo print and lots of pockets. They were tucked into a pair of calf-high military boots. A knife handle protruded from the top of a nylon sheath attached to the right boot. Ellie turned her head, quietly chewing, keeping him in her sight.

She recognized him as the driver of the second car last night. The one with the dead body in the trunk. She didn’t know much about the ways to kill a man, but she’d seen Paulo’s bulging eyes and protruding tongue and knew the young man’s death hadn’t been an easy one.

This man could have killed Paulo. Just by looking at him, Ellie had no doubt that this man had killed before.

His black knit shirt hugged broad shoulders and expanded over the swell of his chest. Then it clung farther down, revealing a flat stomach and narrow waist. He stood as tall as her brother—an inch or two over six feet—and was all sinew and muscle, as lethal-looking as the sleek steel sidearm riding in a black leather holster at his hip.

When he disappeared from the corner of her vision, Ellie spun to her right and watched him walk around the other side. She’d never studied a man so boldly before. And while his silence unnerved her, there was something oddly mesmerizing about the pantherlike precision of his movements. Ellie’s heart stuttered, then beat again. Her breasts expanded against the stiff confines of her gown. Her perusal of the mysterious visitor bordered on fascination.

And she was ashamed that survival might not be the only reason she kept staring at him.

“Who are you?” Her fingers slipped to her temple, nervously searching for her absent glasses. She curled the flailing fingers into a fist and pulled it down to her chest. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Fascination or no, this man was her captor, she his prisoner. His chained, secluded prisoner, who’d been left in the dark in both the literal and figurative sense.

“What do you want with me?” She breathed in deeply, but her cool bravado was quickly failing her. “Who are you?”

He ended his circle where he’d begun, standing in front of her, barely an arm’s length away.

Was he toying with her? Mocking her? Trying to scare the very heartbeat out of her?

He was succeeding more than he could possibly imagine.

“Talk to me.” Her demand sounded dangerously close to begging. “Show your face, you coward!”

She had finally pushed him too far.

He closed the distance between them, swooping in like a hawk, moving so swiftly that she shielded herself with her arms and backed away. The chain at her ankle rattled. A frightened sob shook her, but she caught the gasp between clenched teeth.

Ellie was transfixed. Caught in a deadly snare of unknown intent. He never touched her, but she trembled all the same. She could smell him now. He was heat and soap and exotic spice.

And from the middle of that black mask he marked her with eyes of such an intense dark blue they seemed unreal. He held her in place with those eyes. Beautiful eyes. Demon eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Ellie dropped her gaze, unable to withstand the power of his. She struggled to breathe. “Don’t hurt me. Please.”

And then the man tormented her in the most unexpected way. With her chin tucked to her chest, her gaze firmly fixed on the floor, he lifted his hand. She could see now, in her peripheral vision, that his hands were the only visible part of his body. Five fingers of streamlined power, scarred and callused, reached for her. Ellie curled into herself, bracing for a grab or slap or… The hand closed in on her face, and she could see a fine dusting of black hair along the dark tan of his skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the moment when his fingers would touch her. But she couldn’t block out the heat from his skin. It seemed to scorch her cheek.

“Please.” Her body convulsed on a frightened sob.

“Sinjun!”

The heat at her cheek evaporated at the shout from above. Ellie’s eyes popped open, and she saw the man in black tuck his hands into his pockets and cross to the base of the stairs.

“Is she awake?” The short, stocky creep who had given the orders and injected her with a knockout drug last night tromped down the stairs, commanding the room with his blustery voice.

Then the walls themselves seemed to shake as the giant from last night followed a few paces behind. Like the silent man, they were both dressed in black—from ski mask to military boots to the guns strapped at their sides.

Ellie’s chest expanded with the first deep breath she’d taken since the man who’d brought her food and water had first begun to circle her. Recognition of her three kidnappers brought with it a healthy amount of fear and caution, but she seized on the anger that their reappearance triggered in her. She threw her shoulders back and tipped up her chin. “I demand to know why you’ve done this to me.”

The small man laughed. “She demands.”

The big man responded with a hitch and lift of his shoulders, in what she supposed passed for a laugh at her expense. Her gaze flitted beyond them to the silent man. No movement. No laughter. Nothing.