Captured by the Count: An Abduction and Breeding Fantasy Read online

  “Relax,” he leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. There are very few people left dancing and even fewer around the room. I promise you that you will survive this dance with your reputation entirely intact, Mademoiselle.”

  Cassie clamped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at him, then looked away, vowing to herself not to react to him in any way, despite the dizziness she felt that she churlishly attributed to him. The waltz would soon be over, and then, hopefully, she would never have to see the boorish oaf again.

  Count Victor Andreiv Kaspersky Salkov knew exactly what Cassie was doing and how she felt about being what she probably considered to be manhandled by him on the dance floor. But this little flower obviously knew absolutely nothing about being manhandled, although when he implemented his plot she would become quite intimately familiar with the term, whether she wanted to or not.

  And he highly doubted she would want to . . . at least at first.

  “You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen, Mademoiselle. Is it a wig?”

  Cassie would have vowed to her dying day that there was nothing this boor could say to her that would get her to talk to him or respond in any way. She was an old master at giving the cold shoulder, and had once, at the tender age of eight, gone for nearly two months without speaking to her Mother, despite the fact that Father required that the family eat both breakfast and dinner together. Alicia Moorhouse Winthrop had denied her daughter the opportunity to buy the horse she wanted – one that both of her parents had thought was much too spirited for her, although her father had left it up to her mother to make the final decision, as he often did in matters that concerned his daughter.

  But, as far as Cassie was concerned, the Count’s comment could not have been much more incendiary if he had questioned her virtue.

  “Of course it’s not!” she replied in utter outrage, wishing she could – if not leave him entirely - then at least step back from him and stop the dance as she gave him the full effect of her wrath at his temerity.

  But he continued to usher her around the floor as if he had said nothing in the least outrageous to her. A small smile played about his lips as Cassie realized he was trying not to laugh at the vehemence of her response, and then favored her with yet another insulting question. “Is it dyed?”

  Victor watched her eyes go wide, then narrow to incensed slits. This time she refused to grace his question with an answer of any sort at all. Would this dance never end? She wondered as she stood as stiffly as she could within his all too forward embrace, realizing suddenly that she felt quite dizzy.

  After a few moments of complete silence between them, Victor ventured an apology that, like a lot of what he’d said to her, she felt was completely lacking in sincerity. “I am truly sorry if I’ve offended you, Mademoiselle Winthrop. I only meant to discern if I should direct my deepest compliment on that sumptuous mane of yours to you, your wigmaker or your hairdresser.”

  Cassie closed her eyes and took a deep breath – advice she had often gotten from her mother but had never followed before. But then she’d never found herself in a situation in which she felt such a complete lack of control. She wanted desperately to throw a huge tantrum, as she’d done when she was younger when things didn’t go exactly the way she wanted them too, but could hardly do so now.

  “Your hair is truly gorgeous,” he whispered, much to close to her ear. “It’s the very definition of a crowning glory.”

  The compliment, which sounded heartfelt even if it wasn’t, went a long way towards soothing her bruised ego. Although she still refused to respond, he could feel her relax, more than just slightly.

  And then he realized that she was practically in a dead faint as she leaned limply against him. Without missing a beat, Victor lifted her up into his arms and carried her out into the gardens, to the very end of them where they would be well out of eyesight of anyone at the house and the back gate was handy to his purpose, while the faint light of dawn was just beginning to appear at the horizon. As he walked out of the ballroom with her, Victor flagged down a servant for a glass of champagne and a bit of gammon to feed to her once he’d roused her, which he did with a kiss that she sputtered against as soon as she came to.

  “Here, eat this,” he instructed while sitting down on one of the white marble benches that were strewn about the ornate gardens.

  Cassie had a rebellious look in her eye, but his were just as resolute, she did as he asked.

  “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

  “Some time yesterday, as if it’s any of your business,” she answered haughtily, still nibbling on the portion of meat he had given her.

  “Drink this.”

  If she had been standing, she would have stomped her foot at his autocratic manner, but it was impossible to do so when one was being held on someone’s lap, and she found herself docilely doing as she was told, although she was going to give him a piece of her mind as soon as the world stopped spinning violently.

  But it seemed that the more she drank, the fuzzier she got – and she had a horrible thought in the back of her mind that it wasn’t just that she hadn’t had much to eat in a while, nor was it the fault of the champagne. There was a slightly bitter aftertaste to the bubbly, and she knew that couldn’t possibly be right. Angus Costello – the owner of the house and host of the ball – was much too much of a snob to serve anything but the best of champagnes.

  It was then that she saw the slightest grains of residue at the bottom of the glass, but not before she had consumed it all.

  “You – y – drug – d- mehhhhh.” Cassie was trying for an accusing tone, but her voice became a breathless whisper as she fell into unconsciousness.

  Victor again lifted her into his arms and began to carry her towards the back gate, but not before he heard someone very nearby calling for her.

  “Miss Cassie? Miss Cassie, where are you?”

  Instead of trying to slink away, he walked towards the voice, and when he discovered a distraught Sissy, who had been told by another servant that her mistress appeared to have fainted, Victor said, “I’m taking her to my physician to make sure everything is all right. Why don’t you come with us and then you can accompany her home.”

  Sissy, who had brought with her the light wrap that Cassie had forgotten, nodded passively and followed the man who was carrying Miss Cassie in his arms into a large, nondescript black coach that she was immediately terrified to realize was full of rough men who apparently took their orders from the man who was holding her mistress.

  “This is her?” one of them asked in a language Sissy didn’t recognize.

  “Yes. All is as it should be.”

  One of the men sitting across from Sissy inclined his head towards her. “And this one?”

  “I believe she’s her maid.”

  “What are we doing with her?”

  Victor gave the man who dared question him a sharp look. “Keeping her, until she’s no longer of any value to us.” In his experience, despite the bother of yet another mouth to feed, situations like this involving ladies of quality often went much easier if they were allowed to keep a familiar face about them at first.

  Chapter Two

  Although Cassie awoke several times during the next few days, she was never really clear headed at all, and was only roused so that Sissy could attend to her personal needs and she could eat something. The food was crude and cold – often no more than a scrap of bread and some ale – but she didn’t feel the lack. All she wanted was to get back to sleep.

  Sissy, on the other hand, had remained as alert and awake as she could make herself be through the entire trip. She had surmised after an hour or so in the carriage that they weren’t headed towards a doctor, as the strangely accented man had said initially, but she knew well enough to keep her mouth shut and do as she was told. What could she have done to save them against a carriage full of men? Nothing. They were travelling at such a speed that jumping o
ut was out of the question, too, especially for an unconscious Cassie. All that would have happened then was that the two of them would probably have gotten deader much faster.

  So she kept to herself and did what she could to keep Cassie comfortable and to not annoy anyone else when they stopped late in the evenings to eat and sleep. She guessed she could have tried to escape then herself – leaving Miss Cassie to whatever face whatever fate had in store for her alone – but she couldn’t imagine that she’d get away with it, and didn’t much want to think about what the consequences might have been for doing so once she was inevitably caught. Besides, where would she go? The only person she knew on the continent was Cassie. And, overall, Sissy was being treated much better by her captors than she had been while she had been by anyone at Two Rivers, including Cassie. There was no comparison. She ate what they ate, and the Count didn’t suffer bad food. He always made sure that a big plate was sent up to her as she watched over her mistress, and even offered on occasion to take her place so that she could go downstairs if she wanted to, although she always declined. He had noticed that she didn’t have the right clothing for the colder climes they were entering, and took it upon himself to find warmer dresses and a finer coat than she’d ever hoped to own for her, cupping her cheek in his hand when tears overflowed down her cheeks at his generosity.

  “Watch over her, keep her as calm and quiet as you can, and see to her . . . other needs and I will reward you generously,” he’d said to her at one point, early on in their journey.

  As far as she was concerned, Sissy had already been more than adequately rewarded, but she managed to nod slowly at his promise.

  No one ever questioned the man – who Sissy gleaned was a count or something – about the woman he claimed was his wife and why she had to be carried up to their bedroom and back down again, but then she figured his title bought him assumed respectability, and when that wasn’t apparent, his money would step in to grease the palm of anyone who might ask a few too many questions.

  They travelled forever, it seemed, and no one bothered to communicate anything about their destination to her or Cassie, not that Cassie was conscious often enough – or even conscious enough at any time – to grasp what she might have been told. She was kept quite deliberately drugged until they had been travelling for several weeks, when one morning Sissy noticed that he hadn’t given her the ale laced with whatever drug he was using to keep her subdued – laudanum or some such thing, she was sure – when she’d gotten Cassie up enough to feed her a breakfast slice of bread soaked in milk so that it was easier for her to swallow in her twilight state.

  Although she still slept the rest of the time they travelled that day, Sissy could tell it was more of a normal sleep, less dependent on chemicals as she moved quite a bit as she slumbered. The medication he was using had her so deeply in its clutches that her sleep with it was almost that of the dead – in fact, at first, Sissy had routinely put a mirror up to Cassie’s nostrils, just to assure herself that she was still breathing.

  When the coach finally turned off what seemed to be the main road, then off its tributary and into a deep forest, Sissy hunkered down for another long day of sheer boredom.

  Instead, the trees parted, revealing a gorgeous estate that had to be at least three times the size of Two Rivers. The carriage stopped at the front door and masses of garishly uniformed servants descended and relieved it of all of its baggage, as well as the strange men who had travelled with them. Only she, the Count and Cassie remained as the coachman clucked to the horses and they were moving again, although much more slowly than before.

  They made their way around the huge main building, then well back from it, to a cluster of small houses that were much better appointed than the breeding cabins where she’d come from, but just about as small. But they didn’t stop at any of these apparent residences. Instead they were driven to a bigger building at the end of the road, where the Count swung out of the carriage and reached in to offer his hand to Sissy – which had surprised her to no end the first time he’d done it. No white man had ever offered her assistance in anything, much less just alighting from a coach. The Count had been unfailingly courteous to her, much more so than any other white man she had ever met, and she had come to accept the common courtesies that he displayed towards her, which only served to point out how badly she had been treated previously.

  When Sissy was safely on the ground, Victor reached in and plucked Cassie from the seat. She was aware enough to put her arms around his neck, and he knew when she didn’t make any other moves that she was still sleeping cozily.

  The doors to the building were thrown open for him by two matronly looking women, who, with Sissy, followed him to what seemed to be a medical room of some sort at the back of the facility.

  “But, Sir,” one of the matrons exclaimed, “we haven’t had a chance to examine her yet!”

  It was then that the Count removed the hood of the warm cape Cassie had been wearing since shortly after they’d departed Paris, causing both of the women to “Ahhhh” loudly as that unique hair spilled down over her shoulders. The cape had served two purposes – keeping her warm as well as hiding that most unique of attributes from any prying – or spying – eyes. He wasn’t the only one in this business, and he knew that his rivals would slit his throat in a second to have what he had finally succeeded in procuring.

  “You found one!” the oldest of the two women exclaimed reverently.

  “That I did, Matushka,” Victor agreed, at least as devoutly as she had as they all stood and stared at Cassie – except for Sissy, who was looking at them as if they had lost their minds. “And she’s totally untouched, right, Sissy?” he added.

  He seemed to be looking to her for some sort of confirmation of Cassie’s purity, which was something Sissy had never considered before, and certainly never been asked, so she hesitated.

  Victor turned his full attention to Sissy as he and the other women held their breath. “You would know, right? You’ve probably been with her since she was born.”

  “Six, Sir. She was six and I was eleven when Missus Winthrop told me it was my job to take care of her.”

  “Has she known a man?”

  Sissy could not believe how forward he was being, but the look in his eyes – a cold and calculating one that chilled her to the bone, despite how well he had treated her - let her know that he expected an answer – a correct answer, not necessarily even the right one.

  “Not far as I know, Sir. She’s never even had a beau; she keeps turning all them that asks down.”

  Everyone heaved a collective sigh as Victor turned back to a still very groggy Cassie, saying, “Yes, I’m not at all surprised. She is not the type of woman that you can give that choice to.” If her answer had been in the affirmative, he would have been severely disappointed, but he would still consider her quite a prize. The path she would take here at the Infirmary would have been a different one, however.

  Regardless, he would know whether Sissy spoke the truth in a matter of minutes.

  Then, suddenly, he left Cassie and came to stand near Sissy, reaching into his pocket and producing an official looking paper as well as a wad of bills, both of which he proceeded to press into her hand. “You have been an invaluable help, Miss . . .”

  “Sissy. Everyone calls me Sissy.” She said it with her head down as she fiddled with the skirt of one of the dresses he’d gotten for her, instantly submissive.

  Tipping her chin up until she had to look him in the eye, Victor asked, “And what name were you born with?”

  “Cecelia, Sir.”

  He instantly took her hand and kissed the back of it, as if she was some fine lady. “It is an honor to meet you, Miss Cecelia. Please forgive me if I don’t identify myself or anyone else to you, but that would not be very wise of me, considering the circumstances. But I am forever indebted to you for your assistance in getting your mistress here.” He turned and reached down to relieve Cassie of her reticule.
“But she will no longer be requiring your services, and you are hereby freed. The paper with the money that states as much, and anyone with any questions is advised to contact me. Other than that, I would be glad to have the coach take you anywhere you would like to go, although I might suggest that that shouldn’t be anywhere in the southern United States.”

  Suddenly faced with the reality of being something other than the slave she had always been, Sissy looked at once amazed and terrified. She clasped the small drawstring purse as if it were a lifeline, but stood frozen in place, as if she was afraid her dream would crumble around her if she so much as moved.

  Victor’s tone was as gentle as anyone had ever heard it. “You can stay here as long as you like, Miss Cecelia, although I must warn you that you will see things that will disturb you.” He gave her an assessing look, then said, “You don’t have to answer this, my dear, but have you somehow managed to remain as innocent as your mistress?”

  Sissy’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  Her reaction to his question was all he needed to know. “I know what Cassie’s father does for a living. I know everything about it. And before you go wondering, I am running roughly the same type of business here – only the women I breed here are white. But believe me, they are just as unhappy at finding themselves in this predicament as you must have been being forcibly subjugated by the Winthrop family.”

  She wasn’t all that sure about what subjugated meant, but she gleaned its meaning from the context.

  It was too much to handle. She could never have conceived of such a place – or being handed her freedom so blithely - moments ago. She hadn’t imagined ever being free, yet here she was, with someone practically laying the world at her feet, going well out of his way for her. It was stunning.