FREE! In The Arms of My Enemy (Completed!) Book 1

You Are Mine Now

Fidelia drew her horse up sharply, spying three figures on the beach below her in the moonlight. Two men stood above a smaller shape that knelt on the sand, huddled into a ball for warmth against the cold February night. The sounds of waves lapping against a small boat broke the silence of the night. Across the bay, a hulk­ing building, four stories tall, crouched beside a dried riverbed. It was the old Waren Mill that had been abandoned a few years before.

"Leave your horse there, Lady Greyville," one of the shapes ordered, holding up a hand as she approached. His voice was eerily familiar.

Fidelia slid silently from her exhausted horse, gave it a grateful pat on the neck, and picked her way over the mounds of salt grass. Slowly, she held up her hands to show that she was unarmed and crossed the beach to them. The second man had a hat pulled low over his face, ob­scuring his features in shadow. He grabbed the arm of the third figure and yanked her upward. It was Lottie. She cried out and looked at Fidelia with widened eyes.

"You." Fidelia glared at the man who had spoken first, suddenly realizing why his voice sounded so familiar. "You're Mr. York! I heard you talking at Middleton Hall. Tell me, is your master the real genius in this scheme?"

"That wealthy idiot? He can't even tie his own cravat—do you think he'd be smart enough to carefully plan with such strategy and patience? The wealthy convince themselves that we servants are un­thinking, unfeeling animals that are only good for following orders." The man shrugged. "They aren't like you and me."

"I'm nothing like you," Fidelia said, wishing she'd remembered to bring extra ammunition. She'd never be able to free Lottie from two men with only one lead ball. Mr. York grinned, but a scar on his upper lip caused it to contort and look more like a snarl. Again, Fidelia was haunted by the ghost of familiarity.

"Ah, but you are. We are both resourceful, smart, and good at dis­guises—you as both a lady and a maid, and I as a cab driver and a stranger in the street following you home, always watching."

The scar. Fidelia vividly recalled the scar on the man who had pursued her and Lottie that fateful day in Bath. But it was his other confession that filled her with pure loathing. "You're the one that tried to run me over four months ago."

"Yes." He smiled lazily. "I'd heard from my contact that Lord Greyville had married, and I figured that if I could get to you, I could frighten you into betraying him. That little accident was only the begin­ning; I had many more incidents planned for you, but your husband figured out my plot. I did not predict that he would so effectively hide you from me. It took me over two months to learn of your whereabouts. It was simple enough to join myself to Mr. Thynne when I learned that he was moving to your same village and wait until you proved useful. You delivered yourself right into my hands, like a present. All you were missing was the bow."

"Only a spineless coward would try to run a woman down in the streets and kidnap an innocent girl because he wasn't enough of a man to find the prince himself," Fidelia said, wishing for all she was worth that she could punish the man herself. But she needed to make sure her single shot counted.

"Ah, yes." He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "We come to the real purpose of our little reunion. Give us the prince's location."

Fidelia turned to look at the other man, whose face had been hid­den in the shadows of his hat. "Let my sister go first."

"Do not think us fools, Fidelia." The man looked up, and Fidelia stumbled back in shock.

"Edmund!"

He stared back at her shamelessly.

"You're working with the French?"

"How else do you think William was captured in America? The death of a British lord at American hands would have whipped the British into a frenzy. They would have acted foolishly and fallen quickly. If your senseless brother hadn't released him, the war would never have lasted this long, and France would have been victorious months ago."