No! His father’s behavior had been beyond explanation when it had resulted in his neglecting his legal wife and son.

  Hunter’s own physical response to Evelyn Gardener was just as inexcusable.

  “Ye’re tha Duke of Lincoln.” A gravelly voice interrupted his disturbing thoughts.

  Hunter felt somewhat relieved to have reason to level his gaze upon the eldest of the men dressed in ragged clothing. Anything to prevent him from continuing to stare at the alluring woman, a woman whom he should dislike, but had instead reacted to so viscerally.

  The other man’s dark hair was liberally streaked with gray and secured with a leather tie at his nape. His face was thin and lined, as if he had seen and still suffered too much depravation, physically as well as emotionally.

  “I am,” Hunter confirmed. “And you are Mr. Harker, I presume?” The first thing Hunter had done upon his arrival in Yorkshire yesterday had been to make inquiries from several of the people he knew in the area regarding the men living in the forests close to his estate.

  One name, Paul Harker, had been mentioned again and again. The men reputed to be with him were Davie Armitage, Fred Barlow, Willie Moore, Tommy Dinsdale, and John Clegg. All of them ex-soldiers with nowhere else to go other than to remain beside the man who had been their sergeant for so many years.

  Hunter had no doubt that the men seated about the open fire were those same men.

  They might have lost some of their edge since being dismissed from the army, evidenced by the fact Hunter had been able to surprise them with his presence, but they all now rallied behind their leader by producing a motley array of weapons from beneath the rags they were sitting upon. A knife, a wooden club, a catapult, and a long stick that had been whittled into a sharp point at the end. None of those weapons were any match for the gun Hunter wielded.

  Unfortunately, the rifle Harker had produced from the pile of leaves beside him while Hunter was preoccupied with watching the rest of the men arm themselves was not so innocuous.

  The other man now proceeded to lift and rest the butt of that rifle against his shoulder before pointing it, not at Hunter, but at Evelyn.

  Whether the man even had a bullet in the chamber was questionable, but was that a risk Hunter wished to take by calling the other man’s bluff and risking Evelyn’s life?

  “I suggest we lower the tension of this meeting by putting away our weapons.” To show his own good faith, Hunter lowered his pistol and rested it against his thigh.

  “On the ground,” Harker instructed, keeping his own pistol aimed at Evelyn. “Ye and ya pistol,” he rasped when Hunter bent with the intention of placing the pistol on the damp and leafy forest floor.

  His brows rose. “You wish me to sit on the wet ground?”

  “Yes.”

  Evie could literally see the war of words taking place within Hunter St. John’s head.

  On the one hand, he obviously didn’t want anyone to feel the need to start shooting or attacking with the array of weapons available to them. He also might have the advantage of holding a pistol in his hand, but it still had only one bullet.

  Yes, he might succeed in shooting and killing Paul Harker with it, but he was also vastly outnumbered, and once that single shot was fired the duke would then be left to suffer at the mercy of Paul’s outraged men.

  On the other hand, he obviously had no wish to suffer the indignity of sitting on the dampness of the leafy forest floor and getting the arse of his pristine gray pantaloons dirty and wet.

  Evie felt little sympathy for the duke’s dilemma. Not only had this arrogant man ignored her existence for the past five years but, as she had predicted, he had indeed taken his own sweet time responding to the ransom note.

  She had been lucky that Paul and his men were not the sort of bloodthirsty kidnappers who would have cut her throat and still demanded a ransom for her release. Instead, they were reasonable men, desperately looking for a way in which to return to and support their families now they were no longer needed to serve in Wellington’s army.

  Evie had seen many men such as these return home after Waterloo, all of them bedraggled and starving. Only to find that often their families had presumed them dead and had either moved on or formed new relationships. Or, if their family should be waiting for them, there were simply no jobs for those ex-soldiers, and they were forced to either steal or beg in order to survive.

  Paul and his men had decided to live in the forest and poach the food they needed to stay alive and provide for their families from afar.

  Looking at Hunter St. John, there could be no greater difference between Paul’s ragged appearance and the duke’s perfectly tailored one. Lincoln wore a green superfine, white linen and neckcloth, silver waistcoat, and fitted gray pantaloons above brown-topped Hessians. His deep auburn hair beneath the tall black top hat was fashionably styled. Paul’s clothes were thin and full of holes, his hair greasy and lank, his face far too lined for his age.

  “Do as ’e said,” a third voice instructed harshly.

  “There are only five men seated about the fire, not six,” Evie heard the duke mutter to himself in self-disgust.

  “Losing ya touch, Your Grace?” that new voice taunted.

  Evie winced when she saw that John Clegg now stood behind Lincoln, a knife pressed against the side of the duke’s neck.

  “It would appear so.” Lincoln sighed his irritation with himself.

  “Tha sixth man were keeping an eye out fa unwanted visitors. Imagine my surprise when I saw tha Duke of Lincoln ’imself entering tha woods,” Clegg taunted. “Very stealthily ye moved too. But not stealthily enough I didna ’ear an’ see ye,” John added in a hard voice. “Now ’and over ya pistol an’ sit thaself on tha ground. Don’t move or speak while we decide what’s to be done wi’ ye.”

  Evie felt little sympathy for the duke as he handed over his pistol, then slowly lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the damp forest floor.

  He hadn’t so much as looked in her direction again after his initial assessing glance, and he didn’t do so now either. Instead, his narrow-eyed attention was fixed steadily on the six men now huddled together in whispered conversation on the other side of the fire.

  Evie wondered why such a cold and haughty gentleman should have been blessed with being handsome and wealthy and titled. It hardly seemed fair. Especially when taking into consideration her raggedy kidnappers had behaved more kindly toward her these past two weeks than her absentee guardian ever had.

  She was so lost in those resentful thoughts that she was totally unprepared when all six of the outlaws rose to their feet.

  Paul levelled his gaze on the duke. “We’ve decided you’re to become our prisoner too. An’ the ransom demand ’as now gone up to five thousand pounds instead o’ one!” he added with great satisfaction. “A duke ’as to be worth at least that much.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “This is all well and good, gentlemen, but who is going to pay this hefty ransom now I am also your prisoner?” The calmness of Hunter’s voice revealed none of his turbulent thoughts.

  He had hoped to be able to enter the camp, reason with his ward’s kidnappers, and take her back to Lincoln Grange with him before then returning to London.

  He had totally underestimated the desperation of the men who had taken Evelyn.

  The same men who had now claimed him as their prisoner too.

  The man who had crept up behind him leaned forward to whisper something in Paul Harker’s ear, too softly for Hunter to be able to make out any specific words.

  A smile curved the older man lips when he refocused his attention on Hunter. “Our informants tell us that Lady Margaret ’Athaway came back in ya carriage with ye yesterday.”

  “Lady Margaret has been to London?” Evelyn asked.

  Damn her voice! Low. Husky. The sort of low and sensual female voice a man wanted to hear whisper dirty demands of him in the bedchamber in the darkness of the night. The early morning too. And the late morning. All afternoon. Every evening…

  Dear God, this was not the time—and most decidedly not the woman!—for Hunter to allow himself to become lost in the heady desire now pulsing through him and once again painfully engorging his cock.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  Hunter St. John, the Duke of Lincoln, was known for his cool levelheadedness and his ability to remain unemotional, whatever the situation. He was not, decidedly not, the sort of man who became aroused, his whole body aflame and clamoring for release, at the mere sound of a woman’s voice.

  Only one woman’s voice, he reminded himself, because this had never happened to him before now.

  As if that was going to make him feel better about the situation, when the woman in question was his nineteen-year-old ward and the daughter of his own father’s previous mistress. It would not do. It simply would not.

  “She went to tell ’Is Grace what ’ad occurred,” Paul drawled. “Why else would ’e ’ave bothered ’imself to come ta Yorkshire?” he added derisively.

  Hunter kept his gaze firmly fixed upon Paul Harker as he answered the older man rather than look at Evelyn. “Lady Hathaway is hardly in a position to request that five thousand pounds of my funds be released into her keeping.”

  “Tha letter ye write will say otherwise,” the other man assured.

  His brows rose. “The letter I write to whom?”

  “Ya secretary an’ valet arrived in another carriage hours before you an’ Lady Margaret, I ’ear. One of them will ’ave tha good sense ta know ’ow to act, I’m sure.”

  Hunter once again realized he had seriously underestimated this ragtag gang of kidnappers. In this case, he had not even contemplated the possibility they might be having Lincoln Grange watched in expectation of his arrival to the area. Not only that, but they would also have learned of his having had several people brought to the house after his arrival so that he could question them as to the whereabouts of Paul Harker’s gang of thieves.

  He still needed to speak with Ben Watkins about the circumstances that had resulted in this situation in the first place. But that was for another time, to be dealt with once he had succeeded in releasing Evelyn from her kidnappers.

  “I—”

  “Enough,” the older man silenced him. “Make tha sen comfortable next to Evie. Ye are goin’ ta be stayin’ awhile.”

  “Evie?” Hunter questioned sharply, having assumed Lady Margaret used that shortened version of her charge’s name out of affection.

  “I prefer it over Evelyn,” his ward told him softly.

  That was hardly the point. Oh, Hunter knew that one of the rules when captured by the enemy was to try to engage in conversation, in an effort to make them aware you were a person and not just a means to an end.

  Hunter knew that, but he still disliked it intensely that these men, ragged and dirty, appeared to be more intimately acquainted with his ward than—

  Dear God, no!

  Hunter had firmly put from his mind thoughts of the possibility Evelyn might have suffered being physically molested or raped by her kidnappers during her days of captivity. He had done so because he had known such thoughts were not conducive to the task at hand.

  Unfortunately, having now seen Evelyn the woman, those thoughts now plagued Hunter so deeply and so vividly, he barely noticed the indignity of having rope secured about his wrists and ankles.

  After which he was pulled to his feet and dragged across the clearing, only to then be pushed down into a sitting position on the ground beside where Evelyn sat on a tree stump, calmly watching these events unfold.

  What was wrong with the man? Evie wondered as she looked at Hunter St. John, sitting beside her from beneath the dark sweep of her lashes.

  First he came blundering into the kidnappers’ camp, and now he had gone silent and was very white in the face as he stared straight ahead. As if he was unable to even look at her.

  The silence between them grew increasingly thick and heavy with tension.

  Finally, the duke unclenched his jaw. “Did— Have—” He closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed before speaking again. “Have you suffered any physical harm at the hands of these gentlemen?”

  “A bruise or two during the scuffle when I was first taken, but— No!” she gasped as his meaning and the reason for the grimness of his expression suddenly became clear. “They have behaved like perfect gentlemen.” Unlike some people, her defiant tone challenged.

  The duke released a long breath of relief. “That is good to hear.”

  “Is it?”

  He scowled. “Of course.”

  “Did Lady Margaret really travel all the way to London to speak with you personally on my behalf?” Evie prompted affectionately.

  “And greatly discomforted she was too, having to travel by public coach because you had purloined the only carriage on the estate.” He levelled his narrowed gaze on the muddy carriage across the clearing from where they were both now tethered to the post in the ground.

  Evie glared her increasing dislike of this man. “Perhaps if you had not been so parsimonious regarding our comfort, we might have had two carriages at our disposal rather than one.”

  A nerve pulsed in Lincoln’s clenched cheeks. “The only thing I am guilty of neglecting to do in regard to yourself is the administration of the smacked arse you are obviously so sorely in need of!”

  Evie gasped, both at the intent and crudity of the statement. “You would not dare!”

  His moss-green eyes slowly turned in her direction, one arrogant brow arched.

  Evie forced herself to continue meeting that challenging gaze for several long seconds before turning away, unable to withstand that coldness for a moment longer.

  The silence that followed was no more comfortable, until Evie felt forced to break it. “How much longer before your men rescue us?”

  “My men…?”

  She turned to look at Lincoln. “The men you brought with you, but who are still hiding— No!” she gasped incredulously when a sudden thought occurred to her. “You cannot… Surely you did not… Is it possible you really are so arrogant that you believed you would be able to come here alone and affect my release?”

  “I had believed I would be dealing with reasonable men.”

  “They are desperate men!” she corrected heatedly. “Men who have been driven to this extreme behavior by your complete lack of understanding for their situation.”

  Evie scrambled to her feet. If she hadn’t, she might have resorted to physically striking the man who was now once again looking up at her with that eyebrow raised in haughty query.

  A disdain that succeeded in breaking the last of her calm. “I cannot believe you have dared to accuse me of behaving irresponsibly, when the fact you chose to come here alone is the height of stupidity!”

  “I suggest you choose your words carefully when speaking to me, young lady,” Lincoln bit out icily.

  “And I suggest you are nothing but a self-important nincompoop.” She began to pace up and down as far as the rope secured about her waist would allow. “Until today, you have shown a complete disinterest in affecting my quick release from these gentlemen. Now you have compounded that cold indifference by assuming you could come here and reason with the men who only kidnapped me because they have been displaced from their homes and separated from their families because of your greed and lack of a heart. Not that I should be in the least surprised by the latter,” she scoffed. “Considering the way you have ignored my existence all these years.”

  “And yet it is Lady Margaret’s belief you were on your way to see me in London when you were waylaid?” he drawled.

  She gave a disgusted shake of head. “That is because, at the time, I still believed there might be some redeeming factor to your nature to which I might appeal to put an end to my interminable boredom with Yorkshire. Obviously, I was wrong,” she dismissed scathingly.

  “I have warned you to have a care with what you say to me in future,” the duke bit out.

  She gave a dismissive snort. “And because you have warned me, I should instantly take heed of it?” She huffed. “You might be the haughty Duke of Lincoln, but you have not earned the right to expect either obedience or civility from me, and until you do, I shall continue to say and do exactly as I please.”

  His nostrils flared. “I do not advise it.”

  “Pfft to your advice.” Evie gave a dismissive snap of her fingers.

  His nostrils flared, and he didn’t speak for several long seconds. “I think you might at least allow me the dignity of untying my hands whilst you rain insults down upon my head?”

  Evie stopped feet away from him, her brow raised in expectation. “Please,” she finally supplied forcefully when the duke returned her stare blankly.

  He stiffened at the same time as he spoke through clenched teeth. “Please.”

  She stomped over to stand behind him and unfasten the rope about his wrists. “I should have known you would not have had the foresight to enlist the help of others in securing my release. Nincompoop is far too mild a description of your arrogant disdain for either the ability or feelings of others. You, sir, are a selfish, egotistical ass.”

  Evie, having unfastened the rope about Lincoln’s wrists before stepping out from behind him, found herself gasping in shock when she saw the knife in his hand as he proceeded to slice through the bonds about his ankles.

  “Where did that knife come from?” She sounded as perplexed as she felt.

  “It was hidden in the top of my boot.” Lincoln slid the weapon slickly back into its hiding place. “But I was unable to reach it with my hands tied behind my back.”

  Evie placed her hands upon her hips. “So you could have fought against being taken prisoner if you had wanted to?”

  “I could,” he confirmed. “I might even have taken one or two of these men down, possibly three. But the end result would have been my being taken prisoner anyway, but with the added resentment of the men for having harmed some of their colleagues.”