Free No Choice but Seduction by Johanna Lindsey Page A

case.’ She’s here.”
    “Who?”
    “Who do you think?”
    “Now don’t get testy,” Jeremy said. “I just told you she escaped.”
    “And I just described Judith to the innkeeper. He said she’s up here.”
    “Hell’s bells, the Scot lied?”
    “Why would he tell the truth?” Boyd countered.
    “Because my uncle was going to tear his limbs off.”
    “A much better reason to lie, if you ask me.”
    “Bloody hell.” But then Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute. Just because she was here doesn’t mean she still is. So this is where they were keeping her—and where she escaped from.”
    Boyd nodded, accepting that possibility. “Easy enough to confirm, since I was told which room she’s in. Come on, let’s see if anyone is still in it.”
    They stood outside the room. Boyd was about to try the door when they both heard from the other side of it, “I’m famished again.”
    Jeremy immediately yanked Boyd down the corridor. “Bloody hell,” he hissed. “That was my cousin’s voice.”
    “I heard,” Boyd replied, his pistol now in hand. “We do this with the least danger to Judy.”
    “Then put that away. You’re good with your fists. You don’t need to be brandishing a weapon that might get them firing some of their own.”
    Boyd agreed, “My thought was to frighten them enough to prevent any actions on their part, but you’re right. According to the innkeeper, it’s just two women with Judy, so a weapon shouldn’t be necessary.”
    “Cameron’s wife? It’s sounding like the Scot did lie after all.”
    “Either way, we just have two women to deal with at the moment, so here’s the plan,” Boyd said in a whisper. “I’ll kick the door in. You grab your cousin and take her to her father. Don’t stop for anything. There was a lot of money involved in this, so we don’t know how many thugs they might have hired to help and where they might be stationed around town. I’ll take care of whoever is left in the room and turn them over to the constable before I catch up with you.”
    “Shh,” Jeremy said as the door they were planning to break down started to open.
    They turned their backs on the door. As Boyd tried to appear inconspicuous by unlocking the door to his room, he heard a woman say, “I won’t be long fetching some food. Lock this door behind me.”
    A woman’s chuckle came from inside the room. “You worry too much, Grace.”
    The woman who was going to get food didn’t even glance down the corridor in their direction. She simply marched toward the stairs, then disappeared from view.
    “Now would be a good time to get Judy, while there’s one less person for me to deal with,” Boyd said.
    He didn’t have to kick the door in. They got to it before it was locked from the inside and burst into the room together. The element of surprise worked well.
    Jeremy went straight to his cousin. She started to say his name excitedly, but he put a hand over her mouth as he cautioned her to be silent, and within seconds he’d swept her up in his arms and was gone.
    Which left Boyd staring incredulously at the remaining occupant of the room. Likewise, she was staring back at him. The woman of his passionate dreams, supposedly a mother with children of her own—or other children she’d stolen?—had abducted Anthony Malory’s daughter. He grabbed her and, putting a hand over her mouth, pulled her out of there and into the room next door.

Chapter Ten

     
    N OT ONE WORD,” Boyd told the woman in his arms. “If I even hear you breathe, I’ll gag you.”
    He hadn’t removed his hand from her mouth yet! When he realized that, he knew he was in trouble. He ought to set her down and put some distance between them. His mind might clear then. It certainly wasn’t clear now. But he couldn’t bear to take his hands off her yet.
    Mrs. Tyler in the flesh, not a dream this time. Whether he was sleeping or awake, she’d filled his mind to the point of becoming a nuisance ever since