Read Beyond Seduction for Free Online Page A

of it, the leader needed his shoes picked, but that was nothing the Beckett's groom couldn't handle when they got home.
     
    Shrugging off the concern, she followed the long brick wall to the servant's sidegate.
     
    The man must have been waiting in the shadows. She neither saw nor heard him when he grabbed her from behind, hooking her neck and waist to drag her forcibly off the footpath.
     
    A second of frozen shock delayed her scream. That was enough for the man to get his palm across her mouth. She struggled then, violently, but her strength was no match for his. He cursed under his breath when she kicked his shin, but other than that he did not speak.
     
    He seemed quite focused on what he meant to do.
     
    Whatever that was, it involved pulling her around the corner toward the street. He must have a vehicle here, she thought, or perhaps he intended to knock her out and stuff her in a cab. She'd look like a drunken maid out with her gent. No one would give them a second glance, especially here, where the houses were spread out and set back on their grounds.
     
    Her heart hammered in her chest, her mind racing, her nose filled with the stench of tobacco and rank male sweat. She flailed for a hitching ring in the wall, but the man didn't give her a chance to grab it.
    Then she spied the golden circle of a streetlamp up ahead. If she screamed there and struggled very
    hard, someone would have to look out and see.
     
    At least, she prayed they would. Oh, if only she'd left right away, or had the carriage wait somewhere else. She didn't know what this man wanted but she could guess. And maybe what he wanted was
    worse than what she guessed.
     
    She could die tonight.
     
    Sickness rose in her belly. She had to swallow to keep it down. His silence, his intentness was unnerving. She would have felt better if he'd threatened her, but the only noise he made was the heavy soughing of his breath.
     
    She tried kicking him again but her legs were tangled in her skirts.
     
    Bloody things, she thought. Bloody, bloody stupid things.
     
    He had her off her feet now. Her heels didn't even drag. The hand he'd clamped around her waist was making it hard to breathe. Or maybe the effect was simply fear. She felt like a doll as he carried her,
    not a person at all. But she couldn't think about that now. Not about slit throats and bloody knives.
    They had almost reached the lamppost. She had to take her chance.
     
    She pretended to sag in her captor's arms, then bucked wildly as they hit the edge of misty light.
     
    She managed a shriek, short and high, before the man slammed her scarf-wrapped skull against the
    brick. The cheap wool was no shield. Spots bloomed before her eyes, but she knew she could not
    afford to swoon. Frantically, she blinked her vision clear.
     
    Then she saw it, a second figure running toward them down the street, a man in an Inverness coat. He shouted as he ran: "Hey! Hey there!"
     
    The man who held her shoved her aside. He turned to escape but the second man grabbed him. They scuffled with their coats flapping—her captor's short, her rescuer's long. Their arms grappled for
    purchase like wrestlers at a fair. With a boarlike grunt, her attacker smashed his forehead into Long Coat's. Long Coat let go and drove his fist into the other's belly.
     
    The uppercut was a prize winner. Merry could hear the oof from where she huddled against the wall.
    Her attacker dropped to his knees, gasping, then scrambled to his feet and ran away. The gaslight caught a slice of his face, coarse and unfamiliar. Then he disappeared into the murky night.
     
    The whole fight hadn't lasted more than a minute.
     
    "You all right, miss?" asked a kind, breathless voice.
     
    Merry forced her chin away from the spot where it was tucked into her chest. The voice belonged to Long Coat, her rescuer. She was shaking too much to answer, almost too much to nod.
     
    How odd that was: now that she was safe she could not move.
     
    "I'm