Only You: Duke of Rutland Series III Read online

  Praise for Elizabeth St. Michel

  The Winds of Fate Reviews:

  myBook.to/TheWindsofFate

  The Winds of Fate “…captivating romance that takes us to the world of seventeenth-century London…Sexual tension and legal and familial intrigue ensue with the reader cheering on the lovely pair.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  The Winds of Fate “has everything…full of passion, betrayal, mystery and all the good stuff readers love.”

  —ABNA Reviewer

  “Original…strong-willed heroine…I love all of it…the unlikely premise of a female member of the aristocracy visiting a man who is condemned to die and asking him to marry her.”

  —ABNA Reviewer

  Surrender the Wind Reviews:

  http://hyperurl.co/qnu96k

  Surrender the Wind “The lush descriptions of the southern countryside, the witty repartee between the characters, the factual descriptions of battles woven into the storylines, and the rich characters kept me glued to the pages.”

  —Alwyztrouble’s Romance Reviews

  Surrender the Wind received the “Crowned Heart” and National “RONE AWARD” finalist for excellence. “With twists and turns…and several related subplots woven in, no emotional stone is left unturned in this romance.”

  —InD’tale Magazine

  Only You

  Duke of Rutland Series III

  Only You

  by Elizabeth St. Michel

  Award winning author Elizabeth St. Michel masterfully creates a remarkable heroine, and an unforgettable passion, in this powerfully moving love story, Only You.

  The series centers on the Duke of Rutland, a widower, and his four strong-willed offspring. The Duke has formidable enemies determined to destroy his family.

  The third installment involves Nicholas, heir to the Duke of Rutland, kidnapped and imprisoned aboard a Portuguese slaver. Nicholas learns that his family members have been either captured or slain—but a mysterious woman allays his despair.

  Fellow prisoner, Alexandra has overheard that his family is safe. But can he believe her? She claims to be a woman of status, but as she cannot prove her story, Nicholas assumes she is a thief. They are in the same predicament, however, and he and Alexandra form a friendship.

  When a hurricane destroys the ship and Alexandra rescues Nicholas from certain death, he must discover the truth about her. They wash up on a deserted island, where her survival skills come to the fore. As an aristocrat, Nicholas feels unequipped to handle the situation, but he watches Alexandra with growing admiration—and hears her account of how she, the daughter of a baron, came to be so resourceful.

  Nicholas yearns to leave the island and seek revenge on his captors, yet he can no longer deny his growing passion for Alexandra. Of noble birth herself, she is an appropriate match for Nicholas. Yet Alexandra has more secrets—and one of them could doom their love.

  Only You

  Elizabeth St. Michel

  Only You by Elizabeth St. Michel. Copyright © 2017R. All rights presently reserved by the author. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Elizabeth St. Michel.

  ISBN: 099748246X

  ISBN: 9780997482461

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017917475

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  For J.

  You make me smile.

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Two

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Atlantic Ocean 1777

  Nicholas Rutland, heir apparent of the fourth Duke of Rutland shook his head to erase a thick fog that crowded his brain. Where was he? He eased his aching body into a seated position where rough wood, greased with muck, slicked his fingers.

  He groaned, the same sludge saturated his backside. If only the damn swaying would stop. Doused with water, he sputtered and choked. He squinted at the bright sun coming through the grate above. A man pressed his pock-marked face against rusty iron, his ferret-like eyes, dancing with gleeful malevolence, the obvious sponsor of the bucket of water thrown on him.

  “His Lordship’s awake, Capitan,” Pockmark said, sneering at Nicholas. “How’s that knock on your head?”

  Nicholas raised an unsteady hand, sweated with the effort. His fingers touched a lump at the back of his head. White starbursts of light popped. His arm went limp and dropped against the wall of his prison. A five-by-six cube, he guessed. Barely enough room for a man to lie down. “Why don’t you come down here and we’ll find out?”

  “Got some fight in you, eh? You’re shaking. Wet your breeches?” Pockmark laughed.

  Nicholas clenched his hands, his blood rushing with the urge to slam his fist into the man’s pitted face.

  “Move aside, Damiano.” Overhead, sails snapped and shadowed a groomed man of forty. “Move aside, Damiano,” the man repeated, his high thin voice squealed in heavily accented English. Not Dutch like the droll Van Dyke beard he bore. Spanish?

  “Welcome aboard the Santanas, Lord Rutland. I am Capitan Diogo.”

  Nicolas’s gaze clouded as he fumbled with memories. Who was Capitan Diogo? And why was he imprisoned? “I am at a loss for I do not know you. Perhaps you can enlighten me.”

  “Who I am does not matter other than I have been well-compensated for your voyage.” The captain looked down his nose and sniffed.

  Kidnapped. Shadows clawed his mind, churning and rising. His sister, Abby’s betrothal party at his ancestral home at Belvoir Castle. He had been summoned by his father to attend an important meeting. A shockwave hit him and he’d been thrown to the ground in front of his brother’s laboratory. Fire. Heat had singed his face. Crushing pain in the back of his skull.

  “My father will pay for my return,” he rasped.

  “Your father is dead,” Captain Diogo said matter of fact.

  “Dead?” Nicolas swallowed the nausea that rolled through his stomach. Not true.

  “Everyone dies…a bitter unchangeable law of life.” Diogo shrugged, his eyes dull. “The Senor who paid me gave instructions to inform you that your father, Duke Richard Rutland, and your brother, Anthony, were lured t
o the laboratory and killed in an explosion. Your sister, Abigail has been put on a ship to suffer your same fate.”

  Bile clawed in his throat. Dead? Killed? No. It can’t be. Except his shackles said otherwise. His soul splintered like shards of glass. “Why?”

  “You do not think the Rutland’s would have enemies?”

  Nicholas glared. “Return me at once. I’ll pay you twice as much.”

  Capitan Diogo stroked his beard. “I think not. The risk of entering the Thames again is troublesome. I’ll make additional profit from Brazilian slavers for a buck like you.”

  Not a chance in hell was he going to be anyone’s slave. “I demand to know who paid you.”

  Captain Diogo laughed. “You are not in a situation to demand anything, Lord Rutland. Enjoy our hospitality, I will see you again.”

  “I’ll see you in hell,” Nicholas called after the lowlife scum, then rolled over and heaved his insides. He wiped his mouth on his jacket, then sat huddled, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees for warmth.

  His father? Anthony? Dead? No. Poor Abby. How vulnerable she was. He scrubbed his face with his hands remembering the terrible fight he’d had with his father in the library during the ball about changes he wanted to make to the estate…and his father’s stubborn refusal.

  Hot blood rushed through his veins. He stabbed stiff fingers through his matted hair. The years he’d spent adhering to his father’s obsolete, fruitless policies. All the arguments, the harsh words. For naught. His chest seized. Oh, God. Tears welled. If only he could take it all back.

  But he couldn’t. Words once said can never be taken back. He straightened, sucking in a deep breath. He swore Captain Diogo and the crew of the Santanas to perdition.

  The sail high atop cracked and flapped violently. If his Maker delivered him from this hell, he would find whomever had done this to his family. He would make them pay. He would make them all pay. Nicholas slammed his fist into the wall.

  “Hold my hand.”

  Nicholas jerked his head back, stared at a filthy hand stuck through an apple-sized hole in the wall in front of his chest. A woman?

  “Please hold my hand.”

  Her small voice broke. Well-shaped fingers, filthy yet unlike the ill-bred inhabitants of St. Giles with their twisted, claw-like talons. A lady’s hand? He accepted what was offered.

  “I heard the captain’s orders to stop dosing you with laudanum yesterday. The nausea, sweating, headaches and fatigue will wear off.”

  Laudanum. Of course. He’d deduced as much. How else would they have managed to imprison him without his knowledge.

  Warmed by her touch and soft voice, he gently closed his fingers around her trembling hand.

  “You fought like a bull every time you woke. They were afraid you would hurt yourself and deprive them of their profit. They kept you drugged.”

  “More likely, I would hurt them.” He snorted. “You are a prisoner?”

  “We are the only two prisoners aboard. The scoundrels on the dock in London who paid Captain Diogo made sure there were no witnesses to our abduction and that we’d never reach the coasts of England again.”

  “Who are you and why have you earned this voyage?”

  “I was caught in Baron Sutherland’s home.”

  He had heard of Baron Sutherland. A good friend of his now dead father. “You are a thief.” He withdrew his hand, but she held fast.

  “I am not a thief.”

  “If you say so.”

  “If I told you the truth would you believe me?”

  “A thief? Plying your trade, not only stealing everything that is nailed down but the nails as well.”

  He heard her intake of breath like the indrawn wind that filled the long sweeps, tilting the ship to a sharp angle.

  He had difficulties with thieves, had come to blows with a horde who had invaded the Rutland townhouse. He would not forget that night when they were bent on killing him, and neither would the thieves he had dispatched one by one.

  Yet the woman didn’t have to tell him she was caught in the Baron’s home. She could’ve made up a story. He was kidnapped and he didn’t do anything. What if she wasn’t a thief? But what other reasonable explanation was there?

  He kicked a chamber pot and it clanged in the corner.

  “Think what you wish. You may be a murderer for all I know, but since we’re in this together, I’ll allow your illusions,” she said.

  “My illusions? Am I to take that from someone whose tools may be deception and misdirection?”

  The iron framework of the hatch that sealed them was divided, half in his four-walled cell and half in hers. Her arm filled the tiny hole, barring a glimpse of her. How old was his traveling companion? Young? No. A safe bet, she existed as a hoary bent crone predisposed to a life of crime. Yet her voice possessed a musical quality and intimated something sacred and pure in her humanity—like his sister’s.

  Abby. How was she faring? Gently reared, she would not survive the rigors at sea under ruthless men. He didn’t want to think of the horrors she’d encounter. Gloom darkened his cell. He had quarreled with his sister, had caught her in a grievous lie.

  She had faked an engagement to her best friend, Sir Humphrey until she decided what she wanted to do with her life. Nicholas had ordered her to marry Humphrey and live with the consequences. To marry a man she did not love.

  A vein throbbed in his jaw. Like Nicholas, forced by his iron-handed father to marry a woman he had no feelings for to fulfill his duty. To accept the responsibility that came with being a Rutland.

  “How long have we been sailing?” Nicholas shook his head, the effect of the drug, tunneling his vision and pounding his head.

  “I tugged out a loose nail in the floor and scratched twenty-seven marks on the wall, four weeks into the Atlantic, and too far to swim back to London.”

  His chin sunk into his chest. He would not last long enslaved in Brazil. Whomever was his enemy wanted a slow death. A fitting end for killing a man in self-defense? He stared at her hand. Her fate was worse than his. He could imagine what evil men did to a female slave.

  Sailors yelled orders to each other high in the shrouds. He heard a bucket of water sloshed onto the deck and the swish of a mop.

  “They are lying,” she whispered.

  “Go on.”

  She gripped his hand, apparently afraid he’d let go. To assure her, he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, smeared the dirt.

  “I didn’t know until Captain Diogo conveyed his message to you now from the man who had you kidnapped. On the docks in England, you were lying down and bound behind me. The laudanum given me had worn off. I feigned sleep. Your sister must have been kept in the room next to ours for they referred to her as Lady Abigail. They took her and another man, embarking on a ship before us.”

  “Outside our building, a very angry gentleman shouted at Captain Diogo, demanding he disappear to Brazil at once. The gentleman complained about a delay and said they left the laboratory too soon. Could he have been talking about your father and your brother? Do you think they left before the explosion and that’s why the gentleman hastened your departure?”

  The ship tilted again and latticed sunlight from above chased away the shadows of his cell. His blood rushed. He tightened his grip on her hand. “The gentleman, was he in charge? Did you get a look at him? Are you sure of what you heard?”

  “You’ll have to take the word of a thief.” She withdrew her hand.

  He deserved her scorn. Strange as it was, he missed the human contact of her hand, missed her warmth.

  “I did not see the gentleman and he was definitely giving the commands.”

  Nicholas swallowed, his throat dry as sand. “Lady Abigail is my sister. At her betrothal ball, I called her out on her sham engagement. I argued her case with my father as well as my own complaints. He wouldn’t listen, intolerant of any breach to his authority. I went to the stables to cool my temper and was intercepted by a servant with a m
essage to meet my father in my brother’s laboratory. How strange when I had left him seconds before.”

  “Do you think your disagreement delayed your father and saved his life?”

  The woman had given him possibilities—had given him hope. He owed her a debt of gratitude. By God, if I ever get free of this hellhole, I’ll go back home and do whatever my father demands.

  He heard voices above. The hatch above was thrown open. “Dinner time.” Damiano lowered a bucket to the woman on the other side of the wall. “I should come down and help you eat? Eh, senhorita?”

  Like his sister, Abby, his fellow prisoner was a woman without protection. “Leave her alone, swine.”

  “Insolent dog. You will be sent deep inside the jungles of Brasilia where you will die toiling in the hot tropical sun. Impossible to escape.” Damiano hurled the contents of a bucket on Nicholas and slammed the grate. “Eat like a swine, your lordship. There won’t be any more until tomorrow.”

  Nick wiped cold suet and watery rice off his shoulder. He doubted if any of it was edible. A rat scurried over his boot intent on the garbage. Nicholas kicked the offending rodent.

  “I fear Damiano,” the woman said. “He is worse than the captain,” said his fellow prisoner.

  Nicholas grunted and peered through the hole, but the fading gray light, filtering from above kept his traveling companion obscure.

  She shoved her fist through the opening, unfolded a hand of food. “Eat. Keep up your strength. To escape.”

  “In the middle of the Atlantic?” He scoffed. Ridiculous. But she was right about needing strength…for whenever the time came. He took the proffered food, and then eating, he sank into a sea of silence.

  The words, degrading and dehumanizing, were something he preferred not to think about, reminding him of the filthy wretch he’d become. His clothes were torn by his captors.

  He wrinkled his nose at a stink that rivaled the worst of London’s sewers. The lack of water to wash and several weeks’ growth of beard was far from the cleanliness to which he was accustomed. His valet would have an opinion.

  To escape, she’d said. Pretty transparent, it was…trying to jerk him from sinking into despondency. She did not know despair had no chance with him.