Captive Surrender by Rebecca King Page A

she turned around and caught sight of the surf
snatching at the handsome stranger’s legs.
    “ We can’t
leave him on the beach until morning, he could die,” Eloisa gasped,
as she hurried down to the man she had hit with the wood. She hated
the thought of him being anywhere near the house, but they simply
couldn’t leave an injured man to fend for himself, especially when
it was her who had caused the man’s problems.
    “ We cannot
take him to the house,” Georgiana protested. “He is one of Levant’s
men. If he catches sight of Mama, he will know for certain what is
wrong with her. What then? Levant will never let it rest until one
of us is married to him and he has rendered us homeless.” The panic
in her voice echoed the fear in her eyes.
    “ We just have
to keep him until we know he is safe and well, and then we can get
Rufus to escort him home. After all, he is on our beach, in the
dark, with a dead man. I think he has some explaining to do, don’t
you? You are right, we shouldn’t take him to the house, but we
cannot leave him here, and there really is nowhere else we can put
him. We cannot go to fetch Rufus at this time of night. Even if he
is at home, there is little he could do to help right now. We have
to get out of this rain,” Prudence gasped as the heavens suddenly
opened and pelted them with a relentless deluge that soaked them
all to the skin in record time.
    “ We have to
take him inside and find out if he is going to last until morning,”
Robbie declared with a little too much glee.
    “ He is
bleeding,” Eloisa gasped. “What if he dies?” Her thoughts turned to
Rufus. He was a magistrate and would have to arrest her if she had
killed a man, even one of Levant’s men.
    “ Let’s get
him to the spare room. We can then take a proper look at his head
and see how bad his injuries are. If he dies, we will just have to
deal with it.” Prudence hated to sound so harsh but she couldn’t
see what else they could do. If the man did pass away, and she
hated the thought that he would on a much more feminine than
vengeful level, then they would have to decide what to do to ensure
that neither she, nor Eloisa, went to prison for murder.
    As with Mr Simpson, they
each took a limb and began to half-drag, half-carry the handsome
stranger up the beach toward the house. They heaved and shoved,
pushed and slid, until they struggled to move him another
inch.
    “ We aren’t
going to make it,” Madeline gasped as she wiped rain water out of
her eyes.
    “ We have to,”
Prudence shouted. “We cannot leave him here.” Over the last few
minutes a strong wind had accompanied the heavy rainfall until even
breathing became extremely difficult. With renewed determination,
and desperate to get out of the weather, they staggered with their
heavy burden toward the house.
    By the time they reached
the top of the cliff path, the place where the man had fallen had
been swallowed by the sea completely. Prudence flicked one last
glance at Mr Simpson’s body and sent a silent prayer for
forgiveness. It seemed an unnecessarily harsh thing to do to leave
him on the beach, but they couldn’t manage to drag two bodies up
the cliff path; they were exhausted enough as it was.
    They eventually reached
the bottom of the stairs in the house, soaked to the skin and
gasping for breath. Robbie collapsed onto his knees in the middle
of the floor and began to cry while Eloisa leaned against the wall
and dripped water steadily onto the tiled floor. Upstairs, their
mother could be heard wailing and bashing at the door with almost
fervent determination.
    “ Go and see
what she wants,” Eloisa ordered Georgiana quietly. “We will deal
with him.”
    “ How do we
get him up there?” Madeline nodded toward the stairs. “I don’t
think I can pull him another inch, let alone all the way up the
flight of stairs.”
    “ Well, we
cannot leave him here, now can we?” Prudence snapped.
    Rage suddenly flowed
through her veins like