Ariela Harrington knows her brilliant father Cadmion
couldn't have committed suicide in the icy waters of Loch Ness. So, being an
independent young Victorian lady of some means, Ari and her servant Sophy
proceed to Scotland to discover the truth, laughing when her guardian expressly
forbids it.
EXCERPT: A Doleful Kind of Singing
It was dark when she awoke, and her aching body was racked with
uncontrollable shivers. She tried to open her eyes, but something pressed
against the tender lids, imprisoning them in a heavy softness, like a ton of
feathers.
She opened her mouth to ask what was happening, where she was, why it
was so cold.
Only a soft, strangled grunt issued from her mouth, barely loud enough
to hear herself. Like her eyes, her tongue was a prisoner, crushed against her
teeth by some thick, greasy mass tasting like death. Bile rose in her throat,
threatening to choke her, but she fought it down with a mighty effort.
She twisted her head to one side, trying to spit out the horrible
substance before it could sicken her further, but it filled her entire mouth
and, tongue immobile, she couldn't force it out. She reached a hand up to
remove the nasty thing.
Another shock reverberated through her, sending a fresh surge of pain
through her throbbing head. She lay still for a moment, waiting for the pain to
die down while she examined this new discovery.
She could not move her arms. Twisting her head—thank God she could move
something, she thought, or she
would have gone mad—she tried to turn over, to sit up, but her legs refused to
obey her command, even as her arms had done. Both legs and arms felt so cold
and far away, crisscrossed with narrow bands of sharp, icy pain.
Blindfolded, she realized. Gagged.
Trussed like a rabbit. Her arms
and legs were confined, preventing any movement.
Preventing her escape.
In all her life, she had never felt so helpless, so dizzy, so sick...so
frightened. Nothing of her body, save her head, none of her senses, save for
taste and smell and hearing, appeared to belong to her pain-racked body at all.
Taste and smell and hearing. Well then, she would use what senses she
could until she found out where she was. She sniffed the air blowing across her
face, blessing it for its movement even as she tried to distinguish its
components.
Smoke, acrid and bitter. Not the usual comforting odors of burning oak
or alder, or the comforting reek of coal. No, this was a smell she could not
identify. It called out to something deep inside her, something ancient and
wild, so invasive it seemed to be a part of each individual cell of her being.
Ridiculous, she chided herself as she twisted her head again. It was just a
particularly nasty smell of something burning. She tried to concentrate around
the pounding within her.
Ah, she heard the crackling and popping of a nearby fire. Something
burning, that was all. The rest, those other strange thoughts of an ancient
wildness, were just images in her newly awakened mind still confused and
drugged with dreams.
Drugged.
The last cup of tea…the one she had hoped would calm her nerves when
she had been so anxious to be away, to be searching for what she was convinced
was the answer to her quest. She had sipped the tea to be polite, to please her
host who had been so kind to her. The taste of the strange brew had been
pleasant, almost seductive, soothing her jangled nerves and calming her racing
mind.
But then, she remembered, just after she had set down the empty cup,
the tingling had begun in her hands and feet, a tingling that had heralded the
beginning of the series of dreams...
A dream of being scooped up by rough hands and carried for an
incredible distance, her vision dim, her hearing muffled. Of crossing water
with the rhythmic splash of oars, the occasional muffled curse from a harsh
voice, droplets of cold water splashing onto her burning face. A dream of being
tossed onto an uncomfortable bed full of rocks, prickling twigs, and gritty
sand.
Then nothingness as she fell into a great, black, soundless pit.
Until now when a faint semblance of consciousness had returned to her
battered and tethered body.
She tried again to speak. Another muffled croak, barely audible over
the crackling of the fire, was all she heard. She prodded the obstruction in
her mouth with her captured tongue and the foulness nearly choked her. She
fought not to swallow, not to allow the horrible, seeping bitterness to enter
her. An intense fear rose in her, threatened to send her reeling back into the
darkness of unconsciousness as she fought for a breath.
Air. She needed air. She
lashed her head from side to side, the fear of choking, of suffocation,
threatening to overwhelm her.
A rough hand seized her chin, yanked the stifling mass from her mouth.
"Now be still," a voice—surely she knew that voice?—hissed in
her ear, "or I'll ram it down your throat."
As the sweet air rushed down to her straining lungs, she thought how
wonderful it tasted, how delightful it was to breathe in the air wafting over
her; indeed, merely to breathe at all. For a time, she did nothing but suck in
the glorious, smoke-tinged currents.
But as her fear of smothering dissipated a fraction, the wondering
returned in full force.
Where am I?
Who brought me here?
Why have I been tied?
ALSO BY K.G. MCABEE
Miss
Patricia Mayfair is a wealthy, orphaned Regency bluestocking. While in London
for the Season, Miss Mayfair spends more time buying books than ribbons, to the despair of her more conventional
friend. Begrudgingly attending a dinner party, Miss Mayfair meets Lord Andrew
Aragon, who fancies himself tired of London and the ton and never expects to fall instantly head-over-heels. But Lord
Andrew is a notorious gambler, and Miss Mayfair has vowed she will never marry
a man who indulges in such a vice. Can the leopard change his spots or the rake
his habits?
