Taken by Storm by Danelle Harmon Page A

perfect, impeccable place and, dressed in his habitual black, he had never looked more sinister.
    “I suppose I should’ve known better than to expect so much from one who seeks to pay off the gambling debts he owes me by amassing even bigger ones.”
    Tristan sank a little lower in his chair, and only that fixed, one-eyed stare held him upright and kept his suddenly nerveless body from sliding right down beneath the table.
    “But I’d been so lucky at the card tables, I really didn’t think—”
    “No, you are far too young and stupid to think. Which is why you find yourself in this predicament, isn’t it, Tristan?”
    He was terrified; fear curled around his kidneys and squeezed his heart within his chest. “I’ll come up with the money I owe you, my lord, I swear it!”
    Clive leaned back in his chair, his face without compassion, pity, or soul. “Ah . . . and what brilliant plan have you now, my young friend?”
    “I’ll . . . I’ll ask my father for my inheritance.”
    The earl regarded him with bored impatience. “And what shall you tell him, Tristan, when he asks you for what purpose you need the funds? Hmm? I suppose you might just come right out and tell him you owe me some money . . . to the tune of twenty-one thousand pounds.”
    Tristan went white. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple cutting into his crisply starched necktie, the thick lump of fear catching in his throat and hanging there. He clasped his hands beneath the table and forced his breathing to remain steady. His creditor was playing with him like a cat with a mouse.
    “I suppose if you were a truly callous and enterprising young man, you could rather . . . shall I say, force your inheritance.”
    “You mean . . . k-kill my father?”
    Clive took out a cheroot, tapped it, lit it, and sat regarding Tristan through a lazy cloud of smoke. “Now, did I say that . . . Tristan?”
    He stared into that black eye, unable to speak.
    The earl smiled darkly. “Did I?”
    “No, sir, you did not. But—”
    “Come up with the money, Tristan.” Clive tapped the ashes from his cheroot with studied elegance. “You fancy yourself such an enterprising young man . . . I’m sure you can manufacture some clever scheme in which to do it.” He sat back in his chair, that one eye blacker than the devil’s soul. “Because you see, Tristan . . . if you do not come up with the money, I can promise you that this Season in which you’ve brought about your own ruin. . . .”
    The earl smiled, evilly, and the blood ran cold in his veins.
    . . . Will be your last.”
    # # #
    Will be your last . . . will be your last . . . will be your last . . .
    The words seemed to be in step with the mare’s steady trot, repeating themselves over and over and over in his mind.
    Will be your last . . . will be your last . . . will be your last . . .
    Two months ago that dreadful meeting had been, and even now the memory made Tristan’s mouth go dry with fright. With every mile the mare put behind her, with every person and beast they passed as he sought the Norfolk Road that would take him out of London and bring him home to Burnham— please God, let me get there before she does —he felt that fear returning, its black tentacles curling around his spine and squeezing the air from his lungs.
    For somewhere out there, was Clive . . .
    Waiting.
    Will be your last.
    It had been all too obvious that his creditor had something far more dark and ugly planned for him than mere debtor’s prison. And what good would his inheritance, vast as it was, do him? Five months shy of his twenty-first year, he was too young to claim it anyhow. His hands began to sweat on the reins. He should never have told his father about his predicament, should never have expected the old man to react in any way but how he had, should never have put it past Ariadne to steal the one and only means he had of saving his own life . . .
    And maybe her own as well.
    He gazed bleakly ahead through the mare’s