When she woke up, Penelope found herself in a simple cottage with a fire merrily crackling away behind the grille.
She sat up to discover that she was in a bed.
Panicking, she looked around the room for clues as to where she might be, but learned nothing new of her predicament.
As she swung her legs over the bed's edge, ready to flee for the second time in the same night, the cottage's door opened.
The marauder that had taken her occupied the door's frame, and Penelope instinctively retreated back into the corner, not unlike a wounded prey.
The man frowned and put down the firewood he was holding before approaching her.
"My lady," he said, and stopped just as he reached the bed's edge.
Penelope said nothing, but stared at him.
"Please accept my apologies for carrying you here. Things would have been much worse if we had been caught by that guard," he explained.
Although the words were polite, his tone was sullen.
But now in better light conditions, Penelope was mildly distracted by his deep-set eyes and sensual lips, which were, admittedly, pressed into a stubborn line at the moment.
But she still didn't know who he was. Judging by his mannerism, though, it dawned on Penelope that he was no marauder.
"Who-"
Before she could finish her question, the man said, "I'm Damien. The new gardener's son. We live on your estate, as Lord Payne has generously allowed."
His lowered his eyes at the last part.
A slight pause hung in the air before Damien continued, "You can sleep on the bed tonight, although it ill befits you. It is too dark to make your way back to the manor now."
As Penelope stood up to protest, Damien turned away abruptly.
That was rude, and she wanted to tell him as much, until she realised that her torn gown, exacerbated by her movement, had exposed the gentle curve of her breast.
Mortified, she sat back down again, drawing the covers around her without another word.
Damien, still not looking at her, settled into the armchair in the opposite corner of the house, and turned his attention to the fire.
It was this way that the remaining hours passed, and Pamela finally fell into a fitful sleep close to dawn.