Even if it would never be regained, he was still Gavin Winter, curse it, and he was a damned fine fighter. Following the pitched battle with the guard, Demon, Blade, and Devil had found him. Indeed, all had been well until his brothers had swooped in and plied him with drink. He should have known the three of them were not to be trusted.
He recalled Blade pouring more arrack into his glass, and he recalled precious little after that.
Suddenly, the door to the drawing room opened, and an elegant blonde crossed the threshold with haste, closing the door at her back.
Understanding dawned.
He had been spirited away by his own bloody sister.
“Gen,” he growled, struggling furiously at the bonds holding him to the chair. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Protecting you, brother, just as you once protected me,” she said simply. “I won’t be responsible for you cocking up your toes. Bad enough it almost happened once.”
Damn her. He should have known. Gen was fearless, stubborn, and did whatever she pleased, including marrying a marquess and starting the first gaming hell of its kind, for ladies only. She was also protective to her marrow.
“I don’t need your protection, and you’re a fine lady now. Kidnapping gents in the East End ought to be the business of murderers and thieves.”
“In this instance, it’s the business of a sister who loves her brother and is determined to see that he does not do something incredibly foolish, like fight a beast of a man when you haven’t yet regained the strength in your wounded arm.”
Her voice was calm. As if she had not seen him tied to a chair.
He rocked on the chair, and the thing tipped from side to side. “Untie me and let me go, Gen.”
“No.”
“Damn it, Gen,” he growled, furiously tugging at his bonds and making the chair dance a frantic jig. “This is madness.”
But his sister remained unmoved. “If you keep carrying on, you’ll upend the chair and hurt yourself, Gav. I’d settle myself if I were you.”
“How long do you intend to keep me here?” he demanded, fearing he already knew the answer.
“Until you get some sense in your napper or until the appointed time for the fight passes, or until we can see Jeremiah Jones gets the punishment he deserves, whichever comes first.”
“I need to piss. This mad scheme of yours won’t work.”
That much was true. Had his sister never risen to the regret of a night ill-spent? Mouth that tasted as if he’d been licking an attic stair and an urgent desire to find a chamber pot. Sometimes for more than one reason.
His sister grimaced. He could tell she had not thought that far.
“I’ll not be helping you with that,” she said, “but I suppose one of the footmen might.”
Good Christ. Gen was a Bedlamite.
“Bloody hell, Gen. You’ve brought me to your townhome? What the devil were you thinking?” he asked, for he knew quite well all the efforts she had undertaken to make herself more suitable in the eyes of society and her husband’s judgmental aristocratic family. Her father-in-law the duke would be livid should word of this become fodder for gossip.
She blinked. “I was thinking that my brother is being a complete arsehole, and he needs rescuing from himself. That’s what I was thinking. Jeremiah Jones tried to have you killed, and he almost had Demon murdered instead. Now you’ve gone about announcing you are back from the dead and ready to face Jones in your fight, undoing all the good work our family has done in keeping you a secret.”
His siblings all thought they knew better than he. Had it never occurred to any of them that he knew what he was doing? That he understood and accepted the risks he was taking? That they were necessary?
“Your husband can’t know you’ve done this.”
“Max? Of course he does.” She smiled. “Abducting you was his idea, in fact. Well, his and Dom’s. The two of them happened upon the notion simultaneously, and it is the only way to keep you from doing anything else that is reckless or stupid.”
Gavin rolled his eyes heavenward. “Lord, I’m begging you. Have I not been punished enough in this life? Did you need to surround me with madmen and madwomen, too?”
She kicked him in the shins with her slipper-shod foot, a gesture that was at odds with the genteel ladylike vision she presented—a pale-ivory muslin gown to her favored breeches, her hair styled in elegant perfection, jewels at her throat.
“Whilst you’ve got the Lord’s ear, mayhap you should ask him why you’re being such an idiot,” Gen told him.
“I’m being an idiot? You’re the one who had your own brother get soused and then had him tied to a goddamn drawing room chair.”
Her brows rose. “Oh, Gav. I’d not be using the Lord’s name in vain if I were you. You were just having a dialogue with him. And who says I’m the one who had you get soused? I did not join you and our other brothers last night.”
“But if you know of it, and if I woke to find myself tied to one of your damned drawing room chairs, then you are indeed a part of this nonsensical plan.”
When he managed to find his way out of this bloody drawing room, he was going to box his sister’s ears. Or insist she name her firstborn son after him. Now that he thought upon it, the latter held some merit. Fancy that, a future duke named after an East End bastard prizefighter.
“How is keeping you from getting yourself killed a nonsensical plan?” she asked calmly.
“You should trust me to take action on my own instead of abducting me and hiding me in a drawing room. From the moment I returned to the bloody family flock and learned the truth of what had happened, I have been thinking of nothing other than what I can do to end this before anyone else is hurt.”
That was not entirely true. He had also been thinking of Caro.
Endlessly.
But he was not about to admit that to his sister now.
Gen frowned at him. “Your solution is to dangle yourself as a lure to that murderous bastard?”
“If Jones wants me dead, let him have a chance at it,” he said calmly. “Far better me than anyone else.”
“No.” Gen shook her head vehemently. “We are not allowing you to put yourself in danger again.”
“Who the devil is we?” he demanded.
“Your family who loves you,” was her stubborn reply.
“Gen, you’ve got to let me go,” he said, trying for reason.
“No, I do not. We have all decided this is the best course. You will remain here until you are no longer a threat to yourself.”
“Tied to a bleeding chair?” he shouted. “Genevieve Winter, I demand you cease this nonsense!”
“I am no longer Genevieve Winter,” she reminded him calmly, “and I am not going to listen to you, either. We almost lost you once, Gav, and we’re not about to lose you again.”
With that pronouncement, Gen turned on her heel and began making her exit, enough airs on display to rival a queen. She stopped at the threshold, glancing back at him. “I’ll send a footman along soon.”
Damn it to hell.
“I’m not going to piss in a chamber pot with the help of one of your servants, Gen.”
She ignored him and slipped from the room.
“Gen!” he hollered after her. “Gen, curse your hide, come back here!”
But his cries went unheeded.
If he wanted to get himself out of this latest scrape, he was going to have to bloody well take action.
Gavin had been tied to the damned chair for what seemed like an eternity.
He had struggled against his binding, but that had only served to make the knots tighter. A footman had come to aid him in relieving himself and he had chased the man away. He would wait until his damned teeth were floating in his head, and he vowed it.
His siblings had apparently decided once more that they knew what was best for him. While he could not deny the plan he had set into motion regarding Jeremiah Jones was treacherous, it was t
he only way he could protect his family and liberate himself from the cloud of impending doom which seemed to be looming over his head. They had to understand that there was no way any of them would be safe until he and Jeremiah Jones had their reckoning.
Suddenly, the drawing room door opened, jolting Gavin from his thoughts. He could not have been more shocked if the devil himself had crossed the threshold.
And indeed, mayhap he had.
Jasper Sutton strode into the room, wearing his perpetual scowl. Gen was at his heels, her husband Sundenbury at her side. Neither of them appeared impressed by their guest. Gavin could not blame them—despite Sutton’s keeping him a secret to prolong the truce with his family, being lied to and imprisoned for weeks had not left him inclined to like the villain.
“Sutton,” Gavin greeted, unable to keep from needling him. “If they’ve sent you here to help me take a piss while I’m tied to the chair, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
He was being crude in front of his sister and his brother-in-law, but damn it, Gavin was in desperate circumstances at the moment. As evidenced by his current position.
“The only thing I’ll be helping you with is getting into a grave if something happens to my sister because of your sorry arse,” Sutton growled.
His gut clenched, fear spiking through him. “Caro?”
“Aye.” Sutton sneered. “Though you ain’t fit to speak her name.”
“Mr. Sutton,” Sundenbury said, sounding very much like the aristocrat he was, “I’ll thank you to keep your tone civil before my wife and brother-in-law.”
“The brother-in-law you’ve lashed to the chair?” Sutton eyed the marquess, his brows raised. “Don’t act the fucking angels with me, the two of you.”
“I may be a marchioness, but that does not mean I can’t plant you a facer,” Gen cautioned.
Gavin had no doubt she would do it, too. He had taught her how to punch.
But none of this squabbling was getting to the heart of the matter, and Gavin’s own heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a merciless, invisible fist. “Stubble it, the lot of you. Sutton, what is happening with Caro? Is she in danger?”
Sutton’s expression was rigid, but there was a hint of fear hiding beneath his composure, and that was what made Gavin’s inner worry heighten to a frenzy. “Of course she’s in danger, you coxcomb. She’s been taken by Jeremiah Jones.”
His gut curdled. “What do you mean she’s been taken?”
“She went looking for the bastard last night,” Sutton elaborated. “Apparently, she was trying to pay him not to face you in the match. She took one of my guards with her but entered the Beggar’s Purse alone, and that bastard seized her and left through the rear. By the time my man went checking on her, the pair were long gone. I received a note from Jones this morning, telling me I need to give him one hundred guineas or Mr. Gavin Winter himself if I want to get Caro back. Since you’re the reason she’s been spirited away by that—”
“Yes,” Gavin interrupted, not wanting to waste another moment on useless speech. “I’ll go with you. Gen, untie me.”
“Gav,” she said softly, her face contorted with worry, “you can’t face Jones alone.”
“He won’t be alone. I’ll be with him,” Sutton said, nodding at him in what Gavin suspected was the closest show of approval the man would offer.
“There is no time to waste,” Gavin urged. “Caro could be in terrible danger, and she needs us.”
And right then and there, it hit him with stunning, unalterable clarity: he needed her, too. God, how he needed her. In the face of losing her, all his anger and outrage fell away. He needed to be where she was, to face Jeremiah Jones, to end this battle, and to make Caro his, just as she had been meant to be all along.
Gen sighed. “Are you certain this is what you must do, Gav?”
He met his sister’s gaze, unflinching. “I love her, Gen. I’d do anything to protect her.”
“Fine way you have of showing it,” Sutton snarled.
And Gavin could not blame him. When Caro had come to him the day before, if he had not been so bloody set upon clinging to his anger, if he had just forgiven her, she would not have gone looking for Jones. She had done so in an effort to protect him. Because she loved him.
And now, he was going to fight for her, damn it.
“Cut the ropes, Gen,” he said.
She nodded, her eyes glistening. “Come back to me, brother.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised as Sundenbury set about cutting his bindings.
In truth, all he cared about was saving Caro.
To the devil with himself.
Chapter 14
Going to Jeremiah Jones had proven a dreadful, terrible mistake. Caro acknowledged it to herself as she stood, bound and miserable, in the corner of the shabby rooms where he had taken her the night before. Their meeting in the private rooms of the Beggar’s Purse had quickly proven disastrous, and largely because she had forgotten the cardinal Sutton rule.
She had been unarmed. The endless span of hours she’d been forced to spend alone, wondering what would befall her, had turned into an equally endless round of self-chastisement. One which continued now, as the morning waned into afternoon and she remained tied and alone, cold, tired, and hungry.
Stupid, stupid Caro. You reckless, witless fool.
She’d gone in search of Jeremiah Jones without preparation and without proper thought, so desperate had she been to keep Gavin from fighting the man. She’d had no knife, no pistol hidden in her reticule, nothing but Randall awaiting her outside. And even that attempt at protecting herself had proven fruitless when Jones had extracted a small, lethal-looking pistol from his coat and ordered her to leave the tavern through a rear entrance.
She’d had no other choice, she reminded herself.
But that did not mean she had not spent the sleepless night berating herself for what she had done. She had gone to Jeremiah Jones thinking the money she had to offer would have been sufficient lure to keep him from facing Gavin in the match. But a swift change had overtaken him during her explanation. Sensing the danger in the air, she’d begun creeping steadily toward the door. That had been when Jones had withdrawn his pistol and told her he had a different idea in mind for her.
You just may be useful to me, Miss Caroline Sutton, he’d said, before telling her he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her if she cried out for help or tried to run. He’d forced her into a hack, and she’d spent their trip to his dingy rooms frantically plotting a means of escape. But Jones had been a step ahead. He’d made certain to threaten the hackney driver and a young child and his mother they passed on the street. Rather than take the risk he would attempt to hurt another or her, Caro had gone.
When they were within his rooms, she had frantically seized upon a pitcher, attempting to strike him with it. But Jones had been faster. He’d knocked the pitcher from her hand, sending it to the floor where it smashed into hundreds of jagged porcelain shards. And then he had slapped her with biting force.
The blow had been enough to make dark stars speckle her vision and to stun her sufficiently that he’d had her wrists bound with a soiled neckcloth before she could so much as fight him off. She’d been no match for Jones’ intimidating size and beast-like strength.
But the mystery of what he intended to do with her, and why, remained. It had been looming in all the hours since his disappearance. The more time that passed, the more heightened her worry became. She had been pacing the chamber for what must have been hours as daylight grew increasingly brighter through the lone window. Her search of the room had yielded nothing thus far that would enable her to cut herself free of the binding.
But surely, surely, there must be something, somewhere. A weapon. Something sharp…
That was when she noticed it, a jagged shard of white porcelain peeking from beneath the bed. Jones had swept up the broken pitcher before leaving, but apparently, he had missed a piece.
With a
cry of sheer relief, she fell to her knees on the stained carpets and seized the broken piece of crockery. Holding it carefully between her wrists, she began sawing at the neckcloth. Her fingers, cramping from the tightness of her bonds, made her drop the shard to the floor. Taking a deep, calming breath, she picked it back up and began again.
Her heart was pounding, her hands trembling. In the hall beyond the door, she heard voices and footsteps and she tried to work faster, praying it was not him, and that she would have enough time to free herself and escape before Jones returned.
But just as she was beginning to make progress, her tormentor appeared on the threshold, a pistol once more pointed directly at her heart. The shard of porcelain fell from her fingers in defeat. She did her best to hide it with her gown, to feign nonchalance so that he would not notice she had been trying to escape her binding.
“Time to come with me, Caroline Sutton,” he drawled. “I’m taking you to your brother, and after that I’ll be taking Gavin Winter to Rothisbone.”
Cold, hard dread filled her stomach.
Gavin was doing his damnedest to remain calm, but it certainly wasn’t easy. He was out of his mind with worry for Caro, and he was scared as hell that Jones had harmed her or worse. If he had, nothing and no one would stop Gavin from beating the bastard to death.
“Calm yourself, Winter,” Jasper Sutton told him. “You’re going to wear a goddamn hole in my carpets and I’ve just had them replaced.”
He stalked the length of Sutton’s office and pinned Caro’s brother with a glare. Sutton had arranged for the meeting with Jeremiah Jones to occur at The Sinner’s Palace. Neutral territory. In true Winter fashion, Gavin’s siblings had not been content to keep their beaks out of the situation.
They’d initially demanded Jones come to The Devil’s Spawn until Sutton had correctly pointed out such a meeting place would only serve to make Jones suspicious. As it was, Sutton had replied to Jones’ note confirming he now had Gavin Winter in his custody at The Sinner’s Palace and he was ready to make a trade. If their plan of battle was to work, they needed Jones to believe Sutton was willing to surrender Gavin in exchange for Caro’s safe return.
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