“See what?”
His mouth clamped shut and he stared at her, silent.
“See what, Randolph? What?”
“It was hard, Bridget. I don’t think you appreciate that.” His brown eyes narrowed at her, accusing. “It was all I could do to get Bournestein to agree to it.”
“Agree to what?”
“He wanted to put you in his whorehouse on Wild Street. Drown you so full of laudanum that you would go quietly. Stay quietly. He wanted me to do it.”
The blood drained from her face, her head going light, spinning. “But…but you stopped him? You stopped him, didn’t you?”
“I did. And you will be grateful for that.” A smile carved onto his face, almost as if she had just complimented him on his cunning. “Bournestein gave you to me. He has a house for me. As long as I keep you. As long as you don’t try and escape, he will let you live in my house. I will have to lock you up for a time, until you accept it. That I have already determined.”
She curled back on the bed, disgust firing through her veins. “As long as I am captive?”
“Alive. That is how I think of it. I am saving you, Bridget.”
“So now you work for Bournestein?” Her words screeched. “Is that what you’ve sunk to?”
His lips fell back into a terse line. “I am finally getting what I want in life, so no, I do not think of it as sinking.”
“But, but Hunter—”
Randolph jumped forward, the back of his boney hand swinging fast, slapping her across the face. She fell back onto the bed and in the next instant his hands went down to either side of her on the bed. He hovered over her, his mottled face raging. “Don’t ever—ever say his name again, Bridget. I got rid of him once. I can do it again.”
He shoved himself off the bed, stepping back, his right hand going to smooth the hair at his brow.
Her head bobbed as she tried to right herself, reeling in both pain and the sheer disgust at the person Randolph had turned into.
Then a deeper realization took a hold of her body, sending a tremble into every one of her muscles. Her eyes slowly lifted to him. “You lied to me years ago, didn’t you? You were the one—the one that told me Hunter was gone. Abandoned me. No one else. Just you. I thought everyone at the hospital was being kind, not mentioning his disappearance. But he didn’t abandon me. It was you.”
Randolph didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The twitch in his left eye told her everything she needed to know.
She leapt as hard as she could with her tied wrists, screaming from the bed, her right leg swinging wide at him. Her boot caught him in the gut before her bound arms yanked her to a cruel stop and she dropped to the floor, dangling from the post. Randolph went tumbling to his knees, catching himself on the floor.
For a moment, fire flashed in his eyes and he looked like he was going to charge on her.
She was ready.
She was half splayed on the floor, hanging from the post, but she was ready. She was ready to claw, kick, bite—do anything to escape. Anything. Anything to put him down.
Put the weasel down. If she could do that, show him as the utter weakling he was, then Bournestein himself would put Randolph out of his pathetic existence.
She twisted her hands, her heels digging into the floor to brace herself.
He didn’t attack. Instead, Randolph’s thin fingers splayed long onto the floor and he pushed himself up to find his feet. Silent, he turned from her, walking to the door. He paused at the entrance, not looking back at her. “It was me, Bridget. He gave me the note to give to you at the hospital in Spain, and I destroyed it the second he left the hospital grounds.” He looked back at her. “It was easy to remove him from your world years ago—almost as easy as it was not but an hour ago when I told him you died in the fire at Cranesbill. It collapsed nicely, by the by. A smoldering pile of ash by the time he arrived.”
She gasped, the punch to her belly as brutal as if he had just kicked her.
He exhaled a snort. “Exactly his reaction when I told him you were dead. So you needn’t concern yourself with him ever again, Bridget. We are moving you to my new house in an hour. Calm yourself. Bournestein’s men do not look kindly upon insolent women.”
{ Chapter 12 • To Capture a Warrior }
Hunter stood outside the Joker’s Roost, looking up at the decayed brick facade, the interior aflame with cutthroat debauchery and excess. His eyes flickered down from Bournestein’s main den of gaming and whoring to the man standing at his left. “I wouldn’t choose to ask this of you, Lipinstein.”
“But you are.” Logan’s eyes didn’t leave the building, his look centered on the windows that lined the fourth level.
“I am. You know Bournestein better than anyone, Logan. And I have no other way.”
“She is worth this?” Logan’s look remained locked on the building.
“She is worth everything.”
Logan gave one nod and started forth.
After a discreet inquiry with the barkeep, the two men were soon being led up to the second level of the building—what had at one time, been a grand mansion, now neglected into crumbling rot.
That Hunter had been forced to go to Logan was evidence of just how very desperate he was. For all Logan had given him throughout the years—for all the bottles of brandy Logan had yanked him from the bottom of—Hunter didn’t want to have to request this of Logan. He knew he was pushing Logan to his limit by asking him to set foot in the Joker’s Roost.
But yet there Logan was, helping Hunter to the end. Good man.
The brute leading them up the stairs opened a door at the end of a long hallway and Hunter and Logan stepped into the room.
His customary purple and orange overcoat draped from the back of his chair, Bournestein sat behind a wide desk, stacks of dull sixpences and papers littered about the surface. He stared at a sheet of paper in his hand, not looking up at their entrance. The door closed and three guards moved into position behind them, a wall blocking them from the door.
It didn’t bother Hunter. He had sized up each of the guards as they had passed them. Logan and he could take them down.
For a long minute, Bournestein’s head stayed tilted downward, his focus on the paper and ink before him as he made a show of refusing to be interrupted.
Hunter looked at Logan. Logan just gave a slight shake of his head.
Hunter was left to mimic Logan’s casual stance, staring at the greasy strings of hair swept back across Bournestein’s balding head. For long seconds, he debated about stepping forth to bang the man’s head into the desk. But that would leave Logan to handle the three guards. And no clues as to where Bridget was. A plan. But not a good one. Do as Logan instructed. That was the one condition Logan had demanded for helping him. And if Logan wanted him as docile as a hummingbird at the moment, he would be a damn hummingbird.
So Hunter channeled all his rage down into his arms, into his fingers that were curled into his palm, cutting his own skin, all while holding a placid look firmly on his face.
With a heaving sigh, Bournestein flipped the paper in his hand onto the desk and looked up at his guests. His beady eyes set on Logan. “This is far less force ye bring before me than the last time, boy.” His look shifted to Hunter. “And ye, I thought I recognized ye. Childhood friend me arse—ye be one of his men. I should have known.”
Hunter nodded. There was no use denying it at this point. He had been in the Joker’s Roost before, helping Logan and one of the other Revelry’s Tempest guards to extract his wife from a precarious situation at Bournestein’s private gaming table.
“Then you are already aware we are here for Mrs. Morton,” Logan said, his deep voice even.
Bournestein flipped his meaty fingers in the air. “Bah—ye don’t want the trouble of that lyin’ bitch.”
She was alive.
Hunter’s nostrils flared, the breath of air he sucked in filling his chest, his heart speeding. Bridget was alive. He had known it. N
ow they just had to find her.
“On the contrary, we do want her. And if trouble comes with her, we accept it.” Logan’s voice went hard, commanding, just as Hunter had known him to be during the war.
Bournestein chuckled, leaning back in his chair as he flicked his fingers in the air. “I don’t have her, boy, so ye can save yer outrage. She gone too far with her makin’ me look a fool, and she gets what she gets.”
Logan took a step forward. “You burned down a damn hospital, Bournestein. You think that not too far?”
“I don’t think it far enough, boy.” His fist slammed down on the desk and sent papers scattering from piles. “I would have seen that bitch inside as it burned.” He looked at Hunter, his lip curling in a sneer. “As it be, I already be regrettin’ my decision.”
“Bournestein—” Hunter’s voice thundered into the room.
Logan’s hand whipped out, palm flat against Hunter’s chest to force back against the fury-filled step he took toward Bournestein.
Bournestein pointed at Hunter. “Keep yer man in check, boy, or we be done here.”
Logan didn’t look at Hunter, just kept his glare locked onto Bournestein. It was foolish to look away from a snake. It was foolish to play with a snake.
Neither of those things mattered to Hunter. Not when Bridget was at stake.
“Where is she, Bournestein?” Hunter leaned forward, testing Logan’s hold against his chest. Still too solid.
Bournestein ignored Hunter, his beady eyes fixing on Logan. “Ye ready to deal, boy?”
Deal?
Hunter looked to Logan.
Whatever motion Logan just made, Hunter missed it, for in the next instant, Bournestein stood from his chair and set his fists on the desk, leaning forward. He lifted one hand, motioning to his men in front of the door. “Leave us.”
The three guards silently filed out of the room.
Logan’s words came instantly after the door closed. “Burning hospitals, Bournestein? Your empire is crumbling if you’ve sunk to that.”
Bournestein’s fist slammed into the desk as mottled red splotches filled the wide empty swath of his forehead. “Like hell it is, boy.”
Logan dropped his hold on Hunter’s chest and took another step toward the desk. “How long do you think it will be before those under you turn on you? You just took away one of the few people—Mrs. Morton—that could care for their families—did care for their families. You think you are the keeper of this burrow. But you are nothing if you are not providing. You think you have a hold on this devils’ den, but you have nothing. An illusion. There will always be a man with a handy blade willing to sink it into your chest to take over your position.”
Bournestein’s voice went deadly, his eyebrows drawing to a tight line across his face. “Ye be thinking that be you, boy?”
“Not today.” Logan shook his head. “Today I just want Mrs. Morton.”
“She ain’t no missus. A liar. That’s what that girl be.”
Logan inclined his head. “Nevertheless, we would like to know where she is.”
“Then I’d be givin’ up one of me own.” His look flickered to Hunter for one long second before settling back upon Logan. “So what will make it worth that?”
Logan paused, drawing a long breath as he folded his arms and settled them across his chest. “The package you wanted delivered.”
Bournestein stood straight, his meaty hands unclenching and then clenching again before dropping back onto the desk. For long moment, his beady eyes scrutinized Logan. “Yes?”
“I’ll do it,” Logan said.
Hunter looked to Logan. He had no idea what package needed to be delivered, or where to, but he knew from Logan’s face that whatever he had just agreed to, it skirted far outside the man’s morals. Far, far outside his morals.
Bournestein nodded, a snake smile stretching wide on his face. “I did not think you would break, boy.”
“Provided you will not interfere in Mrs. Morton’s life again. If she chooses to open another hospital in the area, you will give her and her staff a wide berth. Give the patients a wide berth. Can you swear that?”
Bournestein’s left hand lifted, rubbing the top of his rotund belly as his head bobbed, nodding to himself. “You’ll deliver it tomorrow?”
Logan inclined his head. “Tomorrow.”
“Then we have a deal.” There wasn’t the slightest question on Bournestein’s face that Logan would deliver whatever it was he just promised.
Hunter just hoped that whatever needed delivering, more innocent people wouldn’t fall victim to Bournestein’s machinations.
~~~
Her eyes popped open to a commotion from below.
Even though it was deep into the night, Bridget hadn’t been sleeping—she couldn’t. Not with her wrists still bound together, raw and bleeding. Not with the plotting she needed to do. Plotting how to get out of the room in Randolph’s new house.
Her head turned on the bed, her ears straining.
Thunking. A door crashing into a wall. Yelling. Fast thuds on stairs, rushing upward.
So fast, Bridget barely had time to sit up on the bed and swing her feet to the floor before the room’s door flew open. Randolph had locked the door from the outside after depositing her into it, and she had fruitlessly wedged a chair under the doorknob as security—a chair now clattering to the floor with the force.
Randolph ran into the room, tripping over a chair leg as he reached back to slam the door closed. He stumbled, feet tangled in the chair, regaining his balance only a step before reaching her.
She yanked her feet off the floor, scrambling backward on the bed just as he reached her.
A flash of silver swished in front of her eyes and he grabbed her upper arm, yanking her from the bed with power she wouldn’t have believed his thin arms possessed.
Her feet landed on the wooden floorboards and he spun her, twisting her so she was clamped—arms and torso—to the front of his body.
It hit her neck in a cold, brutal line. So odd, so unexpected, she couldn’t believe what it was.
A blade. The cold line of a dagger, pressing against the vein in her neck.
The whole of it such a fast blur she had no time to react, no time to fight.
Just freeze.
Just hold as still as possible against the steel that dug into her skin.
“Ran—”
“Shut your mouth.” The blade breached the outer layer of her skin with his whispered words.
She pulled back, digging herself into his body, away from the stinging blade as much as she could.
Then she heard it. Not clunking footsteps. Not running.
Quiet boots on the floor outside the room. Smooth. Even. Determined. Two sets of footsteps.
Randolph started to shuffle his feet away from the door, pulling her backward to the far side of the room.
Whoever it was in the hallway, Randolph was afraid of them. Bournestein? One of Bournestein’s men—one of the three that had brought her here with her hands bound and a rag stuffed in her mouth? The brute that had tossed her over his shoulder when she had fought, knocking the wind out of her, and then trudged her up to this room and heaved her in?
She ran through her initial inspection of the room in her mind as her gaze flew about, trying to recall anything she had seen that could be used as a weapon. She had found nothing sharp enough to cut through the thick rope that still bound her hands together. The closest thing had been the edge of the dresser, and though she’d spent an hour rubbing the rope against that edge, it hadn’t even snapped through one cord of the rope.
Her frantic look landed on the lit sconce next to the door. The glass—if she could break it without sending the oil everywhere and starting a fire, at least she would have a sharp shard. A shard—the window—that would have been perfect to break.
Damn. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She would have been able to at least cut through the rope at her wrists.
T
he sound of footsteps outside the door stopped. Gone?
A blast of wood splintered, flying in at them as a boot kicked the door open and answered the unspoken question.
Randolph reeled back further, dragging her with him as his voice pitched high. “Stop. Stay away or I slit her throat.”
The flurry of the two men rushing into the room stopped instantly. Both men stilled, staring at Bridget.
The air left her chest in a gust.
Hunter.
Hunter here. Here for her. He had found her.
Her hands lifted, her bound wrists stretching out to him. “Hunter.”
Randolph jerked her backward, her feet flying out from under her as the blade sank deeper into her neck.
Hunter’s hands lifted, palms up. The man next to him mimicked his posture. She looked hard at him—the man she had talked to at the gaming house. Hunter had said his name was Logan.
Both of them looked calm. Looked like they weren’t facing a madman digging a knife into her neck.
A cordial smile layered onto Hunter’s calm facade. “Randolph, you don’t need to do this.”
Hunter’s voice was the epitome of calm detachment. But Bridget could see it in his dark eyes. Panic. Panic mixing with fury that was straining for the moment it could release.
“Don’t tell me what I should do.” Spit from Randolph’s mouth landed on Bridget’s cheek with his screeched words. “I know what I need to do and if you take another step I will slit her throat.”
“Rando—”
“Say another word I’ll slit her throat.”
Hunter’s mouth slammed shut.
“You two, back up.” Randolph’s arm clamped hard around her chest. “Back yourselves out of this room. Out of this house. Now, before I have to hurt her.”
Randolph’s feet continued the retreat, three steps back and he was at the far wall in front of the window. His arm locked around her chest eased away from her body for a moment, but to compensate he angled the knife long against her neck, the tip of it pressing into the fleshy skin just below her jawline.
Logan’s Legends: A Revelry's Tempest Regency Romance Box Set Page 20