The Earl of Morrey

by Lauren Smith

  Never in his life had he felt more the fool. He was so far north in Scotland, he had dared to relax his guard. He’d assumed they would be safe this close to Tyburn’s land, and he’d left his pistol in their coach. All he had was a small, flat blade tucked in his boot, too far out of reach.

  “No sudden moves, eh?” the man warned.

  Adam stared at him, not saying a word. The man he’d hit slowly came around as two more men entered the room. None of them held Letty captive, however, so he could only pray that she’d escaped. He studied the men, assessing whether he might be able to take them all on at the right time. They weren’t hired men from rookeries, not entirely. Those men usually tended to be unshaven, gruff, and the smell that came off them would be enough to subdue a man on its own. These men were clean shaven, decently dressed, and were certainly doing well enough in their current line of work to look as they did. That meant whoever they worked for was successful too.

  “The woman escaped. Jordan and Derek are searching the stables. She can’t have gotten far.”

  The face of the man who spoke was familiar, but it took Adam a moment to recognize him. With his tall build, light-brown hair, square jaw, and deep-set eyes . . .

  “I remember you,” he told the man. “Carlton House. Dressed as a footman. Whose lapdog are you?”

  The man’s black eyes hardened. He flexed his hands menacingly. “Take him to the stables and string him up.”

  Adam decided to see what sort of men he was dealing with. “You would dare do that to me? I am a peer of the realm, the Earl of Morrey.”

  The fauxfootman looked aghast. “My humble apologies, sir. String him up politely, lads.”None of the men seemed intimidated, so they all knew what kind of business they found themselves in, which didn’t bode well for Adam.

  Two of the men grabbed Adam by the arms and hauled him through the back door of the inn and out into the night. Luck had abandoned him. If he had been taken through the main taproom, he could have called for those loyal to Tyburn to come to his aid.

  Another man rushed out of the barn. “Gent, the woman rode out on a horse a few minutes ago. Sayer and Marley went after her.”

  “Good, they’ll catch her,” Gent said.

  Adam burned Gent’s face into his memory. Though he was clearly in charge, he worked for another. Adam was left with little time to puzzle out who, however, as he was shoved against one of the wooden posts inside the barn, his coat and shirt ripped from him so he was bare from the chest up. His hands were bound, and the rope was tossed over a beam above his head and pulled tight, stretching him up until he was forced to stand on the tip of his toes. Pain lanced down his body, but he held his scream deep inside.

  One of the men pulled a coiled whip off a nail on a nearby post, and Adam closed his eyes. This wasn’t going to be easy. But he would hold his tongue for king, country, and most importantly, Letty.

  “I don’t expect you to tell me where she went,” Gent said with a casual menace. “You’ll need some convincing first.” Gent nodded at the man behind Adam who held the whip.

  “Five lashes to start,” he ordered.

  Adam allowed his body to relax, knowing that any tension in his muscles would only add to the pain. It didn’t make the moment any less brutal when he heard the whip whistle through the air a split second before it struck his back. He hissed and arched in pain, waiting for the next strike. The blows seemed to last forever. When the man finally stopped, Adam’s mind had grown foggy with pain.

  “Now—I think you are ready for some questions.” Gent grabbed Adam’s head by his hair and jerked his face up from where he’d let it drop against the beam to rest.

  Adam blinked, trying to master the pain radiating through him.

  “Where’s the woman?” Gent asked.

  Letty’s face appeared so clearly in his mind that it shocked him back into a stronger mental state. He would not yield, not if her life depended on him.

  “We won’t leave much of a corpse behind for anyone to find if you don’t talk, and we’ll still get the information we want. Now where’s the woman?”

  Adam blinked again. Pain radiated from his back in heavy waves. They would probably flay him open by the end. But he tried not to think about that; he forced his mind onto Letty. She must be on Tyburn’s land by now, if she had stayed near the road. He prayed she was safe. So long as the men who’d gone after her didn’t return triumphant, he could hold out hope.

  “I do like it when someone makes it hard to get what I want.” Gent’s cold smile made Adam’s stomach turn. “Another five lashes.Pain is a special friend of mine.” The whip cracked even before Gent finished speaking.

  Adam shouted with each blow. The men took turns whipping him, but Gent’s frustration was beginning to mount. Adam could see him pacing the length of the barn, growling at his men to strike harder, before finally, annoyed, he called a halt to the lashing. Gent produced a knife and made sure that Adam saw it.

  “I warned you.” It was all he said before he started carving small lines in Adam’s back. Adam hadn’t been ready for that. He cried out at the pain. At some point, a flask was pressed to his lips. He tried to turn his head away.

  “It’s brandy. Drink,” Gent commanded. “Drink, or it goes on your back.”

  Brandy. God, I could use that. He drank deeply until the flask was pulled away.

  Adam had always been strong, even as a boy, but this was a hell unlike anything he’d experienced before. It was even harder not to think, to blink past the stinging sweat that poured into his eyes. He sagged in his bonds as time seemed to speed away, leaving him in a hellish purgatory as he languished against the post.

  Suddenly, a sweet voice intruded upon his listless, drifting thoughts.

  “My love . . .” The sweet voice spoke in his ear. “You’re safe now.”

  “Letty,” he breathed, hope fluttering weakly. “How . . . ?”

  “I created a distraction, let loose their horses. I snuck into the barn to save you. It’s all right now. Tell me where we can go to be safe,” she pleaded.

  His words slurred, and he tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. “Not . . . here. Can’t . . .” Why couldn’t he open his eyes?

  “Where can we go to be safe? I can’t go on without you. They’ll be back any minute. Tell me where I should go.”

  “Letty . . .”

  “Yes?”

  He saw her face in his mind, and then he heard his words. “You swore to me that you would do as I said when it matters.” Why didshe come back? “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “But I don’t know where to go. Tell me where I should go. Tell me.” There was an edge to Letty’s voice now. Something felt off.

  He struggled to open his eyes again. His lashes fluttered, and he saw the face close to his was not his wife’s, but a different young woman. The maid who had been serving drinks at the inn. Fire surged through his veins, and his muscles fluttered. Fear and rage rose within him, tempered only by the drug-addled confusion from the brandy. This wasn’t Letty. He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t say a word.

  “Ask him again.” Gent’s voice cut through Adam’s still-scattered thoughts. The girl caressed Adam’s cheek.

  “Please, husband, tell me where to go so I can be safe—”

  “Gent, this isn’t working,” someone snapped.

  The maid was shoved away. “Take the lass back inside and see that she doesn’t tell anyone about this.”

  Gent loomed large before Adam. Adam stared back at him, quivering with pain and rage as Gent assessed him. Gent finally shrugged and looked at the other men nearby awaiting orders.

  “We don’t need him anyway. He’s only a guardian. We’ll find the woman’s location some other way. Take him into the woods and finish him.”

  The rope around Adam’s wrists was loosened, and he collapsed, his knees hitting the hay-strewn floor of the stables. Hands jerked him up and dragged him out into the chilly night. The cold Scottish breeze drifted into his face
, making him more alert than he had been before. Soon he was released, his body hitting the ground.

  “He’ll be eaten by scavengers before anyone finds him,” one of the men carrying him said with a dark chuckle.

  “Still, take no chances. Cut his throat.”

  A foot pressed down on Adam’s back, digging into his wounds. He cried out as the pain finally overtook him, only to hear the sound of an ancient Highland war cry, far enough away that it was perhaps more wind and imagination than reality.

  She found him. Tyburn.Adam let go, knowing that Letty must be safe. She had a fire that burned in her, and if he believed in nothing else, he believed in that, believed in her.

  Letty followed the three Highlanders, who wore hooded cloaks as brown as the trees around them. Tyburn had shoved one of the cloaks in her arms when she’d dismounted.

  “Use this as a shield. Curl up and cover yer body with it if someone comes. The men will not see ye. It is one of our Highland tricks, ye ken.”

  She had thrown the cloak about her shoulders and slunk behind them as they headed toward the barn. Angus held her back as the barn door opened. The four of them remained hidden at the edge of the woods to watch. Two men dragged a limp body between them into the forest.

  She gasped and covered her mouth as she realized it was Adam.

  Tyburn growled softly, the sound covered by the breeze.

  “Dinna worry, lass,” Baird said. “We will slay them to the last.”

  She didn’t care about that. She cared only about her husband.

  “Lass, doona be hasty now. Wait for my signal.” Tyburn slunk off into the woods away from them.

  “Stay here, milady. No matter what,” Angus said as he vanished in the opposite direction.

  Letty held her breath as she watched the two men drop Adam onto the ground. He did not move until one man put his foot on his back, and then her husband howled. She jerked, instincts demanding she run to him, that she attack the men who were hurting him, but she couldn’t. Tyburn knew this land, and she had to trust him.

  One of the men near Adam, the one who held him pinned to the ground, lifted his head, a knife laid against his throat. The sparse moonlight glimmered off the blade.

  A sharp cry echoed across the forest, an eerie sound, like an ancient, angry wood spirit who’d been summoned into a flesh-and-blood creature. The cry came now from all around, and the sound turned darker and deeper, into a warlike bellow. That was when the three Highlanders attacked.

  She would never forget that sight, their tall, ghostlike forms flying out of the shadows, converging on the two men. Swords sang and blades flashed in the moonlight as they cut through flesh and bone. It was over as quickly as it had begun.

  Letty ran to Adam, gasping as she saw the deep marks on his back, the flayed flesh. She feared even touching him, lest she add to his pain.

  “Laddie, can ye stand?” Tyburn demanded of Adam.

  “Uncle,” Adam moaned.

  “Aye, lad.” Uncle Tyburn’s voice softened. “Ye canna move, can ye?”

  “I can,” Adam said, but even Letty knew that was a lie.

  “Angus, Baird, find those bastards in the barn.”

  The two brothers vanished into the night. A minute later there were screams, but theywere soon silenced before Angus and Baird returned.

  “Go tell Aberforth at the inn that we need a wagon and hay.”

  Baird nodded and rushed off toward the Crown and Thistle.

  “Who is Aberforth?” Letty asked Tyburn.

  “The innkeeper is a friend. He owes me, given what happened to Adam under his roof.” Tyburn looked toward Angus. “Help me with him.”

  Adam cried out as he was lifted up, and Letty couldn’t help but cry as she followed. She felt helpless, useless . . . and Adam was in pain, possibly dying. She couldn’t let herself think that.

  Baird met them outside the barn, a wagon waiting for them. Tyburn and Angus laid Adam facedown in the straw to spare his flayed back. Letty climbed in beside him and clasped one of his hands.

  “Adam.Oh, Adam.” She placed her hand upon his hair, careful not to touch him anyplace that might hurt. He was unconscious again, but he let out a small sigh.

  “Ye ready, lass?” Tyburn asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Hold on. We stop for nothing.”

  Tyburn mounted the front of the wagon and slapped the reins over the backs of the two cart horses. Letty lay down in the hay alongside Adam, holding his hand and praying to any god who might listen to save him.

  14

  It was close to dawn by the time Adam was carried into Tyburn’s home. Letty’s entire body ached as she stayed crouched in the hay next to her husband. Baird rode for the doctor, leaving Tyburn and Angus to take Adam to a bedchamber on the ground floor.

  Letty watched helplessly as the two Scotsmen laid Adam on his stomach and had a servant bring hot water and clean clothes. If only she could take away his pain, make him hearty and whole again.

  “Please, let me do something,” she begged Tyburn. She sat on the bed as a footman set the clothes and water on a nearby table.

  “Aye, lass, if ye can stomach it, we need to clean the wounds so the doctor may see what must be done.” Tyburn’s voice was soft, a little hoarse, and his gaze was a blend of stoicism and pity—whether the latter was for her or for Adam she wasn’t certain.

  “I can handle it.” Letty bit her lip and dipped a cloth into the water, then began to dab at the drying blood on Adam’s back. She’d never seen wounds like these before. The way he’d been hurt . . . cut open . . .

  “What did they do to him?” she asked.

  “I canna say for sure, but these look like lashes from a whip.” He pointed toward the lighter wounds. “And this . . . a knife, maybe?” A dark cloud of rage filled his face as he looked to Letty. “I would kill those men again if I could.”

  Letty gazed at Adam’s face, pale and worn-looking. Thankfully, he remained unconscious through what she was doing. “I’m glad they’re dead. God forgive me, but I’m glad.” She continued to clean Adam’s back. She worked in silence for a long moment, feeling the weight of the older Scotsman’s gaze upon her as she worked. But she couldn’t stop her actions. If she did, she might break apart.

  “Milady, I think it’s time you told me everything,” Tyburn said.

  Letty stared at her husband a long moment before she let out a sigh. She told Adam’s uncle as much as she could, but she didn’t share the extent of Adam’s activities, only that he worked for the government in secret. Even so, she felt she was being too free with her husband’s secret life; she wanted now more than ever to protect him, though it seemed it may be too late.

  “I ken his secrets, lass. Ye doona have to worry about me, Angus, and Baird.”

  “This is all my fault, my lord.”

  Tyburn put a hand over hers, squeezing it gently. “It isn’t. And ye are family, lass. Call me Uncle or Tyburn.”

  Letty sniffed. It had been a long time since she had felt safe, at least since her life had been turned upside down. Even with Adam injured, she believed that Tyburn could protect them both from anything.

  The doctor soon arrived, and Letty waited, heart in her throat, as the old man muttered a number of choice curses while examining his patient.

  “The wounds arna deep. If he can survive the next week without his body becoming inflamed, ye mayna lose him.”

  Letty crumpled into the chair beside Adam’s bed, the fire gone out of her. Tyburn quietly escorted the doctor out to give her some time alone.

  She stroked Adam’s dark hair back from his face, her hand shaking. Whispering soft, silly things to him, she prayed he could hear her, that her words would reach him wherever he was. It stunned her that this dark, brooding stranger had become her world in such a short period of time. There was no denying it—she’d fallen in love with this man who spoke poetry late at night and carried deep secrets and heartache, yet made love to her with full, wild abandon
and held her afterward as though she were the most precious thing he’d ever possessed. She couldn’t lose him now. She couldn’t.

  “Adam, remember your vow,” she whispered over and over until she lost her voice and succumbed to exhaustion.

  Adam dwelled in a twilight world that seemed half fantastical and half memory. He chased the phantoms of his younger self and Caroline through the years of their childhood up until the time that he’d attended university. The world around him flowed like fresh watercolors as he saw himself joining the Wicked Earls’ Club after his father had passed. He relived nights spent at gaming tables, laughing with friends and taking women to bed . . . and meeting John Wilhelm.

  John entered Adam’s dream world, his body almost glowing as he played his part in the charade surrounding him. Only now, Adam saw John in a way he never had before. John’s once bright eyes had become weary, and Adam now clearly saw the sorrow in him that before he had missed.John stood on that fateful bridge over the river.

  “We failed them,” he said.

  “Failed who?” Adam asked. Any moment now, he knew John would be attacked and fall into the depths of the water below.

  “A government that destroys the voice of its people is no government at all. It is tyranny.”

  It was an argument they had had before. The watercolor world faded, and he was now inside one of the lounges of their gentlemen’s club, Berkley’s. John cursed and tossed his newspaper on the table between his chair and Adam’s.

  “What is it?” Adam retrieved the paper and glanced at the article on the main page.Adam recognized the names of the men.

  “More sedition discovered. Traitors to be hung in four days.”