by Amanda Quick
Prudence tried three different positions before she finally rolled onto her back and used her feet to guide the pot.
“I feel like a worm.” She inched the pot along the cold stone floor.
The process seemed to take forever. She was perspiring in spite of the terrible chill. She heard her delicate silk skirts shredding against the stone.
“A little closer, Prue,” Sebastian said softly. “You’re almost here.”
She wriggled forward and pushed the pot ahead a few more inches.
“I have it,” Sebastian said with soft triumph. He caught the chamber pot with the toe of his boot and dragged it closer.
Prudence sat up and watched as Sebastian stood on the overturned pot. She squinted, trying to see what he was doing.
“That’s it, love,” Sebastian crooned softly. “Give me what I want. Open for me, sweet. Let me inside. All the way inside.” There was a small snick of sound. “Yes. Ah, yes. Beautiful.”
“Did you get it open?” Prudence asked.
“One of them. One more to go.”
The second lock went much faster. Sebastian was free a moment later.
He stepped down from the pot and went to work on the ropes that bound Prudence’s hands and feet. She realized she could feel nothing at all in her upper arms.
Then the feeling began to come back.
Prudence bit back a scream as a painful tingling sensation swept through her arms. She stuffed a handful of the cloak into her mouth and bit down hard.
“Christ. I should have realized.” Sebastian began to rub her arms swiftly. “Hold on, Prue. You’ll be all right in a minute. Can you feel my hands?”
She nodded, not yet daring to spit the fabric out of her mouth. She was still hovering on the edge of a scream.
“Good.” Sebastian sounded relieved. “That means they didn’t bind you too tightly. You’ll be fine.”
Prudence was not so certain of that. But after a short while she was no longer afraid she would cry out if she moved her arms. She let Sebastian pull her to her feet.
“My God,” she whispered.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Sebastian said. “We can’t wait any longer.”
“I know.” Prudence took a deep breath. She looked down at the broken lens of her glass dangling on the end of the fashionable velvet ribbon. It was useless. Her tiny beaded reticule was still attached to her wrist, however. She opened it and discovered her spectacles safe inside. The wire frames were bent, but the glass was undamaged. She pushed them quickly into place on her nose.
“I’m ready,” she announced.
“You are an amazing female, my dear.” Sebastian grabbed her hand and hauled her toward the door.
Prudence heard the footsteps in the hall at the same instant that Sebastian heard them.
“Hell and damnation.” He stopped. “Is nothing going to go right tonight?”
Prudence felt his fingers tighten again around her wrist. He jerked her over to the wall on the far side of the door.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
She pressed herself against the stones. Sebastian strode swiftly across the room and scooped up the chamber pot. Then he flattened himself to the wall alongside her.
The door opened. A man with his hands tied behind his back stumbled into the chamber. He was given a push from behind that sent him reeling. He lost his footing and fell.
The candlelight flickered on Garrick Sutton’s face. His eyes met Prudence’s in the shadows.
Before she could react, one of the men who had kidnapped her and Sebastian stepped into the room. He was holding his pistol in one band.
“Well, now, that’s that, then,” he announced in tones of satisfaction. “A job well done, if I may say so.”
Then his gaze fell on the empty bed. Prudence saw his eyes start to widen as he glanced at the dangling manacles. “What’s this? They’ve escaped.”
He opened his mouth to yell for assistance.
Sebastian took one step away from the wall and brought the chamber pot crashing down on the villain’s head. The pistol fell and skittered under the bed.
The man sank to the floor with no more than a groan. He did not move.
Sebastian looked down at Garrick. “This certainly complicates matters.”
“Sorry about this,” Garrick said ruefully. “They were waiting for me when I left my club.”
“Untie him,” Sebastian said to Prudence. “I’ll get the pistol. At the rate we’re going, we shall undoubtedly need it.”
But before Prudence could move, the door of the massive black wardrobe swung wide. Lord Curling stood there, a pistol in his hand. Behind him yawned the black opening of a hidden staircase. Prudence belatedly recalled the false back Sebastian had discovered in the wardrobe. Now she knew what had been concealed behind it.
“Pray do not move so much as an inch, Angelstone.” Curling stepped down from the wardrobe. “Or I shall put a bullet into your lady.”
Sebastian froze. “This has gone far enough, Curling.”
“Not quite,” Curling beckoned to Prudence. “Come here, my dear.”
Prudence did not move.
Curling’s eyes narrowed. “I said, come here. If you do not, I may change my mind and put the first bullet into your precious Fallen Angel.”
Prudence walked forward reluctantly. As soon as she was within reach, Curling put an arm around her throat and pulled her against him to use as a shield.
“There, now,” Curling said. “This is much better.”
Twenty
ebastian fought for his self-control. The urge to throw himself at Curling in a mindless rage was almost overpowering. The sight of Prudence being held hostage sent a shock of wild anguish through him. He knew such un-governed emotion would be lethal if he did not master it.
“What do you hope to accomplish, Curling?” Sebastian forced himself to use the bored tone of voice he had perfected so well.
Curling’s smile was thin with menace. “You know what I intend to accomplish. Did you really think I would allow you to banish me from England and destroy my fortune?”
“Your fortune?”
“Do not pretend ignorance. You know very well what I’m talking about.” Curling’s arm tightened around Prudence’s throat. “I’m not a fool. I know what will happen to my business affairs if I leave England. The investors will assume that madman, Bloomfield, is in charge. There will be panic. The company will go bankrupt in no time if I am not here to take command.”
Sebastian shrugged. “A possibility, I suppose.”
“Goddamn it to hell. You know that is exactly what you intended,” Curling snarled. “Did you really think I’d let you get away with it? I had everything carefully planned and I am not about to let you ruin those plans.”
Garrick stirred on the floor. “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”
Curling did not bother to glance at him. He kept his gaze on Sebastian. “You can take some of the credit, if you like. I needed information on Angelstone, you see. Everyone talked about how much he hated the rest of the Fleetwoods, but I was not so certain how deep his hatred went.”
“You mean you didn’t know if I would use my position to protect my cousin if he were implicated in murder?” Sebastian asked.
“Precisely,” Curling said. “I could never figure out why, if you hated your relatives so much, you had not already used your power to crush them.”
“You did not comprehend,” Prudence said in her most admonishing tones, “because you knew that if you had been in Angelstone’s position, you would have long since crushed the family.”
“Exactly.” Curling’s eyes were still on Sebastian. “I needed to know more about Angelstone’s motives and how he would react if I proceeded to use Jeremy Fleetwood in my scheme.”
“So you got me drunk and pried the information out of me,” Garrick said in a tone of savage self-disgust.
“It was an easy enough task,” Curling said. “And extremely rewar
ding. You assured me that Angelstone would be quite happy to see any one of his relatives rot and that he would probably find it vastly amusing to see one actually taken up for murder. Then you let slip a most fascinating tidbit.”
Garrick swore in despair. “I told you about his hobby, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” Curling smiled slowly. “You told me all about Angelstone’s very interesting little hobby, including the name of his Bow Street contact.”
“Damnation.” Garrick glanced at Sebastian. “I don’t remember any of it, Angelstone. I swear to God, I don’t. I was drinking so heavily in those days. There’s so much I cannot recall from that time.”
“I know.” Sebastian did not take his attention off Curling. “It makes no matter now.”
“I altered my plans accordingly,” Curling said. “I decided it would be ideal to have Angelstone actually conduct the investigation. He would be certain to recognize the evidence I intended to use to implicate his cousin.”
“An interesting precaution,” Sebastian said softly. “Bow Street might have overlooked the items found at the scenes of the crimes, or failed to properly identify them. I assume you were also the one responsible for leaving the message in my carriage the night of Oxenham’s death?”
“Of course.” Curling frowned. “I wanted you to be the first on the scene so that you could find the evidence against your cousin. I needed young Fleetwood rather badly, you know.”
“Because you knew you could not murder your three partners and assume complete control of the company without drawing attention to yourself as a suspect,” Sebastian said. “One death, perhaps even two, might have been accepted as accidents. But three deaths would have been hard to explain, especially when you so clearly profited from them. You needed to be able to produce someone else who had a motive to kill those three men.”
“Your cousin was perfect,” Curling said. “He had a motive which only I knew about but which he would be unable to deny in a court of law. I had planned to reveal everything about Lillian’s death, you see. After all, I had nothing to hide. The stupid wench jumped out of a window while I and my friends were having a bit of sport with her.”
“You would have testified that my cousin, who was in love with her, discovered the facts surrounding her death years later, blamed The Princes of Virtue, and set out for revenge,” Sebastian said.
“Precisely.” Curling shrugged. “It would have appeared that I was fated to be his last victim, but fortunately he was caught in time.”
“And just to make certain he would look guilty, you provided evidence at the scenes of the murders that incriminated him,” Prudence concluded, scorn dripping from her words. “Lord Curling, you were very stupid, indeed. You actually thought you could use Angelstone to help you carry out your scheme?”
“It seemed a reasonable assumption.”
“Hah.” Prudence gave a disdainful sniff. “You know nothing about my husband.”
Curling’s jaw tightened. “From what I was told and from the gossip that has always followed him, I assumed Angelstone would be only too happy to use the evidence against his cousin.”
Prudence’s eyebrows came together in a fierce line above her spectacles. “You were much mistaken in my husband’s character, weren’t you?”
Sebastian saw Curling’s arm tighten a little around Prudence’s throat. “Uh, Prue—”
“Angelstone knew his duty to his family and he did it,” Prudence continued, undaunted.
“Silence,” Curling ordered. “You are beginning to annoy me, Lady Angelstone.” He used his grip on her throat to give her a warning squeeze.
Sebastian winced.
“You were wrong about Angelstone,” Prudence squeaked. “Everyone was wrong about Angelstone.”
Sebastian started to worry that Curling would lose his temper and casually choke Prudence to death. “That’s enough, Prue.”
She blinked at him. Something she saw in his face made her fall silent.
Sebastian arched a brow. “I have been curious about one thing, Curling. How did you come to find out that my cousin cared for Lillian?”
“I have known from the beginning.” Curling chuckled. “Lillian’s uncle told me that the Fleetwood boy fancied himself in love with the girl. But the old man was pragmatic. He knew damn well the Fleetwoods would never allow the precious heir to marry a tavern wench, so he sold her to me instead.”
“What did you do after the girl died?” Sebastian asked.
Curling shrugged. “I told her uncle that she had drowned and compensated him for his loss, of course. I gave him enough money to ensure that he would keep any questions he might have had to himself.”
Sebastian folded his arms and leaned against the iron bedpost. “You won’t be able to get rid of the three of us tonight without raising a few questions.”
“On the contrary,” Curling said softly. “This will all work out very nicely, I think. I shall tell everyone that during the course of a small weekend house party here you discovered your new bride in the arms of your best friend.”
“How dare you,” Prudence gasped, outraged. “I would never betray Angelstone.”
“I believe I understand, Curling,” Sebastian said coolly.
“It’s simple enough.” Curling looked amused. “You will use a pistol on both your wife and your best friend. When I arrive, pistol in hand, to see what is happening, you come at me. I am forced to shoot you dead in order to save my own life. A suitable ending for the Fallen Angel.”
“It will never work,” Garrick said quickly.
“It will work.” Curling leveled the pistol at Sebastian. “Now, then, I am afraid you must be the first to die, Angelstone, because you are the most dangerous. Sutton will go next.”
Sebastian readied himself. He would have to launch himself straight at Curling and hope that the first shot went slightly wide. If his luck held, the bullet would not bring him down immediately. All he needed to do, Sebastian thought, was stay on his feet long enough to reach Curling.
“Bastard,” Prudence yelped. She clutched the remains of her shattered eyeglass. “Don’t you dare shoot Sebastian.”
Curling smiled. “You might be interested to know that I shall delay your passing until dawn, Lady Angelstone. You see, I have been very curious to know just what sort of female could keep the Fallen Angel amused in bed. Tonight I shall find out.”
Sebastian saw Prudence raise her hand upward toward the arm that Curling had wrapped around her throat. He realized what she intended to do.
Prudence raked Curling’s arm with the jagged bits of glass that had once been her fashionable eyeglass.
Curling yelled. He instinctively released his grip on Prudence and grabbed at his arm. Blood spurted between his fingers. “You little bitch.”
Prudence darted out of reach.
Curling swung back to confront Sebastian, but it was too late.
Sebastian was already moving.
Curling tried to bring the pistol back in line, but there was no chance. Sebastian lashed out with his foot and knocked the weapon from Curling’s hand.
He went in quickly. He smashed his fist into Curling’s jaw. The blow sent Curling staggering back toward the tower windows. They must have been unlatched, because they banged open under the impact.
Wind howled into the chamber. The candle flared and went out, plunging the room into almost total darkness. The windows shuddered heavily on their hinges.
Sebastian started forward. There was just enough light to discern the outline of Curling’s figure as he crouched in front of the window. The wind screamed into the room.
“No,” Prudence shouted above the roar of the wind. “Sebastian, wait. Stay away from him.”
It was the shattering sense of urgency in her voice that stopped Sebastian. He glanced back over his shoulder. He could just barely see the pale shape of her face. He realized she was staring past him.
Curling screamed. It was a keening, mind-numbing sound of fear.
“My God,” Garrick whispered.
Sebastian whirled around. Curling was still screaming.
“Stay away from me,” Curling yelled. But he was not talking to Sebastian. He was looking toward the bed, his hands held out in front of him as if he would ward off whatever he saw there. “No, stay away from me. Stay away from me.”
Fascinated dread gripped Sebastian. He watched the dark shape that was Curling edge backward in a crablike fashion until he was pressed against the window ledge.
“It’s you,” Curling gasped. He climbed up onto the windowsill and stood in the opening. “It’s you, isn’t it? No, don’t touch me. I never intended for you to die. Don’t you see? You were the one who chose to jump. You didn’t have to do it. I only wanted to have some sport. You were just a tavern wench…. Don’t touch me.”
Curling shrieked and recoiled from something only he could see. He toppled backward through the window and fell into the blackness that was waiting for him.
His scream pierced the night for what seemed an endless time.
Then there was silence. Absolute silence. Even the strange wind that had sprung up out of nowhere suddenly ceased. Outside the window the fog resettled itself like a shroud around Curling Castle.
Sebastian realized that no one, including himself, was moving. He took a deep breath and shook off the paralysis that had held him in thrall. He turned and went swiftly across the chamber. He groped for the candle. It took him two tries before he managed to light it.
When the flame finally flickered into life it was strong and steady. Sebastian turned toward Prudence, expecting to see stunned shock in her eyes.
She was standing in the middle of the room, her brows drawn together in a thoughtful expression. She did not look like a woman who had just seen a ghost.
“Does it strike you, Sebastian, that it is not nearly as cold in here now as it was earlier?” she asked.
He stared at her. “Yes,” he heard himself say very softly. “It is much warmer in here now.”
Garrick struggled to a sitting position and grimaced with pain. He glanced at the man lying on the floor. “There were three of these villains. All hired from the stews for the night. This one sent the other two back to London after they were paid.”