by Shirl Henke
Amber had hoped she could bait him sufficiently so as to be able to wrest the reticule with her pistol from him in the pitching coach, but when he did not strike her, she could see that he had grown cunning over the years. Then he pulled a flask from his jacket pocket and took a swig. He always had been a drunk. Better to wait until his tongue loosened. Perhaps she could learn how many others were with him. With Hull out of the way, they might accept a bribe to release her.
She held fast to that thought. Grace would pay a fortune to have her returned safely. And that would keep Jeni from placing herself in danger if she learned Amber had been taken prisoner. At all costs, she had to keep Jeni from doing something rash!
But first, she must dispose of this evil worm who had plotted her downfall for the past decade. How ironic that he never understood the truth about her relationship with her family. She pushed the ugly memories from her mind.
Unbidden, an image of Rob came to her. Would Grace send word to him? Would he come? A part of her hoped he would, but she quickly squelched the thought. That would mean he, too, would be in terrible danger. She must outwit Hull once more. She had accomplished it as a green girl—how much easier should it be for her now?
But he was the one who led you to ruin and Eastham! No! The only way to remain sane was not to dwell on Lytton Wolverton.
Rob and the men sat around a small fire, resting their horses after the moon set that night. All were exhausted from the hard day’s ride. He calculated it would take another even longer one before they reached their destination. That meant they would only stop for an hour at a time, taking turns napping and eating cold biscuits and bacon from their packs.
“Rather like bein’ back in Spain, ain’t it, sir?” O’Keefe asked his captain between bites from the tough bread.
As he nodded agreement, Rob could see there was no relish in the Irishman’s remark. Every man here admired the lady who had been so kind to the children and clubbed Molly Chub over the head. He remembered Grace’s piercing eyes when she told him Amber had been with no man but him since fleeing Eastham. Did he believe her? Damned if he knew. Damned if he cared.
He was certain of only one thing. He loved Amber Leighigh.
There was no doubt of it from the moment he read Grace’s terrifying message. No matter what her past sins might or might not be, he was in love with Wolverton’s wife. But she would truly be a widow once he got his hands on that madman and wrung the life from him. As Boxer kicked out the fire and they prepared to mount up, Rob bowed his head and did something he had not done since leaving England for the Peninsula.
He prayed.
Northumberland
By the time they reached the small village in the bleak, isolated hills, the small troop had ridden for nearly forty hours. They had taken only brief stops to rest and switch out their mounts, eat, and relieve themselves. Rob knew Amber’s captors would have been forced to do the same.
But scouting ahead, Boxer had reported back that they had money enough to pay for fresh horses at the public coaching stations along their way. Several of the hostlers remembered a small carriage with the curtains tightly closed in spite of yesterday’s inclement heat. The driver had been impatient and rude, cursing the stablemen for not moving fast enough. As nearly as they could tell, there had been no other riders accompanying the carriage. Hull had to be inside with Amber, keeping her quiet. Was he alone? There was no way to know.
If only they had been able to overtake the carriage…but it had proven impossible. Rob had driven his men hard, but it had been Sergeant Major Boxer who reminded him that they could do the lady no good if they rode their horses to death and were left stranded in the wilds of the north.
Rob reined in his winded black on the crest of a hill and peered into the darkness below, trying to fix his bearings now that the moon had set. “Lady Jenette’s stone manor house should be just over that ridge,” he said, pointing to the east.
“She be a game one, even if she is a Frenchie,” his sergeant said with admiration.
“We need to reach her before the villagers start to stir.”
“No one down there will lift a hand to help Wolverton. They’ll dance in the streets when he’s dead,” Boxer said.
Rob grunted, then gave the signal for the rest to follow him.
Amber shivered in the cold darkness of Wolverton’s cellar. She wore only the light cotton day dress she’d had on when she rushed to the supposed carriage wreck. In this dank lower level behind thick stone walls, the temperature better suited storing wines than accommodating people. But she was certain that was why the marquess had her brought here. To tremble in terror while she awaited his appearance.
Well, it was an effective ploy, she admitted. Hull had delivered her in the dark of night. This far belowstairs, she had no idea if the sun had arisen or how long she had waited. One dim torch flickered on the other side of a crack at the bottom of the locked door.
During the journey, the coach had been stifling with the curtains drawn and the sun beating down upon them. Each time they reached a coaching station, Hull had used her own pistol to guarantee her silence, a conceit he found amusing, although she knew he had another gun inside his jacket. To her dismay, he remained sober enough to foil any plan of escape. His hate was palpable in the confines of the coach and only grew with the passing of each hour.
When they finally reached the castle—she had always thought of the huge stone monolith as a medieval castle, never a manor house—Hull and the driver had awakened a terrified servant to summon the marquess. Rather than come to see his prize, he had ordered Hull and the servant to drag her down to this dungeon to await her fate. She could still hear the echo of Edgar Hull’s vile laughter as he walked away.
She had searched the dark room, groping blindly, praying to find something she could use as a weapon before Wolverton arrived, but found not so much as a stool to sit upon. She could hear the evil rustling of rats in the distance, but they did not come near.
This is worse than the prison in Paris. The thought brought Jeni to mind. Amber prayed her friend would not attempt another rescue by herself. If Grace sent the sergeant major and the other men, perhaps there was hope. She would do her best to survive in the meanwhile. Best to conserve my energy for now.
She sank down against the wall next to the door and laid her head on her bent knees. Sleep claimed her immediately, but she had only drifted off when the clank of keys in the rusty lock awakened her. Amber stood up quickly, smoothing her now damp, filthy clothing. The marquess strode into the cramped room. A servant held a torch behind him to light his way.
Outlined in the flickering light, he looked like Lucifer himself, tall and rawboned with powerful shoulders and a horseman’s muscular legs. But his face had aged. Lines made vertical creases above his eyebrows. Always heavy, they had grown together into one thick downturned curve shadowing winter-gray eyes. Those eyes had sunken deeply into their sockets. His mouth was a thin angry slash, now split into a chilling smile.
He still has all his teeth. She forced her chin up and returned his malevolent stare. Without a word he moved forward and gave her a hard backhanded slap.
Amber stumbled against the wall. Quickly righting herself, she wiped the blood trickling from her lip and said as coolly as possible, “So good to see you again, too, Lytton. ′Tis comforting to know the years have not changed you.”
The grooves on his high forehead deepened in a furious scowl. “They certainly have changed you, slut. You were my marchioness. Now you’re a common bawd.”
“A position much to be preferred,” she snapped back, knowing she was goading him. But he fed on fear. She vowed never to give him the satisfaction of showing it.
“In the months you lived here,” he went on in a silky voice, ignoring her insult, “you never had occasion to see the only functioning dungeon left in all of England. Now I shall give you an opportunity to observe how well it works…firsthand.”
Chapter Twenty
; He motioned to the guard, a skinny fellow with greasy yellow hair and eyes the color of mud. The vile-smelling fellow grabbed hold of her arm, bruising the soft flesh as he dragged her behind the marquess. She bit back a cry of pain and struggled to keep her footing. He will not see me crawl!
The room was as hellish as any description from Dante’s Inferno, filled with ancient torture devices of unimaginable horror. Did the iron implements owe their rusty color to the blood of those who suffered in this evil place? Torches hung from the walls, their flickering light dancing on the cobwebbed wooden rafters and straw-strewn floor.
“Inventive people, my ancestors,” he growled softly.
“Your ancestors still lived in wattle huts and painted their bodies blue when the Norman invaders built this fortress,” she said scornfully, earning another slap.
“We will see how brave you are after you spend a few hours inside this lady.” He gestured to an upstanding metal box in the shape of a man. Its front lay open, revealing sharp teeth protruding all around the interior. “Place her in it,” he instructed the servant, whose eyes took on an eerie yellow cast as he dragged her to the hideous device.
“You’re too small and thin for it to do much damage, but after a few hours holding yourself rigidly erect to keep from falling against the rusty spikes…” He let his voice trail away. Amber kicked and pummeled the man holding her until Wolverton seized her other arm and pushed her against the now dull spikes. “Struggle more and you will sustain serious injury,” he cautioned, his voice silky with relish as he closed the front of the device and locked it.
She heard the echo of footsteps as the marquess and his toady walked out of the chamber. Thank heaven he was right in assuming the device was too large to impale her. But she could feel the icy press of metal spines around her head and torso, even her legs. She dared not move an inch. If I fall asleep…No, don’t think of that!
Jenette’s face was a hard mask. She paced back and forth in the manor’s kitchen where she had taken Rob and his men to study the drawing she had made of the marquess’s fortresslike house and grounds.
“Most useful,” Rob said as he tapped the map.
“Do you know why I am here?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “Bien. This will provide the perfect opportunity to finish it.”
“First we find Amber,” Rob said flatly.
“Amber is the reason that I will not act rashly, mon capitaine, no matter how much I long to see that batard dead.”
He would have to rely on her experience, which according to Grace and Boxer was considerable. “Do you know where the sentries are?”
“Certainement.” She indicated their locations on her drawing. “They are mercenaries, hired killers who are very dangerous. This man is so hated he must pay for loyalty.”
“Once that mad marquess is dead, they won’t fight,” Boxer said tightly.
“Oui. But we must get past them to reach the batard. That means we quietly eliminate them…” She paused to see if the earl would object to the obvious meaning of “quietly eliminate.” When he did not, she continued. “We enter here. My servants have heard rumors about a torture chamber in the bowels of that hellish place.” Her finger trembled the slightest bit as she pointed to the stairs to the wine cellar. “After that, I do not know what catacombs lie below, but I am certain that is where he would take her.”
Rob studied the twists and turns of the back hallways leading to the wine cellar door, then turned to Boxer and Coulter. “After we’re inside, Sergeant Major, you and your men secure this area. Coulter, here and here.” He pointed to various spots on the map. Both men nodded. “If at all possible, deal silently with anyone you encounter. Lady Jenette and her men will come with me.”
“After you have Amber, I deal with Wolverton,” Jenette said.
“If he’s harmed her, you will not have the opportunity, mademoiselle,” Rob replied.
Jenette and her men led the others toward the stone manor that loomed evilly on the horizon. As they dismounted, O’Keefe gave a shiver and whispered to Sergeant Coulter, “Sure ’n it looks like the very entrance to hell itself.”
Silently, Rob motioned for the men to move into position, scattering around the barren grounds, using the cover of trees and rocks as they stalked their prey. They had done a good deal of night work behind enemy lines during the war. Slipping up on the guards proved easier than Rob had anticipated. The lethal Frenchwoman, dressed in black shirt and boys’ breeches, dispatched one herself. She was a tall woman, but the guard topped her by half a foot.
They slipped in the back of the still-dark manor that had been built centuries ago to replace the original keep. It was like entering the maws of hell, the only light furnished by flickering flames in the kitchen fireplace. The cold gray walls dripped with moisture, and a musty smell of old evil seemed to leach out of every stone in the cavernous room. A twisting labyrinth of hallways filtered out in every direction. Without Jenette’s drawing, they would have wasted precious time. They dispersed silently to deal with the guards who would be arising shortly to take their turn at sentry duty.
Jenette led Rob and two of her men to the cellar door. Just as she touched the knob, the sounds of a scuffle came from the servants’ quarters. “Merde, that will alert the others,” she whispered. “Se presser—hurry!”
Rob could see the dim flicker of torchlight at the bottom of the steep stone steps. “See if they need help. I’ll find Amber.”
Elvira Greevy lay in her bed, staring morosely at the ceiling, unable to sleep. She had heard the carriage pull into the courtyard in the dark of night and watched as Hull dragged that harlot into her house. But when she had come down, the master had ordered her to return to her quarters. Seething with frustration, she had obeyed.
She bolted upright on the bed when a loud thump and the sounds of scuffling echoed from downstairs. Throwing back the covers, she seized her robe and secured it, then took a small poison-tipped dagger from her armoire and placed it in her pocket. It would kill within seconds after only a good scratch. She picked up the lit candle from her bedside and tiptoed to the door, peering down the darkened hallway. No one was in sight. She crept down the steps to see if the master was in danger.
In the dungeon below, Amber could hear soft footfalls. Wolverton? Hull or the yellow-haired man? No, they had no reason to be quiet. Daring to hope, she cried out, “Here! Please help me!” Her chin scraped one of the spikes when she opened her mouth. Gritting her teeth, she tried again. “I’m in here!”
“Amber! I’m coming, love,” Rob replied with his heart leaping in his chest. He ran toward the light at the end of the long passageway.
“Rob!” Her voice shook with emotion. No, she must be dreaming. He had called her his love! In seconds the clasp rattled and she blinked when Rob raised the door. “You are not a dream,” she said hoarsely.
He saw the horrible spikes and froze for an instant. “Don’t move!” he commanded as he reached inside to lift her out. The moment she was free, she flung her arms around his neck. He held her tightly and pressed her to his heart. “My love, my love, what a fool I’ve been,” he murmured, raining kisses across her face.
“I never dared hope—I thought I would never see you again,” she said, kissing him back.
Sounds of gunfire and open fighting echoed down the stairs. “Do you know where Wolverton is?” he asked her, glancing around the huge chamber.
“He locked me in here and left,” she replied.
Rob gritted his teeth, nodding. “I’ll deal with him after you’re safe,” he said, taking her hand. “Stay behind me.”
She followed as he led the way upstairs. All around them men fought with pistols, knives, fists, and sabers. As soon as Rob saw Jenette dispatch a brute twice her size with a lightning dagger thrust, he yelled to her, “Get Amber out of here!” He turned to his love. “Go with her.”
“Rob—”
“For once, Lady Fantasia, follow my orders,” he said. Giving her a swift kiss
, he shoved her to Jenette.
The Frenchwoman tore an unfired pistol from the fist of a downed guard and handed it to Amber, then practically dragged her to the front entry, away from the fighting. The enormous foyer was encircled by a huge flight of stairs leading to the second floor. Seeing no one above them, she yanked open the massive door. “Come, ma coeur! We retrieve the horses for our escape.”
Amber looked back at Rob, who had returned to the thick of the melee. Where was Wolverton? Impatiently, Jenette shoved her through the door, then ran toward a grove of trees where one of Jenette’s men had been left standing guard. “Francois, untie them quickly and bring them to the back door. Wait there. At the first sign of danger, leave the other horses and take her away from this place as swiftly as you can.”
“No, Jeni, I will not leave without you and Rob!”
Jenette took hold of her shoulders and stared levelly into her eyes. “I have sworn to Grace that you will live. So will your earl. Now do as you are told so we may do what we must, comprenez-vous?”
“Yes, I understand,” Amber replied. “Go, but watch for Hull. As far as I know, he’s still inside.”
Jenette curled her lip in disgust. “That one is nothing,” she said, giving Amber an appraising look. It would be a waste of time to argue further. Best to kill Eastham and be gone. She gave Amber a quick kiss on each cheek, then raced back to the manor.
As Amber and Francois began unfastening reins, a twig snapped behind the Frenchman. She saw a dim figure raise a pistol. “No!” she yelled, lunging forward to shove Francois aside, but was too late. The shot struck him in the back and he pitched forward.
“Well, you are a clever little bitch,” Edgar Hull said with a nasty chuckle. He tossed away the spent pistol and pulled a second one from his jacket. “You really should have married me when you had the chance, m’dear.” He patted the fat bulge in his coat pocket. “Now I no longer need your dowry since I’ve taken a fortune from the marquess’s library. Pity I shall have to kill you,” he said, raising the weapon.