“Would you tell me what’s happening, please? Why are you doing this?”
Something—a quiver of fear, perhaps, in her voice, though Beth tried not to allow it—caused the woman to meet Beth’s eyes with a degree of sympathy in her own.
“Listen, ducks. Ye do as you’re bid and they’ll not hurt ye over much.”
Beth’s stomach tightened. “What do you mean?”
“’Tis a hard thing to endure, to be sure, but still no more than what every woman must—”
“Open up!” The shout from outside the door, which was accompanied by a loud pounding on the thick wooden portal, made Beth jump. Her gaze shot toward the door. Her heart leaped. Her throat tightened. “’Tis time.”
“Aye, just let me finish,” the woman called in answer.
“Please, you must tell me what’s happening.” Panic that Beth didn’t even try to hide any longer shook her voice as the woman replaced the brush with something—a tin of red-colored salve, Beth realized as the salve was rubbed into her lips and cheeks. To tint them, obviously. But why? Beth’s eyes widened as the most horrible suspicion began to take shape and weight in her mind.
“The mercy is ’tis over fast.” The woman was whispering now. “That’s somethin’ you just must needs keep tellin’ yourself.”
“What—what is over fast?”
“Woman, will you open this door?” The roar was accompanied by loud banging. Beth’s heart banged with it. Her breathing quickened as her gaze flew fearfully toward the door.
“Please . . . ” She breathed the entreaty, looking back at her keeper, who was no longer looking at her. “Please, you must just tell me . . . ”
“Aye, I’m coming,” the woman called, ignoring Beth now. She stood up, dropped the tin of salve on the table, and moved toward the door. For all the response Beth got to her continued whispered pleadings for information, the woman might as well have been suddenly afflicted with deafness.
When she pulled the door open, Beth instinctively went silent and still as a corpse. Her eyes were fixed on the door.
“Ye took yer own sweet time,” the man who walked through it grumbled, giving the woman a condemning look before striding to the head of the bed. He was middle-aged, with close-cropped grizzled hair and a lined face, a servant from his dress. A big, burly servant with a cruel expression. Battling the urge to scream for help, which she knew would be useless, Beth instinctively shrank into the mattress as he leaned over her. His rough hands brushed hers and then gripped her wrists. A moment later her hands were free, and she realized he had cut through the rope with the wicked-looking knife he now held.
He could have as easily slit my throat.
The thought was terrifying. It was followed by another one: did they mean to kill her?
No, she comforted herself stoutly, though her heart raced at the thought. If killing her was their object, she would already be dead.
In any case, cringing paid no toll. Taking a deep breath, she sat up.
“Who are you? What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, drawing on the last dregs of her courage in the faint hope that perhaps she could win her freedom through words alone. Grimacing at the tingles that shot through her arms and fingers as she shook them out, ignoring her swimming head as best she could, she cast a quick, calculating glance at the open door. If they would just unloose her ankles, perhaps she could make a run for it.
“Oh-ho! Talks like a duchess, this one does.” Knife in hand, the servant addressed his words to the woman as he moved farther down the bed and slid a hand under Beth’s skirt to grip her calf just above the bindings. Beth stiffened as the warmth of his pudgy fingers went clear through her stocking to her skin, and he must have felt her reaction because he smirked at her. “Well, you’ll not be acting so high in the instep come mornin’, and that’s God’s truth.”
“I do not see how you can speak of God at the same time as you are taking part in such villainy,” Beth said severely.
“I’ll speak of God when and how I like, ye ken?” The man tightened his grip until his fingers dug painfully into her leg. Unable to stop herself, Beth caught her breath sharply.
“Ye’d serve yourself best by keeping your tongue between your teeth,” the woman, leaning forward, muttered hastily in Beth’s ear as the man, satisfied that he had hurt her, lowered his gaze and roughly shoved her skirt and petticoats almost up to her knees.
The awful familiarity of it made Beth nauseous. She itched to box his ears at the very least. But such an act would be folly of the worst sort, she knew, and so she steeled herself not to react as he leered at her lower limbs. Still, she couldn’t help her body’s instinctive response: as his hand slid back around her calf, her insides shuddered with revulsion and fear.
“My family is quite wealthy. And they will pay well to have me back.” Knowing the woman’s warning was wise but feeling that she had to try anything and everything she could to gain her release, Beth addressed the man again with what she considered truly commendable composure, and played the strongest card she held. Then, as his eyes met hers with a gleam in them she could not mistake, she added hurriedly, “Unharmed. They will pay well to have me back unharmed.”
Lingering hopes of perhaps somehow still avoiding utter ruin kept her from revealing who her family was, or telling him her name. If and when he showed an interest in freeing her in exchange for money, there would be time enough to announce that she was Lady Elizabeth Banning, and provide him with her direction. Of course, her kidnapper had known who she was: he had asked if she was Lady Elizabeth Banning before hitting her over the head. But it was possible that these miscreants did not know, and she had no desire to bruit her identity about to all and sundry. If she could possibly keep what had befallen her quiet, it was in her best interests to do so.
“Oh, unharmed, is it?” The servant chuckled, looking up at her as he cut with quick, deep strokes through the rope binding her ankles. “That’s rich, that is. Unharmed.”
He could not be persuaded to help her, Beth was suddenly certain, no matter what lure she dangled before him. As he finished his task and straightened, the look in his eyes as they ran over her made her skin crawl.
I have to do something. The thought brought panic with it, because she could think of nothing, not a single thing, to do that might better her situation a whit. Oh, Claire, Gabby, where are you? Hurry.
“Up you get.” The man sheathed his knife in his belt and moved toward her.
“Very well.”
She acquiesced so readily because she could not bear the thought that he might touch her again. Dodging his reaching hand, she hastily slid her legs over the edge of the bed so that he could see she meant to obey. Her instinct was to hurl herself through that open door and run like a rabbit as far away as she could get as soon as her feet touched the floor, but the woman stood between her and the door and the man was close, and anyway her fear was that her legs would not support her through such an endeavor. She must just test them before tipping her hand. The consequences of failure would be nothing short of disastrous, she was certain.
A beating, she felt, would probably be the least of it.
“I’ve a pressing need to make use of the facilities,” she lied as she cautiously stood up. The wave of dizziness that enveloped her was almost strong enough to override the pins and needles that attacked her feet as blood rushed into them. A pair of tottering sideways steps was the best she could manage before having to steady herself with a hand on the cold stone wall. Running was beyond her for the moment, and as she realized that she despaired. Her breathing quickened and her stomach roiled, and she fought desperately to clear her head.
I must just play for time.
Wetting her dry lips, she directed her plea toward the woman, who had at least shown her a glimmer of sympathy.
“Is there a convenience I might . . . ?”
“’Tis too late for such.” Before Beth realized what he meant to do, the man grabbed a thick handful of hair a
t the crown of her head and hauled her after him toward the door. “You be wanted below.”
Chapter Ten
WHILE SHE WAS BEING DRAGGED past the wooden platform at the far end of the Great Hall of what she had discovered over the course of the last few minutes was an enormous, ancient stone castle, Beth’s heart stuttered and her blood ran cold. What she beheld was a hideously clear vision of what her fate would be unless she could somehow, by some miracle, save herself. Though help was undoubtedly coming, it was as certain as it was that leaves fall in the autumn that unless it arrived within minutes, it would be too late.
The knowledge brought panic with it.
Ruin is nothing. I’ll gladly embrace it, if that’s what is necessary to be delivered from this.
“Ye be sure an’ give me a wave when it’s ye up there, Duchess,” her captor chuckled over the roar of the crowd.
“I am Lady Elizabeth Banning,” she said clearly, although it was hard to force the words out past her constricted throat. “My brother-in-law is the Duke of Richmond. As I said, he will pay well to have me restored to him. You may also believe me when I tell you that he will punish you most severely if you fail to help me.”
“Oh, a duke, is it?” The hand in her hair tightened viciously, making her cry out. “I don’t care if he’s the bloody King o’ England. I got me job to do, and that’s it. And if you don’t quit flappin’ your lips at me like you’ve been doin’, I’ll stick a gag down your bloomin’ throat, see if I don’t.”
A scream snapped her attention back to the stage. What she saw made her knees go weak.
No, no, no. But Beth didn’t say it aloud.
Horror and pity and a terrible clawing fear for her own fate combined as she came to the dreadful realization that the girl on the platform was being sold. Auctioned off to the highest bidder, for a purpose that was all too sickeningly clear. The shouts were offers of money, and the bidding had been whipped into a frenzy as the poor unfortunate’s clothes were ripped away piece by piece until she was left to stand naked in front of them all.
“I’ve some gingerbread to spare. Mayhap ye’ll get lucky and I’ll bid on ye meself, yer ladyship.” Her captor cast her a grinning look as he yanked her away from the platform and the sobbing girl into another hall.
Desperation had made Beth’s mouth go dry. She had to swallow before she could speak. “By helping me get away from here, you’ll make yourself rich. My family will see to it, I give you my word.”
“Aye, and no doubt they’ll pat me on me back while they’re doing it, and thank me for my good services to their daughter.” He stopped and rapped smartly on a door. “I’ve another one,” he announced as it opened.
“No!” But without further ado Beth found herself thrust into an anteroom. As she stumbled forward, rough male hands grabbed her shoulders from behind to stop her, and she registered the presence of perhaps two dozen other young women cowering together in the center of the small room.
The door closed with a thud. Beth’s hands were jerked behind her back. A scream, shrill with desperation, pierced the muffling door. It clearly came from the girl on the makeshift stage.
“What are they doing to her?” Beth demanded, unable to help herself. Jerking away from the man who held her, she whirled to face the door as the crescendoing shouts and cheers of the assembled men turned into an explosion of what sounded like approval. As another panicked scream followed the first, she shivered at the heart-wrenching timbre of it and glanced wildly around. “Will no one help her?”
“Shut yer trap and hold still.” She was grabbed again, and this time her hands were securely bound behind her back. “Now get over there with the others.”
The man who had just finished tying the rope around her wrists shoved her roughly toward the congregation of females huddled together in the center of the chamber. He was one of two men in the room. Like the man who had dragged her here, these men looked to be servants. Armed servants, or, more properly, guards. Hulking and mean-faced, pistols in hand, they stood between their prisoners and the door. That door was the only way out, Beth saw as she fetched up against a sturdily built blonde in garish red silk who took several steps back in response to the unexpected collision. Clearly an interior chamber, the room was small, with walls of raw, rough plaster and a single torch burning in an iron sconce beside the door. There were no windows. Escape appeared impossible.
The scent of cheap perfume enveloped Beth as the group of females rearranged themselves to absorb her into their midst. Regaining her balance, she fought to hold on to calm reason in the face of a situation that was growing ever more nightmarish.
How has this happened to me? What can I do?
It was not, she was becoming increasingly convinced, a random act. Someone had caused this to be done to her deliberately. But who? And why?
To that she could discover no clear answer.
Taking a deep breath, she fought to force back galloping panic. One thought formed cold and clear as ice: no matter what the consequence, she could not, would not submit to the hideous degradation that was clearly intended to be her fate. The very thought made her want to vomit. It was all she could do not to start screaming the roof down.
’Twill do no good to scream.
“Sure, and there’s no help for any of us,” an apple-cheeked brunette to Beth’s left whispered as the screaming beyond the door was abruptly silenced. There was an Irish lilt to her shaking voice, and a tinge of red to her dark brown hair, which curled loosely past her shoulders. She wore a plain dress of coarse, dun-colored cloth, of unmistakably rustic origin. Her eyes were brown, and red-rimmed from weeping. Crude color tinted her lips and cheeks, and Beth realized to her horror that, like herself, like, as she discovered with a quick glance around, all the others, she’d been painted and primped. Painted and primped for sale. “If me poor mam could see what I’ve come to. She thought I was to work on a dairy farm, she did, and she was that glad for me to get the position.”
“We’ve all been right gammoned, and that’s the truth with no bark on it.” The blonde’s ample bosom heaved with indignation. “I was working in my uncle’s tavern when this swell who’d stopped in a few times offered to take me up to London and set me up in my own house. He swore I should have my own carriage and—”
“And ye believed ’im, lack-wit?” A tiny, pinch-faced, black-haired female in an ill-fitting black dress and white apron that bespoke a housemaid broke in, her voice dripping with scorn. “’Ow long was it afore ’e sold ye to this lot?”
“R-right away.” The blonde’s lower lip quivered. “He said beg pardon, but his pockets were to let.”
“At least I was snatched off the streets,” the black-haired female said with grim satisfaction. “Mary Bridger’s not such a nodcock as to fall for some gent’s plumpers.”
“Silence!” The sharp command from one of the guards made them all jump as the conversation, which had been conducted in whispers that had been growing ever louder, at last reached his ears. His threatening move toward them was interrupted by a quick knock and the sudden opening of the door.
“We be ready for another,” said a man’s voice. Beth couldn’t see the speaker, who stood just outside in the hall, but the women all drew in a collective breath and shrank closer together. It did no good. The guard who had tied her hands turned and grabbed the nearest female, a slender, fair-haired girl who cried out in fear as she was thrust just as quick as that from the room. The door shut once again, leaving the rest to stare at the thick wooden portal in stricken silence.
The thought that she would all too soon be the victim was written on every female face Beth could see. Acknowledging the harsh reality of that, Beth felt her heart flutter and her stomach cramp.
Please hurry. She sent the prayer winging toward her sisters, toward their husbands and the scores who she knew were desperately searching for her, knowing even as she did that help wouldn’t come in time.
“Think we’ll get a crack at the leavi
ngs?” The second guard, the one who hadn’t tied Beth’s hands, ran lascivious eyes over the huddled prisoners as the crowd beyond the door, enlivened by a fresh victim, began to ratchet up their noise anew. Having wedged herself into the center of the pack and thus managing to put a small degree of distance between herself and the men, Beth nevertheless felt the weight of the guard’s gaze. Swallowing, she kept her eyes focused on the smoke-darkened wall straight ahead, and tried not to think about what was even now, from the sound of it, happening in the Great Hall. So far, at least, there were no screams. “Me, I fancy the ginger.”
Knowing that he was referring to her, to the color of her hair, Beth shivered inwardly as she pretended not to hear or be aware of his ogling stare. Her stomach clenched tight and her heart pounded like a parade corp’s drummer as she faced the terrible truth: she was trapped, and helpless, and the fate of the girl on the stage would soon be hers.
And then, even more horrible to contemplate, some man would force himself on her.
Her bound hands curled into fists.
I can’t bear it. I—CANNOT—bear it.
The other guard snorted. “’Tis lucky we’ll be to see so much as an extra pint of ale at the end o’ this, I don’t doubt, much less one of yon toothsome females.”
“Ah, well, as to that”—the first guard pulled a flask out of his pocket—“what do you say to a flash o’ lightning now?”
Switching his attention to the flask, the second guard nodded and reached for it. “A nip’ll help pass the time, for sure.”
Passing the flask back and forth, they fell to talking and their attention shifted away from their prisoners, for which Beth was profoundly thankful. She felt cold all over, and she was breathing way too fast. Her legs were shaky, and her head ached abominably. The building roar outside the door was only marginally louder than the rush of blood in her ears. But her thoughts were now crystal clear, and focused on one thing: escape.
Even if they were to kill her for it, she was going to do her possible to get away. The plain truth was, she would rather die than submit.
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