He continued down the hall and was forced to a halt when the housekeeper caught Piper’s free arm.
“I know this house is a labyrinth, capable of housing the Queen’s court without anyone stumbling across another,” she hissed. “In this instance, however, I cannot have you take that chance.”
“She is safest here with me,” Connor argued. Anxious knots curdled in his stomach. Every fiber of his being screamed with the need to see Piper to safety. Nearly every one. The rest demanded he banish her foes and lay her fears to rest. “Once I see her safely to my rooms, nae one will find her there.”
“And how do you propose to get her there?” the older woman demanded. “The halls are crawling with the duke’s men searching the house for my lady. Furthermore, he’s brought his majordomo and valet, who are above. Lady Sedmouth’s maid and companion roam freely besides. This is the worst possible place for her.”
“I disagree. The fewer people who ken where she is, the fewer who can be bullied into exposing her.”
The older woman drew herself up. “We would never.”
Mrs. Davies glowered at him, lips pursed, then waved him imperiously toward a narrow hall off the main corridor. She opened a door and motioned for Piper to enter, holding up a hand to stop Connor. “Wait here. Better yet, make yourself useful and call for Edith and Agatha.”
“Bugger it, woman, we have nae time for games.”
“It’s all right, Connor,” Piper whispered. “I know what she’s about. Will you find them?”
He didn’t have time for fetching maids. Piper’s excuses of shock influencing her reaction to seeing the duke aside, imagining what Rutledge or his son must have done to her to warrant that blank, unseeing terror in her eyes kicked him in the gut. He itched to thrash the duke within an inch of his life for that alone. And he would. As soon as she was secure.
That caveat prompted him to do the housekeeper’s bidding.
He found Piper’s maid in the kitchen and told her to fetch Agatha, as he wouldn’t recognize the other maid. He returned to the hall and knocked on the door, only to be told to wait. Time and impatience did nothing to slacken his furious need to avenge her.
Seconds turned to minutes before the maids Mrs. Davies requested appeared, accompanied by Hilde. Agatha was a tall, gangly lass in a blue-and white-striped maid’s uniform, her brown hair mostly covered by a floppy mop cap. All three vanished through the door, barring him yet again. A moment later the door reopened, and Connor understood the plan.
He didn’t like it one bit.
“Ye plan to march her right down the bloody hall?”
“As you planned to do the same?” Mrs. Davies countered. “At least she’ll not draw attention this way.”
With reluctance, Connor conceded her point. Piper wore the exact uniform as Edith and Agatha, her hair tucked up under a white cap. Her unusual height might have been cause for comment, but with Agatha by her side and shoulders slouched, Piper was camouflaged to some extent. Both women carried a high stack of linens in their arms.
Mrs. Davies snapped her fingers and strode down the hall with the two women in her wake. When Connor made to follow, she forestalled him with a hand.
“Gentlemen do not attend maids in this house, Mr. MacKintosh. If you want to allay suspicion, take your normal route.”
He couldn’t argue that. Contrarily, the thought of watching Piper walk away unprotected set his nerves clanging as they never had in his life. Reaching out, he stroked his knuckles down her soft, pale cheek. She trembled, still shaken.
“Nae one will harm ye, lass. I swear it.”
She nodded, the action repeated more crisply by the housekeeper. “We have always ensured her safety, my lord.”
“Aye. Then dinnae fail her now.”
The trio disappeared up the servants’ stairs while Hilde held his arm, as if knowing he would throw caution to the wind to follow. “You have a care for my precious girl,” the cook said in a quiet tone.
It wasn’t a question. Connor responded with a curt nod anyway.
“I am glad to know she has your protection. I fear she will need it,” Hilde admitted. “Now more than ever. We’ve been warned to expect a dozen of the duke’s men by nightfall. If he finds her…”
“Do ye ken what happened?”
Hilde shook her head. “She has never spoken of it fully. That in itself says more than words, doesn’t it?”
Aye, it did.
Chapter 22
I had initially hoped to find Harry here at Dinton Grange to offer me shelter and comfort, then prayed he would appear to keep me safe. Now Albert tells me that Harry has finally returned to London and has paid a visit to Scotland Yard. To hire someone to find me when he hasn’t looked himself? To return me to the duke? I don’t know, nor do I dare place my faith in him any longer.
~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, April 1893
The percussive fall of footsteps in the corridor paused Piper’s nervous pacing mid-step. They progressed and amplified for an unbearable span of time while dread numbed her. Hiding in the manor had been far easier when she’d kept to the hidden staircase and only had to traverse a short span of open space between the marquis’s chamber and her own.
In more than two years, the precariousness of her position had never left her so rattled. Anyone could be approaching now. Every fiber of her being quivered, including those in control of her heart. It hadn’t managed a steady rhythm since she’d left Connor below.
Rather, since the moment she’d walked into the stable. When that yawning abyss of memories had opened before her and drew her back to a time and place she’d done her best to forget.
She’d failed in that. As she’d failed to evade the duke. He’d come for her as promised. There would be no escaping it all now.
It was Harry’s fault. All of it.
“Lass? Piper?”
Piper blinked, realizing she stood unmoving in the middle of the room. Before her, Connor’s mossy green gaze was caring, steady.
“Dinnae fash, lass,” he crooned, gathering her into his soothing embrace. “I will keep ye safe until we can get ye out of here. Rutledge will no’ lay a finger on ye. I swear it.”
The duke’s sudden appearance had triggered an earthquake inside of her, upsetting everything that wasn’t nailed down. Each mention of his name set off another aftershock, leaving her all the more shaken.
“I should have known he’d find me. He’s relentless,” she whispered. “He is an evil man. You’ve no idea what he’s capable of. He earned every bit of his reputation.”
“I think I’ve enough experience wi’ underhanded fighting tactics no’ to be taken unawares.”
Leaning back, she peered up at him. “Do not think I jest, Connor. He will make you think he sees things your way before he turns on you. Just as he did with me.”
His forehead furrowed, drawing his eyebrows downward. “What do ye mean? What did he do?”
Another tremor shook her, stirring a lump of bile in her throat. Turning out of his arms, she went to one of the chairs by the fireplace and sat, staring down at the dwindling flames behind the wrought iron screen. They’d once been lively, as had she, only to die a slow death.
“Lass?” Connor knelt at her feet and took her icy hands between his warm ones. “Mo chridhe?”
She didn’t know what the words meant, however he spoke them with a tenderness that brought a poignant ache to her heart. A tear slipped down her cheek, leaving a hot trail behind.
“When I refused to marry Dormer, I thought the duke took it well enough. He had said something about admiring my spirit and such.” The tear fell and splashed on his hands. Another followed in its path and she wiped it away. “At first, he tried to cajole me into changing my mind. Then intimidate me into surrendering. Mother did the same. She locked me in my room. To think about my choices, she said. I didn’t care. Servants would let me out. Mother would sack them and they came here.
“I was so full of myself. I refused
to be afraid of him. I didn’t understand at the time that he saw my confidence as a challenge. One day, he tried a different tactic. He cornered me in the drawing room and tried to kiss me,” she went on. “I berated him, somehow…I don’t know how I managed it. I said something about how kissing his son’s wife would be incestuous. He laughed. I can still recall the foul sound of it.”
Piper stared into the flames, seeing nothing but the past. That day had replayed in her mind and nightmares a hundred times, each as vivid as the last.
“He told me, if it made any difference, he never intended to let his son bed me and spawn tainted blood,” she whispered, the words almost silent. “His mouth was right next to my ear, as if to make sure I heard what he said. I’ve never forgotten it. He told me it had always been his intention to plow me himself. Those words. Plow me.”
“The bastard.”
Connor’s curse barely registered. She was too lost to the memory, the revulsion she’d felt. The moment her courage began to wilt.
“He intended to impregnate me, then arrange a suitable accidental death for Dormer. The process would be tidier if he were to whelp another supposedly legitimate heir than to remarry himself, wait to conceive a child, then spend years in court to displace his imbecile son. He said, it would be far easier and far more pleasurable”—her voice cracked—“for us both than killing Dormer straightaway. The way he trailed his finger down my neck and into my bodice… It gave me the willies, but I think the thought of committing murder aroused him.”
She blinked away the dismal fog and focused on him. “He said that way he could have all he desired with none of the scandal. He’d had enough of that already.”
Face taut and pale, lips flattened with disgust, Connor managed a nod. “Because of Dormer’s assault upon the Earl of Edgington’s daughter. Yer mother kent what the viscount had done? What Rutledge threatened?”
She lifted a shoulder. “How could she have not known about Dormer? Everyone knew. As for the duke, she didn’t believe me.”
“She should never have left ye alone wi’ him,” he grumbled. “Or even let him in the door.”
A dry laugh grated in her throat. “I told you, my Mother would do anything to gain herself a title. The duke assured me that she’d already proven the extent of her devotion, as it were.”
“So, ye ran from him.”
Piper shook her head, amusement fading. “No, not then.”
She should have run while she had the chance. At that point, she’d retained some confidence that her brother would arrive to save her.
“My continued refusals both intrigued and infuriated him. He decided to marry me himself. As if that would change my mind on the matter.” Her gaze slid to the side and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “He never intended to follow through with his bargain and marry my mother. To lose his independence. But he thought bedding me would be worth the sacrifice. My inheritance and virginity payment enough.”
Dark ferocity suffused his expression. He was such a good man. Would that he’d come into her life earlier. A muscle jumped in his cheek and she reached up to soothe it away. “How protective you are.”
“If I’d been about, I would have killed him.”
“Mother was tempted to do the same. Not for my sake but her own. She was furious that he offered me the title that should have been hers,” she explained. “Of course, I said no. Deep down, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, too, when I was no longer of use to him. Though that was hardly my sole reason. I stood firm in my refusal, knowing within a few days I was going to be eighteen. My guardian’s approval would no longer be needed. Only my own consent.”
He took her hand and nuzzled her palm. “I cannae imagine why yer brother dinnae come to yer aid. He is a good man.”
“Is he, though?” She didn’t know anymore. “I begged and prayed yet he never came for me. As I said, whatever reasons he had for not coming didn’t matter after…”
“After what?”
“You think that stoicism of his is awful? You can’t imagine what he’s like when he loses his temper. He rages like a lunatic. Throws things…” She raised a hand to her cheek. “Hits people.”
Connor swore under his breath, squeezed her hands in his. All she felt was the anger and humiliation of that moment. The birth of her fear. When she’d finally discovered what brutalized entailed, though not at Dormer’s hand.
“He tried to beat me into submission. I was terrified and equally livid.”
A field of red swam before her eyes. Not fury, rather the memory of the enormous bouquet of roses the duke had brought with him that day. The solitary splash of color in the golden drawing room in Victoria Square. Their heady scent clashed with Rutledge’s heavy cologne. Then the dozens of roses scattered into crimson dots across the floor when he’d flung the vase in his rage.
“I continued to reject him. Perhaps I should have…”
For the first time, color touched Piper’s pallid cheeks. A reflection of that anger? Connor wasn’t certain, nevertheless it burned in him as well. A creeping suspicion seized him when she stared at the fire with studious apathy, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Piper, look at me.” He touched her cheek, trying to turn her to face him. She shook his hand away and seemed to withdraw further into herself. “I dinnae need to hear any more.”
“He decided to compromise me to force my capitulation.” Her voice was wooden. It was as if she’d cloaked herself in veils. Mourning without the physical representation of crepe and lace. “I fought him. He said if I continued to do so, I would suffer the consequences. Despite his threats, I couldn’t give in.”
“Stop, mo chridhe. Say nae more.”
Fury was fast overriding the empathy running through his veins. He would slaughter Rutledge for laying his hands on her. Tear his heart out. Nay, better cut his cock off and shove it down his bloody throat. Every part of him raged to do it. Do it now.
But he couldn’t leave her. Not like this.
“He said breaking me would bring him even more enjoyment. He wanted me to cry and wail, beg him. I refused,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. As if once begun, she couldn’t stop. She might well have been a china doll for all the emotion she exuded. Lost to him. To the evil done to her. “He continued to hit me and whipped me with his riding crop. One harder blow split my lip. It left me stunned long enough for him to bend me over the back of the settee. He pushed up my skirts, tore at anything that didn’t immediately give way.”
Connor’s heart battered his ribs with enough force to shake him. Blood pounded in his ears, almost drowning out her low murmur. “Say nae more, lass.”
For her sake. For his.
“He nearly smothered me. I couldn’t breathe.”
Now he understood her protest when he had her bent over the kitchen worktable last night. He couldn’t bear to imagine Rutledge having her at his mercy in such a fashion. At least he hadn’t…
Piper read his thoughts with a glance.
“He managed…some. It hurt so badly, but…” Her throat worked with a hard swallow of repugnance. “A maid came into the parlor and screamed. It distracted him long enough for me to force him back, then kicked him in the nether regions as hard as I could. It incapacitated him long enough for me to run. No, he didn’t manage to completely claim my virginity, but it was enough that my innocence died that day.”
Her dejection clawed at his heart until it ached with sorrow, shared her pain. He should never have forced her to speak of it.
“I don’t know. If I had run sooner. Days before that. Weeks even.” She shook her head. “If Harry had only come to take me away as he promised…”
His jaw worked. “Nay, lass. ’Tis nae one’s fault but Rutledge’s.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth. There is no one else to blame.” Connor traced her cheek with the pad of his thumb, marveling at her strength. Her resilience. He’d been wrong to ever think her weak. �
��My sweet lass.”
“How can you continue to look at me like that?” She covered his hand with hers, shaking her head. “I lied to you, misled you into thinking I was pure of body when, in fact, I am ruined by every social standard. Sullied.”
“Ye are perfect,” he countered. “I cannae tell ye how much I admire ye for combating something far stronger than yerself. I’m proud of ye, lass.”
Her arms slid around his shoulders, and she rested her cheek there. A weighty sigh wracked her body before she melted against him. “Will you hold me, Connor?”
“Och lass, after all he did to ye, how can ye even bear to let me touch ye?” he whispered into her hair, his shoulders tense beneath her hands.
Despite his protest, he rose to his feet and lifted her into his arms. Swinging about, he took her spot in the chair and pulled her into his lap like a child, enfolding her in his powerful embrace. As usual, his presence and warmth enveloped her in a cocoon of comfort. Empowered her with a fortitude she didn’t know she possessed.
“What you and I have shared has nothing to do with him. You’re nothing alike. I never feared you, never entertained a moment’s worry that you would hurt me,” she stressed. “I lost so much because of what happened that day. My home, my brother, my friends. Albert found me hiding in the mews and brought me here. No matter how secure I’ve been in truth, it always felt fragile. The duke stole my confidence. My courage. I spent a long time cowering in the shadows. Now he’s here and I let that fear overtake me again today. Whether it was shock or something else that prompted it, I shouldn’t have.”
“Ye had every right to react as ye did.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back as if words alone couldn’t convey reassurance enough.
“No.” She finally met his gaze. Her blue eyes brilliant with unshed tears, though there was a hint of steel behind them now. “The moment I walked into the stable today, I let that ugliness sweep away all I’ve accomplished on my own, and the beauty of what we’d created together. I hate that. Especially after I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to let that ordeal guide each aspect of my life. I wasn’t about to let him steal the whole of my spirit.”
A Question for the Ages (Questions for a Highlander Book 7) Page 20