Silk and Shadows

by Mary Jo Putney

  Sara could have screamed, but that would do no good. Eliza could not help her, and knowing that Sara was in the brothel would put the child in an intolerable position.

  The front door opened and closed. Then the house was silent for perhaps five minutes. It was odd just how quiet it was; Sara supposed that the children were locked in their rooms, and it was too early for customers. If there were any servants, they were wisely keeping away. Perhaps they had fled.

  Sara had one wrist almost completely free when Weldon returned to the house and came directly to the office. He crossed the room and finished undoing the bonds, then yanked her to her feet. Savagely he said, "We're going upstairs, where I can punish you in comfort."

  Praying that she might be able to calm him, Sara said quietly, "What have I done to deserve punishment, Charles? For Eliza's sake, I risked my life coming here."

  His eyes flared with renewed rage. "You have tried to corrupt her! Eliza was captured while attempting to visit you. She would never have disobeyed her father's orders if not for your pernicious influence. But it is not just for Eliza that I must punish you."

  Dragging Sara from the room and up the stairs, he continued, "I thought you were a lady, worthy to be Eliza's step mother. Instead, you betrayed me for a rutting foreign bastard. Tonight you will pay for your treachery."

  Thinking it might deter him, Sara considered saying that Mikahl would arrive at any moment, but she rejected the idea. If he knew that his enemy was coming, Weldon would tie her up again and wait with pistol in hand.

  Weldon took her to an empty bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall and shoved her inside.

  Sara staggered as her weak leg twisted, but she managed not to fall. "Have you ever considered blaming yourself for your problems?" she said, reckless with anger. "Surely Eliza was kidnapped on your orders, not Mrs. Kent's."

  "She frightened my daughter. She shouldn't have done that. And the guard—he hurt Eliza. They deserved what they got," he said with glittering eyes. "Now, you little whore, you will also get what you deserve." With one hand he pulled Sara close while with the other he fondled her coarsely, his fingers digging deep into intimate flesh.

  Revolted, Sara shrank away from him, but it was impossible to avoid his probing hand. Even through layers of petticoats, she felt violated.

  Weldon smiled with vicious satisfaction. "Don't play the virtuous lady with me, Sara. You'd like this if I were the bastard, wouldn't you?" Releasing her, he reached to turn the key in the lock. "Before the night is over, you are going to do everything for me that you do for him."

  While his attention was on the key, Sara reached under Weldon's coat in a desperate attempt to take the pistol. Her fingers had just touched the weapon's handle when he felt her action and whirled around.

  "You will regret that," he snarled. He untied her cloak, which slithered to the floor in heavy folds. Then he seized the neck of her gown and ripped the fabric down to her waist.

  Sara raked at her assailant's face with clawed fingers, but Weldon easily slapped her hands aside. Then he forced her to the floor and dropped down to trap her under his solid body.

  Impact with the floor temporarily stunned Sara, but as Weldon tore at her with feral hands, she screamed and began struggling frantically. In her naiveté, she had thought she understood something of Mikahl's furious need for revenge. Now that understanding paled beside the deep, visceral rage she felt at Weldon's abuse.

  But even rage was futile against her assailant's brutal power. As Weldon tore at her clothing, Sara made a despairing prayer for strength to survive the horror that was to come.

  * * *

  Before approaching Mrs. Kent's house, Peregrine checked the alley where Kuram had kept the carriage the night they had rescued Jenny. Once again the alley was occupied, this time by Peregrine's own armed and watchful driver.

  He asked the driver a few quick questions and learned that Sara and Kuram had gone inside about twenty minutes earlier. A few minutes ago, a man and a little girl had come out of the brothel. The man had put the child in a waiting carriage, then returned to the house.

  From the description, the people were Weldon and Eliza. So the girl was safe, but Sara and Kuram were in danger. Peregrine swore under his breath at the sheer bad luck that had brought Weldon to the brothel at the same time as Sara.

  Seething with impatience, he sprinted to Mrs. Kent's house and knocked on the door. Unsurprised that no one answered, he studied the building's facade with narrowed eyes. The lower-level windows had always been barred, and bars had also been installed on the upper floors since Jenny's escape.

  Frowning, he recalled from his previous visit that the front door and lock were solid. However, he also had a vague impression that the door frame had been old and brittle-looking, and a lock was no better than the wood that surrounded it.

  Hoping his memory was correct and that he didn't break his foot, he kicked the door hard, striking beside the lock. With a sound of splintering wood, the door shuddered and moved inward. After two more kicks, the lock ripped from the frame and the door swung open. He pulled his pistol out and cocked it, then entered cautiously, weapon ready.

  The racket of his entrance should have drawn everyone in the house, but the building was eerily silent, with no one in sight. Peregrine looked around, puzzled. It was not too surprising that there was no sign of children or patrons, but what about Mrs. Kent? And surely there would be a guard to keep order. Soundlessly he crossed to the madam's office and looked in.

  Mrs. Kent's body sprawled across the floor in a puddle of blood. Peregrine whistled softly, wondering what had happened. More important, where were Sara and Kuram and Weldon?

  As he returned to the hall, he heard a muffled scream coming from upstairs. Impossible to be sure with the soundproofing, but it sounded like Sara.

  Three steps at a time, he raced up the stairs. A second scream led him to the bedchamber at the end of the corridor. This time he was sure the voice was Sara's.

  To his surprise, the knob turned in his hand. Knowing it might be a trap, he ducked before opening the door. Keeping low to present a difficult target, he charged into the room.

  At his explosive entrance, the struggling figures on the floor stared up at him, immobilized by shock. Peregrine's gaze met his wife's for a fractional moment.

  Relief flared in her dark eyes, followed instantly by concern. "Look out, Mikahl, he has a gun!"

  Simultaneously Weldon leapt to his feet and reached under his coat, snarling, "You foolish bastard, you have delivered yourself into my hands."

  Afraid that a bullet might hit his wife, Peregrine held his fire. "Sara, get out of the way!"

  As she scrambled to one side of the room, Weldon cocked and leveled his pistol. Peregrine shot first, aiming high so that he would not endanger Sara.

  The bullet only grazed Weldon's right shoulder, but it forced him to drop his gun. The weapon skidded across the floor, mercifully not discharging.

  Now it was just the two of them, man to man, without firearms to lend false superiority. Peregrine launched himself at Weldon, staggering the other man with a ferocious blow to the jaw. Weldon gasped, but he had studied boxing in his youth, and old skills returned to help him block the next blow.

  It was a savage, hand-to-hand struggle without rules or quarter. For Peregrine, twenty-five years fell away in an instant, and once more he was an abused, betrayed child.

  But the wheel of fortune had spun around, and this time all the power and all the choices were his. He pummeled his enemy's flesh with fierce joy, every one of Weldon's groans a balm to his wounded spirit.

  Weldon was heavier and he fought with the strength of madness, but he was older and softer than his opponent, and without a weapon he had no chance. After absorbing several minutes of bruising punishment, Weldon crashed to the floor, face bleeding and expression dazed.

  Sliding the knife from his boot, Peregrine dropped to one knee beside the other man. "You laughed when I swore vengeance, bu
t finally your doom has found you." His voice throbbing with hatred, he laid the razor-sharp steel on Weldon's throat and drew a thin crimson line with delicate precision. "For twenty-five years I have lived for this moment."

  The touch of the blade brought Weldon back to alertness. With a surge of defiance he sneered, "If not for me, you would be a slave in Islam or an ignorant sailor. You should thank me for spurring you to better yourself."

  Peregrine almost drove the knife through the other man's throat. Barely in time he stopped himself, not yet ready to send his enemy to hell. "Do you think that Jamie McFarland would have thanked you for what you did? Or any of his sailors, who died as slaves because you would not lift a finger to help them?" he said with ice-eyed fury. "A pity that you will die too quickly to suffer as much as you made them suffer."

  He shifted the knife from Weldon's throat to his groin, driving the tip through fabric to rest on flesh. "Shall I do to you what you wanted done to me, Weldon?" he said softly. "How long will it take you to bleed to death if I decide to kill you by castration?"

  "You filthy savage!" Weldon was no longer the urbane businessman and aristocrat. Face twisted with terror, he tried desperately to grab his assailant's weapon.

  Peregrine lifted the knife out of his enemy's reach and struck a paralyzing blow to the other man's solar plexus with his left hand. As Weldon convulsed, retching with pain, Peregrine touched the knife to his enemy's eye socket.

  "Shall we play a game of blind-man's buff?" he asked with mocking courtesy. "First I will gouge out your eyes. Every time you make a wrong move, I will slice away another part of your body. An English version of the Chinese death of a thousand cuts."

  "I am glad for what I did to you," Weldon spat out, glaring up at his tormentor. "I only wish I had killed you in Tripoli."

  "It was your mistake that you did not." Peregrine soared on wings of fiery justice, savoring the culmination of his mission. Weldon was at his mercy and nothing could save his enemy now.

  Then Peregrine felt the pressure of someone's gaze.

  In his rage he had forgotten when and where he was, but now he glanced up and saw Sara. She stood flattened against the wall, watching him with agonized sibyl eyes. Sara, his conscience and salvation.

  Her expression cooled Peregrine's fury like a shock of ice water. The raw anguish that fueled his rage ebbed and was replaced by vivid memories of Sara's warmth, the touch of her lips on his ravaged back, the sweet totality of her love.

  He wrenched his gaze away to stare down at the man who had been his devil and his doom. Though Peregrine's barbaric fury had subsided, he still ached to claim his enemy's life. Pushing aside the image of Sara's face, with cool deliberation he poised the knife above Weldon's body, angling first toward the heart, then the throat, then the eyes.

  It would be exquisitely easy and profoundly satisfying to collect the ultimate price for the other man's crimes. But it was too late, Peregrine's wildness had passed. To kill Weldon now would be deliberate, cold-blooded murder.

  Perhaps Sara would forgive her husband for committing murder. But perhaps she would not.

  "Damnation!" Peregrine swore, his furious voice filling the room. For an instant he raged against the bitter knowledge of what he must do. Then he turned back to his enemy and slashed down with fluid, violent power.

  Weldon had been waiting for the death stroke with the paralysis of terror, his gaze transfixed by the glittering blade. As light flashed along the descending knife, he gave a panic-stricken, animal shriek.

  Weldon's wail was drowned by Peregrine's shattering war cry. Riveted by horror, Sara closed her eyes to block the sight of murder being committed for the second time that evening.

  She was on the verge of fainting when she opened her eyes again. It took her a long, shaken moment to believe the stunning scene before her.

  Weldon still lived, ash-faced and writhing with terror. Rather than striking a death blow, Mikahl had deliberately driven the knife into the floor beside his enemy's neck.

  "You are not worth killing, Weldon," Mikahl said viciously as he wrenched his blade free. "Rather than soil my blade with your blood, I shall hand you over to the tender mercies of British justice."

  Knife held warily, Mikahl got to his feet, but his caution was unnecessary. Weldon was broken. Like a whipped dog, he lay cringing and submissive before his conqueror.

  "Come, Sara," Mikahl ordered. "I will lock Weldon in here and send the police to deal with him."

  Quickly Sara bent to snatch her cloak from the floor where it had fallen earlier, then hastened to her husband's side.

  Weldon pushed himself to a sitting position, his expression incredulous at being spared. Keeping his gaze fixed on his enemy, Mikahl collected the two pistols, giving the empty one to Sara and keeping the loaded one himself. Then he backed across the room to the door. "Every scurrilous newspaper in Britain will be screaming for your blood, Weldon. Your name will become a synonym for evil and hypocrisy."

  Mikahl ushered Sara outside, then pulled the key from the inside lock. "You'll hang, Weldon, for the murder of Mrs. Kent if nothing else. Perhaps your neck will break, and you'll die quickly, but that doesn't always happen. Death by strangulation is slow and painful—you can look forward to that while you rot in prison."

  He closed the door and locked it. With the windows barred, Weldon would not escape before the police came.

  Still trembling with strain, Sara watched Mikahl in anxious silence, knowing he must be furious over her stupidity in coming to the brothel. When he turned to her with blazing eyes, Sara braced herself for an explosion.

  Furious her husband might be, but he did not waste time in recriminations. Instead he swept her into a rib-bruising hug that lifted Sara from her feet. She responded with frantic relief, burrowing deep into his arms and finding safety in his strength.

  The embrace ended as abruptly as it had begun. As Mikahl released her, he said with surprising mildness, "Coming here was not one of your better ideas, Sara."

  "I know." She brushed her hair from her eyes with an unsteady hand. "I was so afraid of what might happen to Eliza, but in the end, I did her no good."

  "The girl was not seriously injured?"

  "I believe she is all right. I heard them speak when Charles brought her downstairs." Sara shuddered. "I think he had gone up with the intention of ravishing the new girl. When he realized that it was Eliza, he must have pretended that he had come to rescue her. Pray God she never learns what almost happened. What if the room had not been well lit, or he had been too drunk to notice who she was?"

  "But that didn't happen," he said quietly. "Eliza is safe, you are safe. And you would not be my Sara if you were not willing to risk your life to help an innocent child."

  Though Mikahl's dangerous wildness had passed, his green eyes still held a strange, volatile light that Sara could not interpret. There was much to be said between them.

  Before she could decide where to start, they were interrupted by the sound of people entering the downstairs hall. Sara stiffened, fearing that new danger threatened.

  "Don't worry," her husband reassured her. "That is two of my guards and Slade, with Jenny doubtless tagging along behind."

  Sara's mouth curved ruefully. "Jenny has every right to say 'I told you so' to me."

  His movements crisply efficient, Mikahl took Sara's cloak and draped it around her shoulders to cover her torn dress. Then they went downstairs. Several minutes of chaotic greetings and explanations followed.

  Directed by Sara, they found Kuram in the back room by the body of the dead guard. When he was ungagged, the Pathan cursed furiously for allowing himself to be overcome. His turban had cushioned much of the force of the blow to his head, and a quick examination confirmed that he was not seriously injured.

  Her face set with determination, Jenny delved into Mrs. Kent's desk for keys, then went off to free whatever children were in the house. Before she left, Mikahl warned, "Don't unlock the room on the right at the end of
the upstairs corridor. Weldon is there, and it's a good place to hold him until the police can come."

  "Weldon is alive?" Slade asked, startled.

  Without looking at Sara, Mikahl said dryly, "My wife doesn't approve of murder."

  After a calculating pause, Slade suggested, "Lady Sara has had a difficult time of it. Why don't you escort her home while I deal with the situation here? Jenny and I will take the children back to my house. Then I'll contact the magistrate and the police, and tell them what has happened."

  "Very well. Here is Weldon's gun, though you shouldn't need it. Be careful, it's loaded." Mikahl glanced at Sara, his gaze unreadable. "Come. I'll take you home." He took Sara's arm with a cool, detached hand, and silently guided her outside.

  Sara's heart twisted when her husband ordered the coachman to drive to Haddonfield House. So he was going to return her to the protection of her father's roof.

  She had seen ample evidence that Mikahl neither forgave nor forgot easily. As he assisted her into the carriage, Sara prayed that he would someday forgive her for having left him.

  * * *

  Left in charge, Slade eyed the gun thoughtfully. Then he went to help Jenny. There were four girls in the brothel, one a dark-haired child known to Jenny, the other three strangers who had been in the house for only a short time.

  Since Jenny had once been one of them, the girls trusted her and gratefully accepted the opportunity to leave the house and build better lives. It didn't take long for the children to gather their few possessions and be taken to the carriage.

  When they were safely inside, Slade said to the driver, "Wait for me. There is one more thing I must do."

  The driver nodded and Slade reentered the house, Jenny at his heels. "What else needs to be done?" she asked, puzzled.

  "A little rough justice." The lawyer glanced down at her. "I must speak with Weldon, but you shouldn't come."

  Her chin tilted stubbornly. "I want to see."

  After studying her face, Slade nodded and led the way upstairs. He unlocked the door cautiously, pistol raised, but his wariness was unnecessary.