by Diana Bold
Vanessa caught her breath, forcing back her grief and tears, scrambling to her feet. She moved through the dark, feeling desperately with her free hand for some kind of weapon. She couldn’t let those bastards and whoever had hired them get away with this.
When she could find nothing to defend herself with, she moved instead toward the stairs, hiding underneath them, holding her breath and trying to remain as still as she could while rocking the baby and praying she didn’t make a sound.
Slow steps descended, and fear made her breathing so loud she was certain they could hear it. The man reached the bottom of the stairs, the light from the lantern he held in his hand making crazy shadows on the earthen walls. Vanessa searched the room desperately, trying to find something that would help her. Much to her regret, she realized the room was completely bare. It might have been a storeroom at one time, but they’d taken care to remove everything before they’d thrown her and Anne down here.
The light hit Anne, and the man cursed beneath his breath. The amount of blood that streaked Anne’s skirts and pooled beneath her made fresh tears well up in Vanessa’s eyes. As the man knelt down and began frantically trying to wake Anne up, Vanessa crept from beneath the stairs. Keeping a careful eye on her captor, she put one foot gingerly on the bottom stair.
She had to get out of here. She couldn’t wait around for them to kill her and Felicity, too.
“Stop!” the man yelled before she’d made it a quarter of the way toward the door.
Vanessa froze for half a second before sprinting madly toward the door. She had just reached the knob when the man’s hand closed around her ankle, pulling her feet out from beneath her. She managed to tuck the baby safely against her, but still hit the stairs hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
“Where do ye think ye’re going, ye wee bitch?” the man snarled, dragging her back down the stairs. She hadn’t yet gotten her breath back, and as she slid down each stair, unbearable pain racked her body.
At last, he caught sight of the baby in her arms, and he froze. “What the ’ell ’appened ’ere?” he snarled. “Why’s yere little friend ’ere dead? Where the ’ell did this ’ere baby come from?”
Drawing a gasping breath at last, Vanessa stared up at the man with sheer hatred. “You threw her down the stairs, you bastard. She had the baby and then she died.”
The man rubbed his forehead, obvious fear in his beady eyes. Vanessa took a bit of hope from that. Obviously killing them had not been part of his boss’s plans. Perhaps she would survive this thing after all.
“Who told you to take us?” she demanded. “Why did you kidnap us?”
The man shook his head, muttered beneath his breath, and stalked away, slamming the door shut behind him and plunging the room into darkness once again.
Vanessa pulled her knees to her chest and wept until the tears would no longer come.
* * * *
Roger was at his house on Bloomsbury Square, smoking a cigar and waiting impatiently for an update from his men. One of them should have been back hours ago, and he chafed at the delay. Had those bumbling buffoons managed to kidnap one of his stepsister-in-laws or not? He could hardly wait for Adrian and Morgan to find out what he’d done. Excitement pulsed through him at the thought of Adrian begging him to let his wife go.
The conflict between him and them had been a long time coming, and he was ready to get it over with. He didn’t fear them, and he’d enjoy very much seeing one of them on their knees, sobbing with fear, right before he put a gun to their head.
He’d lived nearly two decades with the anger and grief of his father’s death. He could never prove any of them had done it, and the constable had scoffed at the idea of a thirteen- or fifteen-year-old boy having the strength to push the earl off the tower. Roger had always been fairly certain that all of them had been in on it. He only wished that Lucien was married, so he could have targeted his wife as well. Though he supposed he’d already had his revenge on that bastard. Of a sort anyway.
His musings were interrupted by a hesitant knock at his study door. “Yes?” he snapped. “What is it?”
Otis poked his head in the door, and the look on his face made Roger’s stomach drop. “Uh, sir? We have a problem.”
Roger took a deep breath, restraining the urge once again to kill him. “What is the problem, Otis?”
Otis stepped all the way in the room. “Well, sir, we managed to get both of the women.”
Roger grinned, thrilled with that news. “Well, then, what is the problem?”
Otis ducked his head, refusing to meet Roger’s gaze. “One of ’em’s dead, sir.”
“What?” Roger snarled, getting to his feet and moving across the room until Otis had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “What the hell happened?”
Otis shuffled his feet. “Well, sir, that blonde one, she was a ’andful. She wouldn’t go down the stairs, was clingin’ to the doorframe and diggin’ ’er heel in, screamin’. So…I pushed ’er, ’opin’ she’d let go of the door.”
He stopped then, obviously afraid to go on.
Roger took another deep breath, wondering how he’d ever hired such incompetent fools. “You pushed her? You pushed her and the fall killed her?”
Otis nodded, shamefaced. “I wasn’t tryin’ to kill ’er. I just wanted to get ’er down the stairs.” He shook his head. “That’d be the pregnant one. She ’ad that baby before she died an’ the other one ’as it now.” Tears filled the big man’s eyes. “I ain’t never killed no woman before.”
A pang of regret went through Roger, surprising him. He’d killed Anne, just as surely as if he’d pushed the pregnant girl himself. Shrugging the thought away, he planted his fist in Otis’s face.
“You idiot! I needed her alive! Those bastards will never kneel before me now! They’ll be after my blood! How could you be so stupid!”
Otis pressed his hand to his jaw, shaking his head, wincing in pain. “I’m that sorry, sir. I never meant to do it!”
Roger turned away, cursing loudly. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“We still got the other one,” Otis offered hopefully. “The real pretty dark-haired one. She tried to run away, but I put ’er in ’er place! And we got the baby.”
Roger whirled on Otis in fury. “Did you hurt her?”
Otis shook his head, his eyes worried. “No, sir. Not much anyways.”
Adrian’s wife, Vanessa, was still alive. Roger supposed he could make do with that for the moment. Morgan’s wife’s death had complicated things considerably though. He turned on his heels and started for the door. “Take me to the bitch,” he snarled. “I want to see her.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As he and Clinton approached Roger’s house, Adrian pulled a hat he’d borrowed from Lucien down low on his brow, ducking his head, knowing that his face was distinctive enough to cause a stir. All he wanted was to remain in the shadows until he assessed the situation.
A pang went through him as he realized that since Vanessa had become his bride, he’d stopped hiding himself quite so much. He’d begun to believe her when she said that his scars didn’t matter to her. If he lost her, he knew he’d lose the small bit of self-esteem she’d instilled in him as well.
“Sir, over there,” Clinton murmured, interrupting his thoughts.
Adrian glanced in the direction Clinton indicated and saw Roger exit the house and get into a waiting carriage.
“Should we stop him?” Clinton asked, and in his old friend’s eyes, Adrian saw the same rage and protectiveness he himself was feeling.
As much as Adrian would like to put a bullet in the bastard’s head, he shook his head. “No, let’s follow him. Hopefully he’ll lead us to the girls.” He had absolutely no faith in his ability to get their location from Roger by questioning him. He feared Roger would refuse to answer even if he beat him to death. In fact, he was very afraid that if he did start down that road, he wouldn’t stop until Roger was dead.
Cli
nton nodded in understanding. The two and their mounts melded into the shadows at the side of the house beside Roger’s until there was quite a bit of distance between them and the coach.
The streets were crowded, so it was slow going, which was good. They were able to keep Roger’s coach in sight without being close enough to be spotted. To Adrian’s surprise, it soon became clear that they were heading toward the docks.
Clinton spared him a glance. “Do you know if he owns any property down here?”
Adrian shook his head. He’d stolen records of Roger’s real estate investments to help in his quest to shut him down, but hadn’t paid much attention to property that obviously wasn’t being used as a house of ill repute. Damn it! Why hadn’t he grabbed those documents before he’d left his house?
He soothed himself by deciding that if this didn’t work, and if Roger didn’t talk once he did approach him, he could always send Clinton back for them.
At last, Roger’s coach turned off the main road down a small, winding side street, and Adrian knew they must be getting close. He and Clinton fell back even more, and within a few moments, the vehicle stopped in front of a rickety old warehouse. This neighborhood was far from savory, the smell of dead fish and the river hanging heavy in the air.
Adrian dismounted about a block away and secured his horse to the side of a building. Who knew if it would be there when he returned, but he had to get closer. He glanced up at Clinton. “Go find my brothers and bring them back here.”
Clinton gave him a piercing look. “You need to wait for us, sir. If you try to handle this yourself, you’ll be putting not only yourself but the ladies in danger as well.”
Adrian nodded abruptly, though anger and adrenaline pulsed through him. He hated the suggestion that he couldn’t handle this on his own, but he knew Clinton was just worried about him. “Just hurry,” he urged, and Clinton spurred his horse back in the direction they’d just come.
Once Clinton was out of sight, Adrian began making his way down the street, glad for the shadows. He darted from one patch of darkness to the next, falling back into his role of Prometheus, wishing that he’d thought to bring the mask. It would be fitting punishment for Roger to have that be the last thing he ever saw, just like his father had.
At last he reached the warehouse and did some reconnaissance, finding that there were only two ways in, the front door, where Roger had entered, and a loading dock in the back. All was quiet inside, and he didn’t see any lights in either the ground-floor windows or those on the second floor.
Frowning, he found a vantage point where he could see both doors and reluctantly settled in to wait for his brothers to arrive. Everything inside him chafed at the need to wait, but he knew Clinton had been right. The girls had a better chance at surviving this thing if he waited for help. Who knew how many men Roger had in there with him? At least the one who’d been driving the coach, and he imagined a guard or two had been left behind to guard the girls.
Of course, there was also the possibility that the girls weren’t even here. If Adrian went in there, guns blazing, Roger might be killed and then they’d never know where they were. As a dozen different scenarios flickered through his mind, a sudden scream pierced the night.
Vanessa! He’d know her voice anywhere, and the thought of what it would take for her to scream like that, after all the bravery she’d shown when a masked stranger had broken into her flat in the middle of the night, sent a shiver down his spine.
He couldn’t wait for his brothers to arrive. He had to do something now.
* * * *
Vanessa jerked awake when the door to her basement prison opened. Several things assaulted her in a quick secession, each one worse than the last. Her bladder was full to bursting, and her stomach growled like something was eating her from the inside out. She still held sleeping Felicity in her arms. Her mouth was dry as the Sahara, and as three men holding lanterns descended the stairs, she realized one of them was Roger.
She gave a scream of pure frustration.
Of course! How had she not realized he was behind this? When she thought of what had happened to Anne, whose bloody body still lay mere feet away from her, she wanted to kill him herself. She put the baby safely on the floor and launched herself to her feet, only to be backhanded across the face by one of Roger’s henchmen with a brutality that knocked her back to the ground, cutting off her cry and effectively breaking her will.
She lay sprawled on the filthy floor next to the baby, her hand pressed to her stinging face, fighting to keep the tears burning her eyes from falling. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. She refused to be weak in front of him ever again.
Roger laughed softly. “Still feisty, aren’t you, Vanessa?”
She simply glared at him.
He strode closer, until the toe of his shoe pinned her skirt. “I always liked that about you, the way you’d struggle and fight when I had you.” He glanced back up at his men. “I think I still have a scar or two from this little hellcat.”
All three of them laughed as though his comment were the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Vanessa squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to erase the sight, only to be transported in her mind back to those horrible days she’d spent as Roger’s captive, the pain he’d inflicted and the indignities she’d endured. She opened her eyes quickly, shaking her head to try to banish those images as well.
“Bet she’s really somethin’,” one of the men said, eyeing her in a way that made her shudder.
Roger’s merriment disappeared with an abruptness that frightened her. “I might have let you have her a few times, if you hadn’t killed the other one,” he snarled.
Both men fell back a bit, obviously as terrified of this madman as she was.
He let his gaze fall upon Anne’s crumpled body with a snort of disgust, then returned his attention to Vanessa and the baby by her side. “She delivered her brat before she died? What am I to do with the two of you now?” he asked her accusingly, as if all of this were her fault. “My stepbrothers will be out for my blood now that Morgan’s bitch is dead. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.”
“Let me and the child go,” she demanded, trying to put a bravado in her voice she was far from feeling. “You know this is going to end badly for you. Why have even more blood on your hands?”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head, a ghastly flicker of amusement in his eyes, making her wonder why she’d even tried to get mercy from him. He’d spent his entire life brutalizing those weaker than himself. He enjoyed it.
“Why are you going this?” she cried, her nerves at the breaking point. “Why are you so determined to hurt Adrian? What did he ever do to you? He was just an injured little boy when your parents married each other.”
Roger dropped to his knees, looming over her, his eyes gleaming with fury. “He killed my father! Is that good enough for you?”
She drew in a breath, surprised, then shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. Adrian told me he was only thirteen when your father died.”
“I don’t know how he did it. Perhaps the others helped him, but I know it was him.”
“Why would they want to?” she asked, deciding that if she were to die, which she was almost certain now that she would, she would at least get to the bottom of this mystery that had scarred her beautiful husband far more than the fire had.
Roger leaned back on his heels, his smile suddenly back in place. “Perhaps he didn’t like the way Father and I played with him.” The sick satisfaction, the predatory pride in his voice twisted her stomach.
“You hurt him,” she whispered. “You and your father hurt him the way you hurt me.”
“He liked it,” Roger snarled. “He begged me for it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Adrian sank back against the wall right outside the open door that led down to some sort of cellar, Roger’s words ringing in his ears. He closed his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to breathe, to focus on gettin
g Vanessa out alive, instead of the fact that Anne was dead, and that Vanessa now knew the worst thing there was to know about him.
For a brief moment, he was sucked back to the terrible dark days in the tower, when he’d been too young and too weak to fight back. The pain and humiliation he’d endured had marked him, and until Vanessa, he’d never thought he’d get past it.
For her sake, he had to. He had to forget the past and concentrate on right now, this moment.
Shaking himself mentally, he ran through his options. Morgan, Luke, and Clinton wouldn’t be here for an hour or more, and he didn’t think he had that long. Roger was playing with Vanessa like a cat with a mouse. Soon he’d become tired of the game, and then Vanessa would be dead.
Adrian eased out his gun and checked it again. His instincts told him to rush in, guns blazing, but there were three of them, and he feared Vanessa would be killed in the crossfire.
What else? What else could he possibly do to get her out of this?
Vanessa and Roger were shouting at each other, and he forced himself to concentrate on what they were saying.
“I’m glad they killed your father,” Vanessa cried, obviously having no instinct for self-preservation. “I can’t wait for them to kill you, too. Adrian will come for me, you know that, don’t you? He’ll come for me and he’ll kill you.”
Adrian wanted to scream at her to be quiet, but he couldn’t deny that her faith in him warmed his heart. How had he ever doubted her? How could he bear to lose her? He had to think of a way to draw the others out. If he could take care of them one by one, then he might have a chance.
He quietly backed away from the door and down the hall, looking for something big to create a diversion. At last he found a large crate leaning against another doorway. He shoved it over, and it clattered against the floor with a resounding boom. He ducked inside the door and waited, hoping his plan worked.
* * * *