by Kim Bowman
“Some people have an inherent goodness. A kind heart. I recognize that in you.”
A bitter laugh climbed up her throat. It came out as more of a strangled sob. “Then you are a poor judge of character.” If she were truly good, she would have released Adam months ago and to hell with the consequences.
The man reached for her and even with his bound hand managed to give her forearm a gentle squeeze. “You are here caring for me, aren’t you? I know what it is like to do what you have to in order to survive.”
Georgina fought back tears. “You don’t know anything about me.” Because if he did, he’d not be so magnanimous.
“Trust me, miss. In my life, I’ve had experience with all sorts of characters. You do yourself a disservice. I suspect it’s because your life hasn’t been an easy one.”
His accuracy was too much. Here he was a stranger, whom she’d only just met, and he could so accurately gauge her life experience. She wanted to be free of her father. She’d had enough.
Georgina reached into the front of her apron and pulled out a knife.
The stranger stiffened. His reaction was much like Adam’s, and the two other nameless men before him. They were always waiting for the final deathblow.
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
He flinched.
She slashed his shirt open then reached for a cloth inside the bowl of water. Georgina rang it out and pressed the cool water against his flesh.
He hissed, and she glanced up at him. She’d borne the sting of the lash. Knew the searing agony of water as it seeped into the shredded flesh. “I am so sorry. I know they must hurt.”
Blakely remained silent while she cleaned his wounds. Next, she applied the balm.
He sighed in response. “That is heaven.”
“If this is heaven, I don’t want to see hell.” She dropped her cloth onto the tray.
“Miss Wilcox,” Mr. Stone’s voice thundered from above stairs.
She bit her lip, ignoring him. “Here.” She loosened the length of the captive’s constraints enough that he could reach the bread she placed on his lap. “Just a moment,” she called over her shoulder at the still-closed door. Georgina reached for the glass of warm lemon water and held it up to his lips. “Drink,” she said softly.
When he’d drained the glass dry, she picked up the empty tray and carried it over to the door.
“Can you help free me?”
Georgina swallowed hard. It was time to shove aside the selfish fear and cowardice that had driven her. “I will. I promise.”
And Adam. She needed to free these men…somehow.
“I must go,” she murmured.
She needed to see Adam.
Mr. Blakely nodded. His gaze seared her back as she climbed the stairs to confront Mr. Stone.
She nearly ran into him.
She would have tumbled down the stairs if Mr. Stone hadn’t reached out and grabbed her, pulling her to safety.
She didn’t want to be beholden to this man or anyone. “Thank you,” she bit out.
He smiled but didn’t relinquish her. “You sound like you’d rather have fallen down the stairs then talk to me.”
Georgina looked pointedly at his hand. “I think perhaps I might prefer that than speaking with you.” She arched a single brow. “You called me, Mr. Stone.”
“I’m here at the Sovereign’s request. I’ve come to help. We must be quick if we are to get Mr. Markham and Mr. Blakely out of here.”
Her heart stopped.
Other than that.
She did want to discuss that with him.
Emmet is inordinately interested in pikes. He has made several trips to Bristol to meet with an arms manufacturer to discuss design innovations to the weapon.
Signed,
A Loyal British Subject
Chapter 5
Surely she’d heard him wrong.
Or this was a neat little trap orchestrated by her father to test her loyalty.
Either way…
“Miss Wilcox, I am here to help Mr. Markham and Mr. Blakely.”
“Liar,” she hissed and backed away from him. Her heart thumped hard against the wall of her chest. Oh, how she wanted to believe him, wanted to believe she wouldn’t be alone in freeing Adam, because then maybe, just maybe, Adam could escape the guards stationed outside and live.
His onyx eyes snapped fire. “We don’t have much time. Your father is off meeting his superior for directives on what to do with Blakely. When they return, they’ll bring with them the order to kill Markham.”
She gasped and, folding her arms under her breasts, imagined a world without Adam in it. Even if this was a scheme on Father’s part, she had to act because the alternative would be watching Adam’s die in this place.
“There are men outside,” she said.
“I killed the two guards out back while you were caring for Blakely,” he said, his pronouncement devoid of emotion.
Georgina swayed.
Stone caught her about the waist. “You can’t be weak.”
Georgina nodded. If Adam were to live, she had to be strong. “What do I do?”
“See to Markham. I’ll see to Blakely.”
“He’s in the cellar.” Georgina gestured to the door.
“I know. We need to get them outside. There is a black carriage waiting out front. It has red drawn curtains.”
A sob escaped Georgina’s lips as she realized this was finally happening.
Stone misunderstood the reason for her emotion. He wouldn’t know of the longing for justice that had burned in her since she’d failed the nameless man killed in her kitchen.
“You will be safe, too,” he said. “We are not ignorant of how you’ve helped.”
“How—”
He continued through her fog of confusion. “We appreciate that you’ve cared for our members, Miss Wilcox.” He pressed a key into her palm. “Now go,” he commanded, giving her a gentle push toward the door.
Georgina didn’t hesitate. She flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time, stumbling over her skirts in her haste to get to Adam. She ran down the hall, gasping with the exertion of her efforts and the precariousness of their situation.
Still, an inevitable sense of doom hung over her.
“Adam,” she cried against the door.
“Georgina!” His deep baritone, muffled through the door, shattered the rest of her composure. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Her fingers shook so badly the key tumbled to the floor. She cursed. Georgina bent down, retrieved it, and jammed it into the lock. It made a satisfying click.
Georgina shoved the door open and tripped through the entrance. “We don’t have much time,” she rasped. “There is a man. He is here to help you.”
Us. He is here to help all of us.
Racing to his side, she set to work untying him.
~~~~
The muscles in Adam’s body went stiff.
He stared at Georgina in mute silence as she struggled to free him. He’d dreamed of this day for months. When Fox and Hunter had beaten him, nearly broken him like a battered animal, Adam had told himself that it had been the promise of seeing Grace again that had kept him alive. Only now could he be honest to admit to himself that it had been this woman, Georgina.
Close. They were so very close to freedom. A surge of desperate panic numbed his soul, froze his heart.
His stare alternated between the door to freedom and Georgina who knelt at his feet. He held his breath, expecting to see his captors storm in.
“Hurry,” he rasped.
His words seemed to fuel her panic.
She lifted her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
Adam forced himself to take a deep breath. Panic wouldn’t help either of them. He managed a half-smile. “It’s fine, love. Easy. Just focus.”
Georgina returned to picking at his constraints.
And then the knots were loose. The cords slipped over his wrists.
&
nbsp; She tugged on his hands. “Hurry,” she cried.
He stood and nearly collapsed. Georgina wrapped her arm around his waist and led him to the door. She pulled it open and peeked outside.
She glanced back at him. “They are gone. I don’t know when they’ll return.”
For the first time in three months, Adam stepped outside his prison cell. His heart thudded painful against the wall of his chest. Fox and Hunter could return at any moment and crush all hope of his liberation. His jaw hardened. Not again. He’d not be their victim again. If he died trying, he’d not surrender to their foul clutches.
Georgina guided him down the hall toward the stairs.
Two men stepped into their path.
Adam froze. The air left him on a whoosh.
Charles Blakely, Grace’s father, stared back at him. The greying gentleman’s words emerged as a whisper. “Adam.”
The dark stranger next to him nudged Blakely’s arm. “We need to get you out front. There is a carriage—”
A door shut somewhere in the house. “Georgina? Where are you, gel?”
Georgina dug a talon-like grip around Adam’s arm. Color heightened her cheeks. “They’re here,” she whispered.
Stone pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the closed door.
Blakely cursed. “Between me and Markham, we’re no match for them. We have to go.”
Three pairs of eyes turned to Georgina.
She gave her head a clearing shake. “The kitchen.” She started forward.
Stone gripped Adam and Blakely by their arms and hurried them along.
Georgina opened a door, ushering them into the kitchen. “There’s a door in the cellar that leads outside.”
“Georgina,” Fox thundered.
The color in her cheeks faded. She looked at Adam. “You have to go,” she whispered.
“Come on,” Stone murmured. He gave Adam’s arm another squeeze and physically supporting him, led him on to the cellar.
Adam dug his heels. They had to get Georgina out first.
His eyes caught hers. She gave him a sad little smile as though she’d followed the direction of his thoughts.“Go,” she whispered.
“Georgina?” Fox’s wheedling tone had grown impatient.
Georgina froze with her foot at the top step. “Now,” she whispered frantically. She shot a glance over her shoulder. “I’ll stay. Give you more time.”
They looked at one another. Longing. Regret. Hope. All mingled.
“No…” he whispered, and turned around. He couldn’t leave her. Not now. Not ever.
He was no match for Stone’s strength. The other man kept him and Blakely moving downward.
“I’ll meet you,” she whispered then closed the door to the cellar, sinking them in total darkness.
He continued his descent, deeper and deeper into the belly of the townhouse. Suddenly he was the small boy trapped in an armoire, banging and pleading for help. His own shallow panting filled his ears. He felt like he’d been tied down underwater, and was clawing for the surface, longing to suck in a clean breath.
They reached the bottom of the stairs. Stone squeezed his arm. “Get control of yourself. We’re nearly free.”
The words called out to Adam from a distance.
He was sinking. Deeper. Down into an abyss.
He’d nearly struck bottom when Georgina’s heart-shaped face penetrated his horror. In his mind, he saw her wearing a smile, holding a small, callused palm up in farewell. Some of the first words she’d ever spoken to him played again in his mind.
“You can free me.”
“I already said I can’t. If I do, my life is forfeit. Is your life more important than mine?”
Georgina, I was a fool — am a fool. Your life is more important.
She deserved freedom, deserved it more than he did.
Adam yanked his arm. He turned for the stairs. “I have to go back.” Oh God, he’d promised to bring her with him, had pledged to help her. Instead, when his freedom had been dangled before him, he’d abandoned her.
Just as she’d always assumed you would, the voice jeered.
Stone snaked one arm around his waist, the other he draped over his shoulder, all but carrying Adam the rest of the way. “By God, I will carry you from this place if I have to,” he bit out on a whisper. “It is time to leave. Now.” Adam was no match for the man’s strength.
Georgina. What have I done to you?
He had to try again. “I can’t leave her. I must—”
Blakely interrupted him. “She will meet us. She is a smart woman.”
That assurance wasn’t enough. Until he had her in his arms, smelled the honeysuckle scent of her skin, he would not trust she was safe.
They came to a stop in the middle of the cellar. All three of them searched around for the door Georgina had promised.
Stone narrowed his eyes and scanned the space. His gaze settled on the corner of the room, and he strode over. His fingers felt around then stilled. Click. A secret panel opened.
The sun’s rays filled the inky darkness. Adam held his forearm up to block the blinding glare. Then he stepped outside. His eyes rose to the robin’s egg blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. He’d never thought of clouds as fluffy. Hell, he’d never given clouds much thought in general. They were just…there. Now, he saw them through the eyes of a free man. He drank everything in. The clean, ocean air climbed into his nostrils, filled him, until he was nearly intoxicated by the salty scent.
Blakely nudged him between the shoulder blades.
Adam crashed back to the precarious reality of their situation. They made their way down the side of the townhouse.
A hulking beast of a man stepped in their path. “Wot’s goin’—”
Stone tugged a dagger from his boot then lunged forward, slashing the thug’s throat. The man’s eyes rounded before he fell silently to the ground.
They stepped over the prone body.
Stone gestured across the street. Adam followed Stone’s gaze to the black conveyance. “Get to the carriage with red curtains. Don’t look back.”
The distance to the carriage was no more than a hundred feet. Stone grabbed Adam’s arm, moving him along, and they both began to run.
Adam stumbled. His breath caught painfully in his chest as he braced for the bullet that would cut him down.
Stone cursed. He tightened his hold on Adam’s arm and righted him. The loud thud of Adam’s heartbeat filled his ears.
At last, they reached the carriage.
Stone pulled the door open and helped Blakely up. Next, he hoisted the weakened Adam inside and followed behind him. Adam pulled back the heavy red velvet curtains in time to see the front door to the townhouse open. Hunter stepped outside, frantically scanning the area.
Blakely rapped his knuckles on the ceiling, and the driver whipped up the team hurtling them toward freedom.
Adam’s eyes darted around the passing streets. He shoved back the curtains. “Georgina.”
Stone cursed and pulled the fabric into place.
A wave of dizziness gripped him. “She said she would meet us. We can’t leave her.”
Returning would be the height of foolishness, it would mean their sure death, but the alternative — her alone with Fox and Hunter, bearing the blame for freeing them — would mean untold horrors for her.
Adam collapsed against the squabs of the coach and clenched his eyes tight.
His stomach roiled as if he’d been thrown out to sea in the midst of a storm and the waves were crashing over him. His chest heaved. There was nowhere else in the entire world he wanted to be more than away from his prison.
Adam opened his eyes. “We have to go back.”
Stone swiped a hand over his face. “We can’t.”
“She said she would meet us. I said…”
I would take her with me.
“We are in no condition to face Fox and Hunter,” Blakely interjected with quiet insistence.
; Adam ignored him, his attention reserved for Stone.
The younger member of the Brethren rested a hand upon his knee. “I made a pledge to Miss Wilcox as well.”
Adam shoved his arm. “They will kill her.”
Stone’s gaze grew shuttered. “They won’t.”
“How can you be so certain?” Adam cried. He dug his fingers into his temples. He wanted to writhe and twist to escape this agony, but there was no escaping this hell of his own making.
“He’s right,” Blakely murmured.
A black haze clouded Adam’s vision. He wanted Stone and Blakely to be correct, but the costs of them being wrong were too great. They didn’t see Georgina the same way Adam did. They didn’t know how her cheeks flushed red with every smile, or how her beautiful singing voice could move a man to tears. They only saw her as dispensable to the goals of the Brethren — just as Adam himself first had. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own.
They hadn’t failed Georgina.
He had.
Stone cleared his throat. “I understand you feel indebted to the young woman, but you have the organization to think about.”
Indebted. This was about so much more than being indebted to Georgina Wilcox. It was about saving a woman who needed saving more than any person he’d ever known.
Adam looked down at his lap. The stitching of his well-worn breeches was frayed. He trailed a jagged nail along one of the threads. He suspected Georgina had taken a needle to them on more than one occasion. Had he ever thanked her? Had he ever said anything of it? No. His fingers curled into tight balls. “One way or the other, I’m going back for her.”
Blakely touched his shoulder. “Have we ever left a man behind?”
Adam felt like he’d just been kicked in the gut. He sucked in his breath. “She’s a young woman.” He remembered the day she’d come charging into his room, her lips bruised and swollen from Hunter’s assault. A haze of blackness fell across his vision. It temporarily blinded him. Hunter would punish her. Even now, she might be paying the price with her innocence. Adam buried his face in his palms and sucked in slow, steady breaths. He would save her even if it meant he had to return and face Fox and Hunter—and when he found them, they would be praying for death because he would torture them within an inch of their lives.