by Laurel McKee
“James? The theater?” Lily looked back at Aidan, panic flashing in her eyes. “The Majestic?”
“How should I know? I haven’t worked the theaters in years. But he thinks you’ll be there, wherever it is.”
“Let’s go,” Aidan said. He took Lily’s arm and drew her to her feet.
Lily untied the purse at her waist and pressed it into Sarah’s hand. “Go now, Sarah, leave London,” she said softly.
Sarah just nodded and turned her face away. Lily went with Aidan, but he saw the hollow despair in her eyes, felt how taut her arm was under his touch, as if she would break. He saw her thoughts in that instant—she could have been that bruised woman huddled on the bed, emaciated, old beyond her years, abused.
But she would never have those fears again, not if he could help it. Nothing would ever hurt her again.
Chapter Twenty-three
Lily heard the loud voices from the patrons as she led Aidan through the back door of the theater. There was still time before the curtain rose on that night’s play, but the aristocratic audience was already gathering in the boxes, waiting for another magical night at the Majestic. The excitement was palpable in the air, and the smells of greasepaint and candle smoke hung heavy. From somewhere behind the scenery she could hear the pounding of hammers for last-minute repairs and her father’s raised voice as he worried about the progress. Just like an ordinary night at the theater for the St. Claires.
But Lily’s heart thudded loudly in her ears, and her skin prickled with sharp awareness. Something wasn’t right here.
“I’m going to look in the dressing rooms,” she told Aidan and his brother, who were close at her back.
“I will go with you,” Aidan said. His firm voice brooked no arguments.
“What can I do?” David asked.
“Check the boxes,” Lily suggested. She gestured to the gleaming gold and white boxes above their heads, swathed in red velvet draperies and dignified silence. But anything could lurk in their shadows. As David strode away, she took Aidan’s hand and led him to the stairs that went past the orchestra pit and down into the secret world backstage.
She had never realized before just how many places there were to hide in a theater. Twisting, narrow corridors, so much like the streets of the old slums, led off in every direction, dressing rooms and storage closets and rehearsal spaces. Scenery flats and props were piled haphazardly along the walls, and she could hear the muffled sounds of voices from the stage above their heads.
But the backstage area itself was eerily deserted. Every shadow cast by a carelessly hung costume or false suit of armor seemed to move with menace. Lily shivered and held tightly to Aidan’s hand.
At the foot of the stairs that led up to the family’s dressing rooms, she paused to take a deep breath. She tried to listen, to hear past the familiar echoes and creaks of a theater. He was here somewhere, Tom Beaumont. She could taste it in the sour nausea at the back of her throat, feel it in the tingle of her fingertips. Every instinct she had ever had while living on the streets, every sense that kept her alive back then, was on alert.
But she wasn’t alone now, as she had been back then. She had Aidan at her back.
She looked back at him, and he watched her steadily. His very calmness made her feel calm, too, and as he looked into her eyes, he seemed to see what she was thinking. He shifted on his booted feet, his coat falling back, and she saw the dagger and pistol at his waist.
Suddenly a sharp cry, abruptly cut off, shattered the eerie calm of backstage. It seemed to float down the stairs before vanishing, leaving the quiet even more terribly fraught than before.
“Isabel!” Lily cried. She lifted her hem and ran as fast as she could up the rest of the stairs and down the corridor lined with closed doors.
Small windows set high in the wall let in the pale yellow moonlight, which illuminated one open door at the end of the row. It was Isabel’s dressing room, the most easily accessible of the small rooms, and Lily paused only for an instant to draw her knife from the strap above her boot before she skidded through the doorway.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
Aidan pushed her back to the wall, blocking her with his body, but over his shoulder she could see the wreck of the small room. Isabel’s dressing table stool was overturned, the tray of her greasepaints scattered and smeared over the floor. Her velvet Hero costume lay in a crumpled heap, one sleeve stained with a horrible red streak that looked like blood.
But Isabel was gone.
Lily pushed at Aidan’s shoulders and he let her go. She leaned her palms on the ruins of Isabel’s dressing table, her heart gone still, and that was when she saw the crudely scrawled note under her sister’s overturned scent bottle.
Come get me, Lily girl.
And a perfect icy stillness came over her. It was as if she could hear and smell everything so much more acutely, but her emotions and fears had vanished. She crumpled the torn scrap of paper in her fist.
“Oh, I will,” she murmured. And Tom would be very, very sorry when she did.
“Lily,” Aidan said, and she felt his touch on her arm. “Where did he go?”
She closed her eyes and just listened. She heard a door slam somewhere in the warren of corridors, and she knew. “The roof. He’s gone to the roof.”
“I don’t suppose it would do any good if I ordered you to stay here, to fetch David and your brothers while I went after Beaumont alone?” he said tightly.
Lily shook her head. “You know me better than that, Aidan. It’s me he’s after. If I’m there, he’ll let my sister go.”
Aidan’s studied her, and for an instant, she was sure he would grab her and tie her up and leave her here while he went after Tom alone. She turned, ready to run, but then he gave a brusque nod.
“Stay close to me, then,” he commanded.
Lily brought him to the door at the end of the corridor that opened onto a winding staircase. It led up to the wings of the stage, the quickest way from the dressing rooms when it was time for an actor’s entrance. Beyond that it opened into the walkways above the stage and eventually the flat roof. Lily knew that the stagehands and her brothers often went up there to sneak a smoke behind her mother’s back, but otherwise it was usually deserted. The play had begun onstage, but she could hear the actors’ words faltering as Hero did not make her appearance.
Then she heard another muffled scream and a dull thud, and a man’s rough voice muttered a curse. Not the roof, then, but the walkways. Lily pointed at a doorway and Aidan nodded. He drew out his pistol and held it easily in one hand while the other closed around her arm.
They ran up the sloping platform that led to the first walkway. Here they were high above the stage, among hanging scenery waiting to be lowered and the fringed swags of the curtain. It was dark up there, the lights of the stage barely reaching the railings, and between the wooden slats of the floor there was only empty space. The air was stale and dusty, and the walkway swayed as Lily and Aidan stepped out onto it. They could hardly walk next to each other on the narrow space, and the voices from the stage were only a vague echo there.
“Let go of me, you cocksucking bastard!” Lily heard Isabel cry. The crudity in her sister’s sweet voice would have been laughable if not for the fear lurking there. Holding on to Aidan’s shoulder, Lily peered frantically into the shadows halfway over the stage.
Isabel wore a white dressing gown over her chemise and petticoats, a gleaming beacon of light. One of the shoulders was ripped away, and Tom Beaumont held her arm in a bruising grip. She looked terrified, her eyes wide and frantic, but she was fighting him with everything she had.
Tom’s fist went back and struck Isabel across the cheek. Her head snapped back, and she cried out in pain.
Fury unlike any Lily had ever known washed over her at the sight of the bruise on her sweet, innocent sister’s face. Aidan rushed forward, only to be backhanded by Tom. Aidan fell hard to the walkway and lay still, and Lily scr
eamed out at the sight.
“Tom,” she called out. “Let her go. It’s me you want, isn’t it? Only me. She has no part in this.”
Tom twisted around to look at Lily, still holding on to Isabel’s arm as she sagged toward the floor. A terrible smile moved across his face. “I knew this would bring you out, Lily my girl. You always were a loyal one, except to me. And when I was the one who took care of you too. After all I did, you betrayed me.”
“I’m here now,” she said. “Let her go. I’ll do what you want.”
“Lily, no,” Isabel sobbed. “No, I won’t let you do this for me.”
“Such devotion,” Tom sneered. But he did let Isabel go, pushing her away hard so she stumbled to her knees. Isabel clung to the railing above her head.
Lily couldn’t hear Aidan behind her, but she knew he was there. She could feel his presence. She could only fleetingly hope he would stay hidden in the shadows where Tom couldn’t see him. Not yet. But she kept all her attention focused on Tom, on every tiny movement he made and every flicker in his eyes as she tried to predict his next move.
“Why did you come back here, Tom?” she said quietly. “There’s nothing for you in London.”
“You know me better than that, Lily,” he answered. He leaned back against the railing and drew out his knife from inside his mended coat. He pared his nails, that gesture she remembered too well, a lazy action that preceded violence. “I never do forget a betrayal. I always repay it, even if it takes years. And I’ve had lots of time to think about you.”
“I never betrayed you.”
“So it was just coincidence I got caught and transported right after your fancy new family took you in? I don’t think so, my girl. You owe me.” He flipped his blade in his hand as he slowly smiled at her. “You were always my cleverest girl, Lily. Not as pretty as your mum, but you haven’t done so badly for yourself. We could work together now, like we should have all along. That’s why I came back here—I heard you were in a good position to help your old friends now.”
Lily remembered the way she had had to “work” for him when she was a child, and she shuddered. “What do you want from me, Tom?” she asked again.
“Oh, Lil, you know what I want. I want what you gave that pretty duke’s son. I want what’s under your fancy skirts, like it used to be.” Suddenly Tom’s eyes shifted. Lily fell back a step, but he was bigger and just a bit faster. He lunged forward and grabbed her hard by the waist, dragging her up against his body, his scarred face pressing close to hers.
Lily almost gagged at his scent of smoke and stale onions, unwashed skin and greasy wool, and that acrid smell that was all his. It sent her hurtling back into the past, to that old mindless fear.
“You destroyed everything I had worked for, my fine girl,” he whispered as he brushed his mouth over her temple. “Now I want it back, starting with you.”
He pressed an openmouthed kiss to her lips, hot and wet, and when she cried out, he pressed his tongue deep into her throat. His hand closed over her breast, his fingers cruelly pinching her nipple. Lily felt like she was drowning, smothering in terror.
Running on instinct, she tried to drive her knee between his legs. She got in a glancing blow before he jerked back, and she bit hard at his cheek until she tasted blood.
“You filthy little whore!” he shouted. “Now I’ll have to teach you and your bitch sister a lesson.”
He backhanded her hard across the face, a blow that sent her sprawling onto the floor. Her head landed against the wood with a loud thud, and for an instant, she couldn’t see anything but a shower of sparks behind her eyes. Everything went hot and dark around her.
Then she heard Isabel scream and the pounding of footsteps up the stairs from the stage. She felt her sister’s hand on her shoulder and heard her sob, “Lily, no, no.”
Tom growled out a string of curses, and his hand closed around Lily’s ankle to drag her out of Isabel’s grasp. She had never felt so dazed or weak, but she managed to twist her body onto her stomach and reach out for the railing. This could not be the end! She hadn’t seen her family again. She hadn’t made sure Isabel was safe. She hadn’t…
She hadn’t told Aidan she loved him.
“No!” she screamed, and kicked out blindly.
Tom cursed again and ripped at her skirt as she tried to fight him, tried not to slip down into unconsciousness. Suddenly, he was gone, and she sprawled back down onto the floor.
She pushed herself up on her hands and twisted around to find it was Aidan who had pulled Tom away from her and was now bashing the man’s head into the floor. He held Tom’s arm behind his back as he pressed his knee hard into the villain’s back.
Aidan held him there effortlessly, beating him with a frightening, almost methodical efficiency. Lily could see that Tom was struggling with all his considerable strength, but he couldn’t get away from Aidan. The air was filled with the sound of Tom’s shouts, the thuds as he hit the floor, Isabel’s sobs. She heard her brother’s shouts as they reached the top of the walkway ramp, obviously having heard the fight from the stage below. She heard her own ragged breath as it tore in and out of her lungs.
But Aidan made no sound at all. And Lily had never seen such a terrifying look on anyone’s face as he wore now, a calm lack of any expression as he stared down at the man he was beating to a bloody pulp.
“Aidan!” David shouted. “Enough, brother!”
Dominic pulled Lily to her feet, holding her steady as she staggered on her numb legs. She saw Brendan lifting Isabel into his arms. Lily’s head pounded painfully, and her whole body ached, yet she couldn’t turn away from the horrible sight of Aidan and Tom.
At David’s words, Aidan finally glanced up. His eyes flickered over her for an instant, but the sight of her seemed to awaken some faint spark of life deep in their dark blue depths. He lowered Tom to the floor, at the last second flipping him over onto his back. Tom’s nose was broken, his eye swollen shut, and his face covered with blood.
“Please, Aidan,” Lily whispered. Everything about Aidan now showed him as a man ready to kill in an instant. But she couldn’t let him do that, not for her. “Please don’t.”
He didn’t look at her again, but something seemed to shift in his body. As Lily watched, he hauled Tom to his feet and pressed him back hard against the railing as Aidan’s fists twisted in his coat.
“If you dare touch her again,” he said, so calm, so elegant, “I will slice off your dick and feed it to my mother’s lapdogs. In fact, I just might do that anyway.”
“I will help you with that, Lord Aidan,” Dominic said. Lily stared up at him, startled to find he watched Aidan with a glint of agreement and near-respect in his eyes. He still held on to Lily’s arms as she swayed dizzily.
“You see,” Aidan said, still in that horribly polite voice, “you are quite outnumbered here, Tom Beaumont. No one would blink if I gutted you right here like you deserve. But I hate to make such a mess in front of ladies. Would you rather I just hand you over to Her Majesty’s authorities? I am quite sure there will be no chance for any escape this time. Or maybe I could just give you one little push…”
Below them the audience gasped, caught by the real-life drama enfolding before them.
“No,” Lily sobbed. “No, Aidan, please.”
“Aidan.” David stepped forward and held up a coil of rope in his hand. “You can let him go now.”
Aidan twisted his fist against Tom’s throat until the man choked, and for a moment, Lily was sure he would go against his own words and kill Tom anyway. Then Aidan pushed Tom back and to the side, as if he could no longer dirty his hands, and stepped away as David and Dominic moved forward.
Lily saw only a flicker of movement from Tom’s arm, and she cried out. But it was too late. Tom’s blade sank deep into Aidan’s shoulder, sending Aidan staggering back. David caught him before he could hit the floor.
As the blade dragged free from Aidan’s body, Tom’s momentum made him stumble i
nto the railing. As Lily watched, horrified, he fell over it and vanished from sight. She could hear his shouts as he tumbled down and down onto the stage, then a loud thud and… nothing.
Tom was gone in an instant, yet all she could see was Aidan, the blood seeping onto his shirt, his face blanched of color as he went an ashen gray. His brother lowered him down to the floor, and Lily choked back a sob as she staggered to his side.
“Oh, God, Aidan, no,” she whispered. She reached down and tore open his shirt to examine the raw, jagged wound that marred his perfect, smooth, golden skin. She bent down and kissed his lips. They were cold under hers, and she kissed him again, trying frantically to make him warm, make him well, to force her own life into him. She dashed away the tears prickling at her eyes and shook her head in violent denial.
Someone held a strip of white cloth in front of her, and she glanced up to see that Dominic knelt beside her, holding out the scarf from his costume. She folded it quickly into a tight pad and pressed it hard to Aidan’s shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. It was soaked through too quickly.
“I’m going for the doctor,” Dominic said, and as he hurried away, David hauled Aidan up to sit propped against his chest.
“It’s only a scratch,” Aidan said hoarsely. “Don’t cry, Lily. You know I’m not worth it.”
Lily dashed the back of her hand over her cheek. She hadn’t even realized she was crying until that instant, but her face was wet with tears. So stupid. Tears were not what would save Aidan now. And she was the one who had brought him here.
Suddenly Isabel was beside her, ripping apart her dressing gown to make fresh bandages. She helped Lily wrap them around Aidan’s shoulder, all of them struggling to keep him from fading into unconsciousness.
“He’s only doing this to garner attention from pretty ladies, aren’t you, Aidan?” David said teasingly, but Lily could hear the edge of fear in his voice.
“You don’t need to go to such extremes for me, Aidan,” Lily said. “You already have my full attention, don’t you know? You already have me.”