by Cerys du Lys
“Please don’t, please don’t, please…”
Another kick, another ominous sound. Hugh fell onto his side, and curled up, intent only on surviving this assault.
Tristan delivered another kick to his kidneys this time, and Hugh sobbed and whimpered. “Get up!” Tristan hollered, but Hugh was small and shaking.
“Damn you,” Tristan spat. The blood was pounding in his ears and he was crackling with energy that needed a release. He wanted Hugh to get up and fight back. He wanted to feel the pain as much as deliver it. “You fucking coward.”
“You’re the coward,” Hugh whispered hoarsely. “You are too scared of Gallagher to go and get her back, aren’t you?”
“Christ, I ought to beat you to death and be done with it!” Tristan yelled. Hugh was insane. Or was it Tristan himself? He placed his boot on Hugh’s shoulder and kicked savagely so that Hugh was thrown onto the flat of his back. He then pressed his foot against Hugh’s neck, pinning him firmly to the floor. Slowly, his brother’s face went darker and darker.
“I’m not going to go after her, dear Hugh,” he said. “For I care not a thing for her.” God, if that were true… was it true? He couldn’t think, he couldn’t see. “She made her choices, as soon as she stepped out of the sanctuary of her friend’s salon. She’s a silly liability and more fool Gallagher for taking her on. You are the coward, not I. You always have been.”
Hugh’s eyes were bulging now.
“Jesus,” Tristan went on. “You disgust me.” He lifted his boot from Hugh’s neck and he coughed and clawed at his throat as he wheezed the air back into his lungs, his face shuddering with pain from his cracked ribs.
Tristan stared down at him for a moment longer. His mouth was filled with bile. Disgust at Hugh, but also disgust at himself, for having let the situation get to this point.
And the fact that he didn’t have the guts to end it and kill his own brother. But while Hugh lived, there would be no peace in the gang.
Tristan spun on his heel and stalked out of the office. Maybe Hugh would die from his injuries. He decided he didn’t want to wait around and watch it happen.
Chapter Thirteen
When Anna awoke again, she felt groggy. It was dark in the room, now. She was curled on the chaise longue and a greasy blanket had been drawn over her body. She sat up, letting the nasty covering slither to the floor. There was a low, shielded lantern casting a pallid yellow glow by the door; the girl, Lily, was sitting there. When Anna moved, it alerted Lily. Anna could see her eyes glint with reflected lantern-light.
Neither spoke.
With a sigh, Anna stretched, and turned, and lay back down on the couch once more. She let the blanket stay where it was; it smelled. She was tired, aching from within, and her sleep had been artificial. Within a few deep breaths, she was finally nestled in a more natural, refreshing slumber.
***
She awoke again to full light, her body heavy and stiff but her brain at last more clear than it had been for some time. Lily had gone, but Mercy was sitting primly upright on a chair by the ragged curtains, and looking out through a hole.
Anna coughed, and stretched, and rubbed her face. She felt grubby and awkward, and stripped quite bare of any defenses. Her short life had been sheltered and safe, and even the most trying of social situations had been nothing compared to this. Conventions and expectations had carried her through, but now there were no rules, and she had only her wits.
She hoped her wits were enough.
“Good morning,” Mercy said. The sunlight was shafting onto her face and made her angular cheekbones jut sharply; she had a fierce air, almost man-like.
“You drugged me,” Anna said, expecting an apology, and knowing her hope was foolish.
Mercy shrugged. “Oh, it was the easiest way. I would think you are calmer now.”
Anna stood up, and her legs creaked with effort. She took a few steps around the room, rubbing the small of her back. As she neared the door, she heard Mercy laugh.
“Don’t think you can make a dash for it, girl. It is locked. And where would you go?”
“Anywhere should be better than here,” Anna shot back.
Mercy turned away, her hands upon the curtain to pull it to one side. “He will be along here soon, you know. Andrew Gallagher. To look upon you.”
“Look? Is that all?”
Mercy let the curtain drop. She swiveled round and regarded Anna with a long look. “Are you an innocent or are you fallen? What is your purpose here, I wonder?”
“Some disagreement between gangs, you said yesterday.”
“Yes. But why you? Tell me.”
Anna felt her lip lift in an unladylike sneer. She didn’t want to confide in this woman, and she folded her arms as she resumed her pacing, feeling so caged and caught that her body had to be active or she would scream.
“Anna,” Mercy said again. “You’re a pawn in their games.”
“I know that.”
Anna came to a halt behind the couch and glared at Mercy. “I know that,” she repeated. “So, what of you? A pawn, too, I imagine. Or else you would let me go.”
“I cannot. My livelihood is here, my girls are here, my…. this is my life now.”
“Was it always?”
“No, not always. But men have a way of folding you up and making you think you know them, and before you realize it, you are caught and fallen and dead to them. And alone.”
“So that is your history,” Anna said, refusing to feel a scrap of sympathy for Mercy. “Why must you blight my future with a history as sordid as your own?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Let me go.”
Mercy shook her head. “I cannot. But look at you. Young, strong and beautiful. There is a power there, but I am afraid you will not know it until it is too late and the moment to use it is past.”
Again - the reference to power. She had felt it, had she not, before? In spite of her suspicions and her antipathy to Mercy, Anna wanted to know more. She walked around and sat back on the chaise longue. “Tell me about this power.”
Mercy smiled. “Ahh. You have already felt it, then?”
“Perhaps. What is it about a woman that drives men to lust and desire and vile acts?”
“One moment. My power has long faded.” Mercy rose to her feet and went to the door. She unlocked it and called along the corridor, and when she re-entered the room, she had Lily with her once more. “Lily’s power is strong. Strong enough to turn even your head.”
Anna licked her lips in uncertainty. Lily was clad as she was yesterday, in but a tight bodice, and a scrap of lace around her waist. Her legs showed through from the knees downwards. She walked with a sway to her hips and sank to her knees in front of Anna, so that her head was level with Anna’s chest. Anna blinked, and tried to keep her vision fixed on Lily’s face. Lily knew.
“You’re avoiding looking, aren’t you?” she said, though her voice was low and not as mocking as her words were. She breathed in, and her fleshy breasts expanded. She pulled at the lower edge of her bodice, and the pink rings of her nipples peeked over the top of the boned fabric. “Look.”
Anna looked, her heart beginning to race.
“Now touch,” Lily said, thrusting herself forward.
“I cannot. Must not.”
“Touch me.”
But still Anna’s hands remained curled in her lap until Lily reached out and took her fingers, and placed them on her swelling breast.
Anna tried not to gasp as the soft, warm flesh seemed to welcome her touch. Lily smiled. “Stroke me.”
Now the first hurdle was overcome, Anna began to rub her thumb lightly over the yielding skin. Lily shifted, letting her nipples ease out so they were fully visible, and Anna’s thumb touched one, and it stiffened. Anna could feel her own nipples tingle in response. Lily let out a breathy sigh.
Mercy was still watching. “Sometimes, Anna, it is the promise of things as much as the things themselves. The
flesh half-seen, the slight sensation. Half a breast seen, not all of it. A nipple’s tightening. The redness of a nipple; of a lip; of a tongue; that reminds one of the redness of a pussy as it opens in desire. The roundness of breasts; the roundness of an arse.”
Anna looked at Lily’s mouth, at the way her lips parted, and she thought of the lips in her nether regions. More connections were made. “Oh.”
“What do men want?” Mercy said. “Oh, to bury their cocks in us, I suppose. But more than that. These men, they want…” she tailed off, and laughed. “Reassurance.”
Lily and Mercy laughed together. Anna was confused, and her hand stopped moving. “Reassurance?”
“That they are in charge. That they are powerful. That they are needed and strong and whole and complete and virile and… that they are not alone.”
“That’s what we all need,” Anna said.
“But men need it from us women; we can learn to get it from anywhere. Or at least, that’s what I see. Women, we can support each other. Men just fight each other.”
Anna took her hand from Lily’s breast, and folded it in her lap again. “Well, you are not supporting me; you’re holding me here prisoner.”
“Lily. Thank you; you can go.”
Lily jumped up and left, and Mercy sat beside Anna. Now the young woman had left, she felt oddly bereft.
“Feelings were stirring in you, and now they are dammed up,” Mercy said, perceptively.
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s just sex, in the end,” said Mercy. “She is beautiful and warm and that glimpse of her skin has started your body down a track that it wishes to continue down. Imagine how susceptible men are to it! And how their weakness angers them.”
“Oh.” But Tristan wasn’t weak; he was strong. Stronger than she had imagined. “I don’t want a weak man.”
“The ones who are so strong on the outside; they are the ones who need us to accept their weakness the most.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will, perhaps. Oh, Anna. You remind me of myself. I know you don’t trust me, and you are right to not trust me, but I wish there was a way I could protect you.”
Anna sighed. She wanted to exploit this sudden revelation but as she sought the words to convince Mercy to free her, there was a kerfuffle on the stairs, and the double doors burst open.
Mercy shot to her feet, but her head was bowed. “Mr. Gallagher.”
Anna realized the greeting was also a warning to her. Here he was; the man to whom she had to beg for her freedom. The man she had to fear.
Anna got to her feet, but refused to bow her head. She stared at him, keeping her face as blank as she could. He sauntered to her, wearing an uncouth striped suit and a leer on his craggy face. And when he spoke, his accent was pure London streets.
“Hello my darling. So, you’re my little gift from that cunt Hugh, are you? Lovely.”
His pale blue eyes wandered over her body. She straightened her back. “I am nobody’s gift, and I intend to go home.”
He laughed, his teeth showing brown and broken. His clothes were tailored and fine, if brash and showy, but there was so much of past poverty about him that she had to clamp down hard to prevent herself shuddering.
“This is home, doll,” he said. “For you, now, this is home. These are your new sisters! Ain’t you lucky?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, silent.
“Or maybe you’re expecting to be rescued, right? Hugh said that his cocky old brother has a bit of a candle for you, yeah? Not surprised, myself. You look pretty fuckable. So this Tristan is going to come and get you, apparently. Bring him to me so we can have a nice little chat.”
She could not help but lift her chin but she fought down the hope that stirred within her.
He caught her movement and laughed. “Maybe he will come but it won’t mean shit, doll. Won’t mean shit. In the long run. You don’t want to stay here with whores but you are expecting a murderer to come for you?” Gallagher laughed and laughed and no one else saw the joke.
Still chortling, he wiped his eyes, oblivious to the stony silence from everyone in the room. “They both fucked you, right?”
She refused to answer his vile question.
Andrew Gallagher waited, his mirth now gone, and when he saw there was to be no response, struck her sharply across the face; her teeth clattered and she sank back onto the couch, clutching her jaw in shock.
Mercy mewed, and his attention immediately went to her. “What is it, whore?”
“I have been in your service many years now, and loyal,” she said, and Anna was amazed to hear a shaking in her voice. “I have asked you for nothing. Perhaps…”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he said, laughing, “you’re about to beg for her freedom or some other nonsense, aren’t you? Eh?”
“It’s just that-”
“Shut it.”
“Her parents-”
Andrew struck out again, but with twice the force he had used on Anna, and she realized how lightly she had got off. Mercy was flung to the floor. Andrew bent down and lifted her up, high into the air, her arms hanging down as she went limp with fear.
His hands were tight on her upper body, under her armpits, and he lowered her slightly so that her face was close to his. “No,” was all he said, then he threw her with such power that she flew five feet in the air and crumpled against the wall with a sickening thud. She did not move.
Andrew Gallagher looked at the mess of body and dress and hair. “Not worth fucking.” Then he switched his attention to Anna.
He did not speak. He simply smiled, long and wide, and left her alone in the room with the barely-breathing body of Mercy.
Chapter Fourteen
Anna stayed frozen in shock for a long few minutes. She had assumed Mercy was working under Andrew Gallagher, in spite of her evident fear of him, but now she saw the older woman was just as much of a prisoner as Anna was herself.
Silence fell, broken at last by a bubbling moan from Mercy. It galvanized Anna into action. She flew to Mercy’s side and knelt on the wooden floor, reaching out to brush the hair from the woman’s face.
“Help me sit,” Mercy whispered.
Anna supported her, and Mercy was dragged so that she could prop herself up against the wall. She breathed shallowly, holding her sides, and her face was very pale. A light sweat sheened her face, and Anna knew that something had been badly damaged inside.
“How can I help you?” she asked in a whisper, afraid to attract anyone’s attention.
“Kill me?” Mercy wheezed, and Anna recoiled in shock. Mercy laughed in a croaking way. “Oh, don’t worry, girl. I am joking.”
How could she joke when she was so injured? Anna shook her head, her emotions all in confusion, almost angry at Mercy for making light of it all. “Is there anyone here with medical knowledge that I might fetch to you?”
Mercy shook her head. “I am thirsty. Just bring me water and also wine. Water to slake my thirst and enough wine to bring me sleep, at least for a while. I wish now I hadn’t drugged you; that was the last of my laudanum.”
“Where do I go? Have you the key to the door?”
“In my pocket. Go right out of here, and down the stairs, and turn left. Follow the corridor back and the second door on the right will be the kitchen.”
Anna felt gingerly in the fabric folds of Mercy’s dress, and withdrew the key, and promised to return within moments. She unlocked the door and slipped the key down into her bodice where it nestled under her breasts, flat against her stomach.
She listened carefully before beginning her slow journey through the murmuring house. She was taut with fear, starting at every distant conversation and thud of movement.
She was glad of the task, in truth, as she tried to make sense of what Gallagher had said. Tristan, a murderer?
She could believe it - but it must have been justified, it must have been an accident, it must have been...
She bit her lip
, letting the sharp pain clear her head. She had to be alert, and she pressed to the wall, listening hard.
Yet the darkened corridors were empty of people, and she slid unseen down the stairs and along the passageway. She found the kitchen likewise deserted. There were apples in a basket and she grabbed one, eating it as she passed through to the scullery beyond to find a source of water.
There was a jug that was half-full, so she took that, and an unopened bottle of wine, and with both her hands full she had to leave the apple half-eaten on the wooden table.
She went back along the corridor with less care, and was brought up short with a stifled gasp as sudden loud voices came into the hallway that she was approaching. She shrank back immediately into the shadows cast by an alcove under the staircase.
It was Andrew Gallagher’s voice that was so loud, and coming her way, she thought. His footsteps were sharp on the tiles, but then they stopped. “Hugh Craythorne, you are a worm of a man!”
Then it was Hugh’s voice, whining and pathetic. He sounded muffled and rasping, as if hoarse from shouting. “He beat me.”
“I am not surprised. I want to beat you. You have a fucking punchable face. A face that’s itching for a fist in it.”
“Listen, Gallagher, he’s not coming for her.”
“Really?” Andrew’s voice registered surprise. “You said he would come for her. That he hadn’t finished with her. Even she seemed to think he’d come for her. She’s a sexy thing. Can’t wait to shove my cock into her. Did he say why he wouldn’t come? Was he, in fact, bluffing you?”
“No, no, it’s true. I suppose as he’s already had her, he doesn’t see the point. He said you were welcome to her.”
“Really? Do you believe him?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Hugh wheedled.
“Your brother is a pain in the arse. We need to do something about it. If he won’t come here, I suppose we must go there. Either way this needs to end. Yes; we’ll go to him.”
“And do what?”
“Jesus Christ, have a fucking picnic with him. What do you think?”