by Rebecca King
“Where is he going?” she whispered.
Joe snorted. “He is going for his associates.”
“His associates?” Marguerite gasped.
Joe sighed. “He will have more men around here somewhere.” He pointed one sharp finger toward the two men still lying prone on the floor. “More of them.”
“How many?” she demanded, her eyes wide with fear.
“God save me. I don’t know,” Joe murmured with a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to find out, and neither do you. Come on, before they get here.”
When she still didn’t move, he grabbed her elbow and hauled her bodily after him. He positively marched her across the grass in the opposite direction to the Count, and kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure the two thugs weren’t about to get up and chase after them. He was fairly sure that he had laid them both out completely, but couldn’t be sure.
“Where are we going?” she gasped as she stumbled after him. She kept checking over her shoulder but couldn’t see any sign of the Count, or even the vagabonds now. It was difficult to know if that was a good thing or not.
“Away from here,” Joe grunted.
“Where?” She persisted.
“I am going to get you to a place of safety,” Joe replied bluntly but made no attempt to help her back into the house.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, eyeing the path up ahead with renewed trepidation. She was really starting to hate being kept in the dark.
“Just stop asking questions and come with me,” Joe snapped.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” she protested, yet didn’t want to stay in the garden either.
He didn’t bother to answer her and merely hauled her around the side of the house to a small, narrow lane that ran around the outer perimeter of the property.
“Where are we?” she asked. Having never been here before, especially in the daylight when she could see everything, she had no idea where he was trying to take her. What she did know, however, was that the house was now getting further and further away.
“I need to get back to the house,” she protested. “Let me go at once.”
“I can’t. You cannot go back in there,” Joe replied, studying the landscape garden. This time, when he tried to drag her down the lane, she baulked and suddenly dug her heels in.
Shivering now with a mixture of cold and fight, Marguerite tried to speak. She was horribly aware that her voice shook. Unfortunately, jumbled confusion of words that came out of her mouth barely made sense.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” she eventually managed to inform him. “Unhand me this instant.”
“I can’t, I am afraid. You have to come with me.”
“I don’t have to do anything you want me to do. God, you don’t stop, do you? You and the Count are welcome to each other. If it is not him trying to force his attentions on me, you are hoisting me off into the night like some caveman,” she snapped. “Let go of me.”
She tried to stop but her slight frame was no match for his brawn. She had little success getting him to even slow down.
“My father is in the house,” she gasped.
“We will talk to him later,” Joe replied. He huffed a bit because he had to drag her with him, and stopped briefly while he contemplated the wisdom of carrying her. Judging her size, he knew he could manage to carry her to the carriage. The only draw-back to that happening was that he wouldn’t then have a hand free to use his gun if he needed to.
“No. I am going to talk to him now,” she snapped.
“Shut up,” Joe ordered coldly. He suspected that if he tried to carry her she would scream until someone turned up. On this occasion, that was likely to be the Count and his men. “Do you want them to come and get you?”
“Who?” she demanded. “What are you talking about? Who are they? Who are you? Look, what is this all about?”
She sensed that her questions weren’t going to be answered when she met with a solid wall of silence. Glancing back in the direction of the garden, she frowned.
“Did those men really belong with the Count?” she asked.
“You tell me,” Joe snapped. “The Count is your lover, not mine.”
“What?” She slammed to a stop. Ignoring his heavy, put-upon sigh, she glared at him. “He is not my lover. How dare you suggest such a thing?”
“Liar,” Joe countered, completely unmoved by her blustering protestations.
He pushed harder than he should because her answer was important to him. Something nagged at him that he had to get the truth from her, and quickly, but he couldn’t quite decide on where that urgency had come from.
“Are you his lover?” He demanded coldly.
“No, I am not,” Marguerite protested. She contemplated slapping his face for suggesting it, but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Not only did she not want to hurt him but she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that this man had rescued her from the Count’s clutches at least once this evening-twice, if she took into account the two men in the garden.
Still, she couldn’t allow herself to be carted off into the night like some forgotten baggage. Digging her heels in again she resisted all of his attempts to tug her, and glared at the back of his head.
“The Count has gone now, and there is no sign of his men. There is no reason for you to drag me anywhere,” she persisted. Her voice was now desperate but there was nothing she could do about that – she was desperate.
At the end of his patience, Joe slammed to a stop, turned to face her. He leaned over her until she had to tip her head back to look up at him.
Her heart leapt. For a second she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. Her gaze dropped instinctively to his lips. Her mouth opened. Her soul almost relished the prospect. She waited.
Joe almost groaned. He knew that look and shook his head in disbelief. Was she trying to seduce him into forgetting his need to take her with him?
Well, I will be damned if that is going to work, he mused snidely.
Lowering his voice to a contemptuous snarl of rage, he glared at her. “You are going to come with me whether you like it or not, so shut up and get walking. Of course, you could scream, in which case your lover, the Count, will come running. Or he might send his thugs to come and get you.”
In spite of that possibility, Marguerite still refused to budge. There was something inside of her that wanted some small measure of reassurance from him, or a tender touch, maybe? Or a gentle whisper of encouragement? Maybe even a promise that everything would be alright? Whatever it was she needed she wasn’t going to trust this man until she had something from him that assured her it was safe to go, well, anywhere with him. As far as she could see now, he was no less dangerous to her than the Count only for entirely different reasons she didn’t want to look into too closely.
“No,” she protested. “I am sorry but I cannot go anywhere with you. It is highly inappropriate for us to go anywhere alone together, especially be out on the street like this.”
While she was no snob, she wasn’t prepared to eschew the stringent dictates of society to ruin her reputation because of this man, no matter how handsome he was.
But, before she could leave, the two vagabonds he had accosted in the garden suddenly appeared through the bushes beside them. Both men launched themselves at Jeremy with feral snarls of rage. She screamed when Jeremy suddenly bent over having received a heavy blow to the stomach. Her cry was loud when his arms were held by one man while his accomplice landed a volley of punches into his ribs that made Jeremy curse.
Horrified at the unfairness of their actions, Marguerite knew she had to do something to help him.
“Get off him,” Marguerite screamed.
When nobody appeared to have heard her, she lunged for the back of the man throwing the punches, but he shook her off as though she was a mere triviality. Before she could run and fetch help, she watched Jeremy lift both feet off the ground and kick his assailant with such force that the
man disappeared back into the bushes, and landed on the ground beyond with a heavy thud. Suddenly planting his boots firmly on the pavement, Jeremy then bent over at the waist and drew the man behind him over his shoulder. He then quite brutally slammed him into the ground. The heavy crack of the man’s head striking the floor was something Marguerite knew she would never forget. The man wouldn’t know about it, though, because he was rendered unconscious immediately.
Marguerite stared at Jeremy in horror but, before she could ask him where on earth he had learned to do that, two more men appeared beside them and launched themselves at him.
“Who are you?” she whispered even though she knew he couldn’t hear her because of the heavy thuds of flesh meeting flesh, and the pained grunts when fists struck with surprising accuracy.
She winced at the brutality of the scene before her. The more she witnessed, the more she realised that Jeremy wasn’t a guest at the musical recital, but had been there for some other nefarious purposes.
Was he a burglar? Had he been hiding out? Were the men waiting for him outside? If so, what did they want with him, or her? Who were they? What had he done that would warrant them wanting to kill him like they seemed so determined to do?
All sorts of confusing thoughts and emotions ran through her mind to the point that she was going to burst if she didn’t get some of them answered. Impatiently, she watched the men trade blows were staggeringly fierce, but Jeremy didn’t seem to even feel them. For each punch he received, he landed two in return together with a violent kick.
Marguerite looked beyond them, at the carriage now waiting further down the street.
Why hadn’t it come to stop them? As far as she was aware nobody had gotten in or out of it. Had they gone to fetch help?
“Why aren’t you doing anything?” she called to the driver.
He remained unmoved. The haunting vision of him sitting motionless atop the huge conveyance made her shiver. She realised then that whoever was inside the carriage was connected to the thugs attacking Jeremy. Was the Count involved in this? Was this the skirmish they had been arranging in the house a few minutes ago? If so, it didn’t seem fair that the Count had sent his men rather than fight himself.
Unsure what was truly going on, Marguerite knew it was wise not to get involved. Whoever these people were, whatever they wanted from him, they brought danger, and it would be foolish to get herself involved in any way. However, that said, she just couldn’t leave him to fend for himself. From the look of things, this fight could go on all night if someone didn’t do something.
Huffing impatiently, she threw a dark glare at the carriage driver, and uncharacteristically swore in disgust. She looked around in search of something she could use to help him. When she turned around, to her horror, she came face-to-face with the Count.
“I should leave them if I were you,” he began, his voice almost bored. “You and I have something to discuss.”
Marguerite shook her head. She had no idea where he had just come from but hadn’t realised he was there, and wouldn’t have known he was so close-by if he hadn’t spoken to her. She rubbed her arms with an air of vulnerability. It was difficult to know what to do. Her gaze fell onto Jeremy and his attackers.
“Are you not going to do something to stop them?” she demanded.
Her gaze flickered to the looming bulk of a black carriage which had started rolling slowly toward her. She knew immediately that it was the Count’s carriage and threw him a warning glare.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” she snapped.
“I wouldn’t advise you to run,” the Count taunted. “My men will have no trouble catching you.”
“They look a bit busy at the moment,” she replied dryly with a nod to two of his ‘men’ who were now unconscious and in the gutter.
Jeremy was putting paid to the third and last man standing before him with surprising dexterity. Mentally applauding him, Marguerite faced the Count.
“I am leaving here, but I am going with him, not you,” she declared flatly. “Try to force me otherwise and I will report you to the magistrate for kidnapping me.”
She mentally winced when she realised how ridiculous that sounded. If she was kidnapped, she wouldn’t be able to report it to the magistrate. Thankfully, the Count didn’t appear to notice, or at least didn’t pick her up on it.
“What makes you think he can be trusted?”
Marguerite snorted. “What makes me think you can be trusted?” she demanded. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it comes to light that you are a crook. You are certainly a fraudster. You might have half of London fooled right now but you don’t fool me. Whoever you are, you are ruined once word gets out that you are not Russian after all, and are certainly not a Count. Nobody will ever allow you through their doors again. You will be forever branded one of the fraudsters who almost got away with it.”
She knew from the pure evil that swept over the Count’s face that she had struck home and revealed far too much of the truth. His eyes flashed with anger. For a moment she wondered if he was going to lift the cane he was carrying and strike her with it. It actually came off the floor but, after a few inches, he sucked in a huge breath and all-too-carefully lowered it back down again.
“I am done listing to you babbling nonsense,” the Count snapped dismissively, once again hiding behind his Russian persona. His face was cruel. “I should be careful how many insults you throw at me, my dear. I am not the kind of man you should cross, you know.”
“You don’t frighten me,” she snapped bravely but immediately regretted her words when his lips curled into a sneer of utter contempt.
The man is a lunatic, she mused. A very clever lunatic I’ll grant you, but a lunatic nonetheless.
The Count didn’t respond. He looked at something down the street. Marguerite didn’t even get the chance to look over her shoulder before she was grabbed from behind and her captor started to drag her unceremoniously down the street.
“Put me down,” she screamed as she clawed at the arms of the burly thug trying to get her to the carriage.
“This way,” the Count ordered the man swinging her around as though she weighed nothing at all.
“Let go of me.” Her desperate gaze locked on to Jeremy, who was now trading heavy blows with renewed determination. She had no idea if he had seen her or not because he hadn’t taken his eyes off the man he was fighting.
“Jeremy!” Marguerite screamed.
“Oh do shut up,” the Count sighed.
“Bring her this way,” the Count ordered his thug. He signalled to the driver who flicked the horse into a faster walk to meet them further down.
“Unhand me, you oaf,” she demanded as she planted her feet firmly on the ground and hauled herself backwards with as much strength as she could muster.
Thankfully, Jeremy suddenly landed a blow to his attacker’s jaw that made him slump to the ground without a murmur.
“Jeremy!” She screamed again, her gaze locked on him.
Joe mentally swore and counted heads as he raced toward her. He knew that as soon as they got her into the carriage they would be gone and woe betide anybody who stood in their way. Marguerite was likely never to be heard from again. She would either be drawn into London’s seedy underworld and trapped in a sordid world of vice she would never be able to escape from, or she would re-appear in several weeks’ time - dead. He couldn’t bear the thought of either of those things happening to her. The prospect was far more disturbing than he had ever believed possible. His aversion to the possibility of Sayers getting his dirty hands on her was so terrifying that Joe redoubled his efforts to reach her.
Seconds later, he sighed with relief when he saw Marcus round the corner at the end of the road and race toward them. Now that backup was available, Joe turned his attention to the man Marguerite was attempting to kick.
Marguerite’s gaze remained pinned on Jeremy as he raced toward her. Thankfully, the ferocity of her resistance had made it imp
ossible for the thug to get her any further than a few feet. She could hear his grunts and muttered curses, but paid them no heed as she dug down for her last reserves of energy and fought with all of her might. Her ribs hurt from being held so tightly while jostled up and down by the man’s uneven gait, but she refused to give in.
“You damned cat,” the man grumbled, his breath coming out in rapid puffs.
Marguerite watched blood appear on the arm wrapped tightly around her waist, and dug her nails deeper into the back of his hand. The pain she caused her assailant made him release his hold temporarily, and it was all she needed to be able to step away.
“Get out of the way,” Joe snapped as he surged toward her.
Hauling her to the opposite side of the path, and away from the carriage, Joe landed a series of punches and kicks on the man that left him moaning and writhing in the gutter mere inches from the carriage wheels. To his disgust, he looked up in time to watch the tails ends of the cloak the Count wore disappear into the back of the carriage and the door slam shut. Within seconds the carriage was racing into the distance.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Damn it,” Joe snapped.
He wanted to go after him, but this time had to let him go. Although he was annoyed at being denied the opportunity to capture the man the Star Elite were after, it didn’t sting so much because he had now seen the man up close and could describe every feature in exact detail. He wouldn’t be able to hide so easily now.
“Come on.” Joe grabbed Marguerite’s wrist and hauled her behind him through the hedge and back into the gardens of Carmichael House.
Marcus stopped when Joe disappeared with the woman. He knew where Joe was going and hesitated only long enough to throw the black carriage a cursory glance before he retraced his steps and vanished just as quickly as he had arrived.
“Where are we going?” Marguerite demanded when her lungs felt as though they were about to burst. She tried to slow down a little but was hauled unceremoniously onward by an insistent Jeremy, who refused to relent.