Temperance and Sophia sat tied side by side in a dark and damp basement. Their skirts and underclothes were soaked through to the skin with mud and water and neither of them were speaking.
Their captors, Yancy and Gus, he turned out to be named, were discussing just what they were going to do with them. Gus wanted to have Sophia to himself it seemed, but Yancy was insisting that a colored girl under the age of twenty with her virginity and all her teeth could fetch a real good price.
Temperance shivered. These bastards hadn’t changed a bit. They planned on putting poor Sophia on the auction block just as they had her. They planned on letting her be poked, prodded and examined by men who were so foul and undesirable that they had to pay good money for a female companionship.
Temperance would die before she’d see that happen to such an innocent girl.
Sophia had large tears running silently down her cheeks and Temperance offered her a small smile of reassurance. Tanner would come. He would realize she wasn’t there and somehow, someway, he would come…
“We’re selling the colored girl, Gus, but you can use her mouth if you wanna. Just don’t leave no lumps, welts, or cuts on her. They don’t bring as much money if their faces are unsightly,” Yancy warned.
Gus leered at Sophia and the girl whimpered and backed away the best she could with her hands and ankles bound. Temperance felt her heart race with fear but fought against it. It would not do a bit of good to panic and if she didn’t keep her wits about her and fight this then she would never again see her son or her husband…
“Gus?” she called.
The man stopped and looked at her with curiosity. “What the hell do you want?”
Temperance swallowed hard and managed to get to her knees. She kept her shoulders straight and her head high. Her voice shook but she managed to speak despite her fear. “You seemed to like what I could do before and I’ve learned a lot since then. Why are you worried about some inexperienced little girl when you could have a woman who knows how to please a man?”
Gus stepped toward her and grinned. “Well, haven’t you turned into quite the accomodatin’ little whore?” he sneered before spitting on her dress. “I don’t like whores. I like me the screamin’, cryin’, whimperin’ ones. Nice try though,” he added before slapping her cheek.
Pain radiated through Temperance’s head and she heard Yancy yelling at Gus for damaging the merchandise. Temperance didn’t have time to focus on that however because her attention was on Sophia as the girl screamed and Gus took her by her hair and dragged her over behind a pillar.
“I’m sorry, Sophia!” Temperance called out with tears burning her eyes. She heard Gus laughing and Sophia whimpering… then she heard the sound of Sophia’s voice being trapped in her throat as the girl gagged and Temperance squeezed her eyes shut. She might not be able to see the abuse but she knew exactly what Gus was doing.
“Alright there, girlie, it’s time to let ol’ Yancy have a real good look at ya,” Yancy drawled. “We gotta make sure having that babe didn’t ruin your body too awful bad.” He walked to Temperance, grabbed her arm roughly and jerked her to her feet. He chuckled when she glared at him defiantly. “You have some spunk back,” he admitted. “I assumed that’d be beat out of ya by now but then again I always knew ya’d be a tough one to truly tame.”
“I’m not a horse, you son of a bitch,” Temperance spat. “And you are going to regret this.”
“Why’s that?” Yancy chuckled as he scratched at his stubble covered cheek.
“Because my husband is going to tear you limb from limb.”
Yancy laughed loudly. “Your husband? I saw you all cuddled up to a man yesterday with that little boy as well. That man ain’t the one that bought ya from me.”
“Trevor is dead,” Temperance replied, feeling bile rise in her throat as Yancy walked around her and his eyes scanned her up and down. “He died over five years ago.”
“Is that right?” Yancy clicked his tongue. Temperance stiffened when she felt his rough fingers in her hair. She let out a surprised cry of shock and pain when Yancy yanked her red curls and pulled her head to the side. “And just who is this new husband that my limbs should fear?”
“His brother,” Temperance replied. “He’ll kill you, Yancy.”
“He can’t find me, girlie,” Yancy assured her. “He won’t find you, he won’t save you and you’ll never see him or that little brat boy you were lovin’ on yesterday.”
Temperance’s heart broke because she knew there was a decent chance that the man was telling the truth. She refused to give up hope however.
Gus came back around the corner dragging a sobbing Sophia by the hair. He tossed her against the pillar and she fell to the ground all curled up in a ball. Gus laughed as he adjusted his trousers and Temperance could see the dampness on their front. “She’s not quite as good as a few I’ve had before but she was better than some.”
Yancy checked his pocket watch. “There’s an auction tonight in about six hours. I’d say we could make us a good payday tonight with these two.”
Temperance glared but said nothing. Yancy stooped low and untied her ankles and then he stood and undid her wrists. “Take off your clothes,” he ordered.
Temperance shook her head, her insides trembling with fear. “No.”
Yancy hissed through his teeth and pulled his gun. He aimed it at Sophia in the corner. “Take off your clothes or I’ll shoot that bitch!”
Gus grunted and put himself in the line of fire. “You ain’t shootin’ her! She’s mine.”
Yancy growled and hit Gus in the cheek with the butt of his revolver. Gus cried out with pain and clutched the bleeding gash as he moved out of Yancy’s way.
“Now take your damned clothes off, girlie, or I’ll kill your little nigger girl.”
Temperance knew what she had to do… She knew that if she got her clothes off these men would reduce her once again to the woman she had been for so long and Temperance wasn’t about to let that happen. Fighting back may end with her and Sophia dead but it was the only option that Temperance could see.
Temperance crouched low and pretended as if she were untying her boot. Instead she clutched the handle of the knife that Tanner had insisted she always keep on her ankle. Temperance swallowed hard.
Tanner’s voice came to her head as she thought about their many lessons in fighting. ‘Don’t think too hard, just go with your instinct. Your body wants to survive and it’ll tell your mind what to do’
With a deep breath, Temperance counted silently to three and then launched her attack.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Tanner had taught Temperance that oftentimes you could act scarier than you were and intimidate your opponent. He had said animals often did it and, while it sounded foolish to her, Temperance took his advice.
She screamed at the top of her lungs and leapt through the air toward Yancy. It seemed that Tanner had been right. Yancy’s shock at her sudden assault had him hesitating just long enough for Temperance to reach him with her knife. He threw up his arm at the last instant and the blade caught his forearm causing him to yell out with pain and stumble back.
Gus yelled and the unarmed man started for her. Temperance threw the knife just as Tanner had taught her and the blade stuck deep in the man’s gut. He stumbled backward and simply stared at the ivory handle hanging out of him.
Temperance turned her attention back to Yancy just in time to see him lunging for her. “I don’t want to shoot you, girlie! A dead woman ain’t not use to me.”
Temperance dodged his hold and slipped, colliding with the wall and feeling the pain radiate through her hip. “You’ll have to kill me, Yancy. I won’t be your whore again.”
“You’ll be whatever the hell I tell you to be!” Yancy bellowed.
“Boss…” Gus’s voice was weak and pain-filled. “I believe she killed me, boss…”
Temperance looked over at the man and saw that he had yanked out the knife and bloo
d was coating his shirt and dripping onto the floor as he sat there on his knees. The wound was a fatal one. Her stomach turned…
She had killed a man.
Temperance had just wounded a man gravely and he was going to die slowly right in front of her because of it. She felt bile rise in her throat.
Suddenly, Yancy’s hands were in her hair and the man yanked her forward and slammed her to the floor just before his boot connected hard with her stomach.
Her breath left her in a rush and her vision blurred. “You stupid whore!” Yancy bellowed just before his foot connected again. “Gus was a damn good man!”
“I need a doc, boss…” Gus whispered as he slumped to the floor and whimpered.
Yancy pulled his gun and took aim at Gus’s head. Without batting a lash he pulled the trigger and ended Gus’s pain. Sophia’s screams of terror filled the air as Temperance vomited on the floor. Yancy laughed and holstered his gun.
“You are foolish and stupid, girlie. To think that you could get away from me was nonsense. I own you, darlin’ and I have since I rode in and partook in your birthday cake all those years ago. Tell me, girlie…” Yancy put his boot on her back and stepped down with enough of his weight that Temperance cried out with pain. “Does that new husband of yours know what a little pathetic whore you were just begging for attention after buryin’ your dear ol’ family?”
Temperance felt her sickness and fear quickly become replaced by anger. How dare this bastard talk about her family! With a primal cry of rage, Temperance put her palms on the ground and shoved herself up, knocking Yancy off balance and causing the overweight man to tumble to the ground.
Temperance lunged for the knife Gus had dropped and took the bloody handle in her hand. She turned and went for Yancy who was still attempting to regain his feet. Temperance tackled him to the ground and lashed out blindly with the six inch blade causing the man to cry out in pain.
She saw him going for his gun as he rolled with her clinging to him and Temperance somehow managed to grab the handle first and tear it from the holster.
Jumping back she held it out in her trembling hand with her knife clutched tightly in the other.
“Stay right where you are, Yancy. Don’t even think about moving because I’ll pull this trigger. My husband taught me a thing or two about taking care of myself.”
“Made you a goddamn pain in the ass is all he did,” Yancy spat as he wiped blood from his lacerated cheek.
Temperance had cut him to pieces with her knife. He was bleeding from his arms, legs and torso but none of the injuries seemed life threatening.
Temperance kept the gun aimed at him as he sat on his backside on the damp, musty floor and she walked backward to Sophia who was still tied up. Quickly Temperance cut her bindings and the girl quickly got to her feet. “Temperance, I can’t believe you did that… you. You saved us…”
“We’re not out of here yet,” Temperance warned. She nodded at the ropes on the floor that Yancy had taken off of her. “Go get those ropes and tie him up real good and tight, Sophia…”
Temperance’s nerve and courage were beginning to fail her. She was scared, cold and sick at heart knowing she had killed a man… but it had had to be done. If she hadn’t killed Gus he would have killed her or Sophia… But knowing that didn’t make the sight of his lifeless eyes any easier to look at.
Sophia was shaking and Yancy acted as if he wanted to grab her but Temperance cocked the revolver in her hand and he froze. “I know how to use this, Yancy--don’t make me.”
Sophia quickly tied Yancy’s hands behind his back and his ankles together. Temperance grabbed him by the back of the shirt and dragged him to the pillar in the center of the room. She found another bit of rope and secured him to the pillar with Sophia’s help.
“Now what?” Yancy sneered with blood dripping down his face.
“Now, I’m going to go get the law, Yancy, and you’re finally going to pay for what you’ve done.”
Yancy laughed loudly. “You think I’m afraid of the law, girlie? I’ve sold women to congressmen, senators, judges and U.S. Marshalls and I got the bills of sales to prove it. I’ll be out and hunting you down quicker than you can get your skinny ass back to your plantation.”
Temperance swallowed hard and shook her head. “Let’s go, Sophia.”
“Should we kill him?” Sophia whispered, clinging to Temperance’s arm.
Temperance shivered. “I want no part in killing anyone else. We’ll let the law deal with him.”
Temperance slid her bloody knife back into the holster inside her boot and together she and Sophia left the basement with Yancy screaming obscenities behind them.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Tanner’s fist drove into flesh and bone over and over, reducing it to nothing but mush beneath his shredded knuckles.
Hands gripped his shoulders and yanked him backward and Tanner swung at the new attacker, toppling the man to the ground in his blind rage to simply kill anything and everything that stood between him and Temperance.
Apparently the five men lying bloody and beaten in this back alley had thought it quite the joke to claim to know where Yancy was and then laugh and attack him once they had him back here alone--the joke had been on them.
“Shit…” one of them whistled through his broken front teeth. “I think you killed Joe! And you damn near killed me!”
“You attacked me, you worthless bastards. Now where the hell is Yancy?!” Tanner bellowed. He was angry beyond that normal quiet calm he normally managed to maintain. He had wasted precious time with these jackasses and during that time it was very likely that Yancy was…
Tanner shook his head. He refused to entertain the thought that his wife was being put through that hell all over again. Dear God if she was then it would break her for good this time… she wouldn’t live through being forced again--and Tanner would hang that son of a bitch using his innards as a noose.
Tanner growled when no one answered him and he grabbed a man with a broken nose by the collar of his blood stained shirt and hoisted him off the ground, “Where is my wife?”
“Tanner?”
Tanner dropped the man to the ground and whirled around to ensure that his eyes would see what his ears were hearing.
Temperance.
Her hair was a tangled mess around her pale face. There was a welt on her cheek and her lips were colorless and trembling. Her cream blouse and light blue skirt were covered in dirt and blood. But she was alive, she was whole and her green eyes filled with relief when she saw him.
Tanner ran to her and wrapped in a tight embrace. She clung to him but whimpered in pain. “Not so tightly…” she whispered. “He kicked my ribs and I think they’re bruised.”
Tanner’s boiling blood damn near evaporated right there in his veins. “Where is he?” he ground out against her hair as he realized Sophia was there too looking just as bedraggled as Temperance.
“We fought him off and tied him up,” Temperance replied.
“Temperance did the fighting and I did the tying,” Sophia whispered.
“He’s in the basement of this warehouse,” Temperance added, pointing the gun in her hand toward the building they were standing beside.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Tanner asked as he pulled away enough to look into her eyes.
Temperance frowned, her eyes filled with tears but she sniffed and raised her head high. “I’ll be just fine, Tanner. I fought him back. I didn’t let him take me and I wouldn’t let them sell Sophia.. I wouldn’t let them do to her what they did to me…”
“You did real good, Temp,” Tanner assured her, placing a gentle hand on her welted cheek. “Real damn good.”
“We have to go to the law, Tanner….” Temperance began.
Sophia shook her head. “Miss Temperance, you heard what he said. He has connections and the law won’t hold him.”
Tanner had suspected as much. Men like Yancy didn’t get to keep doing what they were doing as
long as they did without having friends in high places, or at least men in high places that they could blackmail into being on their side.
“Tanner, are you okay?” Temperance glanced around the alley at the men in varied stages of consciousness.
“Just fine, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about me none. These boys here just thought they could take advantage of a man looking for his wife. I taught them different.”
“Tanner, I want to go back to the hotel. I want to see Jackson..”
Tanner nodded. He didn’t want to have her out of his sight but knew he had no choice. He couldn’t leave this warehouse without taking care of Yancy and he couldn’t do that in front of Temperance. Tanner wasn’t exactly sure what had happened in that basement but he could tell that Temperance had a very precarious hold on her emotions just now and he didn’t want to send her over the edge.
Releasing his hold on her, Tanner went to the man who was missing his teeth, (one of which had been embedded in Tanner’s knuckle). “Stand up,” he ordered.
The man quickly shoved himself off the barrel he’d been sprawled across. “What do you want?”
“You’re going to escort these ladies to the Duchess Hotel and you’re going to get them there in one piece and in the exact same shape they are right now.”
The man glanced at Temperance and Sophia and then sneered at Tanner. “And if I decide to have a little fun?”
Tanner chuckled quietly and then drove his fist hard into the man’s gut. He doubled over with a oomph and Tanner pulled his knife and had it against the front of his trousers just as the man stood straight. Every ounce of color drained from the man’s face as he trembled.
“You’ll do as I say or else.”
“Or else what? Y… you’ll kill me?” the man asked shakily.
Tanner clicked his tongue, “No. But I’ll make you a damned eunuch and you can carry your nutsack around in a nice leather pouch ‘round your neck. Is that really what you want?”
The man shook his head quickly and Tanner grinned, “Good, now get them to that hotel”
Against Her Will Page 28