"Just one of the many circles of Hell, then," he muttered to himself as he climbed the winding stairs glistening with cobwebs and stepped out into the twilight, feeling as though he would never be warm again.
Philip looked at him closely once he'd emerged. "I say, old chap. You're looking a bit green about the gills."
"I've been feeling poorly ever since I got your note," he confided. "Ever since I discovered that Althea was mixed up in all this. She is safe, isn't she? I mean, it was all an act for her, wasn't it? They never-"
He shook his head. "No, they never," he reassured his friend in a low tone. "But the less said about that to Matthew, the better."
"Understood. Where is he?"
"In hot pursuit of her step-brother."
Alistair's eyes flew wide in alarm. "Oh God, he's not going to-"
"Charles escaped. Matthew has Thomas with him. That will keep him reined in, I promise."
"Is he the only one unaccounted for?"
"Yes, so far as I can tell. His dear Mama tried to bolt as well, but we have her. They were expecting their leader, as they call him, to come down, from what I can gather anyway. But he must have seen all the commotion and fled."
Alistair was only half-listening to Philip. He still could not shake off the feeling of dread which threatened to engulf him.
"Where is Patrice again?" he asked suddenly, looking around in every direction.
"She and Althea went off with your colleague Witherspoon to give their testimony. Blake went with them to tend to their medical needs. Back to The King's Arms, in Bartlet."
Even as Philip spoke he could see Alistair's rising consternation. "What? What is it, Alistair?"
"I'm trying to remember."
"Remember what?" Philip asked in confusion.
"Let me just close my eyes for a second."
"Ah yes. That famous memory of yours."
"I was leaving my office. I had just got your note. I was issuing orders to my clerk, and had to see Lord Witherspoon to explain that I would need some time off..."
"I'm sorry, sir. I know there are cases to hear, motions to be filed in a timely manner. But I've had the equivalent of a family crisis, and need to head down to the country ths instant."
"The country, you say?" Lord Witherspoon asked in some confusion.
"Enfield in Surrey," Alistair supplied as he checked his briefcase once more to be sure he had all of his most pressing papers with him. "A distant relation, to be sure, but she needs my help."
Witherspoon stilled in an instant. "And who might the charming young lady be?"
Alistair felt uneasy at the question. He did not want to put off his superior, but nor did he want to run the risk of ruining Patrice Sinclair's reputation any further than it undoubtedly had been by false tales of her elopement. He only wished it were something so trivial.
"It's Althea Dane," he blurted out, before he could stop himself.
"Ah, Althea. I know who you mean now." His eyes shifted in colour from jade to emerald with a rapidity which reminded Alistair of a chamelon. "Lovely little filly. Such spun gold hair, bright blue eyes, creamy complexion, marvelous figure, wonderful seat."
He licked his lips, but then suddenly shook himself, his eyes once again the flat jade Alistair recognised.
"She had some bother with her step-brother or some such regarding her fortune. You were looking into it, were you not?"
"Yes, sir. Good of you to remember," Alistair agreed readily enough, seizing on the convenient explanation he was being given.
"I take it things have reached a crisis. So I tell you what I shall do. I shall come down with you.
Alistair's jaw dropped, and he began to both express his gratitude and protest at the same time.
"Tush man, no need to thank me, and as for inconveniencing me, well, hear me out. I don't wish to interfere in your family affairs, but I would like to help. I've never been to Enfield, but I have heard it's a charming place. I happen to have a couple of days of leave all scheduled. So it's no trouble at all. Let me just gather a few papers myself, and we'll go."
"I tried to object, but he insisted," Alistair told Philip. "He said he had never been to this village, yet when we pulled up in the lane, he came straight out of the carriage to this church, and straight to the entrance of the crypt without a single ounce of doubt as to the way."
Philip gasped. "When he spoke to Althea now, she had no idea who he was. But he certainly knew her."
"Oh God. It's him. The man from London who bought her! I just know it!"
"How on earth-"
"Never mind that," Alistair said, running towards his own coach. "We haven't got time now. The question is, where the hell is he taking them?"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Althea stared out at the deepening twilight with growing unease. She was sure they should have reached The King's Arms at Bartlet village by now.
On the other hand, she told herself, trying to subdue her increasing feeling of inexplicable dread, the carriage driver was from London and no doubt didn't know the roads as well as she.
She was about to give directions to right their course, when Blake looked over at her beseechingly.
He was doing his best to tend to Patrice, but she was still beside herself with terror over her lucky escape. A man's hands on her was the last thing she wanted.
"Here, let me try," Althea said in an undertone. "I'm no doctor, but I can at least attempt to make her comfortable."
It was when Blake changed seats with her that Witherspoon made his move. He bashed Blake in the head with the butt of the pistol he had concealed in his side pocket.
Althea heard a sickening crunch. Before she could even let out a cry of protest, Witherspoon the barrister pointed the pistol at her and commanded, "Tie him up. Hands and feet. There's some rope in the seat under you."
He hauled the now hysterical Patrice into his lap and silenced her roughly by stuffing the muzzle of his pistol into her mouth. Her lower lip split open, and great gouts of blood began to run down her chin. Althea cringed at the sound of metal crunching against teeth.
"There's no need to be so rough with her!" Althea protested furiously. "You've got a gun, after all. Or is that not enough power for a man like you?"
"I'll be putting something harder in her mouth than that in a little while. In both of you. Anywhere it fits. As much as I like, over and over again."
Althea's eyes narrowed as she hissed, "I'll see you dead first."
"Brave words, Missy, but in the end you'll give in like all the others. Both of you."
"And just how many others were there?" she asked, knowing a fiend like this would not be able to resist the temptation to boast.
"Oh, now that would be telling. And I'm far above the ordinary run of criminals who just wants to gloat to each victim about how clever they are.
"But in your case, seeing as we're going to have such a long and pleasurable association, the three of us, I'll tell you. Since you're never going to see your husband and his friends again, how on earth can it harm me? It might even help. Make you realise you're no match for me, either of you. Give up on the false hope that you'll ever escape me in this life. Or even in the next. I own you both, body and soul."
"You can try to possess us. But we'll fight you every minute of the way, both of us." As an act of defiance, she handed her handkerchief to Patrice, who began to use it to mop up her bleeding mouth.
"Oh, they all fight in the beginning. It's part of the fun. Patrice here was number fourteen. You were lucky number thirteen, set to be the ultimate sacrifice, until that bastard Dane stumbled in before the ceremony and rescued you. But there's no chance of that now. Even as we speak, he's gradually being lured to his death by Charles."
"No, we captured him, caught him red-handed, he and his mother."
Witherspoon looked nothing if not smug. "They won't hold them for long. Things disappear from the prosecution's files all the time. Can't get efficient staff in the courts these days,
don't you know."
Althea stared at him in horror. It all made sense now, her step-mother's behaviour. Any charges raised against them would simply be made to disappear...
"I can't tell you what a treat it is to have you here, Althea. It's the icing on an already rich cake. I was so looking forward to this little victim here." He began to grope her breasts hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, though to Patrice's credit she didn't cry out.
"I hear she's really feisty. I hadn't expected you to have the courage to come back here to try to help the girl yourself. I was going to bide my time, let you get a little bit more comfortable and complacent in your new life in Somerset, and then make my move."
She stared at him in horror.
"I lost track of you once, but I've been careful ever since. I know your every move, your routines, your habits. It's so easy to investigate someone in my line of work. Come up with a false case and evidence against them.
"By the way, I know you're pregnant. No linens used for weeks. It's a prospect which makes me even more excited than I was at you being a virgin. You're more voluptuous than ever before, and I can enjoy you over and over with you at my mercy..."
He began to mutter to himself, the most unspeakable fantasies. She tried to shut her ears lest she be ill.
Althea had by now fished out the ropes from his cache, but had also taken stock of the other "supplies" in the coach, and was sickened. She knew what most of them were; Philip had told her about such things.
Alas, there were no proper weapons to be had. Only what she carried in her boot, and it seemed a long way away.
"If you're such a magnificent lover, why bother with these?" she mocked, throwing one of the obscenely large objects at him.
He looked flustered for a moment, and that was enough chance for Althea to make her move. Althea yanked Patrice out of his grasp and grabbed his wrist as he tried to discharge his pistol.
He would not kill her, of that she was sure. No, he had a far more horrible fate in mind for both of them. So it was worth it to risk even getting wounded if she could disarm him.
Already her right hand was reaching down into her boot for her knife even as she stretched up with her left with all her might and shook his arm. Witherspoon's pistol went off, pocking the thick red velvet back of the seat.
Now all they had to do was make sure he had no chance to reload.
Patrice now determined she was going to fight as well. She flew at him like a fury, scratching, biting, kicking, pummelling, until he finally he subdued her with one well-placed fist.
Althea slipped her knife out of her boot at last. Thanks to the marital arts lessons she had learned from Ash, she got Witherspoon into a vice-like grip with one hand and jolted hard, snapping two of his fingers.
He shrieked in agony and tried to shake her off. The knife blade digging into his throat was enough to convince him that he ought to remain still for the present.
"Patrice, come help me tie him. Then we're going to turn him into a eunuch. That is, if he isn't already. After all, what sort of man enjoys doing those things to a woman? Watching while other men do it? Someone with no sap in his trunk, that's who."
He began to curse her most foully, but the tip of the knife pressed to his jugular silenced his tirade.
"Haven't you been taught not to swear in the presence of ladies?" she said with a snide smile, enjoying watching the man who had tried to engineer her ruin now squirming at her mercy.
The thundering sound of horses' hooves approaching filled her with relief. She was sure the Rakehells must have guessed something was amiss when they had got to The King's Arms and found they hadn't arrived.
"They're coming for you. You're going to go to prison."
Witherspoon looked down his nose at her as though he was lord of all he surveyed. "What for? I've done nothing. I have an unimpeachable reputation. Who will believe you? It will be the word of two harlots versus mine. By the time your criminal record, which I have fabricated, is revealed, it will be the gallows for you both. And your husband too, if you don't keep your mouth shut now."
An uneasy feeling began to creep down her back. He was right. There was no real proof that he had done anything wrong, now or in the past. And he had enough power and opportunity to falsify any documents or records he liked.
True, Blake had been knocked unconscious, but still, that was no real proof of any serious wrongdoing. And with his glib tongue, the depraved barrister could lie his way out of almost any situation, she was sure.
Althea hesitated. It would be so easy to...
Witherspoon took the matter out of her hands as he fought against Patrice once more, and shoved Althea backwards onto the seat, determined to have his way with her.
The knife flew out of her hand as she hit the cushions hard. She had just enough time to shoot a warning look to Patrice before he was upon her, clawing at her neck and chest, tearing her chemise even with his broken fingers as he tried to drag her hem up over her knees to her waist with his bad hand.
She steeled herself, gambling that her guess about him had been right as he fumbled with his britches. She struggled to breathe against his crushing weight.
Let him get caught in the act. Just a bit longer. They'll be here to save you, she urged herself. This is the only way to stop him from hurting anyone else. I have the power.
She waited, forcing herself not to resort to her martial arts training again, though she longed to pummel him to dust.
But to her credit, Patrice was pounding on his back like a mad woman. For all the young girl's slenderness, Althea could feel every jolt flattening her further into the coach seat, so violent were her blows.
"Youu-dirty-old-bas-tard!" she screamed. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you!"
The vehicle slowed at last and the door was flung open. She could hear her husband's roar of fury and shouted to him, "No, Matthew, don't! Don't kill him! He didn't hurt me. He said I had no proof, that it would be the world of two harlots against his. So I let him attack me. You can all bear witness now to what he was trying to do."
Witherspoon now heaved his weight off her at last. Althea quickly covered herself and wrapped her arms around her waist.
The insane barrister stood in front of them all, untrussed and slightly tumescent, though rapidly dwindling once more. Yet he was still defiant.
Matthew launched himself at him with a feral snarl. Randall and Thomas dragged him backward before his fist could connect with the man's sneering face.
Alistair shook his head as he dragged Witherspoon out of Matthew's clutches. "I can't believe you would ever-"
"Oh come now, Grant, don't be such an old woman. It's the way of the world, don't you know."
"Not my way!"
"Nor mine," Matthew said with a glare, and spat right in his face. "You tried to ruin a sweet, innocent girl, turn her into an opium addict, and for what? It's not as if there aren't plenty of willing whores in the world!"
"Ah, but that's just it. The delight is in ruining them. In making your ripe young wife into the slut she truly is."
"Damn you! Arrgggh-" Matthew struggled to break free, but his wife now hurried over to his side and embraced him.
"I'm fine, and he's a liar."
"You're nothing like he said-"
"I know. We both know the truth. He's a raving lunatic. Don't pay attention to a word he says, my love."
"I can't believe-"
"I'm fine. I wanted him to be caught in the act," she whispered hurriedly. "It was the only way to stop him, surely you can see that. He's a barrister, has false evidence against us all that he'll use if we don't stop him right now."
Witherspoon glared at the couple, looking so intimate depsite all that had happened. "Don't let the little whore deceive you any longer, Matthew. She loved every minute she was with my friends."
"Damn you, shut your filthy mouth," Alistair rasped, losing his normally mild temper, and shaking him by the collar of his coat.
"The little slu
t was leading me on. They both were."
"I said shut up!"
"And much as I would like to have had her, I didn't succeed, now did I? The old tackle not quite what it was. So it's hardly rape when they were both willing parties."
Althea raised up to her full height? "Willing? Then please explain the state of Patrice's mouth, the fact that Blake is unconscious in the carriage, and the bullet hole in the ceiling when I forced your pistol to go off."
He made a dismissive gesture. "Pah. Do your worst, all of you. You might manage to put me in Newgate for a couple of months, but I think the authorities want to just sweep all this scandal under the carpet, don't you?
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection #4 Page 75