by Jun, Kristi
If only Wellington and Prinny didn’t favor him so much, this task would have been so much simpler. He could be anywhere by now, as he was trained to move about like a ghost and disappear when he needed to. The damn useless American. He’d been told the former U.S. Marshall was the best. He’d been planning this since the emperor had been exiled. Shit, shit, shit!
At least Emma was with Michael which put his mind at ease. He was vulnerable with her by his side. She would be Michael’s downfall.
He turned the corner and walked deep into the alley, then suddenly stopped when he saw a little boy, no more than ten, digging through the rubbish as he sobbed, a sound that was very familiar. Something twisted in his gut and cut him deep, memories oozing out from the dark crevasse of his past.
A brute of a man suddenly came rushing out from the decrepit building. “Why the hell are ye still here? I told ye to come get me when ye got somein’ to show me.”
Tomkin looked at the bully, then at the frightened boy. Bloody brute!
The despot grabbed the boy by his arm and forced the child up to face him. “Do ye hear me? I said—”
“Get your filthy hands off him,” Tomkin said.
Pulling his gaze away from the boy, he looked at the stranger, eyes bulging and snarling like a rabid dog. “Or wot?” the man said, releasing the boy.
Men like this did not deserve to breathe the same air he did. To deliberately break the spirit of a young boy was a crime, one that he could not tolerate. He knew the feeling too well. To be picked on and bullied by those bigger and more powerful than he. Tomkin pulled out his pistol and cocked it. “I won’t hesitate to use it. Step away from the boy.”
Tomkin approached the brute. “Kneel.”
The swine didn’t.
“Kneel.”
He obliged.
Tomkin walked up to the bully and kicked him down. The idiot fell on his back. Keeping him down with his foot, he pointed the pistol at the swine. Mixed feelings stirred in him: Anger. Resentment. Fear. “As long as there are men like you—”
“Stop,” the boy called out, stepping up to Tomkin. “Please stop. Don’t hurt my papa.” The boy dropped to his knees and blocked the shot.
“Step away.”
“No.” There was an agonizing plea in the lad’s tone.
“Why are you defending him, boy?”
“Ye don’t understand,” the boy said, desperately pleading with him “He doesn’t mean any harm, ye see…look.” The boy’s gaze lowered to the man on the ground. “My papa is ill, mister. He can’t walk…he needs me, don’t ye see.”
Tomkin dropped his gaze and saw the man’s missing limb below the knee.
“He doesn’t mean it. He just can’t help it is all. Please mister, don’t hurt my papa.”
Horrified by the lack of control he’d perfected all these years, he took several steps back from them. When Tomkin’s rage slowly cooled, he looked at the terrified boy, then again at the lame man, lying on the ground.
Something in him stilled. Pulling out a shiny coin, he tossed it to the boy. “Get yourself something to eat. Do not let him bully you. You have to be smarter…work harder, if you want your belly full.” Just then, the tavern door slapped opened, men rushed out to see what the noise was about. For Tomkin, this boy’s plight hit too close to home. Too close. Time to go.
CHAPTER 13
Michael slowly descended down the muddy bank with the pistol pointed at his back. The stream of water flowed swiftly after the rain. The prick was going to shoot him and dump his body in the stream where it poured into the ocean somewhere.
The thought was sobering, but then again, this wasn’t the first time he had a pistol pointed at him. But this American was resourceful and he had managed to get off the ship safely and track him down.
“Stop,” the American said. “Turn around.”
Michael obliged, all the while focusing on how he was going to get that pistol away from his captor, instead of succumbing to a slow agonizing death.
“Aren’t you going to beg for your life?”
“Would it make any difference?” Michael said his hands in plain view. Perhaps if he kept him talking, he’d find a way to distract him somehow.
His captor watched him intently. Then he pulled out a knife with its point curved, one that Michael had seen in India. “I don’t suppose it would. You English are all alike. Too damned proud to know what’s good for you.”
Michael saw the hatred spark in the miller’s eyes, as if the American had a vendetta against the English.
“Geoffrey…he was damned proud too—one determined prick.”
Michael dropped his hands and rolled them into balls of fists so tight he’d felt the nails dig into his flesh, fury pumping through every cell in his body. If it wasn’t for the pistol pointed at his face, he’d kill the son of a bitch. “You,” Michael hissed. “You shot him that night in the alley?” The American didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to. Michael saw it in his eyes.
Just then, a faint sound of footfall closed in on them. “Michael?”
Michael tensed, fearing for Emma’s safety. Damn, she defied his order. The prick’s head snapped toward the voice and listened, the look on his face sent icy chills down his spine.
“I am going to enjoy your little lady—”
Michael charged like an angry bull and they both landed hard on the ground. The prick’s arm jerked back and the pistol went off, the bullet whizzing by his ear. The nameless American kicked him off and clobbered him hard in his face. Michael stumbled back several feet—damn his fist felt like a brick.
While Michael tried to orient himself, the miller cut him hard on his jaw and Michael landed flat on his back. When the man charged again, Michael swiftly rolled over to his side and quickly found his footing. Without losing momentum, he swiftly retaliated and they both landed in the thick of the freezing stream.
“So the stiff knows how to fight,” the American blurted out.
“You have no idea.” Michael knocked the cull down again with his fist when the scum tried to get up. With each punch, blood oozed everywhere and the cull’s painful grunt soon morphed into craggy laughter. “Crazy bastard.”
“I don’t think you know how many people you’ve pissed off.” The American coughed in pain. “When I’m done here with you and your pretty lady, I’ll be sure to deliver my condolences to your precious family in Oxfor—”
When Michael clobbered his foe again, the thug’s mad laugher morphed in a loud yowl, then fell silent. Not trusting himself to be near the scum without killing him, Michael quickly checked for additional weapons on the American. When he was satisfied the scum had none, he walked over to pick up the pistol and the knife on the ground.
“Get up,” Michael ordered. He watched the scum slowly rise, now completely wet from the stream and no doubt freezing in the February weather. Just then he saw Emma appear where the main road ended. She looked down at them with the pistol in her hand.
“Well, well, well,” the American blurted out, looking at Emma. “Hey pretty, darlin’. Wanna—”
Michael slugged him in his jaw and the American stumbled back. Taking no time, Michael threw a hard upper cut where blood spewed out of the cull’s mouth.
“Michael.” She frantically made her way down the bank, trying not to fall.
Michael jumped on top of the American and punched him again and again, the scum’s face jerking left and right as rage pumped through Michael’s veins with a life force that had a mind of its own.
“Stop, Michael,” she begged.
He didn’t.
“You’re going to kill him.”
If he didn’t finish him, he’d go after Emma and his family.
“Michael,” Emma begged. “Michael…please,” she said in a soft whisper. “Stop this.”
All he saw was red fury and the need to eradicate the parasite from harming anyone else he cared about. It took several more seconds until it finally registered to him what she was
trying to tell him. When he stopped, he instantly backed away, realizing the damage he’d done.
Blood everywhere. On his hands. On the scum’s face.
Michael saw the look in her eyes; that look of despair. His heart sunk deep into the pit of his stomach when he saw the fear in her eyes. It took several more seconds to cool his rage. “Are you all right?”
She blinked several times before answering. “Never mind me.” She looked at the man on the ground, bleeding. “Will he live?”
He’d always been able to keep some remnant of control, but when it came to Emma he wasn’t certain. “We need to go,” Michael finally said. “Go, get the passengers.”
She didn’t budge. “Will you be all right?”
When Michael gave her a firm nod, she hitched up her skirt and headed up the bank and disappeared. The scum slowly opened his eyes and wiped the blood off his nose with his shirt sleeves. Michael walked up to him. “Who sent you to kill Geoffrey?”
The American spat blood.
“Who?” Michael hissed. The scum said nothing. “You deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done. But I will promise you a quick, clean death if you confess.”
“I’m dead either way, so why does it matter?” the scum muttered between coughs.
Michael knew the name he was about to utter would shatter everything he’d come to trust, but he needed to know. “Does Tomkin sound familiar?”
The culprit glared at him and said nothing.
“Willoughby?” Michael’s heart thumped faster and harder as each second ticked away. And when the name didn’t register to the parasite before him, a sigh of relief washed over Michael. “How about Jimmy?”
The American’s eyes lit up. So both men on the ship knew Jimmy. Good, at least he was heading in the right direction. Most likely, one gunman to do the job and this one to make sure it was carried out. Either Jimmy or someone was working hard to cover his tracks.
“So, the idiot spilled the beans,” the cull said.
“And you shot him for it.” Michael didn’t need an answer. “Did you hire the boy to deliver a message to Emma before she boarded the ship?”
“What boy?”
With the answers Michael needed, he forced the cull to stand and shoved the dirt bag up the bank and on to the main road. Emma was with the driver who was slowly gaining consciousness, while the passengers huddled together and stood by the carriage. When the blond saw Michael and the prisoner approach, she gasped in horror. The gentleman hushed her and ordered the women back inside the carriage.
As soon as they were all safely tucked away, Michael ordered his prisoner to get on the horse that was hitched to the carriage. The driver was in no condition to drive, so he took the reins. “One move and I will shoot to kill, understand?” Michael warned the prisoner.
If the prisoner was foolish enough to try to escape, he’d fall beneath the thundering hooves and get trampled. As soon as the passengers were dropped off at the next coaching inn to change horses, he and Emma would be on their way to Chatham Hall in Oxfordshire.
* * *
As the carriage drove on, Emma couldn’t stop thinking about Michael beating the American. There was a sense of blind madness in his eyes, as if he’d been under a spell where she could not reach him. Why was this realization so surprising to her? After all, she knew he was a trained assassin, a spy. A deep sense of sadness gripped her. She recalled Tomkin’s words: “It’s no accident that he remains unattached….”
The raw brutality she had witnessed opened a window to Michael’s world. To live with that kind of danger every day must take a toll on him. When she joined Lord Tomkin’s team over a year ago, she had a glimpse of the danger, but this…this was an entirely different layer, one that made her deeply sad. She could not imagine what that would do to a person.
Emma looked at the passengers sitting across from her. The woman holding the sleeping tot smiled at her. She smiled back. The gentleman was looking out the window and the blond mindlessly flipped through the pages of Bell’s Life in London.
She was glad for the silence.
As much as she cared for Michael, she couldn’t stand by and watch him get killed. She knew he would never willingly give up this life. After what she witnessed today, the flicker of hope she’d secretly held in her heart died.
CHAPTER 14
Border of Somerset and Wiltshire
The sound of thunder rumbled with unrelenting force. Soon, the rain would fall again. They rode, hard and fast for most of the day. When she saw gray smoke rising from the stone chimney and faint light spilling out from the windows of the coaching inn in the distance, a great sense of relief washed over her.
She was thankful that at least the other passengers, the driver, and the guard were safe and had been deposited at their last coaching inn to change out the horses. There, Michael had procured a private carriage for them to travel on.
Their prisoner was on a rear horse of a team of four, while Michael steered with his pistol at the ready. The frequent rainstorms made it quite difficult for speed and she sensed Michael’s impatience growing by the hour. When she asked to stop, to rest for Michael’s sake and health, he insisted they press on as long as the horses weren’t done in.
When the carriage came to a full stop, she stepped out, looked at the quaint inn before her and smiled. A hot meal and food in her belly should renew her spirit. Michael hopped off the driver’s seat and then proceeded to drag the prisoner off the horse, where he landed hard on the muddy ground.
“Horses are done in,” Michael said. “We’ll have to rest here for the night until day break, then we should head out again in the early morning. Go inside and get a room. I’ll join you later.”
She looked at the prisoner bruised and barely able to sit up, then at Michael. “What do you intend to do with him?”
“I’m going to put him in a secure location.”
Even as he answered her, she knew he wasn’t telling her everything.
Michael walked up to the prisoner and forced him up. “Go inside and get warm. I’ll join you later.” He reassured her with a forced grin.
Did that mean he’d beat him to a pulp again? The prisoner already looked fragile and wouldn’t survive another fight. Michael walked away from her toward the stable with the prisoner in tow. A sense of melancholy gripped her again and she prayed for his safety.
Emma quickly stepped inside and saw the hot crackling fire in the large stone hearth near the counter. Pulling off her gloves she extended her hands and approached the fireplace, allowing the heat to warm her hands; to melt away the layer of melancholy that loomed over her today. She sat down on a wooden chair facing the fire and winced. Her bottom ached from the carriage ride. Several minutes later after she’d warmed up, she approached the inn keeper at the counter to pay for the room, along with two dinners to be brought up.
All the while, a nagging question troubled her. Why had Michael kept the location of their destination a secret still? Why had Michael mentioned her surname to the prisoner? There could only be one reason why and that stung her with resentment, sending hot pin pricks of tears behind her eyes, but she held it at bay and walked up the stairs to her room.
* * *
Michael bound the prisoner’s hands with chain and positioned him on the sliding door of the last stall in the barn. Then he proceeded to tie the captive’s legs with another chain he procured from a stable boy.
When he was satisfied, he paid the stable boy a few coins to fetch dinner. Then he found a comfortable spot on the bale of hay and sat down. More than anything he was glad Roberts and Brandon were at Chatham Hall to watch over his family. They were both capable men and he trusted them to get the job done and keep his family safe.
“Why bother feeding me?”
Michael’s brows arched, mulling over what the criminal said. He didn’t intend to feed him if he wasn’t going to earn it, not that he deserved to live. “I thought perhaps you deserved one last meal before you rot in h
ell.” He saw the look of defeat in the man’s eyes. “That is when you answer my questions.”
The prisoner spat at him.
He pulled out the knife he’d taken from the prisoner and started to wipe the blade with a handkerchief. For several minutes, the prisoner glared at him, but said nothing. Let’s see how long you last. The bastard hadn’t had a meal in two days and he had to be famished by now. Hunger had a strange way of breaking one’s soul. It beat you down and made one do ungodly things.
“Suit yourself.” Michael leaned back on the wall and whistled a tune while waiting for the stable boy to return with the food.
Soon, the stable boy brought a plate full of roast beef, hot dinner rolls and a jug of beer. A loud growl rumbled in his stomach. Michael instructed the boy to place the plate of food on a wooden table nearby. When he obliged, Michael tossed the boy another shiny coin before he happily scurried off to finish his tasks.
Michael ripped off a piece of hot bread and ate it. He then proceeded to use the knife he’d just cleaned to slowly cut off a large piece of meat and popped it in his mouth. “Delicious.”
“Pig,” his prisoner barked.
“When I turn you over to my men tomorrow, they’re not going to bother locking you up at Newgate; instead, they will escort you to an undisclosed location, strip you down and torture you until they get what they want. Your choice. When you’re ready, do let me know,” Michael said, then sat down and started to take his dinner in front of the captive again. He stabbed the meat with his fork, slowly cut off a large piece of roast beef, and took a bite.
The American’s bloody face contorted in angry defeat. Michael hoped to God he was ready to talk. Traveling in this condition with a prisoner and Emma by his side was taking a toll on him mentally and physically. He was tired and every muscle in his body ached like hell.
When the meat was nearly done, he put his fork down and stood. Stretching his arms and rounding his shoulders, he slowly walked toward the entrance of the barn.