A ramshackle barn sat languishing amid one overgrown pasture, and although the light in the window of the house seemed evidence that somebody must live here, the small farmstead had an eerie, abandoned atmosphere, hidden from the world by its remote location and the woods that screened it from the road.
“What is this place?” Grace whispered to Trevor. “Some sort of hideaway for Lynch’s gang?”
He nodded, scanning out the carriage window. “If I were to venture a guess, I’d say they probably use it for a safe house when they have trouble in Town. Maybe a way station for moving stolen goods out of the city, as well. That barn could serve as a warehouse for storing their contraband until they can carry it out to be sold in other parts of England.”
“And a place to hide the bodies,” George said dryly.
“Lovely.”
“Lord Brentford, don’t be a coward,” Trevor said in a cool monotone.
George scowled at him in return.
As the carriage rolled to a halt, Grace’s heart pounded with dread and an ominous uncertainty. She had a bad feeling about this place. George was probably right.
The three of them were probably going to end up in shallow graves in one of these pastures.
Then Lynch’s hard-eyed henchmen opened the carriage door. The three prisoners were ordered out and taken into the ill-kept cottage, and herded into a back room. Here they were thrust down into wooden chairs set back-to-back.
Trevor and George had their ankles tied to the chair legs, but at least the ruffians spared Grace this indignity. She scowled at the man with the rope as he reached to grab her ankle. “Don’t you dare,” she warned.
“Leave her alone,” Marianne pleaded, following them into the back room. “Jimmy, please! Don’t be cruel to ’er! She’s a lady!”
“Eh, never mind the wench,” he told his henchmen, ordering them out with a nod toward the door. “Leave us. Shut the door behind you, Stella.”
Marianne withdrew with a worried frown.
Then Lynch studied them, pacing slowly around all three of them tied up in a ring back-to-back. Grace refused to cower with Trevor by her side. She could feel his fury as he watched Lynch pass with an icy stare.
The criminal stopped in front of George.
“Ow!” George muttered.
Grace looked over her shoulder and saw Lynch reaching down to wrench the signet ring off George’s finger. “What do you want that for?” her friend demanded in a shaky tone.
“Well, Your Lordship, y’see, I had some time to think on the drive here. Funny how things come into perspective. I wanted to kill you before for slicin’ up my arm, but it’s not as if you killed three o’ my men.” He slanted an evil glance toward Trevor. “You’re a pain in the arse, to be sure, but I’m thinkin’ you’re worth more to me alive. Lord Lievedon’s son, aren’t you? This ring should inspire your father to cooperate. As for you, Constable . . .” Lynch sauntered around to sneer at Trevor. “You’re another story. You’re not leavin’ here alive. I’ll let you ponder that a while, and you can think about what I’m going to do your lady here before I put you out of your misery. But don’t worry, you’ll get to watch the whole thing.”
Grace felt her blood run cold, but she refused to let her terror show on her face. Instead, she reminded herself that there was a big difference between making a threat and carrying it out. Still, the man was a monster.
Just then, one of his henchmen poked his head in the door. “Hey, Jimmy, you better get out here. Trouble outside. I think we might’ve been followed.”
“What’s this? A rescue attempt from the hayseeds?” He scoffed. “You better hope your little farmer friends don’t try anything stupid.” As soon as he stalked out of the room, George nearly started hyperventilating.
“Oh, my God, how can this be happening—”
“Be quiet!” Trevor clipped out in a low tone. “That’ll be Parker and his men. We don’t have much time. Grace, did they tie your feet?”
“No.”
“Good. Listen carefully. I want you to stand up, then step through your hands. Just bend down, bring your arms as low as you can, and step one leg through, then the other. Once you get your hands in front of you, come around to me and untie the ropes round my ankles. I’ll get us out of here, I promise.”
Shaking with fear, she did as he said, though it was an extremely awkward motion, especially in long skirts. “I better stop baking all those lemon biscuits,” she muttered, trying to make light of the fact that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to squeeze her rear end through the circle of her bound arms.
“You can do it,” he encouraged her.
At last, she succeeded in stepping one foot, then the other, through the circle of her bound wrists. When her manacled hands were in front of her, she hurried around to the front of Trevor and knelt, plucking at the knots tied around his ankles.
Trevor gazed lovingly at her while she finished untying his feet.
“There you are.” All of a sudden, she heard him gasp. She glanced up at him in alarm.
“What is it?”
“You have a hairpin!” He was staring at her topknot.
“Well, yes—” she started.
“Give it to me! Hurry!” he whispered.
He stood up, freed from his chair, as she quickly slid it out of her hair—the same pearl-tipped hairpin she had poked him with on the night of the Lievedon Ball.
He stepped through the circle of his bound hands, just like he had ordered her to do, then Grace gave him the hairpin. “Untie George’s feet,” he ordered, hastily using her hairpin to pick the lock on the manacles around his wrists.
“How did you do that?” she exclaimed in a whisper.
“Just a trick I learned at school. Come here, I’ll get yours, too.”
“Where did you go to school?” she asked dubiously as she hurried over to Trevor so he could free her hands, as well.
“Long story. There’s a lot I still have to tell you about myself, Grace, someday, if you want to hear it.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she whispered.
He nodded, holding her gaze deeply for a moment, then he glanced at George. “Brentford, go lock the door, then get over here, and I’ll get those off you.”
All three of them were quickly freed, but Trevor hushed them, reminding them to be silent despite their jubilation at their progress.
Silently whisking a chair over to the wall, he stepped up to have a quick look out of the room’s only window. It was small and narrow and set unusually high in the wall, probably as a security measure.
Fortunately, they were on the ground floor. It would be an easy drop. They would come out at the back of the house, but then they’d have to make a sprint across the back field to the woods.
He knew Lynch’s men were outside checking the property. He spotted a couple roaming here and there off by the drive where the carriages were parked, but they seemed distracted.
As Trevor stood on the chair scanning the tree line, he saw motion in the dark woods. Sergeant Parker stepped out stealthily into the moonlight, rifle in hand; Trevor waved from the window; Parker beckoned, hurriedly signaling that it was safe to come.
“We need to go. Now.” Trevor jerked the window open, tilting it as wide as it would go. “Parker’s out there with his men. George, you first. Then help her down.” He moved aside so George could climb out.
“As soon as you hit the gr
ound, stand flat against the wall and wait for Grace and me. It’s important that you not draw attention to yourself,” he whispered. “Parker will send a few of his lads to distract Lynch’s men, and when their attention is drawn elsewhere, we’ll head for the tree line. Stay low. Hopefully those blackguards won’t see us, but if they do, just keep moving forward. Parker and his men will give us cover. Got that?”
George nodded and practically dove through the window.
Grace was next, as soon as George whispered, “Ready!” from outside. She turned and gazed at Trevor with big blue eyes full of distress.
“Go on, it’s all right,” he urged her, cupping her cheek gently.
“Trevor, if we don’t make it—”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” His heart clenched with protectiveness; at the same time, he wanted to tear Lynch apart for scaring her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Now get the hell out of here.”
She forced a brave smile and nodded with nervous resolve, then reached up for the windowsill. Trevor gave her a boost, steadying her by her hips as she climbed up. Brentford was waiting for her on the other side.
She braced her hands on his shoulders, but as the young earl grasped her by her waist to help her down, somebody tried the door.
Eyes narrowed, Trevor glanced over his shoulder, instantly ready to fight. He could hear the gang members puzzling over the locked door.
“What the ’ell? Did Jimmy lock it?”
“Where’s the key?”
“There is no key! This one only locks from the inside!”
“Get in there!” one of them yelled, realizing.
They began kicking the door.
It jumped on its hinges.
“Hurry!” Grace cried in a frantic whisper.
But Trevor knew it was too late.
Lynch’s men would be through that door in a moment and would shoot them in the back before they had reached the woods. There was only one option. He had to stay and fight. “Get her out of here,” he ordered Brentford. “I’ll hold them off.”
“Trevor, no, you have come with us!” Grace insisted. “They’ll kill you!”
He looked at her in searing anguish. “Go.” He nodded toward the woods, where Parker was waiting impatiently. Two of his soldiers emerged from the shadows with rifles drawn, ready to give them cover.
Brentford was already pulling her away by her wrist.
“You come back to me, or I’ll never forgive you,” she vowed over her shoulder.
“I’ll always come back to you, Grace. Now, go.”
Brentford had to drag her another few steps, but she finally started running willingly. As the pair of them sprinted away from the gang’s hideout toward the woods, Trevor watched them for another heartbeat, but he dared not linger. He knew he had only seconds to brace for the enemy’s arrival.
He turned back to face the room and scanned it for anything useful. Lifting the chair he had been tied to, he smashed it on the floor, breaking off one of the legs to use as a bat. He got into position beside the doorway, his back to the wall and waited, every muscle tensed, wild instinct filling his veins.
When the door crashed inward off its hinges, the first gang member through the doorway got a shattering whack to the face.
Trevor used his bat to block the fist of the next one who swung at him, then knocked him out with a left hook to the temple.
Lynch must have heard the commotion, for he also came running. “Get in here! They’re escaping!” the gang leader bellowed from the corridor outside the room. “Split up!” he barked at several others behind him. “Go kill the other two! This one’s mine.”
Trevor knew he needed to buy more time for Grace and George to get farther away by taking out as many of Lynch’s men as possible.
The next drew a gun on him; Trevor counterattacked with a circular block and a step behind him, grabbing the man’s weapon arm and twisting it backwards to wrench the son of a bitch forward from the hips.
It was as natural as breathing to extend the twisted arm and break it over his knee. A garbled cry escaped the man as he fell to the floor.
Trevor stooped down and had the man’s dropped pistol in his hand in a heartbeat.
The next thing anyone knew, he slammed Jimmy back against the wall, one hand clamped around windpipe, the other holding the pistol to the gang leader’s cheek.
“Anyone moves, he dies,” Trevor warned, panting.
Jimmy cursed, and outside they could hear the sharp report of shots fired, but in the room, the remaining two men backed off; they had to step over the one with the broken arm, who had just passed out from pain.
Trevor was filled with battle frenzy, nearly tasting blood. Everything in him wanted to rid the world of this slimy underworld snake. It would be so very easy.
Lynch must have seen the spark of madness in his eyes. He wilted back against the wall. “No hard feelings, man. It’s just business.”
“Call them off.” He squeezed his windpipe just a little.
Lynch gagged, and Trevor relented, allowing him to nod at his men. “Tell ’em to stand down,” Lynch ordered.
The other two ran off to do his bidding, leaving Trevor alone in the room with the gang leader.
No witnesses to whatever might happen.
Lynch realized it, too.
“Now, what was that threat you made to my fiancée?” he asked softly.
Lynch gulped. “You c-can’t kill me, man. Y-you have to obey the law. I thought you were the constable?”
The criminal’s insistence that he obey the law outraged him all over again, but hearing that one term, “constable,” Trevor was abruptly reminded of his new life.
Grace.
The Grange, the village. All those people counting on him.
No longer roaming through the shadows, one of the Order’s dark angels of vengeance. In that existence, he would have taken pleasure in killing this vicious parasite.
But that wasn’t his life anymore.
And Grace would never understand if he finished the job here, the way he might have done with one of the Order’s enemies. He had seen her face when she had discovered his handiwork outside the parsonage, like he was something from a nightmare.
He could not bear for her to look at him like that ever again even though he deserved it. No, if he truly wanted to be with her, it ended here. It was time to let go of his old life.
He was a civilian now.
“You have no idea how lucky you are,” he whispered, still trembling with rage as Parker stepped into the room.
“Lord Trevor! You all right, sir?”
“Take over with this one before I do something I’ll regret,” he ground out, shoving Lynch against the wall one last time for good measure.
“Aye, sir.” Parker switched places with him.
“Grace?”
“Safe as houses, sir.” Glancing round at the men strewn about the room. “Well, you’ve been busy,” he offered wryly. “Hand me those manacles, would you? We got eight more under arrest outside.”
“This one’s the leader. Three more up at the parsonage. Dead.”
“I heard,” Parker said with a grim look as Trevor retrieved the manacles. “Rev told us when he came to fetch us. Guess you haven’t lost your touch.”
“Not yet,” he answered guardedly.
Then Parker slammed the manacles on Jimmy Lynch’s wrists. “I can take
it from here, my lord. I figure you’ve probably had enough fun for one night.”
“To be sure.”
“There’s a lady outside waiting to see you,” Parker added, then he called for two of his soldiers to come and escort the gang leader off to wait facedown in the field with his followers.
Lynch scowled as Parker’s men marched in and took him by his arms. They proceeded to show him out, but when they passed Marianne, who had just stepped out of hiding to curse at Lynch, the soldiers stopped in their tracks, seeing the bruises on the face of their favorite tavern girl.
“He did this to you?” one demanded.
She put her head down in shame.
“Right. You’re comin’ with us, lad,” the other soldier said to the gang leader in a hard tone. “We got a little something special for you out back before we put you with the others.”
“What? Hey!” Lynch began resisting.
“I think you deserve a taste of your own medicine.”
“Hey! You can’t do this! I have my rights! Constable?!”
“I don’t hear anything, do you?” Trevor asked Marianne in a casual tone.
“Crickets,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest. “Such a pleasant summer night.”
“Hey! Let me go! Get your hands off me!”
They took him away.
Marianne gave Trevor a taut, wry smile. “He always was a coward at heart.”
“Bullies usually are.” Trevor studied her. “You all right?”
She gave him a stoic nod, then offered a smile of sympathy. “You look about as good as I do. Anything broken?”
“Nah. Come on, let’s go see Grace.”
Marianne stayed planted. “I don’t think I can face her,” she forced out.
“What?” Trevor turned to her, setting his hands on his waist. “Why?”
She lowered her gaze. “After all she did to help me, I threw it away when George invited me to London, and look what happened. Look at what I brought upon everyone. This is all my fault. You could’ve been killed, and George and even dear Miss Kenwood. I’m such a fool. How many chances does someone deserve?”
Gaelen Foley - [Inferno Club 06] Page 32