He had told her details of those encounters with his father that had never slipped his lips before. Not even his brothers knew the full extent of their father’s depravity, and now this slip of a girl knew it. Would sell the story, no doubt, to the nearest newspaper.
Shame, white hot and searing, pouring into Edmund’s heart as he tried to break the connection between them but their gaze stayed steady. How could he have been so stupid? Molly had shown him her true colours in that poker match, and he had been so obsessed with the cards, so determined to prove to her that he could beat her, that he had barely noticed he was getting played for a fool.
And she had been so impressive with cards.
“Have you not received enough punishment, Sir Edmund?”
Why had he not listened to her?
And the answer came loud and clear in his mind as Edmund stared into Molly Kimble’s beautiful eyes: he was flattered.
Yes, his own ego had utterly let him down and when he had needed to be strong the most, he had allowed himself to feel…to feel cared for. To feel listened to, heard.
To feel loved.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, I speak the truth. I do.”
Molly could not hold his gaze after those words, her cheeks tinging pink.
Good, Edmund thought savagely, the fury of his thoughts hurting him far more than it affected her. She should know, she should feel the ignominy of what she had done to him.
“Well, as you see gentlemen,” Edmund said heavily, attempting to ignore the leaden feeling in his stomach, “I am both totally innocent of any blame, and completely penniless. Not exactly the perfect recipe for a kidnapping, is it?”
They stood there, hesitating, and finally the anger that had been burning away in his stomach poured out into his heart and Edmund wanted nothing more than to leave that place – leave it and never see it, nor Molly, ever again.
His possessions in that place were few and Molly started as he rose quickly from his seat. Picking up his coat and greatcoat, he pulled each one on in turn.
“What do you think you are doing?” Jack spoke, a little fearful but evidently attempting to still act as though he and his brother were in control.
Edmund worked hard not to roll his eyes. “What does it look like I am doing? I am sick and tired of standing here, like fools, waiting for you two plebeians to make a decision.”
Although neither brother seemed to know what the word meant, it was clear that they recognised an insult when it was hurled in their faces.
“Now see here,” said Tom, and he pulled out a knife. It was short, jaggedly serrated, and had certainly done its fair amount of work over time.
Edmund did not even blink. “If you were going to stab me, young man, you would have done so at the very beginning of this conversation. Forgive me if I am not quaking at your feet, but unlike you, I actually do have somewhere I need be.”
He stepped towards the door, a direction which took him mere inches from Tom, but the young man did not move.
As Edmund reached the doorway however, something did make him stop.
“Edmund.”
Breathing hard, he turned around to see Molly staring at him. There was a pleading look in her face, as though she had one chance to tell him something vitally important – something that her life genuinely depended on.
Edmund tried to force down the words of love and contrition that were attempting to be spoken. He would not allow himself to be weak, he had promised himself never to allow himself to be hurt again. Not again.
“Whatever you decide to do with your life, Molly Kimble,” he said coldly, “perhaps there are better gifts to give a gentleman on Christmas Day than lies.”
Without waiting to hear her response, if she could find words to counteract his malice, Edmund turned around and stormed down the empty street, not knowing nor caring where he was going.
10
Molly opened her eyes but she saw absolutely nothing.
How could she when the world had ended? There was nothing left for her now. All that she had hoped for, all that she had thought may happen to bring her happiness, had gone.
“Whatever you decide to do with your life, Molly Kimble, perhaps there are better gifts to give a gentleman on Christmas Day than lies.”
Molly shut her eyes again. It was easier if she just pretended she was asleep again; anything to ignore the physical pain that was battering her heart, bruising it.
She was lying on the makeshift bed that she and Edmund had made just one night before. Sleepy wintery sunlight was seeping through the windows, so it was morning. How had she managed to sleep with such agony in her soul?
Molly brought a hand to her face and brushed away some of the salt that had dried on her face from her incessant crying the night before. Exhaustion then, it seemed, had been the only way she had fallen asleep.
Everything was quiet.
Tom and Jack had gone, their petty threats absolutely destroyed by Edmund’s savagery. The moment he had disappeared, her brothers had seemed lost, unsure what they were even doing there.
“Just be grateful that he did not want to take you with him,” Jack had said, his good heart attempting to bring her a little joy. “He seems like a terrible man, no gentleman at all.”
And he had stared at her with absolute horror as she had yelled at him, “You have no idea what you speak of – you do not know him at all!”
Tears had broken through her resolve at that moment and both her brothers had stared at her with abject horror.
This was Molly. Molly did not cry.
They had left not too long after that, abandoning her once again in the house that now represented so much of what she hated about herself, about them, about their family.
Their mother would have cried, too, to see what had become of her babies.
The Bletchley brothers had not locked the door. She was not trapped there, no longer kidnapped, but no longer with her knight and that was what hurt the most. It was like Tom had stabbed her with that ridiculous knife he always kept on his person.
Tom had not stabbed her. It was Edmund who had caused her the most pain.
“God damnit, Molly, you have proved him right. You are just like the rest of them, like your brothers. Everything you are saying is a lie.”
A tear rolled down her cheek and Molly did not attempt to brush it away. How could she argue with such words? She had barely been able to then, and she certainly could not know.
It was impossible to know why she had chosen such a strange path, but every step down the path of the lie made it almost impossible to step back to safety, to honesty, to truth.
Because of the way he had looked at her. Edmund had looked at her as though she was the most beautiful woman in London, and she had felt it.
“That was an orgasm. You came for me, Molly, and there is no higher compliment for a gentleman.”
Molly lay back down on the makeshift bed. This was the place; this was where Edmund had kissed her, had loved her. This was where he had shown her what it was to be loved, what making love between a man and a woman should be.
She had never experienced such a connection; beyond the pleasure, and there was quite a lot of it, there had been something else. Something between them. Something that felt special, different from anything else she had ever experienced.
It was love. She knew that now, knew it as soon as her secret had been revealed.
“Those were my brothers. I had met with them to attempt to persuade them to leave their crimes behind them – as I have!”
Another tear escaped her eyes, falling into her hair as Molly stared up at the ceiling. It was not fair, and yet she had brought all of this misery onto herself. This place where she had been her happiest for years, where she had experienced the best Christmas of her life; it was where she had become whole again.
And now she was broken. Now that Edmund had gone, and forever for she knew he would never want to see her again, he had taken a part of her hea
rt with him. She would never be whole again, and what was perhaps most surprising was that she did not want to be whole again.
Something about Edmund had completed her, and now that she had lost him, she did not want to still feel whole. It would not make sense. It would make the loss of him somehow more real than he had been.
There was a loud knock on the door. Molly’s eyes snapped open. She had dreamt it; she had surely drifted into painful sleep as she thought about Edmund and how much she cared for him.
But no – another knock on the door resounded loudly around the room and Molly, startled and a little dazed from hunger, scrambled to her feet.
“Ed-Edmund?” She whispered, her voice cracking. “Is that you?”
The door handle twisted and as it opened, it was immediately clear that the person knocking on the door was not Edmund. This person was smaller, more rounded, and laughed like a foghorn as she entered.
“God almighty, I do not think I have ever been mistaken for an Edmund before!” She chuckled. “Edwina, perhaps, but – Molls? Is that you?”
The woman stepped into the growing wintery morning light, and Molly recognised Sal, sister of her late husband. A woman of true courage, and one who had been at her side when – at the time – she thought she was experiencing the very worst a woman could.
“Sal,” Molly’s voice croaked.
Sal stepped forward and took Molly’s hands in hers with a kind smile on her face. “Oh, Mollsy. What trouble have you got yourself into now?”
And those softly spoken words, said without judgement, were all that was needed to tip Molly over the edge.
As she burst into tears and wracking sobs, all she was able to say was, “K-kidnapped…with my knight.”
Every footstep felt heavy as Edmund stomped along the street until he saw something familiar. There; the King’s Head. He was but a mile away from his lodgings and for every step he took, he was another step further from Molly.
Molly Kimble. Her shock and sadness at his last words were seared onto his eyes, and he could not look away.
She would never forgive him – he would never forgive himself. It was a ridiculous situation they found themselves in, one that he would not have believed, and yet the way they had met, the lies she had told, what he had believed…
So lost in his own thoughts, Edmund lurched suddenly as he realised he had walked past his lodgings. The repeatedly mended door was slightly open and the smell of thinly watered stew was pouring from it.
Edmund’s nose curled as his stomach rumbled. No matter how hungry he was, he was rarely famished enough for Mrs Bird’s lodgings.
But if she was in the kitchen, that meant he could probably sneak past her, and…
“Mr Northmere, your rent is due!”
Edmund flinched. He had only managed to put one foot on the stairs but instantly Mrs Bird had appeared in the hallway, glowering at him with a menacing ladle in one hand.
“Your rent is due and it has been due for three days – and I have not seen hide nor hair of you to demand it!” Mrs Bird spat, her eyes narrowed. “Give me my money!”
Fury and bitterness had been simmering just below the surface as Edmund had walked home, the pain of his last encounter with Molly still burning in his heart, and so he did not respond as he typically did.
“You will have your money,” he said coldly, taking another step up towards his bed chamber, where there would surely be warmth, and soft though hardly clean linens for him to collapse into. “Just give me a few more days, Mrs Bird, and I can – ”
“Days?” Mrs Bird did not speak, but screeched. “You are no good, Mr Northmere, and you are no good for your rent money!”
Edmund swallowed down his temper, forcing himself not to pour all his bitterness and resentment at her. Whatever Mrs Bird was, she was not the one who had broken his heart.
The thought of it made him shiver.
“I am always good for it, Mrs Bird, you know that,” he said, allowing the exhaustion to seep into his words. “But I have had a very tiring few days, and all I wish to do at this moment is sleep. You will have your money.”
He held his landlady’s gaze and eventually she looked away. “Busy Christmas then, by the sound of it. Did you get anything nice?”
Edmund bit his lip. He had unwrapped the most fantastic, the most unexpected gift in the whole world. Now he had lost it, and he doubted whether he would ever be permitted to unwrap Molly Kimble again.
“Yes,” he said, holding his voice steady as much as he could. “Very nice. Good morning, Mrs Bird.”
Edmund had taken just one more step towards his room when Mrs Bird’s voice cut through his thoughts like a hot knife through butter.
“I told them to wait.”
He paused. The words did not quite make sense, but what was perhaps more concerning was the gleeful, slightly mischievous tone of her voice.
Edmund looked down and saw that an evil glint of a smile was on Mrs Bird’s face. “What do you mean, madam?”
Mrs Bird’s smirk grew wider. “Them two men who arrived for you. Knew you by name, they did, and asked where the knight was. I told them there were no knights here, but I did have an Edmund Northmere, and that they could wait.”
Ice fell into Edmund’s heart as he croaked. “W-Wait?”
She nodded, her smile broad. “In your room. Which you have not, at this moment, paid for.”
His frozen heart now stopped. Surely not; why had the Bletchley brothers followed him here, how had they known where he was lodging?
Had the last few days been part of something bigger, something more devious and darker? Had they known about him for days, weeks, months even, and now the next stage of their plan is about to come to fruition?
Edmund stared into the grinning face of his landlady, and found to his surprise that his pain came not from the imminent fear of meeting Tom and Jack again…but that Molly Kimble had truly played him for a fool.
Well, he could not avoid them forever. Not if they knew where he lived.
His heart heavy and footsteps unsteady, Edmund reached the top of the staircase and turned, as was his habit, to the left. One, two, three doors he passed until he reached the fourth. His room.
The door was slightly ajar and through it he could see a tall figure with his back to him. Edmund took a deep breath and opened the door.
“I thought I had just said my farewells to…”
Edmund’s jaw dropped open and he was unable to speak. The two gentlemen had turned to face him and they were not Tom and Jack Bletchley.
They could not be more different. The gentleman on the left was tall, with chestnut hair and fierce eyes; the one on the right had similar features, but his hair was darker and his jaw was tight. Both of them wore greatcoats with gold thread, and one had a top hat of the highest quality under his arm.
Edmund blinked, but the mirage of two brothers did not disappear. But they were not Molly’s brothers.
They were his own.
“L-Luke?” He said, his voice croaked from exhaustion, thirst, and now utter shock. “George?”
Neither spoke, but Luke gave a curt nod. Edmund’s stomach clenched; of course it would be impossible for Luke to give him a friendly welcome. With Edmund’s banishment from the family, it had been Luke, as the second born, who had risen into his place.
Title, wealth, and fortune. He had never looked back, but now he looked into the face of the brother who had, to all intents and purposes, taken them from him.
“Good morning,” said George awkwardly.
Edmund could not help but grin. George, the baby of the family. He had never enjoyed the fights between the brothers, had always avoided them if he could.
Edmund coughed and moved into the room, throwing down his coat. When he turned back to face them, he found to his surprise that they were still there.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?”
As soon as the words were out, he could hear the callousness of his tone,
but he could not help it. Being utterly abandoned by your family and ignored by your brothers will do that to a man.
“That is all you can say?” George sounded hurt, and his eyes were wide. “After five years?”
Edmund’s room had never been large, but it had only ever needed to be large enough for himself – and occasionally, a lady visitor. Three tall, broad, and angry men rather filled the space, and Edmund could not help but feel caged, like three tigers pacing up and down.
“It was hardly my fault,” he said tersely. “You knew what happened, you knew why I left. Did you think that being banished meant only seeing each other at Christmas and birthdays?”
“No, you are wrong.”
This time it was Luke who spoke, and Edmund marvelled a little at the strength and calm in his voice. When he had been forced out of the family home, Luke had been a man, it was true, but he had been young, awkward, unsure of himself.
That vision of Luke had gone. Before him stood a strong, determined, and self-assured gentleman.
That did not stop the hairs on the back of Edmund’s neck from bristling. “What do you mean, wrong? Wrong to think our father was a fool, and a dangerous fool? Or wrong to allow myself the pleasure of being ostracised from my family?”
Luke held his gaze as he sat onto the bed and leaned back, arms folded. “No, wrong to think that we knew what happened. We only discovered why Father threw you out a twelvemonth ago.”
The words echoed around the room as Edmund tried to comprehend them. “A – a twelvemonth ago? Just one year?”
George nodded. “Christmas Day of last year. I asked Father whether you would ever forgive us for whatever it was we had done – I was a child then, remember, I was not even aware for four months that you were not returning. I thought you had gone back up to Oxford.”
“And that was when he revealed his nature to us,” Luke said succinctly. “I prevented George and the younger ones bearing the brunt of it, but the story came out. We have been looking for you ever since.”
Kidnapped with a Knight: A Steamy Regency Romance (Ravishing Regencies Book 0.5) Page 8