by Merry Farmer
Of course, an hour or so later, as she stepped gingerly down from the carriage he’d borrowed from Lord Landsbury to return her to the school, she wasn’t sure their activity had been wise. She simply couldn’t manage to walk normally as she climbed the stairs to the school’s front door and knocked for admittance.
She wasn’t more than half a dozen steps into the school’s front hall when Miss Dobson charged out of her office, her face like a thundercloud as she glared at Rebecca.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, marching so close that Rebecca stumbled a few, painful steps back.
Unfortunately, she winced as she stumbled. “I was visiting the Marchioness of Landsbury,” she said, attempting to dazzle Miss Dobson with Verity’s rank.
Miss Dobson continued to pursue her. She towered over Rebecca as she inched toward the wall. And then she sniffed. Her wrinkled face twisted into a triumphant grin. Rebecca gulped, wishing she’d thought to bathe after spending the afternoon in Nigel’s bed.
“You smell like a whore,” Miss Dobson said in a low, accusatory growl. “You smell like a dirty, filthy whore who has spent the day with her legs parted.”
Rebecca opened her mouth to defend herself, but she had no defense. Miss Dobson was right, in a manner of speaking.
A flicker of movement on the stairs behind Miss Dobson caught Rebecca’s eye. Jo and Caro froze in the middle of rushing down the stairs. Their jubilant expressions at the sight of Rebecca flashed to horror at the way Miss Dobson had her cornered.
“You’ve been rutting like a pig, haven’t you?” Miss Dobson asked, raising her voice. A few of her pupils peeked around the corners from classrooms and the dining room. “You were entrusted to my care so that I could reform your disgraced morals, but you’ve thrown that back in my face by fucking every man that catches your fancy.”
The watching pupils gasped at Miss Dobson’s vulgar language, though a few directed their shock at Rebecca. Rebecca did the only thing she could think to do in order to save face.
“No, I didn’t,” she lied. At least, she hadn’t gone to bed with every man, just one.
Without warning, Miss Dobson slapped her across the face. “Don’t lie to me, you wicked harlot.”
More gasps echoed around them. Jo and Caro rushed down the stairs as though they would come to Rebecca’s rescue, but Miss Cade and Miss Warren, Miss Dobson’s favorites students, blocked their way.
“Bad girls like you are punished,” Miss Dobson went on. “Bad girls like you deserve everything they get.”
She grabbed Rebecca’s arm and dragged her down the hall to the narrow staircase that led down to the below-ground floors. At first, Rebecca thought Miss Dobson would drag her into the kitchen or the scullery to make her scrub pots or help the kitchen staff. Instead, she yanked her along the hall to a small door in an abandoned part of the downstairs hall.
Miss Dobson paused to fish a key from the ring attached to her belt and to open the door. Rebecca gulped in dread when the door creaked open into what looked like an unused wine cellar. It was dark and dank, but when Miss Dobson called, one of the kitchen maids brought a lamp. A bit of light did nothing to improve the look of the place. Empty, rotting wine racks lined the walls, and a few large, tapped barrels stood in the center of the room.
Miss Dobson pushed her toward one of the barrels, and when Rebecca knocked against it, she shoved her forward until she bent double, dangling helplessly over the barrel. Rebecca was too shocked to right herself and scramble away, and within a few seconds, it was too late.
“Bad girls will be punished accordingly,” Miss Dobson said as she grabbed one of Rebecca’s wrists and clamped shackles around it. “I will not have bad girls at my school.” She clamped shackles around Rebecca’s other wrist, then dashed around to do the same with her ankles.
A slither of fear rippled through Rebecca as she realized she was trapped over the barrel, unable to move her arms or legs, which were spread apart in a worrying way. Her fear became full-blown when Miss Dobson jerked her skirts up and over her head, exposing her bare bottom and worse, her sore sex.
“I knew it,” Miss Dobson growled, presumably studying the evidence of the afternoon’s activities.
Rebecca burst into tears. It was an unspeakable violation to be seen that way. What she and Nigel had done was for the two of them alone. It was wrong—so wrong—for anyone else to have a part in it, no matter how small.
But that thought brought with it memories of all the times she’d spied on her sister Mary with Lord Grey. It filled her with guilt at her own indiscretions and invasions. Even what she’d seen the diamond thief doing several days before. Those things were not meant for public display, they were for the participants alone. She felt more wretched than she would ever have imagined feeling.
Almost enough to agree when Miss Dobson repeated, “Wicked, bad, whores should be punished.” Something scraped at the edge of the room.
A moment later, Rebecca gasped in shock and pain as Miss Dobson smacked her bare bottom hard with what must have been a paddle of some sort.
“Bad,” Miss Dobson shouted, smacking her again. “Bad.” Another vicious smack. “Bad!”
Rebecca cried out with each beating, not sure which was worse, the pain or the humiliation. But there was nothing she could do but scream out in protest and pray for a miracle.
Nigel leaned back in his chair near the front of The Silver Hart pub, unable to wipe the smile off his face. Rebecca had been superb that afternoon. It had been worth every interruption and every false start to finally bed her. She’d surprised him with her eagerness and enjoyment of what would have frightened most women of her age and lack of experience. He wasn’t exactly small and elegant. Every part of him—every part—was large and intimidating. That’s what made him such a perfect Runner, in spite of his birth and upbringing.
“Another whiskey?” Robbie, the pub’s owner, asked as he passed Nigel’s table on his rounds.
Nigel shook his head and held up a hand. He was technically there for work, after all. He’d reported in to the Bow Street office after seeing Rebecca home to the school and had discovered that his initial hunch about The Silver Hart as the site of activity surrounding the diamond had been right. A tip had come in that the thief had arranged to meet a potential buyer at the pub. Nigel was convinced Herrington and Lichfield had already done the deal—and that he’d missed it while occupied with Rebecca. He wasn’t about to confess that to Gibbon, even though he should. And Gibbon had been adamant that the potential sale would take place that night instead of in the afternoon. So there Nigel was, waiting for any sign of Herrington or Lichfield’s return. The two must have set something up at the pub that afternoon in preparation for the meeting.
That afternoon. Nigel let out another contented breath, indulging in his recent memories. He was certain he looked like a bloody fool, sitting there, alone, a satisfied grin on his face. But how could he help himself? The image of Rebecca’s sweet face as she came, the way her eyes had glazed over with pleasure as she’d taken him—all of him—into her tight, wet pussy had his cock hardening. Nigel wasn’t sure he’d ever been with a woman who had wanted it as desperately as Rebecca had. He would never forget her plaintive cries as his thick length disappeared into her hungry quim. He’d been so turned on by the sight of their bodies joining that he’d almost missed watching her face when she came.
The pub felt entirely too hot, and Nigel was tempted to lean over and open the window beside him. Everything he’d been told since he was a boy said that he should abhor any woman who gave in to a man so freely or who enjoyed being fucked so soundly. He should write Rebecca off as a woman of shamelessly loose morals and cast her aside as an entertainment and nothing more. Men of his background were supposed to marry shy and retiring virgins who wept at the thought of being bedded, and who were only bedded by their husbands. But the way Rebecca had moaned with pleasure, the way she’d wanted to swallow him right off the bat, and the way she begged for more
once he was in her had his heart in shreds. He didn’t just want her, knowing she had the soul of a harlot, he loved her. He loved her so much that he would seek out a special license at first light tomorrow. He’d marry her as soon as possible, get her out of that ridiculous school, and bed her using every position he could think of, and a few he’d make up as they went along.
Those thoughts were so engaging that Nigel was on the verge of heading back to his flat so that he could choke his cock while thinking about her when a man wearing a cloak, his hat pulled down low enough to conceal his face, walked into the pub. Nigel sat straighter, his senses prickling. A dozen men and more had walked into the pub while he’d been sitting there, but he knew, he just knew, that the man in the cloak was connected to the diamond. It was in the hunch of his shoulders, the way he skulked straight into the darkest corner of the room without ordering a drink and sat, his face still hidden.
Nigel’s heart pounded, thoughts of Rebecca temporarily forgotten. This was it. Tonight, he would catch the thief. He would make Herrington or Lichfield or whoever it was pay.
He was halfway out of his chair, mind spinning with ways to get close enough to the thief to overhear whatever conversations he was about to have, when the pub door slammed open again. This time, a woman dashed in, her eyes wide, her auburn hair in disarray. Several of the men sitting closest to the door cheered and brightened, raising glasses to her as though she were an actress entering the stage for the sole purpose of entertaining them.
Nigel frowned. He recognized the woman. She was one of Rebecca’s friends. She’d been standing with her in the fenced garden the day of the theft. The woman glanced anxiously around, and as soon as her eyes settled on Nigel, she recognized him and looked as though she would weep in relief.
“Mr. Kent,” she gasped, dodging around the tables to reach him. “Mr. Kent, thank God I’ve found you. Lord Landsbury said you’d be here.”
Sure enough, Landsbury strode into the pub a moment later, his face etched with deep concern. He spotted Nigel instantly and made his way over.
“What’s going on?” Nigel asked him.
It was the young woman who answered with, “Miss Dobson has taken Rebecca prisoner.”
The bottom fell out of Nigel’s stomach. His eyes went wide as he glanced to Landsbury.
“I know nothing about it,” Landsbury said. “Miss Hodges came to me not twenty minutes ago, demanding we find you at once. All I know is that Miss Burgess is in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Nigel asked. He glanced furtively to the corner where the thief was still waiting for whoever had plans to meet with him.
“She came back to the school this afternoon,” the young woman—the pieces clicked into place, and Nigel realized she was Miss Josephine Hodges—said, grasping his arm. Her face went pink. “Miss Dobson knew exactly what she’d been doing. She dragged Rebecca down to the basement and—” Miss Hodges swallowed hard, looking sick. “None of us saw anything, but we could hear Rebecca screaming. Pearl, the kitchen maid, says that Miss Dobson beat her with a bread peel.”
Rage pulsed through Nigel. He started toward the pub door, murder on his mind. Anyone who dared to lay a finger on Rebecca would have to answer to him, even if she was a woman. He would make Miss Dobson wish she’d never been born. He’d bring her school down around her ears if he had to.
“I snuck out through the secret passage,” Miss Hodges went on as they made their way toward the door. “It has an exit into the mews. I knew I had to find you, that you could help.”
As soon as he reached the door, Nigel paused. A second gentleman in a cloak, his face concealed, entered the pub. Expensive, Hessian boots peeked out from the hem of his cloak, and though his head was completely covered, Nigel could have sworn he saw bits of ginger hair poking out from under the brim. It was Herrington, he was certain, and he headed slowly but deliberately back through the pub toward the thief’s table.
Frustration like nothing Nigel had ever known prickled through him. It was so intense that he clenched his jaw. There, in the back corner of The Silver Hart, the diamond could be changing hands. The cloaked men were clearly up to no good. His orders and his duty as a Runner were to apprehend criminals and bring the diamond thief to justice. But Rebecca needed him. She was trapped in an untenable position, helpless at the hands of a cruel and heartless woman. She needed him.
It tore him in two, but there was no dodging the truth of where he needed to be. Diamonds were things. They could wait. Rebecca was his heart, his life, his love, and his first priority in all things.
“Let’s go,” he growled to Landsbury and Miss Burgess. “How fast can we get to that damned school?”
Chapter 9
Nigel couldn’t move fast enough. As soon as he shot out of The Silver Hart, Lansbury and Miss Hodges behind him, he charged down the street with every intention of running all the way to Miss Dobson’s School.
But Landsbury called after him, “Kent, where are you going, man? The carriage is right here.”
Nigel pulled up short and spun around in time to see Landsbury handing Miss Hodges into a black lacquered carriage. Everything about it screamed “slow” in Nigel’s mind, but he rushed back with a growl, jumping in after Miss Hodges.
Fortunately for him, Lord Lansbury was willing to overlook his rudeness as he told the driver, “Miss Dobson’s Finishing School, Manchester Square, Marylebone,” before climbing in behind Nigel.
Nigel gritted his teeth and tapped his foot against the carriage wall as they headed north to Oxford Street. The traffic was abominable, as usual, and even once Landsbury’s driver was able to cut through and take them up Duke Street, time felt as though it were wasting away. When they were blocked from proceeding into the square where the school stood, he pushed open the door with a frustrated growl.
As soon as his feet hit the pavement, he ran. But only a few yards into the square he slammed straight into a man heading in the other direction. Both of them grunted with the impact, and while Nigel barely managed to stay on his feet, the other man tumbled to the ground.
“Sorry,” Nigel grumbled, extending an impatient hand. The least he could do before rushing to Rebecca’s rescue was to help the man up.
“It was my fault. I failed to watch where I was going,” the gentleman said.
As soon as he was fully on his feet, Nigel’s eyes went wide. Staring back at him were the green eyes of Lord Rufus Herrington. His ginger hair was in disarray after taking a spill, but there was no mistaking the man. Lord Herrington. Suspected diamond thief. Standing right in front of him. Which meant he wasn’t one of the two suspected thieves currently at The Silver Hart. And that meant that there was a distinct possibility he’d been wrong about the thief’s identity.
But there wasn’t time to investigate further.
“Excuse me, my lord,” he murmured, rushing past Herrington and around the corner to the front steps of the school.
He barely paused to bang on the door. As he pounded with one hand, he turned the handle with the other. Mercifully, the door was unlocked and he pushed it open before the startled maid he found on the other side could let him in.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Take me to her at once.”
Instead of following his order, the maid burst into tears and ran into the room just to the side of the front hall. It was just his luck that that room—a dining room, by the look of it—was filled with young ladies. Instantly, a ripple of interest passed through the room, benches were pushed back, and a throng of wide-eyed, awed young misses scampered to the doorway, presumably to get a look at him.
“He’s so tall,” one of them said.
“And so muscular,” another added.
“And handsome,” yet another said.
The ladies who had reached the doorway first were pushed aside by the next wave of hungry-looking ladies.
“I haven’t seen a man up close in months,” someone lamented from the side of the crush at the door.
&nbs
p; “Does he smell manly?” someone else asked. “I’m certain he smells manly.”
For a moment, Nigel was certain he’d lost his mind as a dozen or so young women sniffed in unison, then let out sighs of pleasure. The collective sound made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“What can we do for you, sir?” a young woman with dark hair and almond-shaped eyes wedged her way between the other ladies, grabbing his forearm. She let out a gasp of, “Oh, my,” as though he’d made a welcomed advance on her.
“Stop being so forward, Felicity.” Another of the ladies—a blonde with an alarmingly shapely figure—jostled her way out of the crowd and grabbed his other arm, stroking it and making eyes at him. “This man is our guest.”
“I saw him first, Eliza,” Felicity said.
“We both saw him at the same time,” Eliza insisted.
“We could share,” Felicity suggested with an impish look.
More than just the hair on the back of Nigel’s neck began to stand up at the amorous attentions of the two young women. If he were a different sort of man entirely…. But no, he had a desperate mission in front of him.
“Where is Miss Dobson?” he asked, certain he looked like a thundercloud. “And where is Rebecca?”
As he spoke, Miss Hodges and Landsbury rushed through the door.
“She’s this way,” Miss Hodges said without pausing, gesturing for Nigel to follow.
Nigel broke away from his admirers and stormed down the hall at Miss Hodges’ side. She appeared to be heading for a small staircase that led down, but before they could reach it, a voice shouted at them from an office at the end of the hall, “What is the meaning of this?”