by Lauren Royal
Silently blessing the powers that be for decreeing loose breeches with deep pockets were fashionable, she crouched behind him and eased her hand into one pocket. Her first try found a small gunpowder flask and a few balls and cloth patches, but no key.
She paused, taken aback by the evidence that he was prepared to fire the pistol. As she pulled out her hand, Robert took a deep, ragged breath, inhaling with a resounding snore, and Amy froze for a good two minutes before daring to try the other pocket.
When her fingers closed around the cold, heavy key, she could barely contain her glee. She was mere steps from freedom.
Reminding herself to be light-footed regardless of her haste, she slowly rose. Her gaze lit on the gun on the table. It gleamed in the weak firelight, the stock profusely inlaid with silver wire in a display of workmanship akin to the finest jeweler's. She briefly considered taking it, but the gown had no pockets, and she hadn't the faintest idea how to shoot it, in any case. Forcing her eyes away, she tiptoed to the door.
The key in the lock made a hideous grating noise, but she didn't look back.
She bolted into a dim, dusty corridor.
One of the too-loose slippers threatened to come off, making her trip and stumble. Suddenly she heard scuffling behind her, then a horrible ripping sound as, for the second time in as many days, she found herself tugged to her knees. Robert's considerable weight landed on her back, and she plunged forward.
"Holy Jesus," he hissed into her ear. "I'd have thought you'd've learned your lesson by now." He jerked her up, one hand coming around to cover her mouth and muffle her impending scream. She glanced frantically around the dingy corridor, but there was no one to help her.
The cold steel of the pistol's barrel pressed into the side of her neck. She should have taken it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Colin had checked the eight inns closest to St. Trinity, but there was no sign of Amy.
His disappointment was a physical pain, a heaviness in his chest that was weighted with a creeping sense of foreboding. To have come all this way, crisscrossing the City, one clue to another, and then…
Nothing.
And somewhere out there, Amy was…what? Sleeping, suffering, frightened, abused? Well, it was still Sunday, so even if she'd left London, he was fairly certain she wasn't married.
Yet.
Perhaps he was on the wrong track. Perhaps he should go back to Robert's father, or the King's Arms, and ask if anyone had heard from Robert in the past few hours.
Intending to make the depressing rounds again, he'd no sooner untied Ebony when a yellow glow caught his eye, penetrating the fog from down the street. At this hour, in this neighborhood, where citizens couldn't afford the luxury of candles at midnight, where decent folk went to bed with the dusk and rose with the dawn, that light could mean only one thing: a tavern.
He leaped onto Ebony and clip-clopped down the dark, empty street toward the glow. Bereft and desolate, Colin could only muster a faint hope that he might have reached the end of his search. As he drew nearer, the light from the grimy window illuminated a cracked wooden sign proclaiming it the Cat and Canary, and a swift glance up at the overhanging story assured him that it did, indeed, boast a few rooms for rent.
Colin tethered Ebony in a rough shed across the street, then took the time to thank him for his service and companionship with a bucketful of brackish water and a forkful of hay. After all, of all the multitudes of places in London, he had no real reason to think Amy was here.
Robert shoved Amy back into the room and threw her on the bed. He pointed the pistol in her direction with one shaking hand while he attempted to lock the door with the other.
"Please, Robert—"
"Shut up. I don't want to hear one word from you." He frantically worked the lock, his hand fumbling. "God damn it to bloody hell. You'll pay for this, Amy. Mark my words."
At last the lock clicked into place, and he whirled around, wild-eyed, searching the room. With a sinister laugh and a flick of his wrist, the key landed in the flames of the fireplace.
"There," he said. "I'll take it back in the morning, when the ashes grow cold. Until then, we won't be needing it, will we?"
Cringing, Amy scooted back until her spine pressed against the dirty headboard. She pulled her knees up and hugged them tight.
Robert raised his arm and aimed the pistol at her again. "Lie down!" he barked, waving the gun wildly.
She dropped to the mattress, curled up in a ball, and let out a whimper as panic welled up in her throat. She whimpered again as she watched Robert switch the pistol to his left hand so he could work the buckle on his belt with his right.
She shut her eyes tight, as though by doing so she could banish Robert and his pistol and his belt from the earth. Any second now, she expected to feel the belt on her, the leather ripping shreds of her flesh in Robert's fury.
Instead, she felt Robert throw himself on top of her, flattening her to the mattress. The gun fell to the wooden floor with a meaty thud, and she twisted under him, intending to lunge for it. But Robert pressed her shoulders against the bed with his two fleshy hands, and his head descended on hers, blocking her vision and her access to the weapon.
He ground his lips against hers in a cruel ravishment of her mouth, until she tasted coppery-tinged blood. Her hands came up and pushed at his head, but to no avail: he was quite simply stronger and heavier than she. He forced her teeth apart with his, plunging his slippery wet tongue between them. She bit down on it, hard, but he didn't seem to notice, not even when his hot, salty blood flowed into her mouth.
She gagged. And she wished he had beaten her instead.
A lifetime later, after pinning Amy beneath the weight of his body, Robert came up on his elbows. Her mouth finally free, she screamed.
Robert laughed wildly. "No one will come," he taunted. "They all think you're delirious. And they've been well paid. You'll be mine after tonight," he growled. "No other man will want to touch you again."
Colin pushed on the Cat and Canary's door, and it swung open with a prolonged creak, revealing a plain wooden interior encrusted with years of accumulated dirt. He stepped inside and glanced around the tavern. It was a shame the blaze had missed this street, he thought with a grimace. This was the kind of firetrap London needed to rid itself of.
A nauseating reek of rancid food choked the air. A few scruffy men sat conversing morosely at one table. No proprietor was in sight. All was quiet.
Colin couldn't imagine Amy in a place like this, even as Robert's hostage. He turned to leave, but caught himself glancing uneasily over his shoulder. After a pause, he addressed the motley group at the table. "Pardon me, but is anyone staying above?"
The answer was a mix of shrugs and grunts that he took to be a negative. One man looked up at him, his bloated face showing surprise at finding someone of Colin's class in this tavern.
Colin focused on him. "I'm looking for someone…"
"Anyone you'd be lookin' fer'd be on Leadenhall Street," the man offered, inclining his head toward a street across the way, behind the shed where Colin had stashed Ebony. "Try the Rose 'n' Crown."
"Thank you kindly," Colin replied, moving to the entry. He couldn't wait to get out of this depressing establishment.
Halfway through the door, he heard a thud from above. His blood chilled. He swung back around. "Are you certain no one's up there?"
He would swear he heard a muffled yell. The men didn't react. One of them slowly rose, the legs of his chair scraping back on the wooden floor.
"No one's up there," he stated, running a dirty hand through shaggy hair that might have been yellow if it weren't so greasy.
A scream. Hysterical. Unrelenting. Anxiety sent Colin's pulse racing, and he felt as though his chest might burst. Noting a rough staircase in the back, he started toward it.
The yellow-haired man moved swiftly to round the table and block him. He wrenched a long, rusty knife from his belt and brandished it in Colin's fac
e. "You cannot go up there."
Another scream sounded above. Colin's hand went to the hilt of his sword…and then to his pouch. He pulled out a gold guinea and flung it on the table, his eyes boring into the other man's.
"Room six," the man muttered, turning to scoop up the coin and test it between his teeth. "Third floor."
Colin bolted up the rickety staircase.
Robert ripped off one side of Amy's stomacher and tugged at her laces. He parted the front of her bodice and freed her breasts with one long tear of the nightgown's fragile fabric, then grabbed them in both hands and pushed their lushness together.
His pale eyes gleamed recklessly, and he smacked his lips.
He fell to, sucking and biting her sensitive flesh, heedless of her screaming. Neither did he stop when she tugged on his neckcloth and pulled on his hair. His breath was heavy and labored; the stench of stale ale and old vomit suffused the air around them.
He wedged a hand between their bodies, working frantically to unlace his breeches.
She clawed long, bloody scratches along his cheeks. But instead of relenting, he growled low in his throat and tugged at the voluminous skirts of the wedding gown, bunching it and the nightgown around her waist.
Though she'd thought she could feel no more panicked, the cool air on her extremities fueled her useless howling to new heights. When Robert shoved his knees between hers to force her legs apart, her anguish was so acute that it overwhelmed any physical pain.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The numbers on the doors were too faded to read in the dark corridor. But there was only one room Colin sought, and Amy's unmistakable sobs led him straight to it.
"Stanley!" He pounded with both fists on the rotting wood that separated him from the woman he loved and her abductor. "Open up! Now!"
He ripped off his surcoat and threw it to the floor. Backing up a few feet, he made a run at the door and rammed it with a shoulder—the old lock gave with a satisfying snap, and the door flung into the room and slammed against the wall, barely staying on its hinges.
Startled, Robert rolled off Amy and slid over the edge of the bed, scrabbling to find the pistol on the floor.
Blinking and whimpering, Amy struggled up on her elbows, her gaze riveted to Colin in the doorway. He took a step forward as Robert rose, one hand clutching the waistband of his unlaced breeches, the other clenching the gun. A feral look hardened his bloodied features.
Colin took another step.
"Stay back, Greystone, you bastard." The pistol wavered as Robert growled. "She's mine." The flintlock had been half-cocked, primed and ready, and now he pulled back the lock.
The room reverberated with an ominous click.
A scalding fury burning in his chest, Colin advanced.
Robert's face registered sheer, unreasoning panic. His arm swung wildly as he squeezed the trigger. The pistol went off with a thunderous report.
Amy let out a shriek of terror, but Colin didn't flinch; his advance continued unchecked. The bullet was lodged somewhere in the wall of the corridor. Robert was left with a smoking gun in his shaking hands, the pungent scent of exploded gunpowder swirling around him.
There was insufficient time for an expert to reload, and Robert had already proven he was no expert. He flung the heavy pistol at Colin's head.
Colin ducked, and as his head came back up, he pulled his rapier out of his belt with smooth, practiced ease.
Without the false sense of security the pistol had provided, Robert seemed to shrink into himself. Colin saw the truth in his eyes: Robert knew he was no match for the Earl of Greystone—he'd known it from the moment Colin came into the shop, three long months ago.
Robert backed up against the wall, his pale eyes glassy with terror, fastened on the gleaming silver length of Colin's blade.
Flinging the sword away, Colin rounded on Robert with his fists clenched. He grabbed the shorter man's shoulders and yanked him away from the wall, then rammed him back into it with a raging force. There was an audible crack! as Robert's head met the rigid wood, and when Colin let go, Robert slid to the floor in an ungraceful heap.
The fight was over before it began.
Amy watched, silent, as Colin bent down to reclaim his rapier. "Do you want me to kill him?" he grated out, his breath coming in large gulps as he fought to control his fury.
She shook her head violently, still mute. Colin stood motionless for a moment, registering the shock in her disbelieving eyes. Then he slid the sword into his belt and moved to the bed, reaching down toward her.
"You're…you've been shot," she whispered, beginning to shake.
He straightened and looked down to where her gaze was riveted, surprised. His shirt was plastered to his ribs by a dark, sticky patch of blood, but it wasn't spreading. "It's but a scratch," he said. He still couldn't feel it—the white-hot maelstrom of his emotions overrode any pain.
Still, he had enough presence of mind to retrieve his surcoat from the corridor and shrug back into it, wrapping it tightly around himself to cover the blood before he scooped her up in his arms.
She trembled in his embrace. With a lingering, murderous look at Robert's still form, he carried her down the stairs and out into the street.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Only a street from the ramshackle Cat and Canary, the luxurious Rose and Crown seemed a world away.
Amy seemed a world away, too.
"I'm cold, Colin," she whispered as he gently laid her on the bed.
After starting a roaring blaze in the fireplace, he went downstairs to ask for a bath to be prepared. He returned to find Amy huddled in a chair, staring into the flames.
Concerned, he glanced back at the bed.
"I've been tied to a bed…" she murmured in answer to his unasked question.
He unbuckled his sword and set it on a low table, then lifted her up, took her place in the chair and settled her on his lap. Silent, they watched the fire together, Colin holding her close, her head against his chest.
He buried his lips in her tangled curls, and they stayed that way for a very long time, motionless except when Colin's mouth moved against her hair. His kisses were gentle, slow and warm. Possessive, healing. Not sensuous, but cherishing. His heart seemed to burst with tenderness at the miracle of her back in his arms.
Servants dragged a tub into the chamber and filled it with bucket after bucket of steaming water, scented with oil of roses. Hard-milled perfumed soap was left, along with a comb and a brush and large linen towels.
Alone again, Colin rose and stood Amy on her feet. He pushed the blue dress off her shoulders and down her unresisting body. It rustled to pool on the floor, a pale shimmer in the firelight. He drew the ripped nightgown over her head.
"I should have killed him," he whispered, looking at her. Her knees and elbows were scraped and scabby, her wrists and ankles raw and abraded. Purple marks marred one side of her face; dried blood crusted her forehead. Her lips were bruised and swollen, her hair a tangled mess tumbling down her back.
He had thought he would never see her again.
She looked beautiful.
Taking her hand, he led her to the tub and helped her lower herself into the soothing, fragrant water. She melted into the warmth, leaning her head back on the rim. Through half-closed eyes, she watched him shrug out of his surcoat, cringing when his bloodstained shirt was revealed.
"It's naught but a scratch," he reminded her, his voice low and steady. He turned away so she wouldn't see him wince when he pulled the fabric from the wound and slipped the shirt off over his head. But it was just a scratch, the barest graze, and wouldn't even require stitches. It stung, but not so much that he couldn't ignore it.
A quarter of an inch to the right—the thought made Colin suck in a breath. A broken rib, perhaps bone fragments puncturing his lung. It would have wreaked havoc, would certainly have impaired his swift action, if not killed him outright. Well, it hadn't happened. He'd been lucky—very, very lucky—and he
would never reveal to her just how narrow their escape had been.
He knelt by the tub, dipped a towel into the water and dabbed at the blood until the shallow laceration was clean.
"Look, Amy." He turned toward the light. "It's nothing." She reached out tentative fingers, touching him lightly, and when he didn't flinch, she settled back with a nod.
Taking up a soft cloth, he cleaned her slowly and gently. He washed away the blood, the dirt, and—he hoped—the memories.
She didn't say a word and neither did he. It was the most impersonal bath he had ever given a lady, yet the most personal at the same time. His cloth ran over her tender breasts, her white belly, between her thighs.
When her ivory skin gleamed clean in the firelight, he lathered her hair with the scented soap and poured buckets of water down her back. His arousal, long denied, grew until he hurt, but he trained his face to remain impassive, his touch to be no more than methodical.
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done.
With a hand in hers, he helped her stand. The water sluiced down her graceful form, leaving droplets that shimmered on her bruised skin.
Colin's jaw tightened, and his eyes fluttered closed momentarily. Her wounds were merely surface deep, nothing that wouldn't heal in a few days at most. But he was furious nonetheless, feeling somehow responsible for her suffering, for the damage to her perfect young body.
He should never have left her.
He would never leave her again, he promised himself as she stepped from the tub and he patted her dry. The nightgown was ruined and the blue dress ripped in the back, so he wrapped her in a dry towel, swallowing hard as he tucked the end between her breasts.
He dragged the chair closer to the fire and drew her long hair out as she sat down, draping it over the seat back. Then he sat behind her to brush it dry. He hummed as he worked, a soft lullaby his mother used to sing to him before the war.