Rathburn came to with a gulp of air that was half scream, half gasp.
“Hello, Father,” Peterson said genteelly, as if they’d run into each other at a ball. “So lovely to see you looking well.”
Rathburn reeled back. He looked over at her with bleary, confused eyes, but he dismissed her quickly, turning back to Peterson.
He then spit at Peterson’s feet. “You are not my son, you bastard spawn of a whore.”
Gemma thought perhaps Rathburn should have kept his mouth shut in his circumstance, but was relieved over the opportunity to continue to work on her bindings.
Peterson was tsking at Rathburn as he went to examine his weapons on the table. He stroked the pistol with a lover’s touch before moving on to the blade.
“You mean the whore you murdered?” he asked calmly as he plucked up the knife and moved closer to his prey. “The one you carved into bits as I watched? The one of many, it seems, dear Father.”
He pushed the tip of the steel delicately into Rathburn’s throat, drawing a drop of blood before retreating. She saw Rathburn swallow convulsively.
“You are a madman. You have no idea what you are talking about,” Rathburn croaked. She wondered if it was wise to call the man holding the knife at his throat a madman, but she put that thought aside as she began tugging her wrists apart.
“Ah, so now I am the madman?” Peterson purred the question before slashing the sharp knife across one of Rathburn’s taut forearms. The man let out an unholy scream that turned her stomach. She wondered if she was about to see someone tortured. She didn’t know if she could handle it without stepping in to intervene, even if Rathburn deserved his fate. “I am not the one who sliced up women for pleasure, am I, Father? I am not the one who left them for dead.”
Rathburn’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Peterson leaned in, his mouth almost against Rathburn’s ear. “I know about you,” he sang softly, tauntingly.
“You know nothing,” Rathburn spat, jerking his head away from his tormentor.
Peterson laughed. “Ah. What do I know? What do I know?” he said, as if in contemplation. He twirled the knife carelessly. “I know that you liked to cut up whores to watch them bleed. I know that you did not care if they lived or died.” He took the blade to Rathburn’s hand, drawing a thin line of blood from the skin. “Do you like to watch yourself bleed, dear Father? I know I like to watch you bleed. I know you used to rut at my mother like a wild animal. I know I watched from the closet while she told you she’d sent me away on some errand. I know you took a knife to her and made her bleed like your whores. But you made a mistake, because she was not one of your whores, Father.”
Peterson’s arm arched again in a violent slash that belied his calm voice. Blood seeped out of the wide cut across Rathburn’s face.
Rathburn let out a grunt but said nothing.
“I was disappointed there were only two of you left alive,” Peterson said, grazing the tip of the blade against Rathburn’s temple. “Of course, you were the worst of them. The others only watched, but they still deserved punishment. I had to make do with toying with their spawn, which was much less satisfying. I am so glad, though, that it was not you who had gone to be judged by your maker. Eternal damnation is nothing compared to what you will face from me.” He flipped the blade and brought it down directly through Rathburn’s uninjured hand. Rathburn screamed and fainted. Gemma felt her stomach heave as she heard the knife strike the wood beneath.
“Collin!” she said finally, unable to bear the torture any longer. She had to distract him or he would end up killing Rathburn right in front of her.
Her wrists were raw, but she was almost out of her bindings. It had loosened up enough for her to get her fingers around the rope. When the moment was right she would be able to slip free of the restraints. But for now, the madman with a deadly knife had turned his full attention on her.
The eeriest thing was not the weapon, though. It was his eyes. She expected them to be wild and darting. They were calm and focused, instead. She wondered if she had just made a fatal mistake.
“Was it you? Did you kill my cousin?” She had to know. If nothing else, she wanted to die knowing.
“Ah. That was unfortunate,” he said, looking regretful for the first time. “I was saddened that I had to take that step. He seemed to be a reasonable gentleman. But he was lurking in the library while I collected the funds necessary for me to continue with my revenge. I could not let him leave and ruin everything. Everything I had worked so hard for.” He shook his head. “I wish it had not come to that. I do not enjoy taking lives for no purpose.”
It was what she had been suspecting for some time. She felt something give, deep in her heart. She could mourn Nigel now, but move on from the obsession of his death. It was a tragic end to a beautiful life, a light extinguished too soon.
She nodded as if she agreed that it was the only logical path he could have taken. “Did you take his pocket watch?”
“I am not a common thief,” he said, but then he reached in his coat to withdraw the item in question. “But I had admired it earlier in the night, and he informed me it was an original. Sixteenth-century Italy. It would have been a shame beyond words for it to end up buried with him.”
She felt the urge to lunge at him, but restrained herself. She decided in that moment, though, that not only would she survive this night, she would get the watch back from him.
“How do you know he’s your father?” she asked, tamping down the rage in her voice. She hesitated to bring his attention back to Rathburn, but Peterson seemed to feel like talking, and she wanted to use it to her advantage. The longer he talked, the more time Lucas had to find her.
He glanced back at his victim, bound and bleeding in the chair, but returned his gaze to her. “He was the only one it could be,” he answered cryptically.
“The only one out of whom?” she asked, though she knew the answer.
“The Kingsmen. Idiocy is what it was. The noblemen and their grand plans. He was particularly fond of all of trappings of it,” he said, nodding toward Rathburn, then throwing her a conspiratorial smirk. “You may have noticed.”
She gave him her best blank stare. As if she would ever let herself be pulled into agreeing with him on anything.
“Your husband’s father was one of them as well, you know,” he continued. “Of course you know. I wish you had not been brought into this. How could I have predicted the two of you would come together?” He said this last part more to himself, disbelief coloring his voice. “All my planning…” He trailed off before turning sharply toward her. “It does not matter. You will be mine.”
“I am married to him now,” she reminded him. She thought perhaps it was foolish to enrage him further, but she felt the need to say it.
Lucas. Lucas. Lucas.
“Not for long, my love. Don’t you see?” He swept a hand toward Rathburn. “Winchester goes mad with rage after he discovers his bride with Rathburn at their secret rendezvous. He kills Rathburn, of course, but you escape. Knowing he cannot go on without you, he ends his own life. I just have to get him out here… But that shall not be difficult, my pet. Not with you here.”
Gemma’s stomach clenched, and she wondered if she would actually vomit at the sheer horror his gleeful words provoked. She must change the subject if she wanted to maintain her composure. She reassured herself that at least he did not seem to harbor plans to murder her at the moment.
“How could only Rathburn have been your father?” she asked, in an attempt to turn his thoughts from Lucas’s death and onto what had happened in the past.
He turned contemplative. “My mother was a nobleman’s daughter,” he said. “The daughter of an earl. The earl who owned this castle.” He swept an arm out to encompass the room. “My mother kept a journal. I was too young when she died. She did not tell me the tale herself, but she recorded what happened.”
“Of course,” she murmured, not sure what she was agreeing to, but
sensing she should say something so that he would continue.
“My grandfather threw a house party one week toward the end of the season, and the Kingsmen were invited. Foolishly.” He shook his head in derision of the past decision. “They had been making their way through society that year, carousing and whoring but never quite far enough so as not to be invited to respectable gatherings.”
She glanced at Rathburn, who was bleeding profusely from his face and hand. He remained unconscious. That was probably for the best, given the pain he must be in.
“My mother immediately developed a tendre for him,” he continued with a dismissive nod toward Rathburn, not even looking at him. “And he seduced her. He played on her naïveté as a girl who had not been exposed to the rogues of the town. Grandfather was not a young man even when he had her. He was not able to protect her from this one’s charms. The week of the party, she met with Rathburn secretly many times. He told her about the Kingsmen and how they would take on the world. And she fell in love with him.
“On the last night of the party, he made plans to meet up with her in the gazebo out toward the edge of the property. She showed up expecting a marriage proposal. He brought his friends. They raped her and beat her and left her unconscious,” he said. “Grandfather found her the next morning and cast her out. She went to London and worked in a milliner’s shop for a few months before discovering she was increasing. She tried to get help from the men who left her in her condition but all turned her away without so much as talking to her. She was an earl’s daughter.”
His voice had been steadily rising, and he yelled the last part, enraged. His breathing was ragged, and she knew she had to calm him down. Rathburn’s eyes had opened, but he remained silent, and his breathing was shallow.
“Why was this not a scandal?” she asked. “An earl’s daughter, left pregnant and abandoned? The scandal would have lasted for years.”
“Grandfather told everyone she died—a fall from horseback. He buried an empty coffin and mourned for her. He would rather have a dead daughter than one who had a child out of wedlock. He blamed her, you see. He said she brought it upon herself for flirting with Rathburn in the first place. He was a harsh man,” he said. His eyes turned nostalgic. “But he died painfully.”
She didn’t want to think through the implications of that. “If they all raped her, how do you know Rathburn is your father?” She was careful not to be accusatory in her tone, even though her heart hurt for Lucas.
Peterson’s eyes slid to the side, and she knew there was more to the story. “The three of them only watched the debauchery.”
“This was all in her journal?” she asked.
“Yes. I managed to hide her diary before I was shipped off to the orphanage,” he said. “They drank and whored with her, laughing at her before three of them left. And then Rathburn remained.” He swung back to the bound man, advancing on him. “And then you raped her again and beat her unconscious, leaving her for dead, did you not?”
“Lies,” Rathburn hissed. “Lying whore.”
Peterson lunged, and Gemma knew it was her moment. She took off running, pulling at the rope as she went, not glancing back as she heard an anguished scream erupt from Rathburn.
“No!” she heard Peterson yell, but she kept running. She was in a long hallway lined with pictures of past earls. She wasted precious seconds ridding herself of the remnants of the rope that had bound her. There might have been pain, but pain meant she was alive.
She could not operate on pure panic, so she forced herself to focus and think. She’d managed to sneak a look as she was being carried in and knew if she went out the front door she had a wide expanse of open lawn to cover before she could reach the security of the forest. He would be able to overtake her quickly if she attempted to flee that way. She paused at the foot of a wide staircase until she heard a gunshot from behind her.
Rathburn.
She pushed the thought of him away. Distraction would be fatal.
Her skirts tangled around her ankles as she flew up the stairs.
“Whore,” she heard Peterson scream in rage from the hallway. “I wanted him to suffer.”
She reached the second floor but kept going, hoping to buy time if he assumed she would duck into a bedroom there. She found the next flight of stairs and took them as fast as possible. They led into a huge attic room outfitted as a torture chamber. Chains hung from the wall, and an ominous looking table bearing cruel instruments stood in the middle of the room. A large four-post bed was pushed up against the window, and there were pieces of rope tied to each corner. A heavy wardrobe seemed like her best option. But first a weapon.
She went straight for the table that held an assortment of sharp objects, plucked one off at random, and then scrambled into the wardrobe. She heard Peterson below. His voice had calmed but was still loud enough to carry. He was working his way through the second floor bedrooms that were close to the stairs.
She tried to slow her erratic breathing and fumbled for her knife. He would find her and she had to be ready. But it would be on her terms.
He was playing with her now. “Gemma,” he all but sang out. “You cannot hide from me, my pet. You are my destiny.”
His footsteps were heavy on the stairs, slow and tortuous. He was in no rush to end it. She was trapped and he knew it, and he was getting a thrill from hunting her like an animal. But he wasn’t taking into account that when animals were trapped, they didn’t give in, didn’t give up. They fought. They bared teeth and lunged and found a strength they didn’t even know they had.
She gripped the hilt of the blade tighter.
“Come out, pet. I will not hurt you,” Peterson said when he reached the top of the stairs. “I know you are here. I will find you. If you come out now, it will be better for you, I promise.”
As if she would ever surrender to him. The promise was a lie, anyway. There was a sick anticipation in his voice that slid down her spine and curled itself into her belly.
No. Fighting was the only option.
“The first moment I saw you, I knew we would be together, darling,” he said, and she tried to track his voice around the large room. He was headed toward the bed, she guessed. “I just needed you to stay out of my way until I took my revenge. I tried to warn you. I did. But you would not leave it alone.”
There was a moment of silence where she pictured him kneeling by the bed. She knew the wardrobe would be his next choice. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears, so loud she could swear he could hear it. She sipped in air trying to calm it.
Footsteps started over the creaky wooden floor.
“Your cousin cried like a baby, you know,” he said, getting closer. “He begged me like a coward not to kill him. A sniveling, whining…”
She seized the moment right before he opened the doors to her hiding place. She burst out of the wardrobe and caught the look of shock on his face before she landed on top of him. The knife she’d grabbed sunk into his shoulder, and he staggered under her weight but didn’t go down. She dropped to the floor before he could grab her and swept an expert foot behind his ankles. He had not regained his balance and the extra movement sent him to the floor. The pistol skittered out of his reach and she took off running once more toward the stairs. He scrambled to his feet after her, not even bothering to pull the blade from his arm. She gauged the distance between them, then stopped short of the long, stone staircase. She spun in a quick movement when he thought she would continue to run. He teetered at the edge for a long, fraught second before his momentum carried him down the stairs. The fatal crack of head against stone came moments later.
She walked to the top of the stairs, and saw his body crumpled in a small pool of blood at the bottom. The fierce relief that rushed through her at the gruesome sight almost brought her to her knees, but she couldn’t give in to it. She wasn’t safe yet.
Far beneath her, the main door slammed open, and she heard footsteps thundering across the great hall.
&
nbsp; Move.
But she couldn’t. She was too numb to even search for another weapon or try to hide. The person was getting closer, and once more she willed herself to act. Her legs finally listened to her, and she shifted back, thinking to hide in the wardrobe once more. But just then, the person came charging around the corner. She was still vulnerable, open to attack. Her mind froze.
Then she realized who it was, and she sank to the ground in absolute relief.
Lucas. Lucas.
He took in the scene in a glance, barely acknowledging the man at his feet. He stepped over the body, rushing up toward Gemma.
He knelt and gathered her in his arms, murmuring her name over and over again. She let herself sink into oblivion with one thought: Lucas was here now; she was safe.
…
Lucas held Gemma for a long time, and her heartbeat against his became his whole world. The sound of her breathing. Her warmth.
Her head nestled underneath his chin, and he buried his face in her hair.
She was alive. Alive.
It was a mantra. The only thought he could hold on to.
In his mad rush to the castle, he hadn’t let himself think about what would happen if he arrived too late. But the fear had been there—in the ice that froze his blood, in the vise that squeezed the air from his body.
To never see her smile again. To never feel her beneath him. To never hear her laugh as she teased him. It was a grim, unbearable future. And in those dark moments, he could only believe she was alive. He wouldn’t have been able to function otherwise.
But now, holding her, actually feeling her body against his, running his hands over her unharmed skin, brought every desperate thought crashing into him. He’d almost lost her.
Tears threatened, but he squeezed them back and breathed in her sweet scent. Her own sobs had quieted to jagged little hiccups, but he didn’t relax his hold. If he gripped her a bit too tightly, held her a bit to close, well, she didn’t seem to mind. And he couldn’t seem to give even a centimeter. Now that he had her safe in his arms, he didn’t ever want to let her go.
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