by Lauren Smith
Even as she rightfully raged at him, she was so bloody beautiful. And that was why he had to protect her, even if she hated him for it.
“Stop fussing. I don’t have the patience for it tonight.” He needed time to think. To sort things out.
She stomped her booted foot on his in an attempt to kick him, but he barely felt it through his thick boots.
“I will put you over my knee, you little hellion,” Brodie warned. She stilled, her face red as she scowled at him.
“You do and I will hate you forever.”
“Better that you hate me than get yourself hurt.”
When she tried to hit him again, he ducked. In one swift move, he threw her over his shoulder, catching her legs with one arm to hold her down so she couldn’t kick and thereby fall and hurt herself.
“Careful, old boy,” Rafe laughed. “The kitten has her claws out.” Brodie ignored him as he marched upstairs, Shelton rushing up after them.
“Where is an empty bedchamber?” he bellowed at the poor man.
“Here, sir.” Shelton rushed to open the nearest door.
“And the key for the lock?” Brodie held out his free hand, ignoring the tiny fists that beat at his back in desperation.
“Let go of me, you brute!” Lydia yelled. Brodie took the key from Shelton and carried his wriggling cargo inside. He headed straight for the settee at the foot of the bed and sat down. After a brief struggle with her, Brodie slid her down in front of him and over his lap. Then he brought his hand down on her bottom, just hard enough to catch her attention.
“Ouch!” Lydia shrieked, though in a way that spoke of indignity rather than pain.
“That is for fussing,” he said and gave her a second whack. “That is for not listening to me.” Another three smacks and she quieted her outbursts.
He stopped, his hand hovering above her bottom, before he hesitantly placed it on her lower back, hoping to soothe her. He hadn’t spanked a woman as punishment in some time, and he wondered if he had gone too far. Lydia was a gentle-born woman and not used to such treatment. His intention wasn’t to harm her, but to get her attention and remind her that he was in charge. He turned her over on his lap, and his heart clenched at the sight of tears streaming down her face.
“Please let me go,” she said in a small voice.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Please, let me go,” she said again, and he did. She almost fell trying to get off his lap. Lydia curled her arms around herself and rushed away from him to the corner of the room farthest from him.
“Lass, I’m sorry.” He stood and came toward her, but she turned her back on him.
“Please leave me alone.”
Brodie stopped. He stared at her back a moment before he nodded to himself and left the bedchamber. He locked her in and slipped the key into his pocket before he headed down the stairs. Rafe was waiting for him in the drawing room, drinking a whiskey and lounging in a chair by a freshly lit fire.
“That was quick.” Rafe chuckled until he saw Brodie’s face, and then he sobered. “What happened?”
“I spanked her,” Brodie grumbled as he threw himself into a chair.
“Oh?” Rafe asked, a slight edge to his tone.
“Not hard, mind you. At least, I dinna think so. I just wanted her to stop and listen.”
“Not the best way to open someone’s ears, going through the derriere.” Rafe snorted at his own comment.
“Aye, well, she wasn’t going to listen to reason, was she?” The truth was he didn’t know what he’d hoped to accomplish. Even with all his restraint, he felt like he had been channeling his father. He felt like a bloody bastard.
“Perhaps not. You are right, though—she cannot go see her father. He’ll take her home, but only after he challenges you to a duel. Assuming you don’t let your temper get the better of you and kill the man before that.”
“Aye. I wouldna be able to refuse his challenge, not after what he’s done.”
“And he’s just as honor-bound to offer the challenge for what you’ve done to Lydia.” Rafe sipped his whiskey before he stood and walked over to the tray on a nearby table and poured Brodie a glass. Brodie downed it all in one gulp.
“You know, Kincade, that’s a sipping whiskey.”
Brodie snorted. “For a Sassenach, maybe.” He held out his glass, and Rafe refilled it. “It’s not just the threat of a duel, though.”
“Oh? And what else is there?”
Brodie stared at the amber liquid in his glass. “I dinna rightly know. It’s the way she’s been treated by her own father. The man clearly favors his younger child over her, which makes not one bloody bit of sense. I want to show her that I care about her, even if he doesna care.”
“So you admit that, do you?”
Brodie didn’t look at his friend but nodded. “’Tis a bit hard not to. She’s sweet, intelligent, passionate, kind, amusing . . .”
Rafe crossed his arms and frowned at the flames, still holding his own whiskey. “Well, now that our evening has been thoroughly spoiled, what are you going to do about Lady Rochester and Mr. Hunt?”
“We must put them off the scent,” Brodie said.
“That might be manageable, but you don’t know Lady Rochester. She is as clever as her children, perhaps more so. She won’t fall for any trick for long.”
“Well, unless you have any better ideas, I say we send her on a wild chase to the north while we leave Edinburgh.”
“As a plan, it has the virtue of simplicity. I’ll have Shelton send her a message tomorrow after we leave for your castle, that we arrived late and left early the next morning for the Isle of Skye. I have a friend there we can send them to. By the time they realize they were fooled, we will be far away.”
“Good. I want to be off as soon as possible.” He didn’t want to run into Jackson Hunt, but he also didn’t want to let Lydia go. At least, not yet.
Lydia rubbed a hand over her bottom and cursed Brodie Kincade with every foul bit of language she knew—which, unfortunately, wasn’t nearly enough to do justice to her feelings.
Her pride had been hurt far more than she had been physically. He had treated her like a misbehaving child, and he’d tried to make her feel to blame for resisting his commands. And on some bizarre level, she did. That made no sense whatsoever.
She should defy him at every turn, shouldn’t she? He had no right to tell her that she could not see her own father. He was the one who’d kidnapped her. Her choosing to stay with him did not change that fact. She had believed him to be an honorable man who had taken drastic action to avenge a wrong made against him. She did not agree with such measures, but on some level could understand it. Even his stubbornness in not believing her was understandable, given Portia’s talent for deception.
But now she’d learned he had known the truth about her and her sister, and still he would not let her go. How did he square that with his so-called honor?
Furious, Lydia paced the length of the bedchamber, scowling as she tried to figure out what to do. If Brodie returned here tonight expecting to bed her, he would be sorely disappointed. For the first time in her life, she wanted to behave as Portia would. She wanted to scream and throw expensive breakable things into the nearest wall.
Yet she checked that destructive urge. This was Lord Lennox’s house, who was blameless in all this. She wouldn’t damage his home, especially when he had no idea his brother and brother-in-law were using it for such nefarious purposes.
Lydia paused in her pacing to look at the window opposite the bed. She approached the sash window and pushed it open. The perfumed smells of a well-tended garden came from below. She peered into the gloom, seeing through the growing darkness to the ground below.
It was a decent fall, and she could not jump without severe injury. But there was a trellis covered in ivy directly below the window. Lydia retrieved her reticule that had been packed away in her luggage, which still contained a small bit of coin from Brodie, and secured it t
o her wrist before she lifted her skirts and hefted a foot over the edge of the window. She found the latticework of the trellis after a moment and started to put pressure on it to see if the thin wood would bear her weight. Then when she was satisfied that it was safe, she began her descent. It wasn’t easy, because her arm was still quite sore, but she was able to favor her good arm as she climbed down.
It was slow work, but when she reached the bottom with only minor scrapes, she grinned and tilted her head back to look at the window above.
“Lock me in, eh?” she muttered to herself. “That will show you, you stubborn Scot.” She brushed dirt and leaves off her gown and then carefully tiptoed through the gardens until she met the tall wrought-iron gate that blocked her only exit. It was most likely locked. She tried the gate anyway and nearly stumbled as it swung open on rusty hinges.
That was certainly unexpected, but it was also to her advantage. She closed the gate behind her, wincing at the sound of it creaking again. But no alarm was raised, and no one came to investigate.
Lydia walked through the narrow passage between Lord Lennox’s townhouse and the one next to it until she reached the street. Streetlamps illuminated only part of the walkways. Lydia was no fool. She knew she had to be vigilant and cautious here. She watched for any passing hackneys that she might be able to hire, but after walking a quarter of a mile, she’d found none.
Suddenly, she heard a small cry for help. She looked around. The street was quite deserted. When she heard the cry again, almost certainly that of a child, she crept toward it. The cries led her down one of the small passages that Brodie had told her were called “closes” and found a small girl of about five or six in a dirty, tattered dress, her eyes wide with terror.
“Miss! Please help me!” the little girl sobbed.
Lydia grasped the girl’s hands in her own. “What’s the matter? Where is your family? Do you need help finding your home?”
The girl sniffed and shook her head. “It’s my mama! They took her!”
“Who?”
“Them . . .” The girl pointed into the darkness beyond. Lydia peered into the darkest parts of the close but could not see anything.
“Where’s your father?”
“Dead.” The girl started toward the darkness, but Lydia grasped her shoulders, halting her.
“You must stay here and hide. I will find your mother.”
She helped the girl conceal herself in the shadows behind a few wooden crates stacked against the stone walls of the nearest building. Then she crept down the alley, uncertain of what awaited her.
Distant sounds echoed in the darkness. Something heavy was being dragged along the ground. A man cursed softly. Light blossomed as a candle was lit. The ghostly faces of two men, made grotesque by the flickering light, caused Lydia to halt and hold her breath.
“Here, move the light closer, Burke,” one of the men said.
The candle lowered to illuminate the body of a young woman upon the ground next to a large trunk.
“Lucky us. We didn’t even have to kill this one, she was already dead,” the first man said to the one he had called Burke.
“Oh, aye. The doc will pay the same. She’s a fine one, in good condition.”
“Set the candle down. Help me load ’er up,” the first man ordered.
The light was put on the ground nearby, and the shadowy macabre dance of the two men was haunting as they lifted the poor deceased woman and folded her body into the trunk. “Now, grab the child. I’ll smother her.”
Lydia stifled a gasp. They were going to kill the child. Lydia had to protect the girl. She had to stop them. She tried to think, despite the terror rising inside her.
The two men left the candle on the ground and headed toward her in the dark. Fortunately, they didn’t see her, because the passageway was nearly pitch-black. Lydia held her breath, her blood roaring in her ears. A moment later, their steps were close and the smell of their unwashed bodies filled her nose. Lydia stuck out a foot, and the man nearest her fell flat on his face. He grunted, and the other man tripped over him, landing on top. The two men started to fight, each snarling and hitting each other as they blamed the other for what had happened.
Lydia, still flattened against the wall, slid step by careful step down past them. She wanted to run, but if she did they would hear her.
“Oy, you smell that?” one of them growled. “Bleeding roses . . .”
“Maybe it was the woman.”
“No, she didn’t smell nice. She smelled dead.”
Suddenly everything was dangerously quiet. Lydia halted, afraid to move. They were listening for her.
After an eternity, the two men moved again.
“Go back and fix the body in the trunk,” one of them said.
Lydia sighed in quiet relief and started to move again. And that’s when she was tackled to the ground.
“Gotcha!” one of them grunted in triumph as he crushed her beneath him. “Bring the light!”
A candle was brought around and held up to her face.
“Well now, what a pretty pigeon,” the man holding her said with a chuckle. “Seen something ye shouldna, eh?” He nodded to Burke, and before she could scream, something struck the back of her head.
16
When Lydia came to, she lay on the floor of a wagon next to a large trunk. A heavy burlap covering lay over her body, almost smothering her. Her first instinct was to rip the covering off her face, but then she remembered the little girl, the woman in the trunk, and the two men who had attacked her. The wagon rolled to a stop. Burke and Hare’s voices were muffled, yet she could still hear what they were saying.
“We’ll have to go back for the child after we drop off these two.” Hands grasped the burlap above her head, and Lydia went still as the covering was flung back.
“Get the trunk first.” The trunk was dragged off the wagon, and the two men carried it toward a building nearby. She started to sit up, but then she heard voices as the men returned, so she lay limp again. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t imagine how the men didn’t hear it.
“Doc says seven pounds for the first and another seven for this one.”
Rough hands lifted her up and carried her toward the building. She tried to hold her breath again as she was set down on top of a table.
“Here’s the other one, Doc.”
A new voice replied to that announcement, one more cultured than either Burke or Hare.
“Well now, that is a beauty. And still flushed with her recent passing. See the blood still rosy beneath the skin? Quite lovely.” The heat of a candle’s flame near her face almost made her flinch.
“How did this one pass away? Do you know?”
“Er . . . a fall . . . Aye, that’s right. She tripped and fell down the stairs,” Burke said quickly.
“Really?” The doctor didn’t sound convinced. “If that were the case, she would have bruises. Is that a bump on her temple?” The doctor suddenly was touching her, his cold hands methodically exploring her head and arms before he lifted her skirt to her knees to examine her legs. It took all of her resolve for Lydia not to move or make a sound, lest she betray she was alive to these men, who clearly would kill her.
“It only just happened, Doc,” Hare added.
There was a moment of silence, and then the doctor sighed.
“Very well. You know I never like to inquire where you find the bodies. I daresay my students will enjoy watching the dissections of these women tomorrow. Pretty bodies make it far more interesting, and this one is especially lovely. I might have to have my friend come and sketch her body the way I did that poor prostitute.”
Burke chuckled. “That one was pretty.”
“Here. Take your payment and be gone. I don’t want anyone to see you or your wagon here if we can help it.”
The sound of jingling coins and a chuckle from Hare and Burke was followed by their fading footsteps.
“Now my dears, it’s just us three,”
the doctor said. Another wave of panic threatened to make her gasp for breath. She listened to him moving around nearby. At one point, cloth brushed against her bare arm, and she almost jerked away out of instinct. She strained to listen to every sound he made and when she was certain he’d walked away far enough, and hopefully wasn’t facing her, she took a chance.
Lydia opened one eye a tiny bit and saw a bald man with glasses nearby. He was examining the other woman’s body on a table, mumbling to himself. Lydia opened both eyes then, hastily taking in her surroundings. She was in a workshop of sorts, with medical instruments littering the various surfaces. She had to find a way out of here. Had she trusted the doctor to be honorable, she would have spoken up and let him know she was alive, but that wasn’t something she was certain of. He was paying for bodies and didn’t care much how Burke and Hare came across them. She did not want to take the chance.
She found a small knife on the table next to her, and an idea sprang to her mind. The doctor hummed as he stood next to the other table with the dead woman. Lydia seized the knife, curled her fingers around the cold metal of the instrument, and threw it as hard as she could. It clattered down the corridor. She closed her eyes as the doctor spun and headed in the direction of the sound, calling out to see if anyone was there.
The moment he was gone, Lydia flew off the table and scrambled for the door. She rushed out into the cool night, gasping as she took in a lungful of air. She ran, heedless of direction at first, just so long as it was away from there. Only when she knew she wasn’t being followed did she finally slow down. Then she stopped, her feet aching from the sprint.
The street was dark and empty, and she felt suddenly small and afraid. She didn’t know the city, didn’t know where Brodie was, or her father, at least not from this part of town. Anyone outside at this time of night might not be safe to ask for directions. But as filled with fear as she was, she forced herself to keep moving until she found a tavern. She didn’t dare go inside, but she waited for what felt like ages until she saw a barmaid come out of a side door and pour a bucket of dirty water upon the ground.