by Cheryl Holt
“What?”
“Lord Stafford will kill you when he finds out.”
“How will he learn of it, Miss Wilson? Who will tell him? You? You’ll never have the chance.”
“He’ll find out. I’ll make sure of it.”
Pratt smirked. “I’m shaking in my boots.”
He left, as Mason snickered, “Dearest, Emeline, it seems we’re alone.”
“Don’t touch me.”
She elbowed him in the ribs, hoping the blow would loosen his grip, but he clamped hold tighter than ever.
“I’d offer you wine,” he said, “but we don’t have time for socializing. Let’s get down to business.”
There was a bed along the wall, and he tried to wrestle her onto it, but if he thought she’d blithely comply, he was gravely mistaken. Her arms were free, and she would utilize every ounce of her strength, would die in the effort, before she’d submit.
She was kicking with her feet, clawing with her nails, but wherever she attacked, he merely yanked her fingers away.
“You shouldn’t have spurned me, Emeline.” He was out of breath from their grappling.
“If you’d been the last man on earth, I wouldn’t have accepted your proposal.”
“A foolish decision—as you can now see. Imagine how different things would be if you’d agreed to have me. You’d be safe at home in Stafford instead of here in a deserted cabin and about to be raped.”
“I would never have married you. You’re a bully, and I hate you too much.”
“I realize that. You were too eager to play the whore for Captain Price.”
“I loved him.”
“Love, bah! Fat lot of good it’s done you.”
“He loved me too,” she lied. “He’ll retaliate against you.”
“No, he won’t. He’s too stupid to figure out that you’re missing.”
“Someone will tell him.”
“Who will notice that you vanished? Not your paltry earl. You’re so vain that you assume others care about you.”
“Nicholas Price is ten times the man you’ll ever be.”
“Be silent!” Mason fumed.
“He is! That’s what galls you, isn’t it? You could never match up to him. You’ll spend the remainder of your days, working for him, following his orders, obeying his commands.”
“Shut up!”
“In your entire pathetic life, you’ll never be anything but a servant to your betters.”
“Whore! Whore!”
She twisted away and scratched at his face, slashing his skin. He wailed with outrage, as he wrapped his hands around her neck and started to squeeze.
With her comments, she’d simply meant to distract him, using diversion to foster escape, but she’d been too successful at antagonizing him. He was angered to the point of madness, and in seconds, she was in desperate trouble.
He pushed her onto the bed, and he was leaned over her, his wrath and larger size an unbearable force. She pried at his fingers, but she was off balance and had no leverage. Swiftly, she was discombobulated. Her torso grew limp, her vision failing. Her world was reduced to only Benedict Mason, his evil eyes, and the onslaught of pressure on her throat.
Some odd banging noises wafted by, but they were far off in the distance and irrelevant to her dire situation. She was losing consciousness, fading away. Was she hallucinating too?
A door crashed open and footsteps tromped across the floor.
“Unhand her,” a voice shouted, “or I will kill you where you stand.”
Mason frowned, confused, but he didn’t ease his grip. He was too intent on strangling her.
“Unhand her, you dog!”
There was another bang, this one very loud and very real. Mason fell away. He glanced over his shoulder, a palm on his chest. Blood oozed into the fabric of his shirt.
“You shot me,” Mason muttered, peering down at his wound in disbelief.
A man approached, and he seized Mason by his coat and flung him away.
Emeline couldn’t think straight, couldn’t see straight. It seemed as if Lord Stafford had arrived, as if he’d come to save her. But that couldn’t be. He’d just gotten married. He was on his honeymoon.
She shook her head, struggling to focus, but he was still there.
“Em, Em,” he said, “are you all right?”
She tried to answer him, but speech was impossible.
He reached for her and pulled her into a tight embrace. Instantly, she was soothed by the familiar odors of leather, horses, and tobacco that always clung to his clothes.
“Oh, my Lord,” he murmured, “say something. Tell me he didn’t hurt you.”
Anxious to reply, she gazed up at him and collapsed in a stunned heap.
“What have you to say in your defense?”
“Nothing.”
Benedict Mason glared at Nicholas Price, visually sending all his malice and ill-will, but the exalted Lord Stafford hardly noticed.
“Humor me,” the earl coaxed. “I’m fascinated by your behavior. What were you thinking?”
“I have no comment,” Benedict responded.
“When I first hired you, you seemed like such a rational, stable fellow. Look at you now.”
They were in the library at the manor, with the earl seated behind his desk and Benedict facing him. Luckily, he’d been permitted to sit in a chair. If he’d been ordered to stand, he couldn’t have. His wound had left him that weak.
After he’d been shot, the Price brothers had tossed him in Pratt’s wagon and returned him to the estate. Through the entire trip, he’d been bumped and jostled, and though he’d been seriously injured, they’d offered him no medical treatment.
Upon arriving at Stafford, he’d been locked in a room in the cellar. A footman had brought wine, bread, and bandages. He’d wrapped Benedict’s chest as best he could, but he was no physician.
The bleeding had stopped, but no other care had been rendered. Benedict thought the ball might still be lodged under the skin, that it needed to be dug out. The wound was festering, and he felt feverish and confused.
“May I see a doctor?” Benedict inquired.
“No. Why would you assume you could harm Emeline Wilson and her sisters?”
“I demand to speak with an attorney.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“I demand it!” Benedict decreed, but he wheezed out the words, so they lost their impetus.
“All the attorneys in the neighborhood are busy.”
“Then take me before a judge. I insist on posting bail.”
“There’s a magistrate assigned to this area, but he’s not due to visit for several weeks.” The earl flashed an evil smile. “In his absence, it’s up to me to mete out any punishment.”
“I refuse to be judged by you,” Benedict sneered.
“You act as if you have a say in the matter.”
“Where is Sheriff Pratt?”
“Pratt is dead. I killed him myself.”
“Dead! You can’t murder an officer of the law.”
“Really?” the earl sarcastically replied. “No one told me it wasn’t allowed. Besides, let’s not refer to him as an officer of the law. I think we can agree that he forfeited any respectable title.”
“Where is his body?”
“I buried him in the forest.”
Benedict gaped with dismay. The earl was completely calm, not concerned in the least that he’d committed cold-blooded murder. If he would blithely kill a sheriff, what might he do to a mere land agent?
“I’ll see that you hang for it,” Benedict stupidly threatened.
“Will you?” The earl’s lazy gaze meandered down Benedict’s torso, assessing his deteriorated condition. “Can you actually suppose anyone would believe you over me? I’
m a peer of the realm and a decorated war hero. What are you?”
What indeed? Benedict mused, and he mumbled, “Cocky bastard.”
“Now, now, let’s don’t bring my poor mother into it. I have it on good authority that my father married her. I couldn’t possibly be a bastard.”
“Let me talk to the vicar.” He and Blair had to get their stories straight, and Blair might be able to spread the word about Nicholas Price slaying Sheriff Pratt.
“Haven’t you heard?” the earl asked. “Blair is under arrest too.”
Benedict gasped. “For what?”
“For murdering his sister.”
“Josephine? You’re claiming he murdered Josephine?”
“I’m not claiming it. I’m flat-out saying it’s true.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yes, it is, but then, in my opinion, the vicar was never playing with a full deck.”
Benedict was perplexed by the news. Blair wasn’t a killer. He was too much of a coward. He hired others to do his dirty work.
“You’ll never make me believe it,” Benedict scoffed.
“Believe it or no, I don’t care. He’s been a sorry prisoner, and unfortunately for you, an even worse conspirator.”
“What do you mean?”
“As far as allies go, you picked a bad one. He’s spilled his guts about you and your crimes.”
“He couldn’t have told you anything,” Benedict blustered, “for there’s nothing to tell.”
“I have men riding to London to fetch the twins home from that orphanage.”
“Dammit!”
“And once Emeline is feeling better, we’ll have much more evidence against you. Are you aware of the penalty for kidnapping, attempted rape, and attempted murder?”
Emeline, Emeline, Emeline . . . If Benedict never heard her name again, it would be too soon!
He remembered how his fingers had circled her throat, the way her face had reddened as he’d strangled her. If he had any regrets, it was that he hadn’t had time to finish what he’d started.
“She’s a whore!” Benedict blurted like a fool. “She was asking for it.”
In an instant, Lord Stafford leapt around the desk and loomed over Benedict. He grabbed Benedict by the shoulder, pushing a thumb into Benedict’s wound.
Benedict howled in agony, as the earl leaned down and warned, “If you ever speak of her again, if she ever so much as crosses your filthy little mind, I will kill you.”
The earl stepped away, and he sat, unruffled and composed, while Benedict tried to focus, tried to stay conscious through the pain.
Vaguely, he realized that the library door had opened, and the earl’s brother was standing with the earl. He had a stack of papers that he arranged on the desktop.
The earl perused them, then he glanced at Benedict, his loathing so blatant that Benedict blanched.
“Tell me how much money you stole from me,” the earl commanded.
“I stole nothing,” Benedict contended.
“I’m guessing it’s thousands of pounds,” his brother said. “He took money, but he also quietly sold your possessions and crops.”
“Mr. Mason,” the earl snidely mocked, “you always pretended to be so ethical.”
“I found his bank books,” Lt. Price said, “so we’ll be able to recover most of it.”
“Lucky for him,” the earl retorted, “or I might have had to shoot him again to gain some satisfaction.”
Benedict squirmed in his chair. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a week. He wanted to see a doctor. He wanted a kind nurse to hold his hand, dab a cool cloth on his brow, and murmur to him that he’d be all right.
“How should we deal with you, Mason?” the earl asked. “I’m curious as to your opinion.”
“Everything I did,” Benedict argued, “I did for you. To save your estate. To make you richer.”
“You committed fraud, you embezzled and swindled and deceived, and you did it for me?”
When the earl put it that way, it didn’t sound quite so marvelous. Benedict studied him, wondering—as he often had in the prior year—how such a low-born scoundrel could rise so high, how he could be hailed as Benedict’s lord and master.
“I didn’t know you could read,” Benedict complained, “let alone add and subtract.”
“It’s the curse of modern-day England,” the earl said. “Even orphans can be taught a thing or two.”
“What will happen to me?” Benedict inquired, terrified over his fate. If Pratt was dead and Blair under arrest, what hope had Benedict of an equitable outcome?
“I’m giving you two choices,” the earl responded. “I don’t care which you pick.”
“What are they?”
“Choice number one: You may remain here, and I hang you at dawn.”
“I haven’t had a trial!”
“So? Who will stop me? Sheriff Pratt?”
They engaged in a staring match that Benedict couldn’t win.
“Or?” he asked. “I have two choices. What is the other?”
“You can be transported to Australia on the ship that was meant for Emeline Wilson. Her spot has suddenly become available.”
“But I’m not feeling well! My wound is infected. I’ll die on the trip!”
“Perhaps, but you’ll die here for sure. At dawn.”
Benedict slumped in his seat, his mind awhirl with fury and regret.
It had been such a simple plan: be shed of Emeline once and for all. Bring calm and sanity to the estate. How had it all gone so wrong?
“Don’t make me leave,” he begged. “Stafford is my home now.”
Lt. Price glanced at his brother. “Those are probably the very words Miss Wilson used when she pleaded with Mason not to be sent away.”
“I’m certain they are,” the earl agreed. “What’s it to be, Mason. Will I hang you in the morning? Or will you scurry away like the rat you are?”
Benedict fumed and fretted, anxious to ease the earl’s wrath, but it seemed impossible. Ultimately, he moaned, “I’ll take my chances on the high seas.”
“A wise decision.” The earl stood, as if passing sentence. “Don’t ever return. If I learn you’ve somehow slithered back to England, I’ll hunt you down and rid the kingdom of your vile presence.” He peered at his brother. “Get him out of my sight.”
Lt. Price grabbed Benedict by the arm and yanked him to his feet. The abrupt motion wrenched at his wound, and he shrieked in anguish. The earl watched—stoic and indifferent—as Benedict was dragged from the room.
Nicholas knocked on the door to Emeline’s bedchamber. He was extremely nervous, but trying not to show it.
Since he’d rescued her a week earlier, he’d rarely seen her. He’d been too busy, tamping out the fires Blair and Mason had ignited.
She’d been in no condition to receive him anyway, and he’d hired a team of nurses to tend her ’round the clock. They’d given him hourly reports as to her recuperation, and she was much better. He was so excited to be with her, to tell her what he’d been thinking.
He knocked again, and footsteps approached.
She opened the door herself, but offered no greeting. Though it was a warm afternoon, she had a scarf covering her neck. For a moment, he was puzzled, then he realized she was hiding the bruises inflicted by Mason.
Eager to assess the damage, he reached out to tug the scarf away, but she leaned back so he couldn’t touch her. He managed to view just of trace of discoloration, but nothing more.
They stared and stared.
He’d planned to take her into his arms, to hold her to his chest as he apologized and beseeched her to forgive him. But he was forestalled by her demeanor.
She might have been a stranger to whom he’d never been introduced, and she didn’t look happy to see
him.
She was clutching a notepad, and she extended it so he could read what she’d written. My throat is still very sore. The doctor advises that I shouldn’t talk for awhile.
He stepped as if to enter her sitting room, but she didn’t move to let him.
Obviously, he’d forfeited any right to be in her bedchamber. He might have argued with her, or arrogantly mentioned that it was his damn house and she couldn’t keep him out, but he didn’t have the heart to be brusque with her.
“May I come in?” he asked like a supplicant.
She wrote on her pad, Why?
“I need to speak with you.”
She pointed down, indicating that she would meet him downstairs.
“My library?” he inquired. “In five minutes?”
She nodded, and he left, his euphoria fading.
With her health improved, he’d assumed they would start over, but evidently, she had a different opinion. While he’d been overcome by sentiment, it was clear that love, romance, and marriage were the last topics that vexed her.
All of his recent actions had been taken for her. To make her happy. To make her feel safe. Yet she didn’t seem grateful. Or perhaps she wasn’t aware of what he’d done on her behalf.
Mason had been spirited away, and he’d never darken their lives again. His wound was grave and infected, and he’d likely drop dead in London before his ship could sail.
In the morning, Oscar Blair would be tried by a jury and convicted of the murder of his sister. His sentence would be carried out shortly after the hearing was concluded.
Prior to his being hanged, Nicholas hoped Blair would confess where he’d stashed Mrs. Merrick’s body. Nicholas would like to give the poor woman a proper burial in the church cemetery, but without some hint from Blair as to her location, the chances of finding her were remote.
Once he was in his library, he went to the sideboard and downed a brandy, then he sat behind his desk, anxious to look relaxed and in control.
In reality, he was a wreck. Nightmares plagued him where Em was in danger and he couldn’t reach her in time. His choices and behavior had him ruing and regretting. He was contrite and ashamed, and he couldn’t continue on in such a state of emotional upheaval.
