A Rogue’s Pleasure

by Hope Tarr

  “Look out, Robert!”

  He tore Robert from his confederate’s throat and tossed him against the wall as though he were made of India rubber.

  Except that Robert didn’t bounce. Phoebe cringed as the back of his skull crashed against the hard, unrelenting stone.

  One hand to his throat, Stenton rasped, “Hold ’im, Luke.”

  Obedient, the bully went to Robert and hoisted him to his feet. Limp as a rag doll, Robert mounted no resistance when Stenton came at him from the front, bony fists raised.

  “’Ere’s some sauce for yer supper.”

  His first blow landed Robert in the pit of the stomach. He groaned and doubled over. He would have fallen, but Luke held him. Another punch and another fell until droplets of blood speckled the earthen floor.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “You’ll kill him!”

  Stenton’s fists fell to his sides. “Why, what a bloody good idea. Bloody good.” Laughing, he pulled a knife from inside his boot and ran the dull edge along Robert’s throat. “If I ’ad me way, I’d flay ye alive ’ere and now. The way matters stand I may not ’ave to wait much longer.”

  Robert lifted his bruised face. Defiance blazed in his hazel eyes, making Phoebe ashamed of her own cowardice. “Why not do it now and be done with me?”

  Captor and captive eyed each other. Phoebe’s heart thudded to a standstill.

  Then Stenton replaced the knife in its sheath. “Eager ta go, b’aint ’e, Luke? Don’t ye worry, ye’ll get your comeuppance sooner than ye reckon. Before tonight, as a matter o’ fact.” He gestured to Luke. “Let ’im go.”

  Luke complied, and Robert folded to his knees.

  Phoebe started toward him, but Stenton cut her off. Hating herself, she shrank from him, but he only snatched the candle from her shaking hands.

  “’Ere, luv, ye won’t be needin’ this. Yon young friend looks a sight better in the dark.” He snickered, heading for the door.

  Luke followed, closing the door behind them. This time the sound of the lock clicking in place was a comfort.

  Phoebe felt her way through the blackness. Refusing to think about what might be living on the filthy floor, she knelt beside Robert.

  “You should lie down.” She put a tentative hand on his arm.

  He shook her off. “I don’t need any help. Go away.”

  “I’ve nowhere to go. Besides, I want to help you. Please?”

  This time he didn’t resist when she braced an arm about his shoulders and helped him up. Together they stumbled toward the pallet.

  She settled him onto his back. “There, isn’t that better?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Just grand,” he snapped, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I haven’t had a decent meal or a bath in God knows how long. I’m drugged and, when I do wake, I’m beaten to a bloody pulp. Not to mention that my life is in the hands of a sadist with a knife and his idiot friend. What more could I hope for?”

  Wetness trickled into the beard covering his chin. Saliva? She leaned closer. No, blood.

  Blood. Woozy, she braced a hand against the wall. What had Anthony said during the robbery? Now is not the time to succumb to a fit of the vapors.

  Telling herself that now, she drew a steadying breath and said, “Close your eyes.”

  “Why? It’s already black as pitch in here.”

  “Because I asked you to.”

  With a huff, he complied. She lifted her gown and tore a strip of linen from the hem of her petticoat.

  “You can open them now.”

  “Oh, thank you, your ladyship.”

  More sarcasm. Good, he must be feeling better. “Be quiet and hold still.”

  Lifting his chin, she dabbed the blood. There was no help for it—her hand brushed his beard. She’d expected it to scratch, but instead it felt soft and not at all unpleasant. Tamed by a proper trimming, it might actually become him.

  “There, all finished.” She tossed the bloodied strip into the far corner.

  He folded his arms over his chest and stared at the ceiling. The whites of his eyes were all she could see of him in the darkness.

  Twice now she’d conquered a fainting spell sans smelling salts. Emboldened, she ventured into the silence. “I thought you were very brave.”

  “Scant good bravery does a man when he’s trussed like a chicken. If I’d had my hands free, I’d have taught those two a lesson they’d not soon forget.”

  She hid a smile. “Even so, no one has ever fought for me before.”

  Nor nearly died for me. The image of the knife pressed against his jugular wiped away her smile. She covered her face with her hands.

  “Phoebe, what is it, what’s wrong?”

  Too distraught to reprimand him for making free with her Christian name, she shook her head.

  Chains clanked. He pushed himself up beside her. A moment later his thin arm, surprisingly warm and reassuring, encircled her. She should move away and yet leaning against him, resting her head on his shoulder, felt so natural, so right.

  She started to cry, softly this time. “When that horrid man drew his knife, I was afraid he really might…”

  “Oh, Phoebe.” He buried his cheek in her hair and gently rocked her. “I’m safe and so are you…for a few more hours at least.”

  Safe. Chelsea reflected that she’d passed twenty of her one-and-twenty years in the bosom of her family—safe, protected, and loved. Even after her parents’ death, with Robert back at school, she and Jack had formed a family of sorts. And then, of course, she’d met Anthony. She’d never felt warmer or safer than she had the previous night, enfolded in his arms. But she couldn’t bear to think of that now when, in all likelihood, she was riding to her death—or worse.

  I will punish you, Dumfreys had written. For the second time that morning, she thought back to the episode in his study. Shivers ran through her. This time would be far worse. She mustn’t allow herself even to imagine it. If she did, what courage she had would flee—and so would she.

  But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, desert her brother. How could she even think of it when everything he’d endured was because of her? Robert was an unwitting third in a minuet of twisted desire, nothing more than the means for Dumfreys to ensure that Chelsea danced to his tune. The final figure was approaching. It was up to her to take the lead.

  She tethered Autumn, and then ducked down the alley, praying no one would steal the gentle horse. Skirting the gutters, where the rubbish flowed ankle-deep, she emerged behind the tavern. The gate to the high stone wall was unlocked, the padlock hanging open. She passed through the arched portal and crossed the courtyard, wading through waist-deep weeds. Three stone steps led down to the tradesmen’s entrance.

  She descended, drew a deep breath, and pushed open the wide-planked door.

  Clanging overhead sent her heart caroming. She fell back against a stack of barrels, feeling for her pistol and fighting for breath.

  The din died. Composing herself, she looked back at the door. The cowbell hanging above was a rusted relic but, growing up in the country, she’d seen a bevy of similar ones.

  Her inner voice tut-tutted even as she swept the back of her hand over her clammy forehead. She, who had taken so many foolhardy risks over the past weeks, finally knew what it meant to be afraid. Fear, the coward’s poison, coursed through her.

  Determined to conquer it, she pressed on, brushing aside the cobwebs that hung like Chinese lanterns from the low-beamed ceiling. She was in the storage cellar. The air was fetid with cedar and must, and casks of wine and hogsheads of beer and ale occupied most of the available space. In summertime it would be pleasantly cool down here but, now that autumn had arrived, it was an ice chest.

  She left the main chamber and came to a narrow passageway. Moisture dripped from the low, vaulted ceiling onto her head. A yellow circle of light capped the far end. She drew the pistol from her coat pocket. She’d hated close spaces ever since, as a child, she’d gotten herself locked in
the attic. Now the stone walls, sheathed in mildew, seemed to cave in on her as she drove deeper into the bowels of the building.

  Something dark fluttered ahead. A bat, perhaps? She prepared to duck.

  “You’re late.” The reproach hissed through the hollow tunnel. “If you don’t make haste, that precious brother of yours is a dead man.”

  Not a bat but a tall hooded figure, backlit, materialized at the opposite end of the tunnel. She couldn’t see his face, but she no longer needed to.

  She raised her weapon, cocked the hammer, and called out, “As you will be unless you tell me where he is.”

  I won’t really be doing murder if a life is saved, she told herself, her forefinger inching toward the trigger.

  Behind, in the chamber she’d just quit, a bolt smacked home. She whirled. The pistol fell from her sweaty grasp just as the light ahead went out.

  She was drowning in darkness, in fear, her lungs too tight to draw in air. Footfalls, slow and measured, thudded toward her. Frantic, she dropped to her hands and knees, feeling for the pistol. If she could only reach it, then…

  Something hard and heavy slammed into her skull. Bright, hot spots blistered the backs of her eyes. She squeezed her lids closed until water streamed, but it was no use. Like lava, the searing pain spread around her, through her. There was no dousing it. Finally it swept her up and bore her away, leaving only her heavy head rolling about the floor.

  Then blackness, blissfully cool, enveloped her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “With any luck, I won’t be long,” Anthony told his stallion as he finished tying the reins to a post. Or end the day clapped in irons, he added to himself, starting down Newton Street.

  Back at his house, the magistrate was interviewing Tremont and Reggie. Anthony’s own statement had been truthful but terse. He’d admitted he’d spent the night elsewhere and returned shortly before dawn to find his household at sixes and sevens.

  “Did you pass the night at your club?” the magistrate pressed.

  Lying outright to His Majesty’s lawful representative carried grave consequences, even for a peer. However, if the man simply mistook his meaning…

  “Why, no,” Anthony admitted with a deliberately sly smile. “With a lady. I’m not at liberty to reveal her name.” He winked. “You understand, of course?”

  Coloring, the magistrate mumbled, “Of course, of course.” He assured Anthony that his word of honor would suffice. They were both gentlemen, after all.

  Anthony took his leave and immediately set out for St. Giles. Unfortunately, given the magistrate’s presence, he’d been unable to change into his disguise. He could only hope that his bleary eyes, unshaven jaw, and rumpled clothes would present a convincingly raffish image.

  The Rookery still slept when he came upon the curved portal of its ancient gatehouse. His thunderous pounding finally brought a gin-breathed slattern to answer. Cinching the sash of her tattered blue robe, her gaze fixed on the brass buttons of Anthony’s waistcoat.

  Hatred mingled with the fear pooling in her red-rimmed regard. “You’m wi’ the charleys, b’aint ye?” She swiped a grizzled lock of hair back from her eyes.

  He wedged his foot and one shoulder inside the iron-studded portal before she could slam it in his face. Forcing a winsome smile, he drawled, “How now, mistress, you couldn’t be more wrong. ’Tis me mate, Ned, I’ve come to see. Ned Muggle,” he added, recalling Mugglestone’s abbreviated alias.

  “You’m a mate o’ Neddie’s?” She stepped back to allow him entry. “Why didn’t ye say so before?”

  Why indeed, Anthony mused, following her through a close corridor rank with unwashed bodies and rotted fish. It ended in an oblong doorway that opened to the outside. They passed through and Anthony found himself in a cobbled courtyard, along with a goodly number of London’s homeless, bedded down on mattresses or beneath makeshift tents or, in a few cases, the bare stones. Most still slept, although a few curious eyes cracked open.

  “’Tis ’ere ye’ll find him…if ’e come ’ome last night,” she amended with a wink. “’E’s a randy one, our Ned.”

  Anthony looked about. There must be at least fifty people here. It could take an hour—or more—to find Mugglestone, assuming he were here. Precious time that might be better spent.

  The landlady started for the door, but Anthony’s carrying whisper called her back. “Might you know another o’ me mates, Bob Stenton?”

  Her mouth pulled down at the corners. “Aye, I knows ’im and that ’alf-wit he goes about wi’ too. Good riddance to the both of them.”

  Anthony was almost afraid to ask, but he had no choice. “Good riddance?”

  “Aye. That no-good Stenton’s a month behind on the rent. ’E promised me just t’other day ’e’d deliver it wi’ interest, but I ain’t seen ’ide nor ’air o’ ’im since.”

  Cold fear gripped Anthony. “I’ve a mind to surprise ole Bob. Where is it that he roosts?”

  She poked a crooked finger to a decayed mansion festooned with crumbling gargoyles. “’Is flat’s on the second floor, at the end o’ the ’all. Number Nine.” She pulled a ring of keys from her robe, fumbled through them, and then tossed him one.

  Anthony caught it, and then flipped a farthing to her in return.

  She smiled broadly, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “I knowed you was a gentleman from the moment I clapped eyes on ye.”

  Anthony strode down one row of bare and booted feet to Stenton’s building. He opened the door. The sounds of wailing infants and shouting couples followed him as he bounded up the two flights of stairs. He came to the door marked nine and tried it. Unlocked, it fell open. Silence greeted him.

  Cold foreboding seeped inside his chest, but he shook it off and began searching. A full slop bucket, a chicken bone crawling with ants, and a discarded neck cloth were among the leavings, but there was nothing to hint at where Stenton might have taken young Bellamy and now Phoebe. Perspiration streaming, he fell on his hands and knees before the hearth, clawing the ashes for a note or some other clue that Stenton might have tried to burn before leaving.

  Even as he searched, he knew what he would find—nothing. All these weeks he’d been so sure, bloody sure, Stenton and Luke held Chelsea’s brother in their lodging. His strategy had been to watch, wait for the proper moment, and then and only then to strike.

  But the time had never seemed quite right. Or had it? Had he unconsciously prolonged Robert Bellamy’s misery only to give himself that much longer to woo his sister?

  No, that was ludicrous. Of course he’d worked in earnest to bring about the young man’s release. The hero of Albuera wouldn’t resort to such mean tactics to win a woman.

  But Chelsea wasn’t any woman.

  And I’m no hero.

  Nor was he any nearer to locating Robert than he’d been when Chelsea’d first entrusted him with the task. Three weeks before.

  Footsteps sounded outside in the hall. Shooting to his feet, he pulled the pistol from his pocket and trained it on the door.

  A lean man with sandy-colored hair and a scruffy beard of like shade rushed inside, his own pistol drawn.

  Anthony took his finger from the trigger. “Mugglestone?”

  “Lord Montrose.” The runner pointed his weapon to the floor. “I thought ’twas you I glimpsed in the courtyard.” A frown crumpled his high forehead. “I thought the plan was—”

  “The plan has changed.” Anthony pocketed his pistol. Brushing ashes from his blackened hands, he briefly relayed the events of Phoebe’s abduction and Stenton’s apparent flight. “You go along to the Bull and see what you can find out. I’ve a feeling that barmaid knows a great deal more than she lets on.” Mugglestone nodded, and Anthony headed for the door. “I’m off to fetch Jack. We’ll meet you back there within the hour.”

  And what of Chelsea? He had to tell her. As much as he dreaded doing so, she deserved the truth. When she learned how he’d bungled, would she despise him? Perhaps as much
as he despised himself?

  Half an hour later, Anthony stood on the steps of Chelsea’s town house and steeled himself to knock. It took courage to stand against an advancing column of French foot soldiers and not fall back. He’d held his ground more times than he cared to remember. But battlefield heroics were paltry compared to what it took to face the woman you loved and admit you’d failed her. Miserably.

  Eschewing the brass knocker, he fisted his swollen right hand and banged on the door. No response. He pounded harder, but still no one came. He was reminded of that other day when he’d camped on this stoop, waiting for Chelsea to answer so that he could make her his mistress. Unlike that day, he wasn’t all that eager to be admitted.

  Coward. Brimming with self-loathing, he smashed his knuckles into the solid oak, accepting the bruising pain as his due.

  It was Jack who finally answered. “Oh, Lord Montrose, thank God ye’ve come.”

  He’d expected Jack to be furious with him for failing to relieve him the night before. Instead, the giant’s weathered face was twisted in anguish, the uncovered eye red-rimmed. There was only thing that could reduce Jack to such a state.

  Dread dropped anchor in Anthony’s chest. Chelsea. “What’s happened?”

  Jack’s mouth worked, but no words emerged. Anthony pushed past him. At the bottom of the stairs, he shouted, “Chelsea!” until his throat was raw, but she didn’t materialize. The fist in his gut twisted, painful as a dull blade.

  He swung around, nearly colliding with Jack. Chelsea’s butler had aged at least a decade since the night before. Under other circumstances, Anthony might have felt compassion, even pity. Now he had no patience for anyone’s anguish but his own.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  Jack’s head fell forward. His large frame seemed to shrink before Anthony’s eyes.

  Desperate, he grabbed Jack’s lopsided shoulders and shook him. “Get hold of yourself, man, and answer me.”

  “G-gone.” Tears trickled down Jack’s leathery cheeks.

  His worst fear confirmed, Anthony dropped his hands. Questions jetted from his brain like water from a geyser but all he could do was repeat stupidly, “Gone?”