Still, he should never have let things go so far that when Althea had written to him for help and solace in the wake of the unexpected death, he'd been days away and unable to get there in time to say goodbye.
Or be of much comfort once there, for fear he would reveal his true feelings and shock her utterly.
Matthew did not remove the silk blindfold, for he feared and dreaded to see reproach and horror in the poor girl's eyes. Or worse still, glee at the start of a long and lascivious career. Damn. Maybe he could do something to prevent such a disaster. Such a lovely young girl. It would be such a dashed shame.
How much money was he carrying? He could give her whatever he had to leave this den of inquity and never come back. After all, had she not said she wanted to go? Seemed frightened?
As he worked to clean the blood from himself and then her, tenderly stroking the delicate flesh, he tried to cool his ardour. Think of something besides her succulent body. The sounds of the brothel filtered in through the paper-thin walls: moans, cries, screams.
Matthew shuddered. He had made her scream and loathed himself for it, natural though the pain was supposed to be. This place was Hell, and he would not leave yet another girl to be so cruelly dragged down by the world. He would take her to the clinic for fallen women which he and his friends the Rakehells supported. Dr. Herriot and the others would help her, he was sure.
The girl's lips parted with a sigh. Her words were far more dreadful than any reproach she might have uttered. "Please, Mattie, please take me out of here. Take me home to Enfield." She gave a heart-rending sob. But before he could say a word she shook her head. "No, not Enfield. It's not safe for me there. Please take me with you to Barton."
His tongue withered in his mouth. His breath choked in his clenched throat. His fingers shook as if with the palsy. He could feel his insides churning with both revulsion and a blinding knife-blade of lust.
Althea? God, please, no, it couldn't be... No, no, no... It just couldn't be!
Chapter Two
But as Matthew removed the gauzy silk from the blonde woman's face at last and gazed into her dusky deep blue eyes, he knew that it was. Althea.
He clamped his hand over his mouth and averted his head for a moment while he attempted, without success, to get his emotions and stomach contents under control.
He lunged for the chamberpot in the corner and heaved until he was sure his guts had been turned inside out. Wiping his mouth with a damp cloth and rinsing it with some water from the glass he had poured a short time before, he at last managed to speak.
"Dear God, Althea, what have I done? What are you doing here in this Godforsaken place? What's wrong with you?"
But one more look at her face with the aid of a raised candle was enough to tell him all he needed to know. Gone was his haze of lust and desire, the thrill of a novel new fantasy for his jaded palate.
The truth stared him right in the face, and it was an ugly one. His poor, lovely cousin....
She had been beaten, taken by force, drugged, mauled, ravished. He had to get her out of there at once. She could tell him everything later, once she had seen a doctor and was safe, but for now, they needed to flee.
He soothed the hair back from her badly bruised face for the briefest second. "Come, my dear cousin. There's been a mistake, clearly, and I'm so sorry. But no matter for the moment. We need to get you out of here, to a place that's warm and safe. Come, love, let me help you."
"Yes, please. Take me to Barton, or Aunt Pemberton's, but please, get me out of here before they take me again."
He cast a look around, but there were no garments in the room other than his own, and no wardrobe in the chamber, nor dressers that might hold any clothing.
He gathered the sheet around her now-shivering form and fastened around her and up under her arms, then brought the ends forward to tie it in front in a secure knot. He drew his coat off the floor, sat her up, and placed her arms in the sleeves. He felt the pockets until he located his small pistol. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
"Can you walk?" he asked, his cheek against her hair.
"I'm sorry, Mattie, I don't think I can at this point. They gave me something--"
The use of her childhood nickname again hit him with the force of a body blow. A momentary vision of her laughing, high up in the air as he swung her round and round by the wrists, their hands clasped, almost unmanned him. He sniffed back the tears, and he said to her now what he'd always said to her then.
"I've got you. I won't let you go." He patted her hand for a moment and steeled himself for his next move.
He was not going to fail her now. He yanked on his discarded clothes in record time, and prayed that his carriage driver had taken him literally, that he would only be gone an hour, and would meet him around the corner.
He could try to hail a cab, but this was not the best neighbourhood. Few ventured south of the river unless they were very brave and armed to the teeth. A cab posed a few risks even if he could find one. He had no idea who had left her there to be swived, but he knew he had to get her away to an undisclosed location until he found out more. At the moment he was completely in the dark about how his bookish and devout cousin had ended up in a house of ill-repute, tied, bound and blindfolded, about to be ravished.
By God he was going to get some answers. But first he was going to get her some medical treatment. The clinic at Bethnal Green would be open; pray God Antony himself was there. He just had to get out the door and into a vehicle with his precious burden.
"We're going to leave in a minute, sweetheart," he said as he sat on the bed to yank on his stockings and boots, listening all the while for approaching footsteps. His nerve endings were all afire, his hands scarely able to fasten his clothes. "You need to hang onto me the way you always have. Hold me round the neck and waist, and don't let go. Promise me."
"Promise me you won't leave me," she begged, gripping his upper arm tightly.
"No, never. I promise. Not as long as you need me, dearest. Not while there's breath in my body."
Her blue eyes regained for a moment the tiniest hint of their old sparkle, and she smiled slightly, though she soon grimaced as the movement resulted in a twinge from her dreadful bruising.
"Thank you, Mattie. I knew you'd save me. I've prayed and prayed. I've seen you in my head a thousand times. When you came to me just now I knew it was the answer to all my prayers."
A bubble of hysterical laughter formed on his lips. He had just ravished her, for pity's sake. He felt so ill he thought he was going to faint.
He took a deep breath, and whipped out his pocket flask to take a swig of brandy. He got his emotions and stomach back under control, and rose from the bed.
"Come, dear. We need to go."
He stood with the pistol in his right hand, and gathered her to him with his left arm. Althea clung to him around the neck, with one thigh nestled around his waist, the other in the small of his back. He gripped her supple bottom hard, and listened for a moment. The sounds of revelry continued, but at a distance. It was time to act. He only hoped they wouldn't have their way blocked going down the single flight of narrow stairs.
He took a deep breath, flung open the door, turned left, and ploughed on. He was half-way out the front door before the madame could even blink. The strange fey-looking boy/man who had let him in and told him which room to go to was nowhere in sight.
"Stop! Stop! Bloody hell, he's taking her! Stop him, quick!" the frowzy red-head shrieked.
But Matthew was already half way around the corner, and thanked all the gods that his carriage was right there.
"Gibbs! Onto the box, now!" he bellowed.
The driver had been taking the opportunity to give the horse some feed, but snatched off the nosebag, and leapt up onto the box in a single fluid movement.
"Down to the right, and onto the nearest main road. Drive round for a time until I tell you where to go next."
Gibbs knew enough from one gla
nce at the prostrate girl that he didn't want to be followed. A further reason presented itself as a shot pocked into the side of the coach just as Matthew sat his tender burden on the leather seat and scrambled into place.
Gibbs whipped up the horse and they hurtled forward. Matthew snapped the door hard into a pursuer's jaw and yanked it tightly shut. Another man on the far side of the vehicle was convinced to let go when Matthew aimed the muzzle of his gun right in his face and said, "I'll use it. Don't think I won't."
The man jumped off the step, and Matthew heaved a sigh of relief. Then they were racing free and clear up toward Tower Bridge, and soon crossed the river. They picked up speed and began to wind their way through the City.
Only when Matthew saw the grand white dome of St. Paul's Cathedral did his heart slow enough for him to be able to take a deep breath. Althea still clung onto him like a limpet, her arms tightly around his neck, her breath stirring the delicate hairs at his nape. Her long legs still twined about his waist were most arousing, and he adjusted her against him, drawing comfort from her nearness even as he scolded himself for indulging in such intimate contact.
But he also had little choice, for it was safer having her so close than jounced around as they rode over the rutted streets. She was shivering so badly it would have been cruel to not try to ease her suffering.
She seemed slightly more alert, but as he said, "It's all right. We're safe for now," she lapsed back into her torpor, her head slumping heavily against his chest.
He moved with her into the corner to lessen the jostling of their bodies, and held her close. He inhaled her familiar fresh smell of roses, lemon verbena and vanilla. All innocent and clean. But as he held her close, the familiar fragrances became part of a sensual feast which made him long to pull her atop his surging manhood and taste all of her delights until he couldn't breathe any more.
But far more overpowering than her usual delicate aroma was a strong sweetish smell and some undefinable odor which reminded him of an apothecary's shop.
He looked into her eyes and saw the pupils like pinpricks, her gaze unfocused. Opium, or laudanum was his best guess. The bluish tinge of her flesh told him she had been drugged heavily-he'd seen a friend almost overdose once at a buck's party and he'd looked almost exactly like this.
He couldn't imagine his delicate cousin ever willingly abusing laudanum. So who on earth had drugged her? How long had she been in such a shocking state? Just what the hell had he unwittingly stumbled across tonight?
At this thought he held her more tightly as they ran over some deep ruts in the road and she groaned and flinched.
How had the poor child ended up drugged, beaten and misused? Unless of course she'd been in an accident and there had been some sort of mistake made? She had fallen into the wrong hands, been sold into prostitution? Had eloped with some scoundrel as his friend Thomas's sister had? Worse still, had been married to someone unsuitable, someone who had betrayed her?
He knew only too well that many wives and mistresses had to tolerate men who were cruel to them. Was it possible she had been encouraged by her nasty step-mother into making an unsuitable match?
He recalled with horror Jane Eltham's downfall, when she had willingly eloped with a vile seducer only to be subjected to a living hell at the hands of he and all of his friends.
Had Althea similarly been too trusting and paid the price? She had been one step away from being ravished by God knows who, when Fate had taken a hand.
Matthew was sick enough over what he had done. The thought of one man or many in the brothel being cruel to her nearly made him collapse. At least she had been a virgin when he had found her, but he knew other things could have been done to her, dreadful things...
Why on earth was Althea even here in London? She much preferred life in the country, even if she did have to share her home with her step-mother and step-brother. She had been most studious, and did not seem the type to ever have her head turned quickly. Her father had died a little over two months ago. Surely a girl as decent as she would never dream of doing something so unseemly as to elope so soon after that sad event.
Moreover, they had been for the most part very close correspondents, even if he didn't trust himself to see her too often. He felt sure she'd have written to tell him if there had been anyone so special in her life. If there had been, surely he'd have met him when he was last down in Surrey. And Althea would not have been so unhappy when he'd left, trying to persuade him to stay because she needed him. Knowing Althea, it was likely that out of respect for the father she'd adored she would wait the full two years of official mourning before ever even considering moving on with her life.
Despite her triumphant London Season, she'd never been paired with anyone that he knew of in Town. He knew she'd had several offers due to her fortune. Of course her undoubted gentility and decency, her sterling virtue, had also been deciding factors motivating the several beaux who had tried for her.
But she'd refused them all with grace and firmness. He had to admit he'd heaved a sigh of relief. None of them had been good enough for her so far as he was concerned. Was it possible that one of them had been so lustful or vindictive that he had...
He only wished he could remember all their names. He sighed. Damn him for a fool. He had failed her badly. He ought to know.
Not that he had been her confidant, for he had been in the midst of his particularly tempestuous affair with his mistress Matilda, and had kept well away from Althea, not wishing his own scandalous reputation to tarnish hers.
He'd escorted her when she'd asked him, danced with her when their paths had chanced to cross, but never monopolised her despite his feelings. She'd been perfectly charming to him, always warm and tender, not morally reproachful at all, not even when she'd interrupted a horrendous scene between he and Matilda on the terrace of the Duke of Ellesmere's house.
She'd looked at him with such compassion, he'd longed to put his head into her lap as he had done when he was young, and tell her all his woes. But that would never have done, any more than holding her so intimately did now.
Except that he'd now lain in her lap, ruined the poor respectable young woman. He had deflowered the girl, he thought with a dreadful pang.
Another image of her popped into his head. It was of Althea when she'd been about ten and had followed him around like an adoring puppy, telling anyone who would listen that one day she would grow up and marry her dear cousin. They'd all laughed good-naturedly, and he had even given her an 'engagement ring' made out of gold foil with a glass bead for a diamond before going back for his final two terms at Eton.
He gazed out the window moodily. Since he was now sure that they were not being followed, he shouted up to his driver to head for the clinic in Bethnal Green.
He settled himself back in the seat and allowed himself the luxury of holding her close. He had struggled hard to keep his feelings for her in check. What was the point now? All his efforts to do the decent thing had become for naught.
Matthew had told himself she was only a child, and had gone off to his studies at Oxford and gradually became more and more caught up in the life of the Ton. His visits to her home had become more and more infrequent, though they'd written. She had occasionally seen him in Oxford and London, but the prospect of quiet domestic and familial pursuits in Surrey was as nothing compared to the drinking, whoring and gambling he and his set had engaged in.
Except that that lifestyle had begun to pale a long time ago, and his closest friend Randall's joyous marriage earlier in the year had forced him to do something about his terrible mistress and his whole way of life.
Six months of unremitting war with Matilda and six months of celibacy had driven him to such lengths this evening. He had loathed himself for giving in to his baser desires-it did not augur well for his ability to remain faithful once he was married. But at the thought of what might have happened to Althea had he not gone to that room, he quailed.
The rawness in this thr
oat and rapidly rising bile made him lay her on the opposite seat, throw open the window, and vomit once more.
When Matthew had finished he mopped his mouth and shouted up to Gibbs to pull up at the next corner.
He did as he was instructed.
"Please come down," he requested.
He waited while the driver did so and explained when he had, "I need to take this young lady to the clinic in Oak Street. But I don't want anyone to see us together. I need you to let me down at the mews in the rear. You go round to the large livery stable and bring her in yourself. But don't tell anyone who you work for, and as soon as you're done I want you to drive around for an hour before going home."
Gibbs bristled and looked as indignant as Matthew had ever seen him. "Surely you're not going to just leave the young lady-"
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 4 (The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Sets) Page 53
