by Sharon Page
Helena had gone?
Borderleau was right beside Winterleigh. There were fields between the two properties, also the dense woods that bordered the lawns of Borderleau and would make a good place for him to hide servants. He couldn’t charge the house—that would be too dangerous. Looking down at the lad, he said softly, fighting for calm, “Tell as many of the other servants as you can, and send them to the woods on the south side of Borderleau. They must remain hidden. Get word to Lord Winterhaven and give him the same directions. Can you remember all this?”
The boy puffed out his chest. “Indeed I can, Yer Grace.”
“Good.” Quickly, Grey outlined his plan. Then he sent the boy away. Taking the shortcut to Borderleau across the fields would put him out in the open. As a boy, Grey had come here a few times. Sometimes the Winterhavens had taken him, Jacinta, and Maryanne for summers. They’d treasured those times they could escape their hellish home. And they’d all kept their secrets even when away from home—their parents had trained them well, he thought bitterly.
But because he’d come here as a lad, he knew a secret path through the woods to Borderleau. Grey was running to it, when a horrifying thought hit him. He skidded on the wet ground and caught his balance by slamming against a tree.
Helena must have gone there—she and Maryanne must be Blackbriar’s prisoners.
The fear, the guilt, struck him so hard, it was a wrenching physical pain. It made him want to vomit. But he wasn’t a boy anymore, who could be frightened into immobility.
Despite the slick ground and pounding rain, he raced like a madman to the path in the woods.
Grey stared down at the unconscious man. Using the element of surprise, he’d taken Blackbriar’s lackey from behind, swung the man around to meet his fists. After dragging the unconscious body behind a grove of laurels, he had divested the paid villain of his pistol and a knife. Arming himself was something he’d forgotten to do in his blind panic.
“With my upbringing,” he muttered, “I know exactly how sadistic bastards think. And I know where they position their henchmen.”
Screened by the laurels, he assessed the house. Blackbriar wanted him dead, which meant eventually he should have been led to a trap. He must be early. Good.
Keeping out of the line of sight of the kitchen door and windows, he crept to the wall of ivy that ran down the house. It was thicker now, but he sliced it away with the knife. There was a long forgotten door behind it. The door was still unlocked—no one must remember its existence. Grey pushed it open. He had to get Maryanne. And get to Helena—he had no doubt Blackbriar had caught her. She was filled with good intentions, filled with the need to rescue Maryanne, and she wouldn’t have watched out for herself carefully enough.
He couldn’t lose either of them. God, they had to be both alive.
He didn’t even have to use the pistol to threaten Blackbriar’s man, who was watching out the partially open kitchen door. A hefty rolling pin sent the man to the floor. He had no mercy for these louts. He remembered the cruelty of the servants in his parents’ employ—they did it for money or because they were sick and evil.
Blackbriar was probably keeping the women in bedchambers. Grey made his way up the servants’ stairs to the upper floor. He had his pistol ready, but he encountered no one. If Blackbriar had touched them, hurt them—
Rage flooded him. It made his jaw twitch, his heart pound, his hands turn into fists. He wanted to kill someone right now. . . .
“The tart’s tied up upstairs. Supposed to be the mistress of a duke. His lordship wouldn’t know if we had our fun with her. Wouldn’t you like to poke a hole that’s been filled by a duke’s cock?”
“I don’t think you’re going to be in any condition to touch anyone,” Grey said coldly, stepping out into the hall. His boot drove into the man’s crotch, sending him choking and gasping to the carpet. The man was so fat, his stomach hit the floor, and he curled like an oversized cricket ball. “Oooh, I’m dying.” He vomited on the rug.
Grey waved his pistol at the second man—the villain Baldy—who brandished a knife. “Drop it,” he growled. “Where is she, the woman you were just speaking of?”
Baldy glowered, clearly hating being in a position of weakness when he’d assumed he would get to have the power in this. “The room at the end of the hall.”
“And the other lady? Lady Maryanne? Where is she?”
“His lordship’s bedchamber.” Baldy smirked—Grey knew his horror had been written on his face. “After all, they’re going to be wed. His lordship’s probably sampling the goods first.”
Baldy fell back, hitting the hallway rug like a load of bricks. Grey glanced down at his knuckles. His gloves had split, and blood dribbled from his broken skin again. Fury had given him the strength to knock the bastard cold, but it had felt damned good.
Feeding his rage felt good.
Breaking down Helena’s door proved easy. The door splintered around the lock as his shoulder drove into it. He found Helena bound on the floor—
He was ready to kill without thought.
But he had to stop long enough to set her free; to get on his knees and slice through the vicious bonds at her hands and ankles. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale. A green and purple bruise bloomed on her cheek.
Blackbriar was going to die for that. And for the red chafing marks on her delicate skin. For the fear in her huge blue eyes.
“Grey,” she gasped. “Thank heavens. I feared Blackbriar would trap you—”
He gathered her into his arms. God, he had done this to her. By dragging her into the sick vortex that was his world, he had damaged her badly. “You brought me here. It was your cleverness—figuring this out, sending the message through the servants. You are the heroine in this, Helena. I was an idiot, and you were right all along.”
How could he ever make this right? He knew that wounds like this—wounds based on fear, horror, terror—never healed. They scarred over but festered underneath forever.
Helena could not quite believe the Duke of Greybrooke had called himself an idiot. And told her she was right.
She laughed for a moment, a wild laugh that became a sob. “Thank goodness you’ve come. You have nothing to blame yourself for! You wanted to save your sister. You are a good and noble man. Yes, I am right about that.”
His expression turned grim. “I’m going to find Blackbriar and rip him to shreds.” He got to his feet, lifting her with him as if she weighed nothing.
“Grey, you cannot do that. Even with all he’s done. He needs to face justice by the law, not at your hands.” It frightened her. What if he killed the blackguard? Could Grey be hanged?
“After what he’s done to Maryanne, I want to see him suffer. I don’t want to take any chance he can use his position or his money to escape punishment.” His eyes were bleak, his voice like ice. He started walking away from her. “I’d rather you got out of the house, but I need to know you’re safe. You have to come with me.”
She hurried to catch him. “He won’t have hurt her. He loves her. He intended to marry her, and to do so he had to get rid of his wife and get rid of you. He won’t have hurt her, not when he wants her to love him.”
“He might have touched her. He might have ravished her.” He put his finger to his lips, opened the door, and checked the hallway.
Heavens, she hadn’t thought of that. What would it do to Maryanne, who was so traumatically wounded by her past, to learn she had made love to by a man who was a killer?
Behind him, when Helena saw there was no one in the hall, she whispered, “No, I don’t believe he will do that. He looks on her as a lady. He would be certain they would be wed. I don’t think he would do such a thing . . . but we must find her.”
“She’s in his bedchamber. I don’t know where he is. He intended to lure me here. We have to be careful.” Grey drew out a pistol, making her catch her breath at his expression. Calculating, ruthless, murderous.
“If he attacks us, I’
ll shoot him down. Understand that, Helena.”
He had turned to speak to her, and she saw a flicker of movement in the gloom of the hall behind him. “Grey,” she gasped.
The explosion almost deafened her. Grey was thrown backward against the wall.
Talking to her, he had been distracted. And in that moment, Blackbriar had stepped out of a bedroom and shot him. “Fortunately for me,” the fiend cackled, “you left a trail of unconscious men in your wake, warning me you had arrived early. I knew where you would come. All I had to do was await my opportunity. Unfortunately no man about to commit suicide would shoot himself in the chest. I may have to rethink my delightful scenario, Greybrooke.”
Shot in the chest? Muffling a scream, Helena grasped Grey by the arms. He was struggling to stay on his feet. Blood was soaking into his coat, turning his waistcoat red.
He found the strength to push her away and fell back against the wall. “Goddamn it, Helena,” he rasped. “Run. Run for your life. Get out. Get to my servants.”
“I can’t. I won’t leave you to die.”
Then she saw something even more horrible. Grey slid a bit down the wall, leaving a line of blood. It was awful, but what made her heart almost stop was a boy’s plaintive voice crying, “Uncle Grey? What’s happened? You’re bleeding!”
There, behind the villainous Blackbriar, stood Michael and Timothy. Clinging to each other and shaking with terror.
26
Already he felt cold, and his chest felt as if four elephants had fallen on it at once. Getting shot hurt a hell of a lot more than being stabbed, Grey discovered. He’d still believed, even with the pistol ball passing through him, even after he’d collapsed against the wall, that he could win this with Blackbriar, but the sight of his nephews drained his hope.
He’d hoped to somehow trade his life for Helena and Maryanne. Now he knew Blackbriar was too much of a sick monster to barter. Blackbriar just intended to kill him.
Hell, he couldn’t let a shot take him now.
He had to fight. He’d fought back as a child. He’d found the strength to do it. Now he must find even more strength.
The pistol ball hadn’t hit him in the heart. He’d be dead if it had. But it had ripped a hole in the flesh and muscle of his right shoulder. The pain was making it hard to focus.
Timothy shrieked in terror, causing Blackbriar to whirl around on the lad. “Shut up, you noxious brat,” he snapped. “If you hadn’t insisted on following Maryanne, you’d be home safe. But you are both spoiled wretches, and you’ll get what you deserve.”
“You monster,” Helena cried. “How could you have taken them? They are children!”
“Unfortunately, due to their stupidity,” Blackbriar sneered, “the Earl of Winterhaven is about to lose his heir and his spare.”
Helena tried to step toward the fiend, but Grey barked at her, “Stop.”
Blackbriar had already moved. His arm wrapped around Timothy’s small chest; he had the boy clamped to his legs and held a knife to the boy’s throat. Grey had his pistol, but they were notoriously hard to aim with great accuracy. He couldn’t take the risk of hitting Timothy. Still he lifted his weapon. Already, his arm shook with the exertion. It took all his strength to make his muscles obey his command.
He didn’t want Helena in his line of fire as well.
Grey was swaying, his arm almost numb, so he couldn’t prop himself against the wall to take aim. How could he shoot Blackbriar without hurting the boy? Blackbriar was laughing at his feeble attempt to save his family.
Just as his father had once laughed at him. His father had laughed at him for crying when he’d been beaten with a riding crop. Laughed at him for not being strong enough to withstand his mother’s cruelty.
His family had been mad. But watching Timothy, terrified, his life held in the hands of a madman, Grey felt something snap inside. Why should Timothy be hurt for the sake of Blackbriar? Why should his life be held at risk by a monster who deserved to die?
Helena gasped, “No, Michael. No, you must keep back.”
Her soft, frightened voice broke through Grey’s dimming thoughts.
He saw Blackbriar jerk around to see what the lad was doing. At that moment, Helena made a slithering motion. Was he seeing things?
No, Timothy made the same motion. Somehow, Timothy seemed to make himself smaller and thinner, and the child dropped to his knees, free of the knife.
Michael heaved something at Blackbriar, who put up his hand in instinctive defense.
Despite screaming pain, Grey straightened his arm. Took the shot. Blackbriar’s chest jerked back, then the fiend toppled, thudding on his back on the carpet.
After that, Grey’s legs seemed to dissolve, and he sank to the hallway floor. “Go to Miss Winsome,” he shouted at the boys. He wanted them safe, and away from the gruesome sight of Blackbriar’s body. He wanted to protect them from horrors that would haunt them—
Everything looked foggy. Indistinct. But he saw skirts swishing toward him. He looked up, despite the pain, and saw Helena hurrying toward him with her arms around both his nephews. Damn, she was supposed to take them away. He forced a smile on his lips. He didn’t want to worry them—he loved them so much. The three of them.
“Timothy, good boy,” he managed to say. “You followed Miss Winsome’s direction. Michael, what did you throw?”
“Nothing,” Michael whispered. “I pretended I was throwing something to distract him.”
Helena gasped at Michael, “Goodness, you shouldn’t have taken such a risk.”
“I had to help Timothy,” his nephew said staunchly. “And Uncle Grey. And you, Miss Winsome.”
“Michael, Timothy . . .” Grey tried to make his voice sound normal. “You are both heroes.”
“And you need a physician. At once,” Helena declared. “We must get you out of here now—”
“You have to find Maryanne first. There might be other men in here. Damnation, I should not have let myself get shot.”
“You cannot blame yourself for that!”
The boys’ heads twisted back and forth to face each of them. Footsteps pounded in the corridor. Dazed, weak, Grey cursed. These might be more of Blackbriar’s henchmen.
“Greybrooke? Miss Winsome? Are you there?”
“Thank heavens.” Grey heard Helena’s voice break on a sob. “It’s Lord Winterhaven.”
Her face swam in his vision, and he saw how pale she was but how hope had lit up her eyes. Then Grey saw nothing but a fuzzy grayness, as if a blanket had dropped on him. He slumped to the floor.
Grey remembered a lot of things.
Pain. There’d been a hell of a lot of pain. Agony had lanced his shoulder and chest when he’d been moved to a carriage, despite the care with which his brother-in-law and several footmen carried him. Pain hit him with each jolt of the carriage on the road. And again, when he’d been hauled into a doctor’s surgery. And when the damned surgeon had poked and prodded his shoulder, had picked pieces of his shirt out of the wound, while Helena insisted the sawbones do a thorough job.
All throughout, he’d drifted in and out of consciousness.
Helena had always been there. Each time he’d awoken, he’d heard her voice. Or caught a fleeting glimpse of her before that gray blanket was thrown over him again. As far as he could tell, she had never left his side.
Finally, as he opened his eyes, he felt he might actually stay conscious for more than a few seconds. Hushed voices reached him. Female ones. Quiet voices in front of him . . . hell, did it mean after all that prodding, after all that pain, after those damned stitches, he was going to die anyway?
No, he wasn’t. A few hours ago—or whenever it was he’d been shot—he might have put money on odds against him. Now he felt strong. He had no intention of dying. People depended on him.
He was going to call for Helena, when a woman’s voice rose. Distinctly he heard Maryanne say slowly, “It was all a lie, then. He didn’t love me—he used me to hurt Grey. T
o hurt all those people. . . .”
Grey struggled to sit up. He clenched his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, but he did it. Propped up on the arm on his uninjured side, he could see Maryanne and Helena seated on the wide window seat of his bedroom in Winterleigh.
“I believe he did love you, Lady Maryanne,” Helena said vehemently. She wrapped her arm around Maryanne’s slim shoulders. “Lord Blackbriar loved you very much. But he had an evil streak within him, and that made him do terrible things. Loving you was perhaps the one good thing he did.”
“This is my fault,” Maryanne whispered.
Guilt gripped Grey, ready to crush his soul.
“No,” Helena said firmly.
Grey’s heart filled to bursting as Helena insisted, “This was all his doing and his fault. You have never done anything wrong. You will find a true love. A decent love. This I promise you.”
Grey would make this happen. He and Jacinta had kept Maryanne from Society to protect her because she had suffered so much pain at the hands of their father. But she did not deserve to be kept a prisoner. At the moment when he’d realized that he refused to allow Timothy’s life to be ruined or forfeited, he’d seen the truth.
He would find a decent man to be Maryanne’s husband. A gentleman who would understand she had been a victim and she now deserved happiness.
“Lady Maryanne, your brother is awake,” Helena said softly. The glow of delight on Helena’s face stunned him as she led Maryanne to his bedside. She wagged her finger at him. “You should lie down, Grey. You will tear the stitches and reopen the wound.”
“Then that quack of a doctor can sew it open again. He’ll complain, but he’ll be happy enough to do it for what I pay him. I’m willing to open my stitches to do this. . . .” He clasped Maryanne’s hand and drew her to sit on the edge of the bed. Pain shot through his shoulder, but he didn’t care. Awkwardly, since his right side felt as if it had been flattened by a runaway carriage, he hugged Maryanne. How small she was, smelling sweetly of lavender.
