He’ll kill me, you know.
Those five words, so brokenly uttered, pounded inside of Lucas’s head like a drum as he stood guard by Persephone’s bedroom door while she packed her belongings into a leather valise.
Her dark head bowed in concentration, she worked quickly and efficiently, with only the slightest quiver of her hands to betray her nervousness.
Lucas was sorry for that.
Sorry he had added to all that weight she already carried on those slender shoulders.
Sorry he had to put her through more misery before everything was said and done.
Sorry he couldn’t wave his hand and take away all of her fear and pain.
Instead, he’d do the next best thing and get her the hell out of here. Because if he could find her, then that meant someone else could as well. Perhaps not as fast. His lip curled in derision at the thought. Lucas was the best at what he did. There was no one better. But there were others, others who had sold their souls long ago, and when they stumbled upon the duchess’s little hideout–and they would stumble upon it, it was only a matter of time–they wouldn’t hesitate to drag her back to her husband like a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.
He’ll kill me, you know.
Yes, after seeing firsthand how terror had glazed her eyes as she’d searched for monsters in the shadows, he did know. And even though it meant giving up the biggest reward that he’d ever been offered (no small pill to swallow), Lucas would be damned before he turned Persephone over to Glastonbury.
“I–I think I am finished,” the duchess said softly. She closed the valise and then buckled it, but didn’t move away from the bed. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“But I’m safe here.”
He lifted a brow. “Then how did I find you?”
“I…I don’t know,” she admitted, averting her gaze.
“Too easily, love. The answer is I found you too easily. Which means others will be able to do the same.” Was that a carriage he heard? Lucas moved to the window, yanked back the curtain, and bit back a curse when he saw a curricle pull up in front of the house. A man climbed out, then walked around to the other side to help a woman do the same. “We need to leave. Now.”
Picking up the valise with one hand, he wrapped the other around Persephone’s dainty waist and escorted her down the stairs. They reached the bottom at the same time a key turned in the front lock.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growled.
She didn’t heed his warning.
“Helena!” she cried. “Helena, help! I’m being–errmmff!”
Lifting the duchess onto his shoulder, Lucas headed for the garden. While they’d been upstairs packing, the dark bloom of evening had deepened and nearly covered every inch of the yard. Tossing the valise over the white picket fence, he carried Persephone to the opposite corner and then crouched down behind a large thicket of bushes. Pressing a hand against her mouth, he tucked her protectively into the crook of his arm.
“Easy, love,” he murmured in her ear. “It’s going to be all right.”
Lucas could only imagine what she thought of him and how scared she must be. He could feel how fast her heart was racing. She was so small in his arms, like a tiny sparrow. And he hated that he was contributing to her panic. Despised himself for adding to her fear. But he knew she was safest with him.
He could protect her.
He would protect her.
Even if it meant kidnapping her first.
“Percy?” A woman with red hair ran out into the middle of the yard, followed closely by a tall man. “Percy, where are you?” she called frantically, spinning in a circle.
“Here!” the man shouted, having peered over the fence and spied the valise. “They must have gone this way.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” the woman snapped. “Let’s go after them.”
Lucas waited until they’d climbed over the fence, and their footsteps had faded away, before he emerged from the bushes and reclaimed the valise. “I can let you walk unhindered,” he told Persephone, “or toss you up over my shoulder again. It’s your decision.”
“That’s not much of a decision,” she said bitterly.
He shrugged. “It’s the only one I have to offer.”
“You could leave me here. Those were my friends you sent on a wild goose chase.” She gestured to the fence. “They care for me. They’ll keep me safe.”
“Your so-called friends left you here alone to be abducted,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but you’re the one who is abducting me!”
“If it weren’t me, it would have been someone else. Consider yourself lucky, love.”
Her violet eyes flashed with both temper and tears. “Yes, I’m incredibly lucky. The luckiest girl I know. I’m just drowning in luck.”
“Your sarcasm is duly noted.”
“Oh!” She stomped her foot into the ground, forcing Lucas to bite back a grin. The duchess was adorable when she was angry, like a kitten with its hackles raised. “You’re…you’re…”
“Yes?” he said mildly.
“Wretched! You’re absolutely wretched!”
He shook his head. “We really need to work on your insults, love.”
“We don’t need to work on anything because I am not going anywhere with you.” She crossed her arms and angled her chin; the very picture of defiance. Unless one bothered to look past the artificial display of bravado and saw the pale cheeks, the trembling bottom lip, and the crescent moons that her nails were digging into her smooth ivory flesh.
“Let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be.” His voice was gentle but firm. He grasped her arm right above the elbow, and when she started to pull back, he gave her a stern look. “It would be foolish of you to mistake my patience for kindness, love. This is not a negotiation. You’re my prisoner, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Now you can walk, or I can toss you up over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but either way. you are leaving here with me.”
“You’re a cold-hearted b-bastard,” she choked out, glaring at him through her tears.
“That’s better.” With a grim smile, Lucas pulled her into the shadows.
“She’s gone.” The feeling of utmost dread filled Helena’s stomach as she and Stephen, Earl of Cambridge and her husband-to-be, reached yet another dead end.
For the past three hours, they’d frantically searched every street from Hyde Park to Grosvenor Square with no success. Her legs were exhausted, and there were blisters on both of her heels, but it was her heart that hurt the most.
“Glastonbury took her,” she said hoarsely, her throat tightening.
“We do not know for certain that’s what happened.” Gathering Helena in his arms, Stephen hugged her against his chest, his chin resting on top of her fiery red hair. “And even if it is, we’ll get her back. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” Incredulous, Helena twisted free of her fiancé’s embrace. “All I can do is worry! You didn’t see Percy on the night that Calliope and I found her. You didn’t see the marks that–that disgusting, shriveling worm left on her. You didn’t see the bruises and the blood. He beat her, Stephen. And not for the first time. Glastonbury finding her was the one thing she feared the most. And I–I let it happen.”
That horrific admission was enough to break the dam holding back Helena’s emotions. With a soft cry, she buried her face in Stephen’s shoulder as tears, hot and filled with guilt, dampened his coat. He rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles while she wept, and held out his handkerchief after her sobs had finally subsided.
“Thank you.” Loudly blowing her nose, she handed it back. “You know I never cry.”
“I know,” he said solemnly.
“But these are extenuating circumstances.”
“I know.”
“If you tell Calliope about this, I’ll deny it.”
“I know.” He tucked a loose curl beh
ind her ear. “Let’s get you home, lamb. It’s been a long night. We’ll resume our search in the morning.”
“At dawn,” Helena corrected as they started towards her townhouse. It pained her to think of Percy out there somewhere, all alone. She was probably scared out of her wits. Even when they rescued her–not if, Helena refused to entertain the notion of if–this was going to set Percy back months, if not years, in her recovery. They’d finally gotten to a point where the duchess didn’t leap out of a chair every time someone entered the room, and now this! Helena could not imagine how terrified she must have be.
Percy was a sweet woman. The sweetest, kindest soul Helena had ever met. But she wasn’t exactly brave. Helena could only pray that whoever had taken her was understanding of Percy’s meek, timid nature.
Poor Percy.
The duchess couldn’t stand to hurt a fly.
How was she ever going to defend herself against a blackguard?
Chapter Four
“LET ME OUT, YOU SPINELESS, SNIVELING COWARD!” Looking wildly around the room for something to throw, Percy yanked off her shoe and beat it against the door. When that didn’t work, she picked up the dinner tray her kidnapper had oh-so-kindly delivered before he’d locked her away, and threw it as hard as she could.
Maybe a little too hard.
With a startled yelp, Percy dove to the side as the metal tray ricocheted off the door. It clattered to the floor and went sliding under the bed, the only piece of furniture, aside from a wooden dresser, in the room that had become her prison.
After her kidnapper (she still didn’t know his name) had dragged her away from Helena’s house, he’d tossed her into a carriage, drawn the curtains closed, and driven all the way across London to a narrow house with a peaked roof and blue shutters. He had brought her upstairs, given her a glass of cool water and a plate full of warm food, and then told her to get some rest before he’d locked the door and disappeared.
By her count, that had been nearly eight hours ago. Long enough for the night to pass and dawn to pinken the sky outside the window. Although the glass pane lifted easily–the first thing she’d checked after a restless sleep–there wasn’t a ledge or even a tree branch that she could use to climb down to the ground below. It was too far to jump safely, which meant until her captor returned and opened the door, she was effectively trapped.
Like a songbird in a cage, Percy thought sourly as she knelt to retrieve the tray from under the bed. Setting it on top of the dresser, she went to the window and peered out. At least the sun was shining, and her view wasn’t an unpleasant one.
When Percy had been still living under the same roof as Andrew, she’d learned to search for tiny signs of hope even when everything felt hopeless. Sometimes a cloud shaped like an elephant or the smell of lilacs on the breeze were the only things that had allowed her to make it through the day without collapsing into a heap of dread and despair.
If she could survive her husband’s unbearable cruelty, she could get through this as well. All she needed to do was continue searching for those pieces of hope. Because the light was always there, waiting to be found, even in the darkest of days.
When Percy heard the distinct turn of a key, she stiffened and kept her gaze on the window even as fear threatened to paralyze her limbs. But right behind all that fear was anger. As unfamiliar as it was potent. And it was that anger she grabbed onto, like a sailor desperately clinging to a raft in the middle of a stormy sea, as the door slowly creaked open.
“You’re awake,” her kidnapper said in surprise. “I thought you’d still be sleeping.”
Percy’s eyes narrowed on him over her shoulder. While she was still wearing the same yellow dress as yesterday, he had changed into gray trousers, a navy blue waistcoat with pewter buttons polished to a dull shine, and white cravat with a silver pin stuck through. If not for the length of his hair or the bristle on his jaw, it might have been easy to mistake him for a member of the peerage. Or at the very least, a gentleman.
But Percy knew better.
“I was kidnapped, thrown in a carriage, taken across town, locked away in a strange room for hours on end, and you thought I’d still be sleeping?” She whirled around. “Where have you been? Where have you taken me? What are your intentions?” She spat out each question with all the force of a bullet, and then waited, arms crossed, small bosom heaving, for the answers.
Unfortunately, her captor did not seem to be in any great rush to supply them.
“I’ve brought you sweet muffins,” he said, holding up a white square box tied with a simple red bow. “Blueberry.”
“I don’t want muffins,” she cried. “I want to go home!”
The hard brackets around the edges of his mouth softened. “I’m sorry, love. I can’t let you do that.” He put the box on the dresser besides the dinner tray, then glanced at her feet. “What happened to your shoe?”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “By your own accord, I am not leaving.”
He shrugged. “Sheer curiosity, love.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what?” he said innocently.
“Love. It implies a certain level of affection between us that most decidedly does not exist.”
A roguish grin claimed his lips. “And here I was under the impression you adored me.”
“Hardly.” Although Percy was forced to admit she was oddly comfortable around him. It didn’t make any sense. She should have been quaking in her shoes. Well, her one shoe.
Even before Andrew had raised his hand to her the first time, she’d been nervous around men. Nervous around everyone, really, but the opposite gender in particular. She had never liked the way they’d looked at her. As if she were a possession instead of a person. A pretty thing to be admired, but never taken very seriously.
Once her marriage had dissolved into cruel taunts and closed fists, her unease had rapidly manifested itself into crippling anxiety. Even after she’d left Andrew, she had still gone stiff as a board whenever a man entered the room. It hadn’t mattered whether they were friend or foe. Their very presence had been enough to steal the breath from her lungs, and she’d been frozen with fear until they went away. Which was what made her reaction–or rather, her lack of a reaction–to her captor so very strange.
Fingers curling into the soft folds of her muslin gown, the garment wrinkled beyond repair and streaked with dirt from her brief foray into the bushes, she scowled at him. “I want to know what you plan to do with me.”
“And I want to snap my fingers and find a thousand pounds under my pillowcase,” he replied cheekily, “but we don’t always get what we want, love.”
Oh, she did wish he’d stop calling her that! It made her feel all warm and flush, as if she’d stepped out into the afternoon sun without a hat.
She didn’t like it.
Not one little bit.
Or maybe…maybe she didn’t like that she did like it.
More than just a little bit.
Setting her jaw, she turned her head away from him to stare blankly at the wall. “My friends will be searching for me, you know.”
“I know,” he said, not sounding the least bit worried. “But they won’t find you.”
Percy gasped. The sheer arrogance in his tone was breathtaking. Who did he think he was, this dark-haired criminal with golden eyes and a ruffian’s smile? Where had he come from? What did he want, if not to turn her over to Andrew? She could only imagine what the duke was paying for her return. Why, then, wasn’t she on her way to Glastonbury Park? Unless her husband was coming here.
And there it was. The fear she’d somehow been keeping at bay. It swept over her in a heavy wave. All of the blood drained from her face, leaving her dizzy and pale. She blindly reached for something to hold her upright, and when her hand touched nothing but air her knees wobbled and she began to teeter sideways.
In an instant, her captor was there, his strong arms wrapping around her trembling body in a tend
er embrace. “Easy, love,” he murmured into her hair. “Breathe. In and out. That’s it. In and out. In…and out.”
Percy’s shaking slowly eased as she listened to the soothing, rhythmic flow of his voice. Pinching her eyes closed to stave off the tears that wanted to fall, she drew in a deep lungful of air, and then another, and another.
“That’s it,” he said approvingly. “That’s a good girl.”
As her panic eased, she gradually became aware of the hand on the small of her back and the other looped around her shoulders. His satin waistcoat was smooth against the side of her face. His chin was heavy on top of her head. He did not wear cologne, but she found his earthy scent, a combination of leather and cedar, pleasing. Andrew had worn cologne as religiously as he’d worn a cravat, but the smell had been nauseatingly overpowering. She’d come to hate it, for it meant he was close. And when he was close, pain was never far behind.
But she certainly wasn’t in pain now.
And she was no longer afraid.
Instead, she felt safe…and protected.
Two emotions she’d never experienced in the arms of a man before.
“Thank you,” she said softly, lifting her head from his chest.
“You’ve nothing to thank me for.” The hand at her back trailed up her spine until he reached the nape of her neck. He squeezed lightly, massaging the corded muscle until it was all Percy could do not to sigh with pleasure. “Do you have them often? These…”
“Attacks?” she supplied with a humorless smile. “They aren’t as common as they used to be.”
His thumb pressed into a knot at the base of her skull. “That’s good.”
“Yes, I suppose.” She like to not have them at all. But then, there were a lot of things she would like to do. Such as go to the local market without startling at every single noise. Or attending a house party and without hiding in the corner. Or going for a walk in the park without constantly looking over her shoulder.
Andrew had taken those things from her. With every push and slap and punch, he’d taken more and more until there was nothing left. Nothing left of the young, carefree girl she’d been when they’d first met. Nothing left of the confident, self-assured duchess she’d hoped to become.
The Secret Wallflower Society: (Books 1-3) Page 22
