by Cheryl Holt
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I can’t stay in here another second.”
“You’re upset over nothing.”
“Over nothing,” she mumbled, the impact very much as if he’d struck her.
He stood too and walked over to slip an arm around her waist. For a moment, she let him hold her, then she wiggled out of his grasp. She’d thought he cared about her, that he would always be her friend. She’d thought she…mattered to him and that was the worst realization. She hadn’t mattered at all.
“I can’t stand that you’re so sad,” he said. “Our tryst was amazing. We should celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“Our new relationship! We’re at the beginning of everything.”
They might have been having two separate conversations, as if they’d participated in two completely different events. How could she be so wretched and he be so casually unaffected?
“What about Portia and me?” she asked. “Will you wed her, then climb into my bed when she’s not looking?”
“No, I…I…” He threw up his hands. “I don’t know, Georgina. I truly don’t. I was thinking to marry her, but I probably won’t.”
“What if I’m increasing?”
“Increasing how?” He paused, then scowled. “You mean with a child?”
“Yes. Augusta claims it could have happened already.”
“It’s another reason you should remain by my side. If you’re in the family way, you definitely need me.”
“But not as my husband.”
“I told you I’d be awful at it. I have no idea how to be a husband or father. Civilized conduct was drummed out of me years ago.”
“It’s funny that you didn’t notice your shortcomings under after you’d deflowered me.”
“I won’t apologize for fornicating with you. It was wonderful. Don’t you dare tell me it wasn’t.”
“It was wonderful for you maybe, but from where I’m sitting the view is a tad seedier.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Let’s put some food in your belly, then we’ll go riding. We’ll spend the day together.”
“Spend the day together? You actually suppose I would?”
“Georgina!” He grumbled with frustration. “Why are you being like this? I’m trying to make things better for you.”
“I assumed you were fond of me.”
“I was! I am!”
“Then how can you treat me this way?”
“How am I treating you badly? Is it because I won’t wed you? I lived for most of two decades in a place where marriage was rarely accomplished. We don’t need a verbal vow and a silly piece of paper to bind us. We can have a grand life merely because we choose to.”
“You’re willing to give that silly piece of paper to Portia.”
“Should I promise I won’t wed her? Is that it?”
“I don’t care about Portia!” Tears surged into her eyes. “I care about me and you and the fact that you don’t love me. I thought you might, but you don’t.”
“You thought I loved you? No.” He shook his head. “I could never love a woman. It’s simply not in me.”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be loved. To have someone for my very own.”
“You can have me! I’ll be so kind to you! How can I get you to understand?”
“You can’t. Goodbye.”
She spun and hurried out, and though he reached for her, she raced away.
“Georgina!” he called and when she didn’t heed him, he shouted, “Would you stop for one damned minute?”
She flitted out a rear door and around the corner of the manor, then she dashed through the garden and into the woods. She was practically blind with despair so she could barely see where she was going.
Suddenly she was snatched from behind and dragged into the bushes. A hand was clamped over her mouth, and she wildly glanced back, anxious to learn who had captured her.
Was she being kidnapped? Would she be ravaged? She was in the forest at Kirkwood. What sort of miscreant would accost her?
In her disordered state, it took her an eternity to realize that there were over a dozen men present. One of them appeared to be a soldier. He was dressed in a uniform that had medals pinned to it. The others looked dangerous and tough, like pugilists who used their fists to make a point.
Farther down, Miles was concealed in a thick copse and staring across the garden. He started gesturing frantically to the men who were hiding in the trees. She peered over, and Damian was marching down the path, chasing after her.
It was obvious they were watching for him. Would there be a violent struggle?
She was furious at him, more incensed than she’d ever been with another person, but she couldn’t bear to have a brawl occur. With so many lying in wait, he could be badly injured.
He neared, and though she tried to wrestle free from her assailant, she couldn’t. Finally she bit him, and he cursed and released her long enough for her to yell, “Damian! Look out!”
But it was too late.
The men swarmed out of the bushes, and he was hit with a club before he could react. He nearly fell to the ground, then he came up swinging like a madman.
He was really quite stunning, quick and determined and lethal. He fought as if he’d spent his entire life fighting, as if he was regularly assaulted and was always prepared. He was punching and kicking, inflicting considerable damage on every attacker who approached, but he was alone and there were so many of them.
The man with the club hit him again, and he kept on hitting him, each blow landing with a deafening thud until he dropped to his knees and collapsed in a heap.
Georgina screamed with alarm as the leader of the group tied his wrists behind his back. His ankles were trussed too, then four men picked him up and carried him away. She would have run after them, but Miles grabbed her.
“Let them go, Georgina,” he said.
“What have you done?” she seethed, rounding on him.
“He’s an escaped felon and a danger to the community. I informed the authorities, and they’ve arrested him.”
“Where are they taking him?”
“To London—to jail. He’ll be sent back to Australia to finish his sentence.”
“Oh, you fool! You idiot! He’s not an escapee. He served his time. He paid his debt to society. They have no business seizing him.”
“He claimed he’d served out his sentence?”
“Yes.”
“You believed him?”
“About that one thing? Yes.”
He shrugged. “If you’re right or if you’re wrong, it hardly matters.”
“Hardly matters? Are you insane?”
The men had arrived at a coach that was parked at Drummond Cottage. They tossed Damian in as if he was a bag of rubbish. As far as she could discern, he hadn’t stirred.
Was he unconscious? Or was he dead? Had they killed him? They’d hit him so many times!
She tried to yank away, but Miles tightened his grip.
“You can’t help him now.”
“What will happen to him?”
“I told you. He’ll be sent to Australia.”
“He’s not an escapee!” she bellowed.
Miles smirked. “If he is or if he isn’t, who is there to gainsay me? He’ll be on a prison ship and bound for Botany Bay before he can find anyone to assist him.” He spat in the dirt. “Good riddance, you prick.”
He laughed and strolled to the manor, leaving Georgina dazed and alone.
She hastened toward the coach where it was starting to pull away. Several of the men had mounted horses and were riding alongside it. Others were perched in the box, while the leader was inside, keeping a close eye on Damian.
They had pistols drawn and were nervously glancing about as if expecting an attack—as they should. Where were Damian’s guards? Hadn’t they heard the commotion? Hadn’t they heard her scream? Where were they? Where was Mr. Roxbury? How coul
d he have disappeared at the precise moment his friend needed him most?
“Stop this instant!” she called. “You’re making a terrible mistake!”
But she might have been mute and invisible. The driver cracked the whip and the team galloped away. Damian Drummond vanished as swiftly as if he’d never been at Kirkwood a single second.
Damian at 20…
I’ll be fine.”
“You know how to contact me if there’s trouble.”
There won’t be any trouble, Anne said with her eloquent eyes.
They didn’t really need to talk aloud. They were quiet, solitary people who’d been brutalized to the point of madness. Their minds worked in the same way with no words necessary.
They were in the saloon Anne’s second husband had owned. Kit was with them too. Damian’s horse was saddled, his bag packed, as he prepared to leave for gold country. Kit had begged Damian not to volunteer for the hazardous job, but Anne hadn’t protested, understanding that Damian was anxious to get out of Botany Bay.
But he had no intention of toiling away in the gold fields. He’d find another route to earn his money rather than suffocating or being crushed to death in a mine on behalf of the Crown. That had always been his goal: to survive whatever king and country threw at him. So far he’d succeeded.
Butler had forced Anne to marry. It had been during a period when he’d forced all the single women to wed. With there being so many more men than women, it was supposed to establish social order, but Damian hadn’t seen any evidence that it made a difference.
She’d been so vehemently opposed that she’d nearly killed herself over the edict, but Damian had saved her, had persuaded her to comply.
He’d investigated the possible candidates and picked her husband for her. When he viewed her as being so extraordinary, who could meet his high standards? The oaf he’d selected had been kind and courteous and in failing health so he hadn’t lived long after the wedding, which was exactly what Damian had promised Anne would occur. It was the only way he’d been able to push her into it.
Anne was serving a life sentence so she couldn’t inherit the business after her husband had perished. But he’d conveniently drafted a Will that left the place to Kit whose sentence was completed. The arrangement had several benefits. It gave Anne a safe spot to call her own—she resided in an apartment upstairs—and it gave Kit a means of accumulating the money required to return to England. He was eager to depart, and Damian couldn’t dissuade him.
His parents were deceased, his siblings scattered to the four winds. Why go back to a country that had delivered nothing but injustice and heartbreak?
“Take care of her for me,” Damian told Kit.
“You know I will.”
Anne said without speaking, I don’t need anyone to take care of me, especially not a green boy like Kit.
Anne liked Kit well enough, but she was too much like Damian. The day she’d abandoned her children on that dock in England, an important part of her had been destroyed. She had no optimistic opinion of mankind and saw no reason to be hopeful or law-abiding. She thought Kit was ridiculously foolish.
Anne was focused as Damian was focused, and her goal was to escape from Australia. She planned to travel to England someday and murder those who’d wronged her and harmed her children. It was a harsh objective for a female, but she was determined to pursue it. Damian never tried to discourage her.
She was hunkered down in Botany Bay, waiting for Lt. Butler to pass away or be transferred. Then she would flee the colony. He’d already decided—if he could amass riches in the gold fields—it would be easy to buy her the conclusion she sought.
“Let Kit help you while I’m away,” he said. “Please?”
She shrugged.
“Write to me when you can,” he said to her.
She shrugged again. She didn’t like to write, didn’t like to have a connection anymore than he did. Bonds were absurd. Everyone in their world died or vanished, but they were linked—by their loneliness, by their need for revenge.
In all the years Anne had been in Australia, Damian was the only one she’d allowed to be close. For Damian, it was the same, with the exception of Kit. But Kit wasn’t dead inside as Anne and Damian were. Kit could never truly understand why Damian had glommed on to Anne. Kit assumed it was due to Anne’s mothering, to her saving his life when he’d been flogged nearly to death, but it wasn’t that.
They looked at each other and saw two walking ghosts. They’d wandered out onto the edge of Hell, and they would be together when they leapt into the abyss.
“I will make my fortune in gold country,” he murmured to her.
I have no doubt you will.
“After I do, I’ll take you home. I will kill your enemies for you.”
It was a pact they’d sworn in blood. They would return to England and wreak vengeance on those from their pasts who deserved it.
Then…?
It didn’t matter what happened after that.
“Goodbye,” he said to her.
She didn’t reply but stared as he shook hands with Kit. He left without another word. What was the point? Anne knew what he was thinking without his having to tell her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Michael Scott! Is that you?”
“Yes, but it’s Michael Blair now.”
Kit reined in his horse and gaped at the man approaching from the other direction. He shuddered, feeling as if a ghost had walked across his grave.
When Kit had first been orphaned, he and Damian had worked for Michael as pickpockets. At the time, Michael had been little more than a boy himself, but he’d already acquired a reputation for violence and shrewd dealing.
He’d treated Kit and Damian fairly, had taught them most of what they knew about brutality and vice, but he was also the person responsible for their being arrested and transported to Australia.
If they’d never embraced his life of crime, they wouldn’t have been swept up as incorrigibles. Then again, if they hadn’t worked for him, they’d likely have starved on the streets of London. They certainly wouldn’t have survived the sea voyage or their incarceration in Botany Bay.
It had been a dog-eat-dog world, with boys jockeying for position and committing unspeakably cruel acts in order to gain a bit of power. Damian had thrived in the established hierarchy. He was fearless, braver than anyone Kit had ever met, and absolutely undaunted in his ability to persevere and get what he wanted. But Kit hadn’t been quite so successful.
“Damian told me you’d taken your mother’s name,” Kit said.
“And my father’s.”
“Why are you at Kirkwood?” Kit asked.
“I’m on my way to London, but my mother insisted I stop and see how Damian is faring.”
“He’s surly and angry and impossible.”
“In other words, he’s the same as always?”
“Yes. I heard your mother was back from the dead.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
Michael had been lost on the streets as a toddler, and he’d been given the surname of Scott at an orphanage. Now…he’d found his mother, Anne, had retrieved his father’s heritage from his despicable kin, and he proudly wore his parents’ name.
For someone like Kit who yearned to locate members of his own family, it was a heartening development.
Michael’s mother had been transported to Australia too, and it was the reason Michael had had such a difficult childhood. He and his siblings hadn’t known what happened to her and had grown up assuming she was deceased. Damian had brought her back to England.
“Do you ever ponder Fate?” Kit inquired as they turned up the lane that led to the manor.
“No, why?”
“It seems so odd to me that you, Damian, and I were together in London, then he and your mother became such close friends in Australia.”
“She cared about him, which was exactly what she required.”
“He needed a mother.”<
br />
“Yes, and she needed a son.”
Anne and Damian had both been stubborn and obstinate so they’d suffered egregiously in Botany Bay. They had a bond that even death would never break.
“How is the foreclosure going?” Michael asked. “My mother has been very worried about it. She didn’t think Damian hired enough men to secure the place.”
“It went fine. Edward Marshall passed on ages ago, and Miles Marshall is a coward and pompous dunce. He didn’t have the resources to halt Damian.”
“Good. Mother will be relieved, and if Damian had distressed her, I’d have had to thoroughly pummel him. My brothers and I have decided that she will never fret over anything ever again.”
“The whole process is progressing with little bother. The Marshalls are upset of course, but no one else is. They’re generally disliked by all.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“In fact, they’re supposed to move out this afternoon. Damian gave them a week to pack and arrange their affairs.”
“He was nicer than I would have been.”
Michael ran a notorious gambling club in London, along with many other businesses that involved smuggling and blackmail. He was filthy rich and liked to use his fists when dealing with reprobates. He terrorized others and enjoyed his power. People recognized his brutal tendencies too. When he walked through a room, they skittered out of his way.
“I’m hoping they departed without too much drama,” Kit said, “but I thought I’d better check. Miles vanished several days ago without making any plans for his female relatives.”
“He’s happy to have Damian kick them out on the road?”
“Apparently yes.”
“The man’s even more worthless than I imagined.”
Kit had spent the night at a coaching inn a few miles from Kirkwood, and the eviction was an excuse to return. He had to gauge Damian’s mood, to discover if he’d calmed, and he had to talk to Sophia so he’d know where she was staying. But as they approached the manor, he wasn’t sure what was occurring.
It was obvious no one had left, and it was also obvious that trouble was brewing. Miles and his fiancée, Portia Smithwaite, were standing on the front steps and there was a crowd of furious men facing them. A quick perusal indicated they were Damian’s guards, but Damian was conspicuously absent.
