“Take her back down the tunnel, Jamie. Get her out of here and away from this place. Then fetch Wycliffe.”
“It will be over by then,” Jamie whispered. “You cannot stop it alone.”
“I cannot stop it if I am worried about Bella. Take her away. Keep her safe.”
“I am not leaving until we have Gina,” she said. Her voice was steady but the note of desperation told him that arguing was a waste of precious time and only increased their danger.
He had moved closer to the altar when there was another flash of gunpowder at the archway to the antechamber. When it cleared, two men in Egyptian loincloths came forward, Bella’s sister between them. These must be hired thugs, paid for their silence.
Eugenia’s hair was unbound and fell loose down her back. She was dressed only in a transparent white wrapper draped to give the same Egyptian impression as her escorts, and she had a vacant look in her eyes. From her bare feet to the top of her head, she was artfully exposed to the brethren—all reminiscent of the ritual in the warehouse.
Andrew was surprised. He’d expected Eugenia to be brought unconscious to the altar. But that might have spoiled the effect. Dash would want her to give the illusion of cooperation. And she did. Leave it to Dash to know the exact dose of opium to render her senseless. And helpless.
He glanced at Bella and, even from the distance, saw her shudder. Thank God she had not cried out. He turned back to Dash, knowing that if he acted too soon, he would not have the evidence he needed and he would endanger Bella and Jamie. He needed to see the weapon. The dagger that had slain the victims. And find the souvenirs the killer had taken.
Dash took a red cloth from the folds of his robes and rolled it out upon the altar. The costumed thugs then lifted Eugenia to lie upon the altar, and the chanting reached a fever pitch.
“Blood Wyvern, exalted dragon, grant us our secret desires.”
Standing at her head, Dash again spread his arms. “Come forward, supplicants.”
The man who’d drawn the red stone positioned himself at the foot of the slab, and more gathered behind him. Dash leaned forward to loosen the folds of Eugenia’s wrapper and lay her bare to the crowd.
Andrew could almost smell the lust in the rasped heavy breathing of the men now besotted with wine and opium. He clasped his hand around the hilt of his dagger, careful not to let it show too soon, and moved closer to Dash.
Eugenia’s escorts flanked the first man to lift him to the slab between her thighs. He had begun to hitch up his robes when Bella’s voice rang out clear and true.
“No!”
As the brethren turned in her direction, Jamie pulled her backward toward the tunnel. Dash drew a curved dagger from a red pouch fastened to his robe and took a step toward them.
At last, the evidence, and in the perpetrator’s own hand.
Andrew’s cowl slipped back as he released his own dagger from his robes and stepped between them. “Let them go, Dash.”
His friend pushed his hood back and grinned. “Ah, I wondered. Yes, I wondered. I should have known better, eh?”
“Wycliffe and the watch will be here soon. Charlie has gone for them.”
“Charlie has been…waylaid.”
Fear spiked in Andrew’s chest. Did they have Charlie locked in one of the tunnel rooms? Had they killed him? No. It had to be a distraction. A red herring. Dash had always been good at drawing attention away from his transgressions, and this was considerably more than that. One thing was certain—the outcome of this fight was entirely up to Andrew. He tried his own distraction. “You are bluffing, Dash. The authorities have been notified. Everyone knows what you’ve done.”
With an ugly snarl, Dash slashed downward to prove him wrong. The dagger grazed Eugenia’s throat but she barely moved. The man above her dropped his robes, scrambled down and backed away from them.
Andrew lunged at his friend, hoping to disarm him, but his injured arm proved treacherous. He could barely hold Dash off, let alone launch a counterattack.
Before Henley or any of the others could disarm him, pandemonium erupted at the sound of shrill whistles from the antechamber. The watch! Charlie had brought the night watch.
They separated and circled each other as the brethren scattered, tearing off their robes and running in all directions, the charleys in pursuit. Some hid themselves in arched alcoves, others made for the tunnel. The watch ran after them, brandishing cudgels and shouting orders to halt. But no one stopped their duel.
“We are alike, Drew, you and I. Cut from the same cloth,” Dash said, his gaze never leaving Andrew’s knife. “’Tis our lust for life that has enabled us to survive. We’re brothers under the skin. We can go to France. The world is ours for the taking. Remember Spain? We were life and death there. Gods.”
He was insane, Andrew realized. Beneath the civilized veneer, Dash was completely mad. “We are nothing alike,” Andrew said.
In a smooth motion, Dash removed his robe to unfetter his arms, and his smile changed to something feral. “You stopped me too soon, you know. I had a little surprise for you.”
“Bella,” he said. “I know.” Andrew noted that Dash was armed with a sword. He wanted to look around to see if she was safe, if Jamie was still beside her, but he knew that was what Dash was waiting for.
“Ah. But do you know everything? Did she tell you we had a little…interlude?” Bella would have told him, wouldn’t she?
“That is a lie, Dash. A real clanker.”
He laughed. “How can you be so certain? She’s a tart, that one. Wasn’t even virgin. Did you know that?”
Concentrate. He needed to concentrate and not let Dash distract him. But Dash was at the end of his patience. He slid his sword from the scabbard and lunged, switching the dagger to his left hand. Andrew could have defended himself against a dagger, but would not have a chance against the longer reach of the rapier. He pulled the corded belt loose, whirled his robe over his head and twisted it over his left forearm as a shield.
“Hunter!”
He spared a quick glance aside and found Devlin Farrell, who tossed him a sword, hilt first. He dropped his dagger, caught it and turned back to Dash just in time to fend off a blow. The clash of blades vibrated up his arm and tweaked his wound. How long could he last?
“You can’t do it,” Dash said, reading his mind and redoubling his efforts.
Blow after blow fell, and Andrew gritted his teeth to parry them, feeling his arm weaken a bit more after each one. Behind him, he heard Bella gasp and he had a sudden vision of what it would mean to her if Dash won this fight—a vision of her at Dash’s hands. A trickle of blood oozed down his arm. His fencing wound had opened. He did not have long, and he lunged again and again.
Dash looked worried now, as if the outcome was suddenly in doubt. “Can you kill another friend, Drew? Has anyone ever protected you like I have? Kept your secret? What would you do with me gone? What of your conscience then?”
“It will not trouble me at all.”
“Big words for a wounded man.”
In a quick exchange of blows, Andrew flicked Dash’s sword aside and backed him against the altar, his blade against Dash’s heart. Eugenia blinked and turned her head, seemingly unable to move or to register events around her. A steady trickle of blood puddled beneath her right shoulder.
“You don’t have it in you,” Dash panted. “You cannot do it.”
Damn! He was right. He couldn’t kill Dash. Couldn’t kill another friend. “Wycliffe!” he yelled, hoping against hope that someone would hear and come.
“No, Drew. Not prison. Not the gallows. Finish it.”
He shook his head and kept his blade at Dash’s heart as he leaned into him. Where was Wycliffe, damn it?
“I’d have done it, you know. I’d have raped her there in front of you. I’d have killed her and her sister. Just like I’ve always killed anyone who got in my way. McPherson didn’t commit suicide, you know. He balked after an incident the night of our out
ing to Bedlam and I had to put him out of the way. And the others from our detail. Even Henley has outworn his usefulness now. I’ll do it again, you know.”
McPherson? The others they’d served with who’d supposedly died in service or in duels? Hank and Wilson? Bile rose in his stomach.
“A moment ago, I’d have killed you, too. So do it, Drew. End it once and for all. You or me.”
Andrew’s pause cost him dearly. In that split second, Dash slashed upward with his dagger, opening a rip along Andrew’s right flank. Pain erupted with hot intensity and warm viscous blood oozed down his side. Bella gasped and, from the corner of his eye, he saw Jamie restrain her.
Dash drew his hand back, preparing to deliver another slash. He laughed, a crazed unholy sound. “I knew you couldn’t do it. You never had an appetite for killing. I should have been in charge. I’d have given my fortune for ten more men like Frederick.”
Andrew’s arm shook with the effort to keep his sword steady at his friend’s heart. He looked into Dash’s eyes and saw the madness there. Whatever humanity he’d clung to was gone. But he’d been a friend. Like Frederick had been a friend.
Dash bared his teeth as he propelled his dagger upward again. Regret, grief and resignation mingled with inevitability as Andrew pressed forward, the choice made.
Disbelief flashed across Dash’s face. A cynical twist of a smile distorted his face. “You…always did…surprise me, Drew.”
Andrew withdrew his blade and Dash slipped slowly to the stone floor.
Lord Wycliffe stood expressionless as he listened to the reports his men brought him. They’d only managed to capture seven or eight of the brethren. The rest had escaped down the tunnel or back up the stone stairway. Henley had gotten away clean. Daschel was dead. The Blood Wyvern Brotherhood was disbanded. It was over.
Or nearly so.
Andrew winced as Bella tied a length of cloth torn from his robe around his middle. A stitch or two would repair his wound, and the bleeding had stopped for the moment. Bella was safe. Eugenia was shrouded in Bella’s robe, a makeshift bandage at the base of her throat, and Jamie holding her close to still her trembling.
“We should take you to hospital,” Bella said, her voice soft and solicitous.
He eased his back against the stone wall and sighed. “I’ll send for a doctor once I am home.”
“But—”
“Our first order of business is to take you and Eugenia home. There is still time for you to get some sleep before you must face your mother.”
Bella rolled her eyes, and he chuckled.
Devlin Farrell wiped the blood from his sword on his trouser leg and slid it back into his scabbard. “I ought to be getting back. The barkeeper is likely stealing me blind.”
“Where the hell did you come from, anyway?”
“I was always here. I knew you might need help but wouldn’t ask for it, so I had my own robe made. Couldn’t let Humphries get away. I came through the tunnel behind your brother and Miss O’Rourke.”
“I owe you my life.”
“We’re even. I had my own reasons for coming. Just do me a favor and keep my name out of it, will you? I’d be finished in the rookeries if word got out I helped the charleys.”
Andrew nodded, and Farrell slipped away before Wycliffe could question him.
When the last watchman finished his report and walked away, Wycliffe turned to them and shrugged. “Wish I could say that all’s well that ends well, but…it galls me that some of those vermin will go free. We may never know the half of them.”
“I have some suspicions. And if we ever find Henley, leave him to me. I’ll make him talk.”
Wycliffe laughed. “Aye, well, I might be tempted by that.” He turned to Bella and gave her a stiff bow. “Miss O’Rourke, would you mind seeing to your sister while I have a word with the Hunter brothers?”
She gave a reluctant sigh that Andrew found quite endearing, then went to relieve Jamie of his duty.
“How is Eugenia doing?” he asked when Jamie joined them.
“She’s starting to become a bit lucid now that the opium is losing its effect. With luck, she will recover by tomorrow and not recall a blasted thing.”
“That would be a great kindness. And her wound?”
“Dash missed the artery and anything else important. She will require a bit of stitching, and there will be a scar. The real damage will come if she remembers any of it. We may never know what was done to her before we arrived.”
“We shall pray, then, that she does not remember.”
Andrew nodded and braced himself. “Before I…before Dash died, he confessed that he’d killed McPherson when he learned too much. I think we can also presume that he is behind the killings of Hank and Wilson. We may never know the half of his crimes.”
“I am beginning to realize that.” Wycliffe tugged on his right ear and frowned. “Good thing you were working so closely with my agent.”
“Your agent? Never saw hide nor hair of him.”
Jamie grinned but said nothing, and Andrew realized he’d been hoodwinked. “How long?”
“A year or two,” Jamie confessed. “Lockwood dragged me in.”
Andrew stood and rubbed his arm. “Is there anything unfinished that will not wait until tomorrow?”
“This.” Wycliffe reached inside his jacket and brought forth a small lacquered box with a decorated lid. He pulled the hinged lid back and showed the shriveled, discolored contents to them. It took him a moment to realize what he was seeing.
Jamie paled and Andrew curled his lip in disgust. The rest of the evidence. The small triangular bits of flesh were somehow the greatest violation of the victims. An unspeakable violation every time Dash had opened that box and savored them again.
“Daschel was completely mad. He should have been in an asylum long ago. Souvenirs? Reminders of the power he held over others?”
“What are you going to do with it?” Andrew asked. “Since Dash is dead, we will not need it for trial.”
Without speaking, Wycliffe went to the still-glowing brazier, removed the grate, dropped the box on the coals and waited until it caught fire.
He turned back to them. “And that, at last, is an end to it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bella turned to the parlor door as Nancy announced, “Mr. Andrew Hunter to see you, Miss O’Rourke.”
Her heart leaped to her throat when Andrew pushed past the maid and came into the parlor, his hat in his hand. He bowed stiffly. “Miss O’Rourke.”
“Mr. Hunter,” she acknowledged, scarcely recognizing her own voice. She glanced at Nancy’s retreating back, knowing she was on her way to summon her mother.
Andrew closed the door, turned the lock and smiled. “You look beautiful today, Bella. And how is Miss Eugenia?”
Her cheeks tingled and burned. How odd that he could make her feel like an awkward country girl after all they’d been through. After all they’d done—all she’d done. “She is well. Nearly recovered, in truth. But she recalls nothing of the events of last night. Only waking in her bed this morning.”
“A blessing,” he murmured, coming closer.
“I…I have told her that she fell and knocked her head last night as she was carrying a glass of water, and that is how she injured her neck. Nancy brought the doctor very early this morning, and he stitched the gash.”
“You feel bad about lying to her.”
She nodded. “Though I know it is for the best.”
“And Miss Lillian?”
Lilly? She lowered her voice. “Mama woke last night, and Lilly laced her tea with laudanum. She only rose an hour ago. Lilly, it appears, is surprisingly resourceful.”
Andrew laughed. “I can see that.”
“And you? How are you this afternoon?”
He tossed his hat onto a side table. “Quite well, so long as you do not punch me in the stomach.”
She went to perch on the edge of the settee and folded her hands in her lap. �
��I must thank you, Andrew, for all you’ve done for my family. Finding Cora’s killer, saving Gina. And me. The O’Rourkes must have been a great trial to you.”
His lips twitched as if he were trying to hold back a laugh. “That is something of an understatement, my dear. But I would have it no other way. Still, I could almost sympathize with your mother. The poor woman will never know that two of her daughters were kidnapped, meant for human sacrifice, and that her other daughter drugged her so she would not wake up and find them gone.” He paused and shook his head in mock despair. “The O’Rourkes are going to mean a great deal of trouble. No doubt of that.”
“We…we shall try to stay out of your way.”
“That was not my meaning, Bella.” He sat beside her and took her hand. “I will gladly take on the O’Rourkes if you come with them, though I would do you no favor by marrying you. You were meant for finer things than marriage to a rogue.”
“M-marriage? But, no. The letter from your solicitor arrived this morning, saying you’d settle a sum on me so that I would never be a poor relation or at the mercy of others, and even that I must refuse.”
He took her left hand and held it between his. “You are right to dismiss me, Bella. I’ve been nothing but a wastrel most of my life. But I dared to hope I might persuade you to save me from myself. I even acquired a license yesterday, after our night at Henderson’s inn. We do not have to wait for banns to be read. We can be married whenever you’re ready.”
“Andrew, how can I marry you? Why, I’ve kissed half your friends. How could you go about in society, endure the whispers, knowing that?”
“Easily, by knowing I would be the object of much envy. And I would hate to tell you, m’dear, how many of the women you will be meeting that I have kissed.”
“But the night we met, you told me that no respectable man would marry a woman who’d kissed half his friends.”
“Just our luck, then, that I am not in the least bit respectable.”
“I must doubt—”
“And you are entitled to your doubts. All but one.”
Lord Libertine Page 26
