by Shana Galen
He’d pushed her behind a fallen log and knelt there with her, peering over the edge. Was Brook on the other side? She might have called out, but the rain poured so hard and so loudly on the fallen leaves that Brook would not have been able to hear her. Beezle, on the other hand, would punish her severely.
She might not have another opportunity to cry out once Beezle was through with her.
A moment later, Beezle yanked her up and pushed her forward again. She tried to slow his pace, dragging her heels, looking for any sign Brook was nearby. Beezle must have seen or heard him. Brook must have been close. Beezle yanked her arm, but when she didn’t increase her pace, he twisted it. The sharp stab of pain made her gasp and double over.
“Get up or you’ll think that twist o’ yer wrist was a night at the theater.”
Lila pushed forward, struggling to keep up with Beezle across the soggy ground and with her skirts weighed down by water and mud. For a time, she forgot all about escape. Beezle’s pace was unrelenting. It seemed he yanked her along for miles and hours. Indeed, dawn had broken, though the storm meant the sky was still cloudy and dark. Finally, the trees thinned and Lila realized they were leaving the wooded area.
She whipped her head around, looking for a landmark, a tree, anything in her surroundings she might recognize. Had they traveled all the way back to the cottage? Perhaps they’d made it to the Longmires’ property or the Spencer farm. But nothing looked familiar. No buildings stood in the clearing, no signs of life, only dead grass and a barren field. Beezle pulled her across it, Lila peering back at the woods, hoping Brook had followed them. He’d see them easily in this landscape. There was nowhere to hide. Gradually, she realized a road lay in the distance, and Beezle was headed straight for it. Lila’s heart jumped with hope. Perhaps someone would come by and she would be saved.
She looked hopefully up and down the road, but it was deserted. Curse this storm! No one would risk the bad weather to venture out.
Lila narrowed her eyes at a dark shape about a quarter mile away. The road was not deserted after all. A carriage sat in a tree-shrouded nook. The horses had been unharnessed and stood under a scrubby tree. A man stood with them.
She was saved!
“Help!” she cried out. “Help me!”
Beezle gave her arm a brutal twist. “Shut yer potato hole, or I’ll shut it fer you.”
Lila obliged. He was leading her toward the carriage at any rate. If he wanted to take her there, the man with the horses was probably in league with Beezle. She couldn’t allow Beezle to put her in that carriage. Once inside, he could take her anywhere. Brook would never find her. He had no horse and couldn’t follow. This was it. She had to escape now.
Lila took a deep breath and waited for her chance. Beezle pulled her closer and closer to the carriage. It was rather a fine carriage to be out in the middle of the countryside. It couldn’t have been Beezle’s, and she did not want to know to whom it belonged.
As they neared, the coachman turned to look at them, and Lila stumbled. Something about him looked familiar. The horses too looked familiar. She stared at the trio, unable to place them in the gloomy light.
In the distance, lightning lit up the sky, and one of the horses reared up with fear. The coachman turned to calm the animal. At the same time, Beezle jumped with fright at the hack’s sudden movement. Lila took the opening.
She tore her arm from Beezle’s grasp and turned on her heel, running as fast as she could back toward the woods. The cover of trees was her only hope of escape. She could find somewhere to hide until Brook found her.
She heard cursing behind her, but she didn’t stop running. Her lungs burned and the rain pelted her face, but she knew she could make it. She could hear the thump of his footsteps behind her. He was close, but she had the lead. She could make it to the woods. She could beat him.
Lila saw the rock jutting out of the ground cover too late. She swerved to avoid it, but it caught the edge of her boot. She lost her balance, stumbled, tripped over her skirts, and fell to her knees. Pain lanced up her legs where her knees hit the ground, the delicate skin gouged by the rocks and twigs. She tried to rise, but she knew it was too late.
Beezle grabbed her by the hair and closed his hand on her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She struggled, but his grip tightened. Blackness hovered at the edge of her vision. Her lungs burned. Beezle’s hands were like iron clamps, digging into the tender flesh of her neck. The world seemed to go dark then come back into focus again.
“I will enjoy killing you.” Beezle’s voice seemed to come from far away as the darkness closed in.
* * *
He’d lost them. At one point, Brook had known he was close. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as they often did when he had sighted his quarry and went in for the kill. He’d almost been able to feel Lila’s presence, catch the scent of her perfume.
And then she was gone.
He’d backtracked. He’d retraced his steps. He’d started out in a dozen different directions, but he’d lost her. He’d gone over the same patch of ground twenty times or more, found the spot where she and Beezle had crouched behind a log. He saw the indent her shoe had made, and the impression of Beezle’s bony legs. He followed the footprints to where they ended. A large tree limb had fallen, and it obscured the trail. Brook went around it, but he couldn’t find it again. He set out from the tree limb in every direction, searching for some small clue—a broken twig, a bent leaf, a soft mark in the ground.
Nothing.
Brook stood in the center of the woods, the rain pouring down on him, and wanted to shout. This couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t be how he lost her. He needed to kiss her one last time. He needed to tell her he forgave her for the stupid way she’d behaved when they’d been little more than children. He needed to ask her forgiveness for the pettiness of holding it against her all these years.
He needed to tell her he loved her.
Brook was the hero, not Beezle. Beezle wasn’t supposed to win.
Only, this story hadn’t been written by the London scandal rags. This story didn’t have a happy ending. She was gone, and Brook knew he’d never find her in time to save her.
* * *
She came to in darkness, the rain pattering on the roof outside.
Outside?
She lay on her face, the hard floor beneath her cheek. Lila sat quickly, regretting the action immediately. Sharp pain cut through her temple. Her throat was swollen, her neck sore.
“Good, you are awake.”
Lila opened her eyes and turned in the direction of the voice. A female voice.
The curtains had been closed and the carriage lamps extinguished, but she knew that voice. She knew the form seated on the squabs beside her.
“Valencia?” she croaked, unwilling to believe what her eyes told her. And yet it made sense. She’d known the coachman—a second coachman—and the horses. They were her father’s coachman and horses.
“Where is my father?” she asked. Lila’s voice was stronger now, but she had to strain to force it past the swelling in her neck.
“London.” Her stepmother’s mouth turned upward into something resembling a smile. “His Grace will not be joining us.”
“I don’t understand.”
Valencia shouldn’t be here. Had Beezle been taking her to her stepmother all along? Why, when he wanted to kill her? Why had he saved her?
Had he saved her?
Lila was aware of the sounds surrounding her now. The clink of metal and the stamp of hooves. Outside, John Coachman harnessed the horses.
“No, I’m sure you don’t understand. You do not need to understand. All you need know is that your father will not be joining us. I’ve planned a short journey, just the two of us.”
“Sir Brook is looking for me. I have to find him. Take me back to the cottage.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Lillian-Anne. I didn’t come all this way to have my plans thwarted by Sir Brook. He’s already ca
used me enough problems.”
Lila pushed up and onto the squabs across from Valencia. Before she could sit, her stepmother swung her umbrella, the ebony handle cracking hard across Lila’s knee. Lila screamed at the insult to her already-injured knees and buckled.
“Don’t you dare soil my velvet with your dirt and muck,” she hissed. “Sit on the floor like the rubbish you are.”
Lila stared at her. She’d always known Valencia didn’t like her, but the woman had never dared speak to her this way. “I want my father,” Lila said. “If you won’t take me to Sir Brook, then I demand to be taken to Lennox House.”
Valencia shook her head her vivid blue eyes glittering in the darkness and her blond hair shining like starlight. “You still do not understand, do you, simpleton? Allow me to make it perfectly clear. I am here to see you killed. That idiot loggerhead I hired couldn’t accomplish the job on his own, so I have come this time to make certain he does it right. You, dear daughter, will never see your father or your husband again.”
Nineteen
Lila stared in horror at Vile Valencia. She caught the movement of the umbrella right before Valencia struck and ducked in time to avoid the worst of the blow to her head. The ebony and silver handle still cracked her across the side of her temple and ear. A warm trickle of blood slid over her cheek and down her neck.
She huddled on the floor, her arms over her head to ward off more blows. Instead of continued abuse, Valencia called out, and Lila realized John Coachman had tapped on the door.
“Drive on,” Valencia ordered. “And you,” she said, prodding Lila with her slipper, “had better stay down, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Lila supposed that meant Beezle was still nearby. Valencia was paying Beezle. Valencia had arranged to have Lila abducted.
The coach lurched forward then jerked back again. Lila heard the coachman yell and the creak and strain of the coach’s frame as the horses pulled with all their strength.
“What is the matter?” Valencia lowered the window and yelled into the cold morning. Lila realized the brick at Valencia’s feet, though not hot anymore, had retained enough heat to warm the interior of the coach. She almost had sensation back in her fingers.
“The wheels are mired in mud, Your Grace!”
“Well, get down and push!” Valencia raised the window, muttering under her breath about incompetent servants.
Lila prayed the coachman couldn’t free the wheels for hours. The delay might give Brook enough time to find her.
If he was still looking for her.
He was. Of course he was. He might not have loved her, but he would not allow her to die. He would not allow Beezle to win. But would Brook even investigate the coach? Neither of them had ever considered that Valencia was involved in her abduction.
The carriage rocked back and forth as John Coachman tried to free it from the wet, muddy road. Valencia’s mouth thinned into a line that made her look older than her thirty years.
“Why are you doing this?” Lila asked. She didn’t expect her stepmother to answer. Valencia looked down at her.
“You gave me no other alternative.”
“I gave you? This is my fault?” Lila had to tamp down the urge to sit and bellow indignantly. Such behavior would only earn her more thumps from the umbrella.
“Yes, it is your fault. I tried to send you away, but you would not stay away. You always came back.” Valencia glared at her.
“Lennox House and Blakesford are my home. Where else am I to go?”
Valencia leaned down. “You may go to hell for all I care,” she hissed.
Lila recoiled as though hit. “What have I done to make you hate me so much? To make you…how could you hire Beezle to abduct me?”
“I hired him to kill you, but he couldn’t even manage that.”
Lila gasped. “Why?”
“You’re the last reminder of her. Your sainted mother. All I ever hear is ‘When Isabella was alive.’ He looks at you and thinks of her. You look just like her.”
It was true. Colin looked more like their father, but many of her mother’s relatives had remarked at the similarity between Lila and her mother. Lila had taken it as a compliment. Valencia had been jealous.
“The duke does not need you. He has another daughter now.”
This was madness. Lila could not fathom the depths of Valencia’s hatred if she had gone to these lengths to rid herself of her stepdaughter.
“You do not need to do this, Valencia. My father loves you.” If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have sent Lila away so many times to please his new wife. “And he loves Ginny. I’m married now. I am already out of your way.”
Valencia sneered at her. “You still do not understand, stupid chit. If you hadn’t seen Beezle murder that MP, I could have allowed you to live. But you saw too much.”
“You had something to do with that murder?” Lila could barely force the startled words from her injured throat.
“Of course not.”
The carriage rocked violently, and Lila feared the wheels had been freed from the mire. But the conveyance settled back again. It might have been easier to move the vehicle if Lila and Valencia exited, but Valencia would never agree to stand outside on the roadway in the rain. Lila would have jumped at the chance.
“But the murder tied that thug to Fitzsimmons. Bow Street will stop at nothing to catch Beezle. They searched his residence—if you can call it that—and do you know what they found?”
Lila nodded. Everything made sense to her now. Beezle had kept a bank draft or a letter or something that tied him to Valencia. Her stepmother had nothing to do with the murder of the MP, but the murder had shed light on her underground activities.
“Then the government already knows about you. It’s too late,” Lila said.
“Bow Street and the magistrates move slowly. I have time to see you dead before I go abroad.”
Valencia was fleeing for the Continent. It was the only way to avoid imprisonment and the humiliation of a trial. But she’d wasted precious hours of her escape to go after Lila.
Valencia opened the window again. “What is taking so long? What do I pay you for?”
“We almost have it, Your Grace!”
We. Was Beezle behind the conveyance trying to free it? If she escaped and ran toward the horses, she might have a chance to get back to the woods and hide until Brook could find her. She needn’t hide for days or even hours. Valencia could not wait that long to leave England.
Lila cut her gaze to the carriage doors. They were locked, but that would only take her a moment to undo.
“Idiots, all of them,” Valencia hissed. Her flat eyes settled on Lila with a look Lila knew boded ill. “I suppose there is no reason to wait.”
Lila couldn’t agree more. She jumped for the door she faced, that farthest from Valencia, and turned the lock. Fingers fumbling, she pushed the latch. Valencia screamed, bringing her umbrella down on the back of Lila’s neck. Pain exploded like a bright light blinding her. But it also propelled her forward. She pitched from the carriage, falling to her already bruised and battered knees.
More pain. More tears stinging her eyes. The only thing that drove her to her feet was the knowledge that Beezle was coming for her. She stumbled upright, found her bearings, and ran for the horses’ heads. She could hear the commotion behind her, but she didn’t dare look around. She ran as fast as her aching legs would take her.
Past the horses. Toward the woods. A few more feet. The tree line was coming closer.
Footsteps, hard and swift, sounded behind her. Lila pushed herself faster and harder. If she could just escape into the trees, she could lose him. She would be saved.
And then something moved in her peripheral vision. A man. Not Beezle. His hair wasn’t dark. The coachman?
She stumbled and ran on, but the coachman was almost upon her.
“No!” she screamed just as his hand clamped around her arm.
* * *
She fought like
a wild creature, ripping and tearing at him with hands like claws, fingernails sharp as razors.
“Lila!” He shook her. “Lila, it’s me!”
She stilled, the wildness fading from her eyes. Before he could say more, Brook pushed her behind him, shielding her from Beezle who had been right on her heels.
Beezle grinned, a skeletal stretching of skin on his thin face. “Now ain’t this convenient.”
“It is, rather, isn’t it?” Brook lunged, not waiting for Beezle’s attack. Beezle had a knife, but it wasn’t in his hand, and Brook had no intention of allowing him time to grasp it.
With the rain still falling at a steady pace, the muddy ground slid under his feet. He knocked Beezle aside rather than tackling him, as he’d hoped. Brook went down to one knee, and Beezle kicked out, landing his boot hard on Brook’s shoulder. He ignored the pain, throwing himself on top of Beezle and punching him hard across the face. Beezle’s cheek opened, blood flowing pink as it mixed with the rainwater.
The blow would have felled other men, but Beezle was used to life in Seven Dials. He had fought his way to the top of his gang, and he did not observe the pugilist codes of Gentleman Jackson’s. Brook could fight dirty as well. Beezle shoved a fist under Brook’s chin, pushing his head up. Brook fought to stay upright, attempting to dig his boots into the slick ground. One boot slid, and Beezle lost his grip on Brook’s chin. Instead of pulling back, as Beezle expected, Brook moved forward, slamming his forehead into Beezle’s nose.
He heard the crunch and Beezle’s grunt of pain before rolling away to lick his own wounds. His head hurt like the devil, but he’d broken Beezle’s nose. That would buy him a few minutes.
“Brook!”
He searched the ground, spotting Lila’s mud-caked boots. He held up a hand to stall her progress. He didn’t want her coming to his aid, didn’t want her anywhere near Beezle.
“Stay back. Get in the coach.”
