She cleared her throat. “I have to use the necessary.”
“Piss in the corner,” her father answered.
“I will not!”
“Then piss yourself, I don’t give a damn.”
She gritted her teeth, welcoming the outrage as it overtook her fear. “I don’t think that soiling myself will add to my market value, do you?”
“I’d be happy to take her outside an’ help her up with her skirts,” his crony offered. He glanced across the room at her, and as his lecherous gaze traveled down the length of her, he licked his lips.
Stifling a repulsive shudder, she lifted her chin. “Papa, please?”
With a fierce curse, Phillip Benton threw his cards down and shoved back from the table. He grabbed her arm, and jerking her so hard her teeth jarred, he shoved her out the door and around the side of the cottage to the outhouse in the bushes.
She paused.
“Get in there.”
She held up her bound wrists. “Untie me?”
“Better not try anything,” he warned as he loosened the knots and tore off the binding.
Rubbing the red marks on her wrists, she entered the little building and shut the door.
Frantically, she glanced around. No lock, nothing inside she could use as a weapon. Her shoulders sagged. Not that the thin walls of the little building would have slowed him down if he’d been forced to break in after her, anyway.
But at least the trip outside gave her an excuse she could use every two hours or so to separate the men and get her hands untied, and hopefully, eventually the knots would be retied loosely enough to free herself from the binding. And if that didn’t happen and they were still there by nightfall, then she planned on attempting to flee into the darkness, even if her wrists were still bound.
His fist banged on the door. “Long enough.”
“Just a moment!” she snapped out.
More pounding, so hard the entire shack shook. “Come out of there!”
Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped outside, her hands angrily on her hips as she glared with mutinous resentment. “At least have the decency to give me a few moments for personal cares.”
He ignored her. “Give me your hands.”
She refused to move her hands from her hips.
He grabbed her arm and twisted it forward, and she bit back a cry. Holding her wrist, he grabbed for the other one, then lashed them together so tightly this time she winced as he cinched down the knots. Her stomach sickened, not at the pain but at knowing her father would physically harm her.
“Back into the house.” He shoved her toward the cottage, pushed open the door to drag her inside—and stopped.
The cottage was empty, the other man gone.
“Get over there,” he ordered and tossed her toward the corner, slamming the door shut. “Smythe! Where are you?”
He waited, listening for any sound or movement outside.
“Maybe he stepped out to relieve himself—”
“Quiet!” he snarled, then yelled, “Smythe!”
There was no answer. Outside the cottage, the morning was unusually still and silent. No wind, not even the sound of birds chirping from the trees.
She took a deep breath. “Papa, if you—”
“Shut up!”
Her father grabbed her around the neck, jerking her up against him. Cold, hard metal jammed against the small of her back as he pressed the end of his pistol against her. A scream tore from Kate’s throat
“I’ll kill her!” Benton shouted. “I’ve got a gun at her back. Come after me, and I’ll shoot!”
Terrified, Kate held her breath, straining for any sound of movement from outside but hearing only the rush of blood pounding in her ears. Silence fell again, the morning eerily still. But she sensed unheard movement circling the cottage, unseen men moving carefully along its stone walls.
“Let her walk out, Benton, and you won’t be hurt.”
“Edward!” she cried.
Her father squeezed his arm against her throat, choking her until she gasped for breath. Her fingernails dug into his arm.
“I’m not letting go of her,” he answered, dragging her to the side of the window so he could lean against the wall and look outside, using her body as a shield. Kate could see nothing through the dirty glass, but she felt the tension rising in the air.
“The cottage is surrounded. Let her walk out, and we’ll take her and leave.”
“You think I’m that stupid?” Benton gave a deranged laugh. “The minute I let her go, you’ll kill me.”
“I won’t, you have my word.”
“Worthless!”
“No,” Kate protested, her voice raspy, “he means it. Listen to him pl—”
“Shut up!”
He struck her across the temple with the pistol handle. Blackness flashed before her eyes, and a trickle of blood seeped sticky warm down her face.
“I’m leaving here and taking her with me, you hear me?” he shouted out the window.
Kate shuddered, her knees buckling beneath her. But he jerked her roughly against him to hold her propped up on her feet.
“Bring a horse to the door, tie it there, then back away.” When there was no answer, he shouted, “Do it! Or I’ll kill her right now.”
“All right.”
The soft sound of hooves moved toward the cottage, then the door was opened slowly from the outside. Through the doorway, she saw Edward’s chestnut colt tied just a few feet away.
“Come on,” he ordered, pulling her toward the door and repositioning the pistol at her head.
When they stepped into the sunlight, Kate saw a man from the corner of her eye, crouching behind the rear of the cottage, a brace of pistols in his hands. Beneath the black carriage near the barn lay another, a pistol in each hand and another half dozen laid out on the ground in a semicircle in front of him.
Someone was going to die here, she realized with a terrified shudder. Please, God, not Edward!
The subject of her prayers stood fully upright, drawn to his full six feet of height, and fully exposed in plain view just a few yards from the cottage door, his hand gripping a pistol lowered at his side. His black hair glistened brilliantly in the bright sunlight, his face set hard as his dark eyes never left her father, seeing and following every move and shift of his body. His spine was ramrod straight, his shoulders back, and she suddenly had a glimpse of what he must have looked like as a colonel leading his troops into battle. He was magnificent. And deadly.
“We’re getting on that horse and riding off.” Benton pressed the gun harder into her cheek, and she flinched, terrified tears gathering at her lashes.
“No, you’re not,” Edward replied as calmly as if he were commenting on the weather. “Let her go, and you’ll get to live.”
“So you can make me your prisoner again? I’d die before I’d let you do that.”
“As you wish,” Edward answered quietly.
Keeping Kate as his shield between his body and Edward’s pistol, her father pulled her backward toward the waiting horse. He lowered the gun from her head to wrap his arm around her neck while his free hand reached down to untie the reins. He fumbled with the leather straps as he tried to keep his hold on her and his eyes on Edward.
His arm loosened around her neck, his eyes darted down to the reins—
With a fierce cry, Kate sank her teeth into his right thumb, biting down through the flesh until she hit bone. He screamed, instinctively jerking back his arm, and the pistol dropped from his mutilated hand.
She kicked the pistol away and staggered backward just out of his furious reach.
Edward raised his gun, pointing it at her father’s chest.
She screamed, “Edward, no!”
He hesitated. All three of them stood there, frozen in place—Edward with his pistol pointed at her father, her father glaring murderously, and Kate glancing frantically between the two men, holding her breath, waiting for the soun
d of gunshots and death.
“Edward,” she pleaded, “lower the gun and let him go.”
His eyes never moved from her father. “He killed Stephen and Jane, and he hurt you.”
“I know.” Her voice choked in her throat.
“He’s a spineless, murdering bastard who deserves to die.”
“But he’s also my father,” she said, desperate to stop the firing of guns and the taking of lives.
“If I kill him, it ends right here, and he can’t hurt anyone else I love.”
He glanced at her then, his dark eyes leveling on hers for just an instant before flicking back to her father.
She saw the indecision tearing at him as he was forced to choose…her or her father, the man he hated or the woman he loved. If he pulled the trigger now, he’d secure the ultimate revenge against her father, and he would never be arrested for it, not after all her father had done. But if Edward killed him, and right in front of her…she would lose him forever.
“You’re not a murderer, Edward,” she said softly. “Don’t let him turn you into one.”
She took a step toward him, her trembling hands reaching toward his pistol.
* * *
Edward felt his breath catch painfully in his chest, watching as she moved between her father and the end of the pistol. He’d loved and admired Stephen, but his brother was gone now. Nothing would ever bring him back.
But the same hand of fate that had stripped Stephen from his life had also given him Kate, who was alive, warm, and vibrant. When he swore revenge against Phillip Benton at all costs, he’d been wrong—he wasn’t willing to lose Kate. He loved her, with every beat of his heart and every breath he took.
“Edward, please.”
She stepped slowly toward him. Looking into his eyes, she slid her hands down his arm in a gentle caress and eased the pistol from his hand. “It’s all right, darling,” she assured him, bending down to place the pistol on the ground at their feet, then rising up into his arms. “You saved me. I’m safe now—”
Benton swung up onto the back of the horse. Matteson and Grey tensed, aimed their guns—
“No!” she screamed.
“Hold fire!” Edward yelled, waving his right arm in the air to get their attention while he grabbed Kate tightly to him with his left, pulling her face down against his chest to shield her eyes. “Hold your fire!”
The horse reared on its hind legs, then surged forward. It bolted into the bushes toward the open fields and woods beyond. In a matter of seconds, Phillip Benton was gone.
Kate swayed.
Edward caught her as she sank, scooping her into his arms and setting her gently across his lap as he sat on the ground, then wrapped his arms around her to hold her pressed tightly against him, his head lowering to bury his face in her hair. His heart thudded painfully, his breathing shallow and fast, as he finally let himself think about the danger she had been in, how close he’d come to losing her.
“Kate, are you all right?” His fingers gently touched the cut at her temple.
“I’m fine—”
He cupped her chin against his palm and tipped up her face to kiss her, all the relief inside him pouring into her. A shudder pulsed through her, then eased into trembling as she sighed against his lips, and when she rose up to lean into his embrace, he knew, finally, that the nightmare was over. She was safe in his arms, and no one would ever take her from him again.
“Colonel?” Nathaniel Grey approached them.
Edward nodded, and Grey sent up two sharp whistles. Two more whistles answered from the woods, followed by the muffled sounds of horses racing away.
“It’s done, sir. My men will have him before he reaches the river.”
Kate gasped. “You can’t kill him!”
“I work for the War Office, my lady.” Grey bent down next to her, lightly resting on the balls of his feet as he pulled a knife from his boot and gently slipped the edge beneath the binding around her wrist, cutting her free. “They won’t kill him if they don’t have to, but they’re not letting him go, either.” He sheathed the knife. “I’m arresting your father, to make certain he never has the chance to harm either of you again.”
From the way her face paled, Edward knew she understood what Grey meant. He and his men wouldn’t kill her father, but for kidnapping her and threatening the life of a peer, her father would most likely hang at the gallows for what he’d done. But Edward also knew from the flicker of determination in her green eyes that even now, after all Benton had done, she’d still plead with the magistrates to spare his life.
That was his darling angel, he thought as he raised her freed hands to his lips, merciful even to those who weren’t worthy of it. He’d experienced that same mercy himself, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life proving to her that he deserved it.
But there would be time later for that. Now, he just wanted to hold her in his arms, where she belonged.
“Come on.” Thomas clamped a hand onto Grey’s shoulder. “Help me hitch up the horses so we can get her home.”
As the two men retreated toward the carriage, Edward tightened his hold around Kate. He didn’t want to let her go and pressed her head against his chest, hoping she could feel the beating of his heart against her cheek and know exactly how terrified he’d been.
“When they took you,” he murmured into her hair, “I was afraid I’d lost you forever.”
Her arms tightened around him even as she pulled back to gaze silently up at him, her green eyes bright with tears. Words she was unable to speak choked on her parted lips.
“I was a fool.” He stroked his finger across her cheek. “I thought I could have a life with you yet keep my heart my own because I was terrified you’d shatter it. I knew I’d never recover if…”
She tangled her hands in his jacket lapels as if afraid he would slip away from her. But he had no intention of ever leaving her side again.
“I’m a soldier, Kate,” he told her, “and I always will be, no matter what titles I possess, and I don’t know the beautiful words of poets or the pretty phrases of love letters.” He took a deep breath, his body shaking as he exhaled. “All I can tell you is how I feel. That you make me warm and alive, that you are everything to me. And I…I love you, angel.”
“What?” she breathed, her wide eyes incredulous.
“I love you, Katherine,” he repeated, the words coming easier this time. “I know that now. I never realized how much you meant to me, how much I truly loved you, until I thought I’d lost you. I was terrified I’d never be able to tell you.” His fingers trembled as he cupped her face in his hands. “And I am never again letting you go.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she beamed at him, a brilliant smile full of happiness and hope. In that smile, he could see the future stretching out before them, one they would share together of home, children, and love. Lots and lots of love.
“You’d better not,” she whispered.
With a laugh, he lowered his head and kissed her.
EPILOGUE
Three Weeks Later
Strathmore House, London
The sapphire-and-diamond ring shined in the firelight. It was official now. She was engaged.
Oh my.
Her heart thudded as she lay on her bed, still wearing her ball gown, and lovingly traced her fingertip over the ring. Edward had placed it on her hand tonight at their engagement ball, which was already being heralded as the event of the season, possibly second only to the upcoming wedding itself scheduled for three weeks from now in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Augusta refused to even consider the notion of holding the ceremony anywhere else, just as she’d refused an engagement period of less than six weeks, despite the special license they’d acquired.
Less than six weeks to plan both an engagement ball and a wedding was simply impossible, Augusta declared. Impossible! And so Kate spent the last three weeks in a flurry of plans and arrangements, dress fittings, and shopping outings for her trousseau,
as well as entertaining an endless stream of callers. It seemed everyone in England wanted to meet the woman who captured the duke’s heart.
Waiting to be married hadn’t been all bad, she considered with a smile, as she lay back on the coverlet. Because there had been Edward.
For propriety’s sake, he’d moved out of Strathmore House and into Grey’s bachelor townhome, but he came by every morning for breakfast, every evening for dinner, and he took her for drives through the city, picnics in the park, boat rides on the Thames, fireworks at Vauxhall…all those wonderful excursions suitors arranged for their ladies. He’d even rented a hot-air balloon and kissed her as they rose above London. A hot-air balloon!
When she complained that he was spoiling her, he looked at her as if she’d gone mad and replied, “Of course I am.”
Of course.
And, then, there had been the nights.
He often lingered at Strathmore House after dinner, with the explicit purpose of joining her in her room after Augusta retired. They’d started their honeymoon early, and she was glad, so very glad. Just the thought of him in her bed made her body tingle with anticipation.
That’s why she hadn’t let Mary undress her. Because she knew he would come to her tonight to make love to her, and she wanted him to take down her hair and peel the silk gown from her skin, the dress of Westover blue that had been specially made to replace the one her father ruined.
She’d been so blind about Papa. Grimacing with mortification and grief, she remembered the way she’d defended him to Edward when he first showed her the guardianship. She’d underestimated the evil that he was capable of committing, but thank God, she’d never underestimated the good in Edward.
It was only when she’d appeared before the magistrates during her father’s trial to argue for his exportation rather than his death that she realized exactly how much Edward loved her, because he said not one word to dissuade her from doing so, even though her father’s hanging would have finally meant justice for Stephen and Jane’s deaths.
Dukes Are Forever Page 29
