Hadn’t she done exactly the same this afternoon?
Her heart thundered with wild apprehension. Trembling and at last completely alert, her eyes raked the deserted stretch of road. Deserted except for four men, the hired vehicle, a makeshift barricade of rocks and branches, and an elaborate closed carriage a few yards away.
Ben still fought to break free, but, as at Whitby, sheer numbers made it impossible. He swore savagely, but the devils restraining him paid no attention while they trussed him and left him prone under the trees that crowded the roadside.
One of the men left Ben and hurried to open the coach’s door, which was painted with the familiar golden eagle of the Kinmurries. By the time the occupant emerged, Verity’s wits had returned and she experienced no jolt of surprise.
“Well done, Smithson.” The Duchess of Kylemore sent a heartbreakingly lovely smile to the huge brute who loomed beside Verity.
“My pleasure, Your Grace.” The man bowed briefly. “Shall we dispose of them? It will look like an attack by footpads.”
“No!” Verity gasped, beginning to struggle in earnest. This couldn’t be happening. Not now, when she’d relinquished her powerful lover so he could follow the dictates of duty. “Ben’s done nothing to deserve this!”
“Quiet, bitch.” Smithson slammed his free arm across her throat and yanked her back against his coarse linen shirt. Her head swam with the stench of stale sweat, and she gave an involuntary moan that squeaked into silence as his arm tightened.
The duchess’s cold, cold eyes settled on her. Verity shivered at the absolute hatred in those indigo depths.
“You’ve been a thorn in my side since my son first saw you,” the duchess said, her tone as pitiless as her gaze.
“But I’m leaving him. You know I’m leaving him,” Verity gasped, fighting for breath.
She squirmed to loosen Smithson’s hold, but to no avail. She raised her hand to claw at his hand. He gave a satisfying grunt of pain, then jerked hard against her throat, making her gag.
“Stop that, you poxy trull,” he muttered. “Stay still or I’ll hurt you in earnest.”
He released the punishing pressure on her airway and the blackness gradually receded from her vision. As the pounding blood rushed back into her bruised flesh, it throbbed painfully.
She dragged reviving air into her lungs and focused on the duchess. Smithson was merely a bully. The real danger stood before her in the person of this beautiful, perfectly dressed woman with frozen eyes. Fear made Verity’s head spin, but she fought to hide her spiraling terror.
“I’m never going to see His Grace again,” Verity rasped out. Talking scraped painfully at her abused throat.
The duchess’s eyebrows arched with patent disbelief. “I know my son. Justin won’t accept his dismissal so easily. I shudder to recall the laughingstock he made of himself when you left London. I could hardly hold my head up in society.” Her voice rang with self-righteous outrage. “I’m afraid you’ve aroused my displeasure, Soraya. And you must pay.”
Verity stood perfectly still in Smithson’s hold and raised her chin.
“Kill me if you must,” she said in a low, shaking voice. There would be no escape. She could see that the duchess’s calcified soul held no mercy for a recalcitrant harlot. Still, she had to try and save Ben. “But my brother has done you no ill. Please let him go, Your Grace.”
The duchess’s stained lips curved in a disdainful smile. “Oh, very moving, my dear. I should have guessed that more than just your pretty face drew my son to his downfall. He’s always had such pathetic admiration for courage.”
“There’s nothing pathetic about the duke,” Verity snapped unwisely.
The duchess stepped forward and slapped Verity hard across the face. “You will address me with respect, slut.”
Verity would have crumpled under the blow if Smithson hadn’t gripped her arms so tightly. As it was, the left side of her face felt like it was on fire. She lifted a shaking hand to her cheek and adopted a more conciliatory tone in spite of how it galled her.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said, while every particle of her wanted to spit disgust into the woman’s exquisite face.
“That’s better.” The duchess’s expression changed from displeasure to gloating expectancy. “And you mistake me. I have no intention of killing you or your pimp. I want you to remember the day you crossed Margaret Kinmurrie. And live to rue it.”
“Let her go, you bloody witch!” Ben rolled in the dirt, kicking and pulling as his powerful muscles strained against the ropes.
“Silence the fellow,” the duchess said negligently to her henchmen. Her glittering gaze didn’t shift from Verity. She looked ruthless. She looked excited. The violence had triggered something primitive and uncontrollable in her.
Sickened, Verity closed her eyes.
The duchess continued in the same idle tone. “But don’t make him insensible. I want him to witness the consequences of presuming above one’s station.”
A scream tightened Verity’s throat, but she fought to contain it.
Screaming would do her no good. There was nobody to help her, just as there was nobody to help Ben.
The men clustered around Ben hid the beating from her, but his grunts of agony rose above the sickening thud of fists on vulnerable flesh.
She craned and twisted against Smithson’s imprisoning grasp to see what they did to her brother. Nausea rose as she instinctively but uselessly tried to wrest herself free and dash to his aid.
Eventually, she gave up in panting exhaustion and sagged in her captor’s grip. Her puny strength was no match for the duchess’s thug.
“No, please. Your Grace, Ben’s done nothing to harm you,” she pleaded, her throat still raw. Then, even though her pride revolted at the words, “I beg of you, Your Grace. Let your anger fall on me, not on my brother.”
Amazingly, the duchess smiled, even while her bullies kicked and punched an innocent man toward unconsciousness. “I have anger to spare for both of you, whore.”
Ben’s groans became softer and more intermittent. Again, the duchess spoke without looking in his direction. “Don’t forget, I want him aware. He must see every detail of his sister’s punishment.”
Thank God the beating was over. It had seemed to last an eon. Verity forced herself to take an unsteady breath. Agonizing certainty grew within her about the duchess’s intentions.
“You mean these villains to rape me,” she whispered.
Horror swelled up to choke her. She needed Smithson’s cruel hands to keep her from collapsing as images of unbearable pain and shame flooded her mind.
“Yes. Eventually. An extra lover or four to a trollop like you makes no matter,” the duchess said lightly, then her voice hardened. “But before that, I’ll make sure you never bewitch my son—or any man—again.”
“I’ve renounced my life as a courtesan,” Verity said, although she saw that nothing would sway the duchess’s purpose.
“Oh, I can guarantee that.” Finally, the duchess looked across to where Ben lay in shuddering pain. “One of you, prop him up so he can watch. The rest, I need you here.”
Verity gave a broken cry as the brutes moved away from her brother and she finally saw what they’d done. His face was bloody and swollen, and his clothes were torn and filthy.
What further injuries did the fading light hide? The damage she could see now made her want to vomit.
“Oh, Ben,” she cried, hoping desperately he’d lost consciousness, despite the duchess’s orders. But his head jerked unsteadily in her direction as she spoke his name.
Her distress meant she hardly noticed when the duchess directed Smithson to hand her over to two of the men who had beaten Ben. They stood on either side of her and grabbed her arms while the loathsome Smithson stepped forward to stand beside his employer. “What are your wishes, Your Grace?”
The woman’s eyes were bright with almost sexual arousal as she drew a small silver knife from her reticule. “Cut her fa
ce. Scar her so no man can look at her without revulsion.” Her voice quivered with eagerness.
“No! You can’t do this!” Verity cried, struggling futilely. Pride had fled and she could no longer conceal her terror. “It’s barbaric.”
“Your Grace…” Smithson fell back from the blade the duchess extended. Even through her panic, Verity was astonished to see his impassive face crease into repugnance.
“You were happy enough to kill her,” the duchess said derisively, as if she criticized a dandy on the fall of his cravat. “Be a man, for God’s sake.”
Smithson shook his head. “Killing is quick. But to slice a wench’s pretty face open just for spite? No, Your Grace, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“You are dismissed from my service,” she said in a frigid voice that contrasted grotesquely with the elation in her face. Her eyes fixed avidly on the villains who constrained Verity. “This woman is a harlot and a thief. She should be whipped at the cart tail, then hanged. Is anyone man enough to do my bidding?”
Verity waited in strained and panting silence to see if anyone took up the challenge.
Her beauty had always been more of a curse than a blessing, but she abhorred the prospect of becoming an object of pity. And her courage failed as she imagined that glittering little blade piercing her flesh.
She sucked in a ragged breath, fighting hysteria. Rape would follow quickly upon disfigurement. How could she endure what was about to happen?
“A hundred guineas to the man who takes the knife,” the duchess said clearly when no one moved to obey her.
Her irritation with her cohorts was written in austere lines on the face Verity had once thought beautiful. Now all she could see was obsessive hatred and salacious cruelty.
Verity’s dread rose, threatening to suffocate her, as she studied the circle of faces around her. A hundred guineas was a fortune, more money than these men would see in their lifetimes. It made no sense that they’d smash her brother to a pulp, yet turn squeamish at the idea of scarring her for life.
Would they also balk at raping her?
“I’ll do it, Your Grace.” The man on her right released her and stepped forward to take the silver knife from the duchess’s trembling hand. The woman’s unsteadiness didn’t stem from uncertainty, Verity knew, but from excitement.
“Cut her deep.” The duchess’s breath sawed audibly as her monstrous revenge edged closer to fruition.
Ben made an unintelligible protest and lurched to his knees before his guard knocked him down with a blow.
Verity managed to stand proudly until the man with the knife stepped directly in front of her, but as she looked up into his eyes, her nerve failed. She writhed against the merciless hands that held her fast.
“No! No, please. Don’t do this. In the name of heaven, please don’t do this,” she pleaded. She turned away as tears poured down her cheeks.
The man took her chin in a firm hold and made her face him. She braced herself for the knife’s slash, for excruciating pain and rivers of blood.
“Please,” she whispered shakily, searching for some trace of compassion in him.
He was so young. Younger than Ben. How absurd a mere boy could perpetrate this outrage.
“You can’t do this and call yourself a Christian.” She caught a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, and for a moment, she thought she’d won.
“Two hundred guineas!” the duchess urged from behind him.
The youth raised the knife and pressed it to Verity’s cheekbone. There was a brief sting, and warm wetness trickled down her face.
“God damn you forever,” she whispered and closed her eyes again. She waited for pain.
And she waited.
“Good Lord, and they call women the weaker sex!” The duchess’s anger grated across nerves knotted tight to breaking point. “I should have known I’d have to do this myself.”
“Yes, good servants are so hard to get these days, aren’t they?” Verity said faintly. She opened her eyes to watch the duchess snatch the knife from the boy.
Kylemore had told her this woman blanched at nothing. She wouldn’t flinch at the humiliation and degradation of a humble whore. Any reprieve was past.
The man she loved had called her the bravest person he knew. She refused to face her fate like a puling weakling. She’d scream and cry and beg for mercy in time. She knew that. Even the scratch on her cheek hurt like blazes, and worse was to come. But she’d hold on to her pride as long as she could.
Pride wouldn’t save her from what was about to happen, but it was all she had. She drew herself up as if she were the duchess and her lover’s mother the cheap bawd.
Something that might have been admiration flickered in the woman’s glassy eyes, eyes the same deep and beautiful blue as Kylemore’s. “You’re a worthy opponent, I’ll give you that.”
“This serves no purpose,” Verity said as calmly as she could. Pleading could never succeed. Perhaps defiance would. She cursed the husky edge to her voice but couldn’t do anything about it. “I told you—His Grace and I have parted forever. He has sworn he won’t pursue me.”
“Even if that’s so, I deserve some recompense for the trouble you’ve given me.” The duchess’s voice was exultant.
“By consigning me to torture and rape?”
“These things are all relative.” The woman stroked the edge of the blade and considered her victim in the fading light. “I rather think I’ll take out an eye.”
The gorge rose in Verity’s throat. “You’d leave me blind?” she gasped in revulsion.
“No. Only one eye. I want you to see what I do. It’s dangerous to range yourself against your betters, my girl.”
“You’re not my better,” Verity spat. Fury clawed at her fear. Fury alone gave her the strength to stand stiffly and await the blade’s descent. “You’ll never get away with this. I’ll bring the full force of the law against you.”
Astonishingly, chillingly, the duchess laughed, the sound tinkling and sweet in the still air. “I’m the Duchess of Kylemore. You’re my son’s discarded, lowborn lover. The law will pay you no heed at all. Unless, that is, I decide to have you transported for prostitution.”
“You’re a devil from hell,” Verity gasped in horror.
Let it be quick, she prayed, although she knew the duchess intended to draw out every last strand of torment. Fortitude was all Verity had left. Please let it not desert her now. She closed her eyes and waited.
The duchess was so close that Verity heard the slide of a silk sleeve against her bodice as she drew her hand back, ready to strike.
Then, in the breathless pause, a cold, commanding, beloved voice pierced her all-encompassing fog of dread.
“Shed one drop of her blood and I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
Chapter 25
Kylemore’s clipped words wrenched Verity from the lightless bastion where she’d retreated.
It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be here to save her. Such unlikely heroics belonged only in fairy tales. Fear and grief must have sent her mad.
But when she opened dazed eyes, he strode, arrogant as ever, out of the overhanging trees toward her. And how could she doubt he was real when the force of his rage made the very air quiver?
He was dressed completely in black, from his silk shirt to his long coat that swept the ground. Even the boots kicking up dust with every purposeful step were black.
Against the unrelieved darkness of his clothing, his face was pale and taut with barely curbed fury. One elegant hand rested negligently on the hilt of the sword that hung from his waist, and the other leveled a heavy pistol at his mother and Smithson.
With a gasp, the duchess spun around. “Justin, don’t be ridiculous. You cannot threaten your own mother.”
She sounded perfectly reasonable. The ecstatically vengeful harpy of a few moments ago had disappeared. Quickly, she hid the deadly silver knife in her skirts.
Savagery tinged the duke’s smile as he s
topped a few feet away from her. “I can and do threaten you, madam.” He looked across to where his mother’s servant held Verity. “Have they harmed you, mo cridhe?”
“No,” Verity whispered. Trembling with reaction, she focused a tear-filled gaze on Kylemore.
She was safe now. He’d never let anyone hurt her. She knew that as she knew she needed breath to live.
“Your face is bleeding,” he pointed out with a contained gentleness that sent a cold shiver down her spine.
“It’s only a scratch,” she said unsteadily.
Compared to what the duchess had planned for her, the sullenly seeping cut hardly mattered. Still, she saw anguish flare in his eyes as they rested on the injury.
“I hope so. Or someone will pay dearly.” He masked the flash of emotion and returned his relentless focus to his mother.
The duchess’s face tightened with scornful defiance as she met his stare. “You wouldn’t harm me. You don’t have the stomach for it.”
Clearly, she’d decided bravado was her best strategy. Verity could have told her she was wrong. When Kylemore looked like that, nothing swayed him.
“Try me,” he said in the same terrifyingly mild voice.
Still the duchess didn’t take warning. A triumphant smile curled her lips. “You forget I have four men and you are alone.”
Kylemore’s lordly manner didn’t falter. “Four men who will soon be in custody and incriminating you with every word of their testimony.”
He signaled with one hand to someone behind him. Eight armed men surged from the woods that edged the road. Verity recognized Hamish and Andy and Angus among the newcomers.
“Justin, think of the scandal!” the duchess snapped.
“Yes, think of it,” he said with satisfaction.
With taciturn efficiency, Kylemore’s companions took, at gunpoint, the boy who had come so close to scarring Verity and the bully who guarded Ben’s ominously unmoving body.
The duke glanced at the man who still restrained Verity. “If you hope to live through the next minute, let her go.”
His voice rang with absolute authority. Immediately, she was free. The abruptness of the action threw her off balance. She staggered and gasped for air to combat her sudden light-headedness.
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