A sliver of rationality told him something was off. Something wasn’t quite adding up. It didn’t make sense. Not completely. Had he been thinking clearly he would have seen that, but at the moment all he could see was Emily’s guilt-stricken face.
“It – it was an a-accident,” she said, tripping over her own words in her haste to spit them out. “I attended a ball last evening and there was a man there and after we danced—”
“You went to a ball and danced with another man, even after everything I told you yesterday morning in the park?” he asked incredulously. To know she’d gone straight from his arms to another’s… The pain of it was like a slice across his chest, cutting deeper than any knife he’d ever felt. Betrayed in not only one way, but another as well. How she must have laughed at him when he knelt before her with a ring in his hand, knowing Collinsworth was lurking in the shadows, listening to every idiotic word he said.
“No!” She shook her head frantically from side to side, only to bite her lip and peer up at him through her lashes. “I mean, well, yes… but it wasn’t like that!”
“Why don’t you tell me how it was then.” He released her shoulders, yanking his hands away as though her very touch repulsed him.
“I was confused. He was kind to me. It was nothing more than that. We went out to the one of the terraces. He told me about the woman he was in love with, and I – I told him about you. I even said where we were meeting tonight, but if I had known who he was I swear I never would have said a word! You must believe me.”
“And who was he? Who was he?” West pressed when Emily pinched her lips together and looked away from him.
“A Bow Street Runner,” she whispered. A single tear escaped the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek, shining like a diamond in the moonlight. “But he promised he would not do anything!”
“Then I suppose his promise is as worthless as yours,” West said coldly as he looked past her to Collinsworth who still stood at the base of the steps, a mocking smile pulling his mouth to one side. Lifting one shoulder, he let it fall in a careless shrug.
“What did I tell you? Women are treacherous creatures by nature.” His eyes narrowed. “Just ask my wife.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Raking a hand through his hair, West looked back at Emily in disgust and stepped away from her. “Nothing matters. I am sorry to say, Princess, but your plan failed. Your Runner should have sent someone else or come himself if he wanted me apprehended. Collinsworth couldn’t take me down even on his best day.”
“Oh, I know I can’t. But they can.” Collinsworth whistled and five burly men, each one carrying a pistol, stepped out of the bushes and surrounded the gazebo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emily could not believe what was happening. One moment it seemed as though all of her wildest dreams were coming true… and the next she was living in a nightmare, condemned for something she had not done, facing the wrath of the man she loved.
When he took her by the shoulders and gave her a hard shake she knew she was not dealing with West Green, but rather the Duke of St. Giles, the coldness in his eyes and the cruel slant of his mouth turning him into a veritable stranger before her very eyes.
The only thing more terrifying than his anger was the thought that, with one foolish mistake, she’d damned both of them. She did not know how Collinsworth had found them – despite what West believed and Collinsworth had implied she refused to think Kinsley had broken his promise – but she knew one thing: she would not let her future crumble without a fight.
Somehow, someway she could fix this. West was not going to be arrested and she was not going to lose him. Not when she finally had him. Not when they’d finally been given their chance at true happiness.
Brushing the tears from her cheeks she stepped forward, preparing to give Collinsworth a tongue-lashing he would not soon recover from, only to stumble back with a gasp as five men, pistols raised, emerged from the shadows and formed a circle around the gazebo.
She did a quick survey of their faces, and seeing Kinsley was not among them felt an icy chill race down her spine. Something was very, very wrong. These men were not Bow Street Runners, nor any other police force she’d ever seen before. They were thugs, hired by Collinsworth to carry out his revenge.
She felt a hand settle firmly on her hip and tilted her head back to see West standing protectively over her, dwarfing her small frame with his larger one. His countenance could have been carved from stone, and she could feel the tautness of his muscles as he pressed against her.
“I am sorry,” she whispered as the armed men began to advance.
“As am I.” The hand on her hip tightened. “The Runner you spoke with at the ball – he is not here, is he?”
Emily shook her head. “No.”
West pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I never should have doubted you,” he said softly. In a louder voice he called out, “She has nothing to do with your being here, Collinsworth.”
“She never did,” the earl drawled. “But it was oh-so-amusing to see you turn on her. That is what criminals do you know, Lady Emily.” His complexion grew mottled, and spit flew from his mouth as he snarled, “They turn on you and they take everything you have. Your money. Your estate. Your wife. Well, now it is my turn! I’ve had you followed for weeks, St. Giles, waiting for the right opportunity to make you suffer as I have suffered. To make you beg as I have begged. To make you crawl as I have crawled.”
“West did not murder your wife, Lord Collinsworth.” Emily clung to the arm West had wrapped around her, drawing strength from his steady, unwavering presence. “And he won your money and your estate by fair means, whether you choose to admit it or not. What you are doing here tonight… You are exacting punishment, not justice.”
He blinked. “And here I thought they were the same thing.”
“The truth will come out,” West said evenly. “I was with Emily when your wife disappeared, and I was with her still when the body was dragged out of the Thames.”
“Yes, I must admit I didn’t count on that particular hiccup.” Collinsworth rubbed his chin. “I thought if you could not be brought up on charges of murder, at the very least you would hang for kidnapping. To be honest, either one would have sufficed.”
“West did not kidnap me,” Emily lied fiercely. “I chose to go with him. It was my decision, and that will be my answer for any judge or jury who asks.”
Collinsworth sighed. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t say that, dear. You seem like such a nice young woman, although I admit your taste in men could use a bit of an improvement. Unfortunately, with you as his alibi our dear St. Giles would be cleared of both murder and kidnapping. And that,” he said with a tsk, “simply will not do.”
“You are going to kill me,” West said matter-of-factly.
Emily gasped. “No, no Lord Collinsworth please—”
“Kill you? I am not going to kill you,” Collinsworth scoffed. “What kind of man do you take me for? Besides, that would be letting you off far too easy. No, I am going to kill her” – he pointed a finger at Emily’s chest – “and watch you hang for her murder. A rather brilliant twist of events, if I do say so myself.”
“The hell you are!” West snarled before he pushed Emily behind him and lunged for Collinsworth. Thrown off balance she stumbled to the side, catching herself on the edge of the bench. The sound of muffled grunts filled the air, as did the sickening thud of flesh hitting flesh. Dimly she wondered why one of the thugs Collinsworth had hired did not simply shoot West – until a pair of hands shot out over the gazebo railing and grabbed her arms.
She flailed her legs and shrieked as she was dragged forcibly over the top of the railing. Two men were on her at once, one pinning her wrists behind her back and securing them with rope while the other lifted her legs and did the same to her ankles. Effectively bound head and foot and she writhed and bucked as she was lifted in the air and tossed over a shoulder.
The ma
n carrying her spun sharply to the side, and she caught a glimpse of West. It had taken the rest of the thugs to subdue him. Two held him upright while the third landed punishing blows on his face and ribs. She cried out when she heard a bone crack. Cried out again when a shift of moonlight revealed his bloodied, beaten face. He lifted his head at the sound of her voice. One eye was already swollen shut. His lip was split open. He croaked her name, and something deep inside of Emily snapped.
Like a woman possessed she fought her captor, twisting and bucking until she managed to slide halfway down his front. When her chin connected sharply with his shoulder she twisted her head to the side and sank her teeth into his ear.
He howled in pained surprise and slapped her face, but she refused to let go. Wrenching her head to the side she tasted blood, and spat out what remained of the thug’s earlobe onto the ground.
She heard an angry bellow, felt something hard slam up against the side of her head, and then… there was nothing.
Helpless to do anything except watch in agonizing torment as the woman he loved was knocked unconscious and carried out of sight, West glared up at Collinsworth’s gloating face out of his one remaining good eye. “You will pay for this you bastard,” he vowed, even as his voice cracked and broke on the last word. His throat felt as though it were filled with shards of glass. His ribs were on fire. His nose broken.
When his arms were released he collapsed forward onto his knees, too weak to stand. Darkness beckoned but he fought against it, wanting to stay conscious for Emily’s sake. Turning his head to the side he spit out a stream of blood and the broken piece of a tooth before rocking back on his heels. “If you so much as harm one hair on her head,” he gritted out, “there will be no place far enough for you to run. You’d best kill me now and be done with it, you cowardly snake, because if you hurt her I will put a bullet through your head and a knife through your heart.”
“I imagine that will be a bit of a difficult task to undertake given that you’ll be locked up in Newgate until the day they drag you out and string you up.” Sweeping his coat tails to the side Collinsworth crouched down until they were eye to eye. “They say the lucky ones break their neck outright from the force of the fall,” he breathed, his eyes alight with sadistic pleasure. “But I’d say you’ve just about used up all your luck, wouldn’t you? I want you to know that I will be there in the front row to watch you writhe and struggle and gasp for air as your face slowly turns purple and your eyes bulge out of your head.”
Black spots were dancing in West’s restricted line of vision. He blinked, and felt the sticky slide of blood as a stream of it ran down across his cracked cheekbone. “Hurt her and you are a dead man, Collinsworth,” he managed to rasp.
The earl tilted his head to side, studying West as though he were a specimen under a microscope instead of a living, breathing man he’d ordered beaten to within an inch of his life. “How does it feel?” he asked softly.
“How does… what feel?” West gritted out.
“To know you have lost everything you care about.”
More black spots, followed by a surge of dizziness that sent him reeling to the side. He landed hard on his shoulder, grunting in pain from the impact.
“Leave him,” Collinsworth announced as he stood up. “The Runners should have gotten the note I sent them by now. They’ll be here soon. Get the girl in my carriage and let us be off.”
West watched them depart with his head on the cobblestone. Unable to fight off the dark wave of unconsciousness any longer, he whispered one final word before he succumbed to the pain.
Emily.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Bloody hell.” Kneeling down beside the man they’d been called out to arrest, Thomas Reed, a thin, weedy young man with sandy brown hair and the faintest tracings of a moustache, pressed two fingers to the poor bloke’s neck and felt for a pulse. “He’s been beaten half to death. I’m surprised he’s still breathing, Captain.”
“Out of the way,” Kinsley demanded before he took Reed’s place. Studying the man’s swollen, bloody face with a critical eye, he wondered if this could truly be the one and only Duke of St. Giles… or if the note had been nothing more than a prank intended to make them run in circles. It was because he strongly suspected the latter that he’d brought only Reed with him, a first year Runner whose lack of commons sense was made up for by his unparalleled enthusiasm.
The man was breathing, albeit shallowly. Kinsley searched his pockets, but came up with no telltale sign of identification. He was roughly the same height as St. Giles, and his hair color was the same. Then again, many men were tall and had dark brown hair. The last thing he wanted to do was drag him halfway across London at one in the morning only to learn he was nothing more than a common vagrant.
Then the man spoke, his voice little more than a raspy whisper, but what he said had the hairs on the back of Kinsley’s neck standing on edge.
“’Eh, what did he say?” Shuffling forward with a quill in one hand and a pad of paper in the other, Reed nudged the man’s leg with his boot. “Did you hear him, Captain?”
“I heard him,” Kinsley said grimly.
“Well? What did he say?”
“A name.” Standing, he pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his greatcoat and wiped his hands clean. “He said a very important name. Bring the carriage round, Reed, and be quick about it.”
“Aye, sir.” Reed scampered off like a puppy chasing after a ball, leaving Kinsley alone with the man who he now knew, beyond a doubt, was in fact the notorious – and wanted – Duke of St. Giles. Crouching back down, he pulled out a small silver flask.
“Here,” he said quietly, pushing it into West’s hand. “It’s only water, but it will help clear your throat.”
West’s left eye slit open and he eyed Kinsley with suspicion as he slowly sat up. “Who are you?” he asked before taking the flask and downing half the contents without waiting for a response. Swiping his mouth with the back of his hand he grimaced and, heavily nursing his right side where Kinsley suspected more than a few ribs were broken, lurched clumsily to his feet.
Kinsley stood as well. Side by side the two men were nearly identical in height, but that was where the similarities ended, both in personality and physical appearance.
For most of his life Kinsley had gone out of his way to obey the law. He believed in Queen and Country first, family second, himself last. He was a private man by nature. At twenty-nine years of age he’d never taken a wife, for the both the reasons he’d shared with Emily and the fact that a wife would always come second to his work as a Runner. He was married to his work. Work that he took as seriously as breathing.
Those who called him Captain knew him to be hard but fair. They also knew he did not suffer lawbreakers lightly, and were it not for the uneasy feeling that Lady Emily was in grave danger he would already have West in handcuffs. Ignoring his question, he asked one of his own. “What happened here? Who did this to you?”
“I don’t have time for this.” Still favoring his right side, West began limping across the square. Kinsley kept up with him easily and when he would have stepped out onto the street he grabbed his arm and swung him around. In the distance he heard a horse whinny, and knew Reed would soon be returning with the carriage.
“You spoke a name when you were coming to,” he said urgently. “A woman’s name.”
West shoved at the hand on his shoulder, but Kinsley held firm. His eye narrowed, fixing on Kinsley’s face with obvious loathing. “What does that matter? You’re a Runner,” he said, speaking with the same level of disgust Kinsley used for criminals. “Which means you are of no use to me. So either arrest me or let me pass, but stop wasting my bloody time.”
“You came here tonight to meet Lady Emily Wilmington, didn’t you?” Kinsley asked, carefully studying West’s countenance to gauge his reaction. When the duke’s jaw clenched he released his arm. “What happened? Where is she?”
“He t
ook her.” West looked past Kinsley as though he expected whomever he was talking about to suddenly appear, but the street was still and silent. Save for Reed bumbling around somewhere with the carriage, they were alone.
“Who took her? I can help you if you tell me.” The very idea that he was offering assistance to one of London’s most notorious criminals – not to mention a man wanted for the murder – was so unbelievable it was nearly surreal. Kinsley knew he was treading a very thin line between right and wrong, and were it not for the promise he’d made the night before he would have been handling things far differently.
“You’re him, aren’t you? The man Emily met last night at the ball,” West elaborated when Kinsley’s brows pulled together in confusion. “She said you were a Runner and that she told you about us, including where we would meet tonight.”
“She did. She also made me give her my word I would not to do anything about it.” He shook his head. “She told me where London’s most wanted criminal would be, and I vowed not to arrest him. I still do not know how she did it. Trevor Kinsley, at your service.”
The tiniest hint of a smile pulled at one side of West’s mouth as a glimmer of recognition glinted in his eye. “And I asked her not to let anyone know I’m in London and she tells the bloody Captain of the Bow Street Runners. More often than not Emily does what she pleases when she pleases. It’s who she is, and but one of the reasons why I love her and,” he added meaningfully, his brows drawing low, “would do anything to protect her.”
“She said you were a good man.” At last the carriage appeared at the end of the street, but Kinsley kept his eyes trained on St. Giles. “Are you?”
West met his gaze unflinchingly. “I am trying to be.”
The Duke of St. Giles Page 23
