by Emma Wildes
“Not precisely wrong,” he muttered, reading over the note again before he folded it up and put it in his pocket.
With a lift of her brows, Cassandra looked at him questioningly, her curiosity deepening when she realized he looked decidedly uncomfortable. She said slowly, “If you don’t wish to tell me, Ross, it is up to you, of course. I will say the woman seemed quite nervous and only approached me when I was momentarily alone.”
Her husband sighed, sinking lower in the seat, his long legs touching her skirts. “It doesn’t surprise me Danielle was nervous. Her husband would probably punish her cruelly if he knew she approached you, much less sent a note of warning to me.”
“Danielle?” The casual use of the woman’s first name and the brooding set of his mouth made her feel a flicker of dismay.
“Lady Babcock. With gossip being as it is, I suppose you’ll hear anyway, so I might as well tell you myself that last year, before I left for Africa, she and I were…involved.”
In other words, lovers.
“I see,” she said, feeling a little hollow inside. It hurt, plain and simple, to think of him with another woman, even though rationally she knew there had been many. Her fingers pleated the material of her skirt suddenly and she looked away.
“The expression on your face makes me feel like a knave.” He ran his hand carelessly through his dark hair in evident frustration. “Before you, I vow, I don’t think I could even define the word guilt. Jesus, Cassie, you’ve turned my world upside down. What happened before we married has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel now. Why on earth should I apologize for something that happened when you were not anything more than a casual acquaintance?”
How I feel now.
That terse admission, coupled with the fact that for once he hadn’t immediately resorted to trying to coax her into distraction by taking her in his arms, made Cassandra feel better instantly. “You’ve certainly changed my world, too,” she pointed out with a small smile, looking back at him. “And I never asked for any apology. So, since we are being so honest, tell me, why did your former mistress send you a note—through your wife, no less?” She frowned. “You said ‘warning.’ What kind of warning? I must admit I don’t understand.”
“Lord Babcock apparently hasn’t forgotten his wife’s indiscretion. Luckily, I am armed at all times. It’s a habit, I’m afraid, after traveling to some fairly unsavory portions of this world.”
“Armed?” Cassandra stared. Ross merely looked calmly back.
At that moment there was a loud crack and the carriage lurched violently to the side. The world seemed to tilt with a jarring jolt. Not expecting it, Cassandra tumbled and slid on the wide seat. Ross lunged forward and caught her wrist, keeping her from hitting the side of the vehicle, his booted feet braced on the floor. “Are you all right, my sweet?”
The vehicle sat now a precarious angle. Trying to find a dignified position on the tilted seat was almost impossible. Cassandra said breathlessly, “I’m fine. What happened?”
“I think we just broke a wheel, but I’ll find out.”
Exiting the carriage would involve crawling through the door, which now sat almost above them. Cassandra watched him shove the door open and begin to clamber out. To her horror, when he was halfway out of the damaged coach, she heard a sharp but definite thud and his tall body slumped as he abruptly slid back inside and landed practically in her lap. Her scream echoed outward as she saw the stream of blood running down his temple and over the clean line of his cheek. He was sprawled half on the angled floor, half on the seat, and Cassandra was pinned under the weight of his body.
“Shut up, yer ladyship or I’ll kill him here and now. Squawk again and I blow his noble head off.”
Her gaze flew up to the square opening of the door. A broad face hung there, framed in shaggy dark hair, and the man laughed. His eyes were like dark, flat holes and in his hand he held a pistol, which he brandished in what even to her inexperienced eyes looked like a business-like way.
Cassandra clutched her unconscious bleeding husband and obeyed, disbelief making her almost paralyzed.
The man chuckled in a low evil sound that echoed through the night. “Nice to make yer acquaintance, Lady Winterton.”
Chapter 8
The crack echoed mercilessly in the room and Randolph Babcock watched his wife crumple to the floor of his study, clutching her face.
Stupid bitch. When would she learn to not test him?
“I said,” he enunciated clearly, “that I will be back later.”
Her eyes looked huge, filled with tears of both pain and evident pleading. Danielle sat up, and already her jaw looked bruised where his fist had made contact. “Don’t do this,” she gasped.
“Don’t do what, my dear?” He adjusted his gloves casually, glancing up at the clock. Perfect. The man he had watching for Winterton to leave the ball had just reported in, so that meant the plan was in motion. Unfortunately, Danielle had arrived home at the same time, and consequently overheard some of the conversation, it seemed.
And dared question him about it.
“Don’t hurt anyone else because of my mistake.”
Randolph looked down at her prone form and let a derisive sneer twist his mouth. “I believe it was also Winterton’s mistake to bed my faithless wife.”
“It was all my fault,” she babbled, still holding her bruised cheek. “I’ve admitted that. I told him we had an understanding, that you wouldn’t mind. I wasn’t even sure you would mind. Certainly there is nothing about me you hold in high regard in any way.”
That was true enough. At one time, he’d at least felt casual lust for his wife, but mostly he’d married her because she was young and pretty and—he thought—malleable. Unfortunately, Danielle had proven to be more spirited than he expected, which he found intensely irritating. Oh yes, she was afraid of him, but that fear was tempered by defiance. Her affair with the handsome young viscount proved that.
“Be waiting in my room, naked in my bed,” he said coldly, running his gaze over her body. “When I get back I’ll show you my regard. This time, do not try to drink yourself insensible. If I even smell wine on your breath, you will pay dearly. I want you aware every minute when you dutifully spread your legs that it is me, not your dead lover, taking my pleasure. You can mourn his tragic passing as we couple, and like the whore you are, I will expect you to service me in any way I request.”
She blanched, as he had known she would, the sickened expression on her lovely face an incentive to be done with his revenge on Winterton and hurry back home. Truthfully, it had been a long time since he’d felt the slightest inclination toward sex. Danielle didn’t resist him any longer, no matter how brutal he became, and it simply wasn’t arousing to bed her. However, this evening the thought was appealing, especially once he’d been there to witness Winterton’s death. The irony of the idea excited him.
“You are insane.” The whisper was soft, but edged with a faint hint of rebelliousness. “You should see the expression on your face.”
He was well-aware she thought him deranged. He suspected that Harold also thought he was mad, but neither had ever dared say the words out loud. The first impulse was to punish her then and there, to put his hands around her slender neck and snap it like a twig. He controlled it somehow, though it left his hands quivering and his breath coming in shallow gasps.
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised with a cruel, thin smile. “And we can discuss my sanity at length, if that is what you wish.”
To his gleeful satisfaction, he could hear the soft sound of weeping as he swung on his heel and exited the room.
* * * *
The room was unbearably squalid, with little more than a bed with rumpled, soiled linens, a rickety chest of drawers, and a threadbare rug on the dirty floor. The one window, small and high, was covered in wooden slats that were visibly nailed to the wall. One small candle sputtered on a warped tin plate, the greasy wax giving off an unpleasant rancid s
mell that just added to the other disgusting odors. The place was some sort of tavern or inn, she had seen that when they arrived, but they had been carried in though a back entrance and up a flight of narrow stairs.
Bound hand and foot, the gag in her mouth making her urge to scream useless, Cassandra managed to roll and get into a sitting position. Both she and Ross had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor, and even though he was still unconscious, he was also securely tied up.
Good God, what were they going to do? She was more than frightened, she was petrified.
The two horrible men had left, that was the only saving grace about the whole thing. One of them had mumbled something about a drink downstairs while they waited, and his hulking companion had agreed. Though she was intensely relieved they were gone, there had been no mistaking the sound of the door being bolted from the outside.
Ross groaned suddenly, a low soft sound, and her gaze flew to his face. He was still unnaturally pale, but the wound at his temple had stopped oozing. Dried blood streaked his cheek and stained his cravat, and from the ride in the disreputable carriage used to transport them and lying on the filthy floor, his elegant evening clothes were soiled and disheveled.
Scooting closer, which wasn’t an easy task in her long skirts, she made a muffled sound of encouragement. When his long lashes fluttered, she felt a surge of joy and her eyes filled with hot tears.
Not that their predicament was much better if he was awake, but at least she wouldn’t feel so terribly alone.
Moments later his eyes opened, showing at first a flash of confusion over the unfamiliar surroundings. “What the devil?” he muttered, his gaze sharpening on her face, registering the gag. “Cassie?”
Immediately he tried to sit up, and apparently realized he was tied.
He said furiously, “Bloody hell.”
Cassandra nodded, the best she could do, heartily agreeing with that sentiment.
“Are you harmed in any way?” he asked hoarsely. “Please God, tell me you aren’t hurt.”
She shook her head and made an inarticulate noise into the cloth stuffed into her mouth. Not yet, she thought in some despair. Their kidnappers had been daring enough to tamper with their carriage and follow them until the wheel snapped, abducting them both in the middle of a fashionable neighborhood. As far as she could tell when she was hauled from the damaged vehicle, they had rendered the poor driver unconscious in the same vicious way they had knocked Ross cold. Whatever came next was not likely to be any more pleasant. They had both looked at her in a hungry fashion that made her stomach lurch.
“I take it, since I am not gagged, it would be little use to yell for help.” He sounded remarkably calm.
The place had looked ominously ill-kept and seedy from her brief glimpse of the outside before she was summarily hauled over the shoulder of one of their captors and carried in. Once again, she shook her head. She’d been gagged to keep anyone from hearing her during their journey. Now she had an awful feeling it wouldn’t matter.
“Just as well, my head is pounding like a drum and the thought of shouting is singularly unappealing. Did they take my knife?”
That question made her go very still as she recalled what they were discussing before the carriage accident. I am armed at all times.
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, but then slowly shook her head. As far as she could recall, they hadn’t searched him. A small glimmer of hope surfaced.
“It’s in my right boot,” he said urgently. “In a special sheath, designed for ease of access. Please, sweetheart, you’ll have to do it. If we position ourselves correctly, even with your hands tied, I think you can get at it. It should pull free easily.”
There was certainly nothing to do but try, so she did as she was told, squirming around so her back was to him, following his instructions as her fingers groped first along the solid warm surface of his thigh to just below the knee and the top of his fitted boot. Sure enough, the knife was there, but it wasn’t as easy to remove as he promised, not with her half-numb fingers.
“You are doing fine, Cassie…that’s it, my love. Pull a little harder. I imagine for you it is a little heavy.”
A moment later, she felt it come miraculously free and he was right, it did feel heavy. But, she realized as the sense of triumph faded, she was still bound with her hands behind her back, and so was he.
“Just let it rest on the floor.” Ross still sounded almost infuriatingly nonchalant. “It’s already blade up and extremely sharp. If you will simply hold onto the handle as best you can, I think I can manage to free myself.”
It was not an easy process particularly, but she did her best, keeping the knife in place as he sawed the ropes around his wrists along the upturned blade.
It seemed forever but was probably no more than a few minutes before he deftly cut the bonds on her wrists and freed her ankles. Cassandra ripped the gag from her mouth with relief, and croaked, “Oh Ross.”
He held her gently against his chest for a moment without saying a word, his arms warm and strong as his mouth brushed her temple. Then he extracted himself and went to try both the window and door. She saw he was bleeding again, this time at his wrists, bright red staining the cuffs of his fine lawn shirt. “You cut yourself,” she said with a small cry.
“It’s nothing. A couple of scratches and the least of my worries at the moment.” He frowned in disgust as he pushed on the door with one broad shoulder. “As rundown as this place looks, wouldn’t you know the door is solid as a rock. I can’t even budge it. The window also, is shuttered from the outside as well as blocked from the inside. It looks like we might need to just wait for our lovely new friends to return. How many are there?”
“Two, and at least one has a gun.”
“I see. That’s reassuring. Two I can handle.” He looked grim and more than a little dangerous. Gone was the cultured courtier, all easy masculine grace and smooth manners. Knife in hand, his dark hair rumpled and his mouth set in a determined line, he looked instead angry and comfortingly competent.
“They’re huge.” Cassandra shivered. “Both of them.”
Her husband didn’t look particularly concerned. “I have one devil of a headache and I owe at least one of them for it, not to mention that you’ve been caused discomfort and frightened.” His blue eyes glittered as he looked around the small room again. “I don’t know just what they have in mind, but if Babcock is behind it, I am sure it is nothing pleasant. Luckily, I have an idea if you will play along, sweetheart.”
* * * *
It was an undeniable fact that his lovely bride was not only bright, inquisitive, and beautiful, she was extremely brave. Ross adjusted the ropes around Cassandra’s shapely ankles to make them look as if they were still tied, with an apologetic smile pushed the gag back into her mouth, and settled back on the floor in what he hoped looked like an unconscious sprawl. It was his intention their captors would be distracted by his supposed continued incapacitation and not notice the rope was gone from around his legs. It was simply too dangerous to try to spring to his feet and chance getting tangled up. He’d considered waiting by the door and attacking the moment it opened. However, the room was so small they’d see at once he was no longer in the middle of the floor, and he just couldn’t risk alerting their abductors to the fact he was free before he got a clear chance at a fair fight. The element of surprise seemed the best course of action.
There were voices at the door almost the minute he laid back down. The knife felt solid in his hand, a French blade he’d bought in a Moroccan market on the advice of a fellow traveler. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to that wise Arab gentleman, he watched through slitted lids as the door scraped open.
Cassandra was right, the two men who entered were both solidly built and going to fat, with huge hulking shoulders and unshaven faces. They were nearly indistinguishable from each other with thickets of dark unkempt hair and small dark eyes. One of them said sourly, “His lordship still out cold, Den.
Did ye have to hit him so hard?”
“I was told that for a fancy swell, he might have some fight in ’em,” the other one responded defensively.
“We can’t have a turn with the lass until he’s awake to watch it.”
“Why not?” One of them smiled, showing a chipped front tooth, his feral gaze fastened on Cassandra’s bound form. “We can always have a second go when he finally wakes. Nothin’ wrong with that, I reckon. Babcock’s damned late and I’m ready.” He scratched his crotch meaningfully.
Against the gag, Ross could hear his wife give a whimper of fear, which probably was not entirely feigned. For himself, he simply felt an icy murderous rage that made him take a careful deep breath.
“I’ll untie her…her legs that is.” There was a chorus of hoarse laughter as the man who spoke bent over to touch the rope at her ankles.
Intent on their victim, neither man noticed him shift position and rise to a crouch. On cue, Cassandra kicked upward, and her fear must have given impetuous to the attack for Ross heard the solid crack with satisfaction as he jumped for the other man.
Taken unaware, the big man barely had time to register what happened before Ross had the knife to his throat. He slashed in a clean long sweep of his arm and saw the horrified realization of death in his adversary’s beady eyes before his knees began to crumple. The other man had staggered backwards, and blood streamed from his nose. He swore viciously and his hand went inside his coat to grope for his own weapon, but, content the other man was finished, Ross held out the knife in clear challenge and feinted in.
He was taller, faster, younger, and operating on cold, unadulterated fury. Unprepared for physical confrontation, the big man barely had time to pull his knife free before Ross caught him in a wicked slice to the stomach, and when he howled in pain and doubled over, it was almost simple to kill him.
Barely breathing hard, Ross turned and saw Cassandra’s pale, terrified face with a stab of acute guilt. Wiping the bloody blade on her would-be attacker’s coat, he sheathed it and went to kneel at her side. During the quick fight she’d edged backwards so she leaned against the bed. He took one of her shaking hands in his and said quietly, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. This will all be fine, I promise.”
