Holdsworth cursed. “You are a fool if you believe that. Even now, I’ve had him summoned.”
Her heart started. “Him?”
“Blackthorne.”
Lily smoothed her features to not allow this monster a glimpse of the tumult raging within. He had summoned Derek here. He would expect the duke, in all his terror of venturing out, to come to the edge of London and retrieve his ward and her—a woman he’d rather see to the devil than anything else.
A knock split the quiet and she looked to the door, blinking slowly as Holdsworth strode over. He peered around the curtain and then pulled the door open. The man who’d clouted her had since divested himself of his too-tight livery. He didn’t spare a look for the other occupants of the room. “He should arrive any moment.”
Her heart stuttered. Let it be another he. Let some other man be even now awaiting.
Holdsworth gave a pleased nod. “And the note instructed him to arrive alone?”
“It did.”
An ugly smile twisted his lips that chilled Lily from the inside out. And staring at the greedy man with the glint of madness in his eyes, the truth struck hard in her chest—none of them would survive. He intended to kill them all for his material gain. “No,” she whispered, staring on in horror as the two men casually spoke, periodically nodding to one another. It was why he did not worry about discovery at Derek’s hands. She slid her gaze over to Flora who sat huddled on the sofa, her chubby cheeks pale, and then cautiously Lily slipped across the room, not taking her gaze from the two men engrossed in discussion.
She reached the side of the sofa and leaned down. “I need you to come with me,” she whispered. Lily held a hand out and helped Flora up. Leaning down, she put her lips close to her ear. “You are to make your way down the hall.” To those hated chambers she’d called her own for too many years. “There is a latched window. You are to go out it. Do not wait for me. You are to run and continue running.” While she issued the directives, she kept her gaze trained on the two men at the front of the room. “When you find someone, you need to tell them you are the Duke of Blackthorne’s charge and they will help you. Do you understand?”
“I’m—”
She pressed her fingertip to the girl’s lips muffling that sound. “Go,” she mouthed as Holdsworth and his lackey concluded their discussion. They turned back to her just as Flora disappeared down the hall.
“Tie them...” Holdsworth looked about. He flared his eyes in panic.
Lily gave a triumphant smile and strolled to the opposite end of the parlor, guiding their attention away from that fleet-footed child. “Is something the matter?” she jeered, placing a sofa between them.
Holdsworth roared and flipped a nearby side table. “Find the bloody girl,” he thundered to Thomas who set off in search.
She raced to put herself between the lumbering brute and Flora, momentarily halting his search. He growled and hurled her out of the way as though she were nothing more than a child’s toy. Lily slammed hard into the plaster wall, wincing as pain shot down her shoulder. She cried out as Holdsworth grabbed her by the forearms and dragged her up so their noses touched. Her skin throbbed under the viciousness of his grip. “Where in blazes is she?” he shouted, shaking her so hard, her teeth rattled.
Lily grinned through the pain. “She is gone, Mr. Holdsworth, and you have nothing left to barter His Grace for other than me.” Agony carved away at her heart. “And I am afraid for you; you’ve the one person he’d rather never again see.”
He cursed roundly and then punched her in the head. She crumpled to the floor. The metallic taste of blood flooded her senses, sickening and sweet, nearly choking her. She blinked past the stars dotting her vision and raised a trembling hand to her nose. Warmth coated her fingers and she looked down at her crimson-stained fingers. “You had better hope for your benefit that when he arrives that is not the case,” he hissed. “Because your life is forfeit, then.”
And yet, as he made quick work of tying her limp body and tossing her to the floor, Lily sat staring at the empty hearth rather suspecting her life already was.
Derek stared through the thick copse, straining with his eye to bring the modest, thatched-roof cottage into focus. Tucked away as it was, the stone-front home with its cheerful, if overgrown, gardens settled in the woods, may as well have been a fey creature’s castle. He strode closer and with each step, his leg buckled and groaned in protest.
Before this moment, he’d despised himself for that imperfection for reasons of his own bruised ego. Now he wanted to be whole again, the man he’d been on the battlefield who’d earned commendations and inspired awe so he could be the person Lily and Flora deserved. Derek grimaced and came to a stop beside a towering elm. Shielding himself behind the massive trunk, he rubbed the stiff muscles of his leg and stared at the cottage. What if they were now dead? What if...?
He shoved aside the torturous musings and drew forth the years of battlefield experience that had turned him into a ruthless killer of soldiers. It mattered not whether this man had harmed Lily. His life was forfeit. He fueled himself with that safe truth and when a young, very familiar-looking man stepped out of the cottage, his mind went numb as he recognized him as one of the servants in his employ. He’d allowed this man into his home and any number of others who’d set out to destroy him and those he loved. This is what comes from separating myself from the living.
“Where are ye, girl?” the man’s quietly spoken words filtered through the quiet. “If ye don’ come back ’ere, I’ll kill the lady. Ye want me to kill her?”
Off to the man’s right, a thatch of trees rustled and the brute of a fellow spun back. Derek’s heart stilled at that faint whimpering from within. A slow, evil grin twisted the man’s lips as he walked slowly toward the piteously crying bushes. “That’s a girl. I’ll not ’arm ’er, as long as...” Derek drew forth the gun in his boot, straightened his arm, and then as effortlessly as he’d done upon the fields of Europe, pulled the trigger. The countryside echoed with the thunderous shot, the man’s final cry, and then silence.
The whimpering bushes went silent and Derek would have given up everything he possessed as duke to have Flora in his arms. As he abandoned his weapon and relieved the dead brute of his, Derek touched his fingers to his lips, willing her to silence. She gave a slight nod and he skirted the trees, keeping his gaze fixed on the front door of the cottage. When at last, that door opened again.
Derek tightened his grip on the weapon, as the nauseating acrid scent of fire wafted about his senses. It stole his logic, froze his movements, and kept him captive to the horror of long ago. The gun trembled in his fingers and then fell quietly into a pile of aged leaves. Through the fog of horror, he registered the man stepping outside and looking about.
Swallowing hard, Derek forced back the bile stinging his throat. Memories threatened to transport him back to that terrifying battlefield horror when fire had burned his skin and hands as he’d slapped at the flames in a bid to tamp out the blaze.
“I was expecting your call.” The casual greeting filled the copse and pulled Derek back from the brink of madness. Derek swiftly retrieved the gun and pocketed it. The man spoke with the words of a gentleman, however, the tattered fabric of his garments and the weapon he now waved about spoke an altogether different story.
Then the stranger looked through the thick of the trees and Derek stilled. Could the man see him even now? As quietly as his imperfect limbs allowed, he continued forward. “Come along, Your Grace. Surely you’ll not keep me waiting, not with Miss Bennett waiting so patiently for you.”
And with that, all the battlefield logic and calm deserted him. Derek stepped out of the copse.
The red-haired stranger swung about, waving the gun in his hands. “Do not move,” he cried, shaking that unsteady weapon in his direction. “Do not move unless I say.”
Derek came to an immediate halt. Tufts of smoke spilled from the fireplace and he focused in on this man who’d
sought to steal the only happiness he had found. “What do you want?” he asked quietly. In war, he’d learned there were all manner of fighters. There was the ruthless, proficient soldier who could kill on command, without any compunction in the moment. There were fearful, desperate men like his friend St. Cyr had been in his youth. And then there were the skittish fellows with beady eyes, searching all about. Those were the men who inevitably were the first to fall. This man before him now, his eyes aglow with panic, was one of the latter. It was why Derek knew he would survive and this man would inevitably die.
“You know what I want,” the man snapped. “Your family stole something belonging to me and I want it back.”
The weight of the diamond burned heavy in the front of his pocket. What an evil artifact, craved by black-hearted souls like this man and his brother.
“If Miss Bennett had simply turned it over as she pledged then it would have never come to this.”
Tendrils of fear licked at the edge of his thoughts and he forced his breathing into a semblance of calm. “Where is Miss Bennett?” In her innocence, Lily had been no match for this merciless, ruthless bastard. Alone, dependent upon no one but herself, she would have been easy prey for a man such as Holdsworth. Derek swallowed hard, damning himself for not having been more for her, when everyone else had failed her.
The man waved his gun. “We are discussing the diamond.”
Derek leveled the man with a ducal glare that properly cowed him. “Where is she?”
Holdsworth audibly swallowed. “Sh-she is inside and you should be quick. I’ve set a fire.”
A ringing filled his ears and his nose picked up that acrid scent of fire once more. Oh, God in Heaven. He swung a horror-filled gaze to the front door of that thatched-roof cottage. He imagined her as the flames licked at her skin and the air rent with her cries. She would perish in there. Derek fought through the panic that threatened to pull him into an empty vortex. I love you, you spirited minx. Don’t you dare die. “Is this what you wish to exchange?” He reached into the front of his pocket.
“Stop!” the man cried. He pointed his gun at Derek and he stilled with one hand tucked inside his pocket.
“Calm,” he said as though soothing a fractious mare. “I have something I think you would care to see.” In one fluid movement he drew forth that diamond then tossed it to the ground.
Holdsworth gasped and let his arms drop to his sides. He staggered forward. His greed was his undoing. With a smoothness better suited to the youth he’d been in battle, Derek shot the man through the heart.
The man’s mouth went slack and then he crumpled to the earth in a noiseless heap.
Heart racing, Derek lurched forward, racing through the remaining distance to the small cottage. He stepped into the entrance and a wall of smoke clouded his vision, blinding him as he searched about frantically. “Lily!” he cried. He limped deeper inside and terror warred with determination. “Lily,” he called again.
A muffled whimper cut through the snapping and hissing of the fire licking away at the mahogany furniture at the front of the parlor. Derek lunged toward that sound, his chest burning from the thick smoke blanketing the room. He staggered to a halt. Lily lay upon a floral sofa with her hands tied before her and her face bloodied and bruised. Oh, God. The sight of her suffering was greater than any flame to have touched his skin. He grabbed for her and catching his breath, swung her into his arms. He grimaced at the exertion of each step as he walked through the room rapidly being engulfed in flames.
He closed his eye a moment, savoring the solid, reassuring weight of her in his arms. When he had her away from here and safe, he was never letting her go. He would beg her forgiveness, and make her his duchess, and give her everything she’d ever deserved of life. “Miss Bennett,” he said hoarsely. “You have always had a flare for the dramatics.”
Her head lolled limp, hanging over his arm, giving her the look of a rag doll.
Oh, God. Do not be dead. Do not be dead. You are happiness and light, and I’ve been a bloody stubborn fool, too blind to see that which was truly before me. Derek broke through the entrance and sucked in great gasping breaths of air. As the fire raged within the cottage, he limped faster over the cobbled path lined with flowers, away, further away, and then he collapsed to his knees. He dimly registered a tall, slender gentleman breaking through the brush. Shock slammed into him as Harris raced forward. The servant skidded to a halt before him, kicking up gravel and dirt. “Harris?” he rasped. What in blazes?
“Surely you did not believe I would not come to help you?” His butler reached for the burden in Derek’s arms.
At that undeserved devotion, Derek’s throat worked spasmodically. “See to Flora.” Lowering Lily to the earth, he allowed himself to finally look at her. The air escaped him on a slow hiss. The sight of her blackened eyes and bloodied nose gutted him and he leaned over her prone form. “You are not to die, Lily,” he begged, his tone hoarse from the smoke and the desperation cloying at him. “I am nothing without you. And I’ll not have you die because of that blasted diamond.” He tapped her pale, white cheek with his hand once. Twice. And a third time. “Damn it, Lily, open your eyes.”
“She is dead?”
A dull humming filled his ears as agony dragged the breath from his lungs and threatened to suffocate him. It took a moment for him to register that those words belonged to another. He jerked his head about. Flora hovered and her tear-filled eyes remained fixed on Lily.
Derek gave his head a brusque shake. “No.” The hoarse denial exploded from his lips. “I. Forbid. It,” he bit out. He returned his efforts to Lily. Damn you, open your bloody eyes. “Do you hear that Lily Bennett? You must stay here with me and Flora. We both need you and I’ll not have you selfishly leave us to our own devices.” He laid his head to her chest. “Please.” The entreaty burst forth as a broken sob. I cannot exist in a world in which you are not here. If she left him, all the light would be gone and he’d be plunged into a forever darkness. “I love you.”
A fluttering hand brushed his hair and he jerked his head up. His heart tripped a beat. “Lily?” he demanded hoarsely.
Her lashes fluttered. The ghost of a smile trembled on her full mouth, as she ran her shaking fingers over his cheek. “Derek?” she whispered. He leaned into that butterfly soft caress.
“What, love?” he begged. Whatever she sought, was hers. He would lay the world at her feet if she but let him.
“Y-you are h-hopelessly commanding,” her voice emerged strained. “Do you know that?”
A strangled laugh escaped him as he gathered her close. “I have one more command to issue. Love me, forever.”
Chapter 26
Lily stood in the corner of the chambers she’d occupied at Derek’s home. She stared out the window into the crowded streets below. She traced her fingertip over the windowpane. Lords and ladies moved arm in arm down the fashionable Mayfair Street, while dandies rushed by in their extravagant phaetons. Odd, how all those pillars of the peerage should go about with such an absolute simplicity, when she, Flora, and Derek had been thrust into a hell of Mr. Lucas Holdsworth’s making.
It had been a week since her and Flora’s abduction and in that time, Derek had been perfectly polite and proper and attentive. Yet there had been no further words of love. Lily’s heart caught. She’d begun to believe that command he’d issued outside the blazing cottage had been nothing more than a conjuring she’d dreamed up.
The door opened and her heart started at the precious little child who noisily closed the door behind her. “Are you never coming out, Mrs. Benedict?” she asked without preamble, skipping over to Lily. So wholly innocent, with no mention or talk of the danger they’d faced at Holdsworth’s hands. Oh, at just shy of eight, how much more courageous she was than Lily.
“Hello, Flora,” she began. “I—”
“I asked Uncle Derek and he just grumbled mphpmph.”
Furrowing her brow, Lily stared back questioningly.
Her former charge lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “Youuu know Uncle Derek.”
Despite the misery that had dogged her since that fateful day, a smile tugged at her lips. Oh, how she was going to miss this child. “I do know him,” she said softly. She knew his heart and soul were equally good. She knew he was honorable when most men were not. And she knew when she walked out of this townhouse, her heart would never, ever be healed.
Flora took another bold step closer and leaning up on tiptoe, peered at Lily. “You are not going to l-leave, are you?” And for all the courage in this child, the faint tremor hinted at the little girl who’d known too much loss.
“Oh, sweet.” Her voice cracked and she folded her arms around the child who, with her uncle, had helped put Lily’s broken heart together.
“I say you must stay.” She buried her face into Lily’s dress, muffling her words. “My uncle loves you and you should stay and be his wife, and we shall be a family and—”
Tears welled in her eyes and she was never more grateful than for the quick rap at the door. “Enter,” she called out. She could not bear this.
Dr. Carlson stepped inside. His face wreathed, as usual, in warm smile. “Hello, Lady Flora,” he greeted, carrying his doctor’s bag over.
Turning, the girl looked over at him. “Hullo, Dr. Carlson.”
Lily drew back and gave the little girl’s shoulders a slight squeeze. “Dr. Carlson is here to visit with me. I will not be long.” For this home, this life. Any of it. Her heart contracted with grief.
“Oh, very well,” Flora said on an exaggerated sigh and then with the same ease she’d popped in and out since Lily had arrived, she slipped out of the room, closing the door in her wake.
Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) Page 32
