Vow: A Lords of Action Novel

by K. J. Jackson

“Miss Detton? Ara—Arabella?”

  Ever so slowly, her head moved, sliding sideways. She cocked her face to the side, looking up at him through the slit in her left eye, swollen with blackness.

  The slit closed, her face turning back down to the earth.

  Caine jumped the wall, his hands going gently to her shoulders, turning her over.

  She whimpered in pain at the movement, her body trying to cringe from him, but not able to move.

  Her bottom lip was split. Both eyes blackened. Her cheek swollen. Blood smeared everywhere about her face. And that was just what he could see. The way her body moved—or didn’t want to—he could tell she had cracked ribs, and her shoulder was possibly out of place.

  “Good God, Ara. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Die. Leave…leave me.” Her voice was only the faintest cracking whisper.

  “Who did this to you? How did you get here?”

  “Crawled.” Her mouth closed, lips trembling against pain. “Leave me…die…I want to die.”

  “No.”

  “Please.” Her hand shaking, she raised it and gripped his arm with far more strength than her broken body should have allowed. “Please…please, let me die. Leave me here...please.”

  “You are not going to die, Ara. I will not allow it.”

  She tried to shake her head, the slightest tear slipping down her temple.

  “No, Ara. No.” Caine couldn’t stifle the rage exploding in his gut, and his fist slammed into the ground. “Who did this to you?”

  “Father. Sins. My sins. I am a sinner. Die…let me die. Please.”

  His knuckles smashed into the ground again.

  A breath to control himself, and Caine looked up to his driver. Tom stood on the other side of the wall watching, waiting. “Help me get her to the carriage, man.”

  Tom nodded, jumping over the wall and helping to lift Ara as gently as possible into Caine’s arms. Swinging his legs over the wall, Caine carried her to the carriage as Tom ran ahead to open the door.

  “Where to, m’lord?”

  “A coaching inn at least two towns away, Tom. At least that far—farther if we can get to one with haste.”

  ~~~

  Ara opened her eyes, instantly confused at how little light came into her sight. She tried to open her eyes farther.

  They didn’t pull wide. They couldn’t pull wide.

  Pain. Needles around her eyes. Throbbing. Her cheek revolting against the slightest twitch.

  “You are awake.”

  Ara tried to turn her head. Was that a pillow under her neck? And water dripping along her jaw, pooling behind her ear?

  “No. Do not move. It will be easier for you if you are still.”

  Ara found the source of the voice through the thin slits the skin around her eyes afforded.

  “Wh…where?” The one word stuck in her throat, travelling upward with a slow exhale.

  “My driver found you on the side of the road. You are in a coaching inn in Shillington. I am Caine Farlington. Do you remember me?”

  She nodded.

  “No. Again, do not move. I can see it pains you.” He dragged a wet sponge along her cheek, the water stinging. “I am almost done cleaning you. You said your father did this to you?”

  She didn’t want to acknowledge his question. Acknowledge what had happened.

  After everything. After being taken. After the wretched thugs. The nauseating smells. The invasion of her body. All she had wanted was to be home.

  Home and safe and warm. It was all she wanted.

  But then her father.

  Her mouth cracked open, and she could feel the tender skin on her lips tear, fresh blood seeping onto her tongue before she could get words out. “I am a whore…not his daughter…he has no daughter…no daughter…”

  So soft, she could barely hear her own words in her head.

  But Mr. Farlington heard her. He grimaced, the deep-set frown on his face tightening. His hand jerked on the sponge.

  “I…I told him. It was so hard to speak the words, but I told him. They never…I am still a virgin. But he…he…”

  “He what?”

  “This.” Her eyes closed, she drew breath against the pain the words caused her. “Disowned. This is what he did. I am no longer his daughter.”

  Mr. Farlington’s head shook as he lifted the sponge from her face and turned, dunking it into a bowl of water. He turned back to her.

  “I am your guardian now, Ara. You are a distant cousin from Devonshire. My brother is dying, so I have taken over running the estate. No one will question it when I settle you in a townhouse in London as a relative. You will have a small staff, a chaperone. All of it above reproach. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

  She heard his words, but couldn’t trust them. Couldn’t trust anything. Not anymore. Not after her father. “Why?”

  He turned, looking away. Looking at something Ara couldn’t see through her swollen eyes.

  He did not look at her as his voice eased past the pounding in her ears. “Because it is the way of right.”

  “Why? Why could you not let me die? I want it.”

  “I do not know why, but I need you to live, Ara.” His eyes whipped to her, a hard glint in them. “You will heal. And you will hold your head up, Ara. You will not let this become you, do you understand?”

  She stared at him, not able to believe his words.

  “I will not give up on you, Ara, as long as you do not give up on you. Tell me you understand.”

  She nodded.

  But she didn’t understand—not a single thing that had happened to her. Not one of the horrendous moments. She would never understand how men could be so heinous.

  But she could lie. She could survive.

  And if Mr. Farlington was right, maybe one day she could hold her head high again.

  ~~~

  “My lord, thank the heavens you are home.”

  Caine set aside the numbers he had been poring over, the vellum crinkling as he set it on the fat ledger on the left of his desk. Disappearing into the numbers of the estate had been his only solace during the past month since Isabella had died, and his annoyance at being interrupted set his shoulders tight.

  He looked up to see Mrs. Merrywent step into his study, pulling the heavy door closed behind her.

  Caine’s butler had announced her only a second before she had rushed past the man and into the room. It was far too late into the night, and it was his study, but Mrs. Merrywent was not one to bow to propriety. She had always skirted on the far reaches of acceptable behavior, which was why his younger sisters had so adored her as their governess.

  Propriety aside, Mrs. Merrywent was also unfailingly loyal and prided herself on her discreetness. Caine could think of no other more fit to be Ara’s chaperone.

  Mrs. Merrywent looked about his study, her eyes reaching into every corner. “You are alone?”

  “I am. Is something amiss with Ara?” He had checked in on Ara and Mrs. Merrywent several times during the past month to make sure everything was running smoothly in the new household. He had set up Ara in a respectable house on Gilbert Lane, but he had not visited them in the last week and a half.

  “Yes. You need to stand, my lord. Action. You need to move, to come with me.”

  Caine’s chair flew back, hitting the wainscoting as he jumped to his feet. “Where is Ara?”

  “I cannot get her to leave the spot, my lord. I have tried. She had the driver bring us there.”

  A chill ran up Caine’s spine. “Where is Ara, Mrs. Merrywent?”

  “She is in the East End, outside a brothel, my lord. Or that is what it looks to be.”

  “What? Dammit to hell, Mrs. Merrywent, it is the middle of the night.” Caine shot from behind the desk, grabbing his dark jacket from where he had draped it along the back of a side chair.

  “I know, my lord. I could not stop her. She has been there for hours. Since nightfall. I never would have let her get i
n the hack if I had known where she told the driver to go. She refuses to leave.”

  “You need to return to the Gilbert Lane townhouse, Mrs. Merrywent.” Caine shoved his arms into his jacket.

  “I will come with, my lord. You trusted me with her—she is my responsibility.”

  “No.” The word was sharp, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to have to worry about getting two women out of the East End in the middle of the night unscathed. “And not a word of this to anyone. Concoct whatever story you need to, to hide Ara’s absence from the staff.”

  “Of course, my lord. Not a word.”

  Caine stepped past her, yanking the door open.

  Mrs. Merrywent grabbed his arm. “She is in front of a place called the Jolly Vassal, my lord, it is on—”

  “I know the place, Mrs. Merrywent. Thank you.” Caine paused to incline his head, his voice a deadly warning. “Not a word. To anyone. Ever.”

  Her hand dropped from his arm, her face solemn with her nod.

  A half hour later—far too long for Caine’s liking—his black, crestless carriage came to a stop down the block from the Jolly Vassal.

  Caine jumped from his carriage and ran up to several stationary hacks. Disregarding privacy, he started yanking open the doors of the coaches to check the interiors from the street side, hidden from where a group of hackney drivers huddled with a bottle of brandy.

  Two empty hacks. One with a whore on a man’s lap.

  He ripped open the door of the fourth hack. His heart dropped.

  Ara.

  Wide eyes whipped to him. She twisted around from her kneeling position in front of the opposite window.

  Before she could say a word, Caine jumped into the carriage, slamming the door closed. “What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Ara?” Fury laced each word as they sliced into the staleness of the carriage.

  “I—”

  “No. No excuses. There is no excuse for this. For here. For being here.” He grabbed her shoulders, fingers digging into her flesh as he lifted and shoved her onto a bare wooden bench.

  She instantly struggled, smacking his chest as she wedged her feet up to kick him away.

  Recognizing the panic he was causing her, Caine released her, dropping back onto the bench across from her, his hands high and unmoving to calm her.

  His breath seething, he stared at her, trying to control the savage storm in the pit of his stomach. She wore a pretty yellow muslin walking dress, demure, the top lace reaching high across her chest, but the whole of the outfit sat in complete contrast to the dark night. Blond strands from her upsweep scattered askew, her green eyes wary and her face flushed from the scuffle. The last traces of the beating from her father had disappeared from her cheeks, but Caine could tell by the way she held herself to the side that she had just aggravated her wrecked ribs. Or more appropriately, he had just aggravated her injuries.

  “I am getting you out of here, Ara.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Her hands came up, her fingers rubbing her forehead, hiding her face.

  Caine waited.

  With a growl, her arms dropped, her eyes finding Caine in the dim light escaping from the windows of the closest building. “No. I saw them. I saw them—those men that took me. I saw them. I was at the market this afternoon and I saw them.” Her words flew frantic, furious. “They were in a coach and they had a girl with them. She was young. And crying. And looking out from the carriage window. And I saw.”

  “Saw what?” Caine’s voice softened, but he said the words carefully, giving her no rein to think that her current actions were in any way acceptable.

  “The look. The exact look I know. I saw it on her, and I know it too well. The look of disbelief. Of desperately wanting someone to see her. Help her. Save her. The fear. The confusion.”

  “So you came here?”

  “I followed them. I stopped a hack and told him to follow the carriage to wherever it went. It came here.” Her eyes drifted from him to the building across the street. “I tried to get Mrs. Merrywent to stay at the market but she jumped in with me.” Her eyes jolted back to Caine. “Mrs. Merrywent—where is she? She left—I would not go with her.”

  “She is safe. She came to me. But you put her in danger, Ara. This area is no place for either one of you.”

  “Oh. I did not mean to put her in danger.”

  Damn, she was too innocent. Even after what she went through. Yet it didn’t temper his ire. “You are sitting across from a brothel, Ara—what type of area do you think this is?”

  Her head snapped back as though he had struck her. “I did not think—”

  “Exactly. You did not think. Now we are going to get out of here.”

  “No.”

  “You keep saying that word, Ara, and I am getting tired of it.” He pushed from the bench, reaching for her arm to drag her out of the hack.

  She was quick, her fingers wrapping around his wrist just as he grabbed her upper arm. “They are selling that girl tonight, Mr. Farlington.”

  Caine froze, his face right above hers. “How do you know that?”

  “I have been waiting here, watching and listening for hours. Men pass by and they are drunk and they talk. There is to be an auction tonight. They put a damn description of her in an invitation.”

  Her head shook and then her voice went to a whisper as her wide eyes lifted to meet his gaze. “Did they do that with me? A description in an invitation?”

  Caine could not lie to her. Whatever she was doing here, whatever she was searching for, she needed the truth. “Yes.”

  Her lips drew in, and she half nodded, half shook her head as her eyes closed. Caine could see her inhale, trying to calm the tremble in her body.

  “What did you think you were going to do here tonight, Ara?”

  Her eyes opened to him, the intensity in the green orbs startling. “Get her out.”

  Caine dropped his head with a long exhale. He loosened his hold on her arm, but did not move from his position above her as he met her glare. “How?”

  “I do not know.” Her hand fell from his wrist. “But I am going to do it. Sneak up the back. Grab her when they drag her out. I do not know. But I am going to get her out.”

  “You cannot do this, Ara.”

  “I can.”

  “You cannot. They will kill you. Or take you to sell you again.”

  “I do not care what you say, Mr. Farlington. I have to get her out. I will figure out a way. I cannot let this happen to her. She is just a girl. A girl.” She looked up at him. Fire in her eyes. Her voice vehement. “It is the way of right.”

  Caine stared at her. She was not only an innocent, but now she thought she could snatch a girl from a brothel. Caine sighed. And she was going to do it with or without him.

  Better that she do it with him.

  “I will go in and buy her, Ara.”

  She blinked, shock shaking her features. “You will?”

  “Yes.”

  It took a long moment, and then she nodded. “Thank you. And I am sorry I kicked you.”

  Caine offered a slight nod to her apology, then ran his fingers through his hair, glancing over his shoulder to the brothel. He wished he had Fletch with him. That was not a place to be in alone, dressed as he was.

  He looked back to Ara. “What does she look like—the girl?”

  “What? Why do you need to know?”

  His eyebrow cocked. She couldn’t be that innocent, could she? She had been in the brothel—she knew exactly what happened in there. “They sell more than one at a time, if they have them. Just like when you were—” He cut himself off as her face tightened at his words. “They like a big production.”

  Her face relaxed slightly. “Well then, you must buy all of them.”

  “I cannot. It is not done, Ara.”

  “But you must.” Her eyes went wide, begging as she scooted to the edge of the bench.

  “They will not allow it.” Hi
s head shook. “And if they realize I am not buying one for my own…pleasure, they will make me pay for ruining their sale.”

  “What do you mean, make you pay? Why can you not just purchase all of them?”

  Caine rubbed his eyes. Blasted innocence. “They will beat me, toss me into the gutter if I am lucky. Much worse if I am not. These men—there is no room for honor or respect in this world, Ara, and the spoils of virgins must be sold for the purpose, or they have no business. If they have even a second of doubt as to why I want to buy one, I am at their mercy.”

  “Oh.” She sank back against the wood where squabs of cushion once existed, her hands twisting together above her belly. “Well, I do not want that.”

  “Thank you.”

  She closed her eyes, her face tilting back as she clunked the crown of her head on the board behind her. She knocked it three more times.

  He reached over and grabbed her knee through her skirts. “Stop. You will not injure yourself, Ara.”

  One more clunk, and her head rested on the wall of the carriage.

  Caine removed his hand. “So what did the girl look like?”

  Ara’s right eye cracked open. “Only one?”

  “One.”

  She opened both eyes and brought herself to a ramrod straight posture, her voice low, haunted. “She was small with dark hair that hung very long. She had such frightened eyes—huge—except you will not be able to see her face, will you, with the veils?”

  Caine shook his head. “Was she taller than you?”

  “No. Maybe a head shorter as far as I could tell from the distance. It was only a glance when the carriage door opened and she was sitting.”

  Ara leaned forward, one knee going to the floor of the hack, and grabbed his arm. “You are positive you cannot find a way to buy more? It is just that they—”

  “We can only save them one at a time, Ara. No more. It is too dangerous.”

  “You are firm upon that?”

  “Do you want them to toss me out here—to find you in the process and drag you back into the place? For it is a very real possibility, Ara.”

  She recoiled back onto her bench, fear at his scenario—or his harsh tone—flashing across her face. “No.”

  He forced his words softer, but could not loosen the hard set to his jaw. “Then we save one at a time, Ara. No more.”