by Elisa Braden
Phoebe grinned at Augusta, and Augusta grinned back, her heart pounding in relief.
“Thank you, Miss Honeybrook!” Augusta called over her shoulder as they rushed out the door. She halted before the door closed. “Oh, and if a black-haired giant should come asking where I have gone, please tell him.”
“Giant?”
“Yes. Do not offer your services. He is mine.”
The cynical smile returned. “Yours. Understood.”
The alley was scarcely wide enough for the carriage, so they went on foot, Augusta and Phoebe first, followed by Anne, Duff, and John, while the coach took the long way around to the adjacent street. The fourth house down was more dilapidated than Mrs. Renley’s hovel, even from the front. The bricks were crumbling, some having fallen away and ground to dust. The few windows were cracked and filthy, their frames sagging. The door was latched, as Augusta discovered to her frustration when she tried the knob.
Big hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her away. It was Mr. Duff. He shook his head at her. “Let me, Mrs. Kilbrenner, if ye please. Reaver will pound me proper if any harm should come to ye.”
She swallowed. Backed away. Looked around at Phoebe, who glared in concern, her hand resting on her belly. Realizing she had once again charged forth as though she were still battling alone, Augusta nodded and retreated to stand near the coach.
“You must be sensible, Augusta,” Phoebe admonished. “We’ve no idea what this villain might do.”
Augusta nodded, feeling like a girl being reprimanded by her mother. In fact, at the moment, Phoebe greatly resembled their mother. Strong. Steady. Calm.
They watched Duff and John first knock then crack the door with a hard shove of Duff’s shoulder. The jamb appeared to be half rotted, making their entrance easy. As they entered, Augusta could see debris littering the floor of the murky interior.
Her chest wound tight as she watched the two men disappear inside.
Long minutes passed in which the vise squeezing her tighter and tighter grew painful. Her stomach writhed, wanting her to move. To find Ash. To make sure he was not hurt or …
She could not bear to contemplate the “or.” He must be alive.
“They will find him,” Phoebe murmured, clasping Augusta’s hand.
“They will,” Anne affirmed. “Duff is strong, and John dotes on our little mouse.”
She prayed it was true, but the fear in her belly, quivering and making her want to retch, weighed heavily with doubt. She despised this waiting. Ordinarily, she was too busy with her plans and her battling to simmer in a broth of fear. Sitting idle while others battled suited her not at all.
A flicker of something in an upper window caught her eye. She shaded her brow and squinted, trying to see past the grime. It was an arm. Slender and slight. Then it was a hand, small and flattened against one of the panes. Then it was a shoulder, jammed against the glass.
Augusta’s heart stopped. That window was too high for a boy’s shoulder to reach the third pane. Someone was holding him up. Pushing him hard.
The little body jerked and a cheek slid flat along the mullion.
Oh, God. It was Ash. She knew it. He was being tormented.
She didn’t think. There was nothing but her boy. No sound. No thought. No consideration apart from one: She must save him.
Inside the building, she found the stairs quickly. Hiked up her skirts and climbed, automatically avoiding cracks and snags, but stumbling twice.
Needed to get to him. Needed to kill the Dog. Needed to save her boy.
She located the room in the corner of the second floor. Heard a thud just before she charged through it. And saw the Dog, fat and short and mean, looming over a spitting Ash.
Saw it all through a red haze. “Lay another hand upon my boy, and I shall rip you apart,” she growled.
The Dog turned, his jowls shaking with the motion. Then, he laughed. The whoreson laughed.
At his feet, Ash groaned and rolled up onto his elbow. “No,” the boy panted, struggling to stand. “Lady Reaver. Ye must go.”
“Reaver, eh?” The Dog’s smile faded into a sneer, his jowls undulating as he swallowed. “You his woman?”
“I am his wife. Now, release the boy.”
“Boy belongs to me. Way I see it, you stole ’im.”
Augusta strode further into the room. Distantly, she heard heaving breaths behind her. Anne, she guessed from the sound of the gait and the wheeze. “M-Mrs. Kilbrenner. You must get behind me, now.”
The Dog’s eyes narrowed, the fat of his cheeks nearly engulfing the gleaming slits. “Kilbrenner. Not Reaver, after all.” The grin returned, vile and satisfied. “Stupid whore. Come to take what’s mine, ’ave ye?”
“The boy is mine,” Augusta said, the words emerging low and resonant, straight from the center of her being. “You will give him back to me, or so help me, I will see you dead.”
He whistled mockingly. “Mighty big threat. You and that fat bitch couldn’t see a rat dead.”
Ash, wide-eyed and trembling, bolted past the Dog, but the vile creature grasped his arm and threw him backward. Ash landed with a wince and an arm around his ribs.
“Stay put.” He pointed at Augusta. “Get out, both of ye. Or I’ll show ye what I do to those what steal from me.”
Everything happened slowly, yet all at once. Augusta’s fury turned the room bright red. Her feet carried her forward at a dead run. Ash shouted. Anne screamed. The Dog stumbled back, astonishment flashing in serpent eyes. She hit the wall of disgusting flesh full force, shoving and clawing, grasping his ears and yanking hard enough to tear. Meaty hands grabbed at her arms, but she pinched and twisted whatever she could reach, making the Dog yelp and squeal.
Suddenly, pain exploded in her middle. She couldn’t breathe, staggering backward. The Dog was shouting something. Cupping his ear. Charging her. Ash escaped Anne’s hold and latched onto the whoreson’s leg, biting until blood seeped and spilled.
A scream. Gasping.
The gasping was hers. She couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, her chest wouldn’t work. It hurt. So much. He must have hit her. The pain was radiant. Consuming. No air. Her lungs worked to fill themselves. She slumped against the wall, struggling to rise when she couldn’t breathe. Spots floated in her vision.
Needed to protect Ash. Needed to help Anne, who was hitting the Dog with the remnants of a chair. Augusta’s back slid against the wall.
Spots and stars and no air.
Her backside hit the floor. Her head floated, and the room went gray.
That was when she heard it. The rumbling. The roar. A mad, thunderous squall unleashed upon the world with murderous fury. Thuds came as the squall met flesh. Piteous, vile pleas for mercy. Then, only the rumbling and the sickening sounds of cracking bone and someone’s deep voice saying, “Enough, Reaver. Enough.”
Next, she felt tiny hands stroking her hair. Too-thin arms holding her tightly. A small, sweet voice whispering in her ear. “Didn’t mean to break me promise. Didn’t mean it, Lady Reaver. Sorry, I am. So sorry.”
She wanted to answer, to tell her boy she was the one who was sorry for failing to keep him safe. But the spots were growing, and her head was fading until even the pain disappeared.
*~*~*
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I trust you dealt with the villain appropriately. The instances in which being a ruffian may be considered propitious are few. But this, I daresay, is one of them.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter expressing outrage at the violence present in London’s streets and approval of the violence necessary to answer it.
“She is quite well, Mr. Reaver,” the old physician assured him as he sipped tea in Reaver’s drawing room. “No ill effects. Simply had the wind knocked out of her. I am certain you’ve experienced the sensation a time or two, having been a pugilist of some renown.”
Reaver ran a hand through his hair and paced. He couldn’t settle himself. Visions of A
ugusta being struck by a fist, then reeling backward to slump against a wall, gasping for breath, repeated in his mind like a devil’s trick. It was torment.
“My, for a man who does not favor tea, yours is always excellent. Are you ready for me to examine your hands?”
Halting, Reaver glared at Dr. Young. “My hands are fine.”
“They are bleeding.”
He glanced at his knuckles and snorted. “Should have been broken. Duff pulled me off that wretched bugger before I could finish him.”
Dr. Young cleared his throat and smiled. “Yes, well. Probably for the best. A coroner’s inquiry might interfere with your schedule.”
“Duff reports the man disappeared shortly after we left.”
“Oh?”
“Some of the older boys saw my work and decided they’d complete the job.”
“Well, now,” said the old man, nodding. “It is heartening when boys show an interest in keeping things tidy.”
Reaver huffed and shook his head. “The man kept dozens of them in that house. Ran them as his own thieving ring, used some of them as sweeps for burgling houses. According to Ash, more than one ended in graves because of that—”
“Yes, yes. He was certainly deserving of his punishment.”
“Aye.” Reaver frowned. “How is Ash faring?”
“Quite well, actually. A few bruises and such. But nothing broken. Made of stout stuff, that one. Last I saw of him, he was wheedling an extra plate of bacon from your housekeeper.”
The boy was impressive. Reaver’s gut had twisted painfully to see Ash clinging to Augusta, tears streaking his face. Until she’d awakened, he’d felt a similar need to touch her, beg her to come back and be his strong, steady Gus. His heart had stopped beating when he’d seen her collapse. It had started again only when those soft, gray eyes had fluttered open. She’d regained her normal breathing shortly after Duff wrestled Reaver away from the fight—or bludgeoning, to be more precise, for the heavy-jowled pig hadn’t even taken a swing.
Although she’d insisted she was capable of walking, he’d scooped her into his arms and carried her out to the coach. Then, he’d climbed inside and cradled her, kissing her temple, forehead, and lips over and over. He’d needed the reassurance. She was warm. She was safe. She breathed and clung to his neck. Laughed about being his valise.
It had not been enough. Even holding her through the night, running his hands over her hair and her face and her body, had not been enough.
His mind, having snapped its tether, still scrambled for purchase. He didn’t know what it would take, only that nothing thus far had worked.
Fear and violence and need coursed through him.
“I think I shall take my leave.” A china cup clinked lightly into its saucer. “Time for my afternoon nap.” The physician slowly got to his feet and gave Reaver an assessing sweep. “Consider having a lie-down, yourself. Might settle you a bit.”
He glanced at the light streaming through the window and snorted. “I can scarcely sleep at full dark.”
The man reached up and patted Reaver’s shoulder as he passed. “I said nothing about sleep, young man.”
*~*~*
Augusta flattened her palms over her bare belly and gazed at her hands in the mirror. She watched them rise and fall with her breaths. She tested the soreness of her abdomen, marveling that it scarcely pained her at all.
She’d been struggling to reconcile the events of the previous day since they’d occurred. No answer had yet appeared. Her hands trembled. Her belly shook. She wondered if she was falling apart or coming together in a new form.
For so long, Phoebe had been everything that mattered. Now, Augusta had Ash. She had Bastian. She had the possibility of a babe of her own. More than one, perhaps.
A smile dawned.
She would like that. Bastian’s babes swelling her belly. Being born. Clinging to her neck. Growing into little giants.
Her life was fuller now. She even had cousins—granted, they were Bastian’s cousins, but they cared whether she was hurt. They’d visited only that morning, Tannenbrook telling her gruffly that she must not place herself in such danger again. Viola had squeezed her hands and sat with her, explaining in her sweet way that Augusta must realize her own importance.
“Do you know why I gave Elijah my list of potential brides?”
Augusta had blinked. “Er, because you wished him to marry?”
“Yes, of course. But I made that list after weeks of meeting his resistance. He refused to discuss marriage—insisted he had no need of a wife. James and I both wanted him to continue the Kilbrenner line, yes, but much more than that, we wished his life to … fill up, I suppose.” Her stunning blue eyes had sheened as she smiled. “They way you filled his empty house.”
She’d explained how, no matter her coaxing or persuasion, Sebastian had resisted with all his considerable will being Elijah Kilbrenner. He’d said again and again that he liked his life precisely as it was, and he’d little interest in changing it.
“Until you,” Viola had continued. “I am most persuasive when I set my heart upon something, but my efforts were in vain. You changed everything. He is happy, Augusta. Filled up entirely. And now, because he wishes to give you a home and a family, he has accepted his place at last. So, you see, you are important. To him. To us. To our family’s future.”
Gently, Augusta had asked why Viola spoke as though there were little chance that Viola might produce an heir apparent.
She had lowered her lashes, her smile turning shaky. “James and I came to London when I was carrying Elizabeth. She is our first child. We—we struggled to conceive her. I struggled to carry her. James found a physician here who specializes in … difficulties of this sort. He helped me deliver our beautiful daughter. But during the birth, I suffered bleeding. He managed to stop it, but he said it is likely I shall not conceive again.”
Viola had explained Tannenbrook’s concern that his estate and the adjacent village pass into capable hands. She’d leaned forward and spoken as though sharing a secret. “He has slept soundly since Elijah asked him for wooing advice. Like a babe after a meal, he’s been. He is convinced you will produce at least a dozen strapping Kilbrenner boys.”
Augusta had glanced at her husband, struck by the thought that she had changed his course—just as he had changed hers. Neither of them were the people they’d been when they met.
Now, as she let her shift fall back into place, she wondered who she was, precisely. No longer a Widmore. No longer simply Phoebe’s sister, standing watch and slaying dragons. She was a wife. A friend. Perhaps soon a mother.
She loved Sebastian with a ferocity that frightened her. Yesterday, when Ash had been in danger, she’d realized how deeply he, too, had anchored himself in her heart. How could she love them all—Ash and Bastian and their children—as much as she’d loved Phoebe without losing herself? How could she stand in the gale and the flood, protecting them as she was driven to do, and come away whole? Loving Phoebe had taken everything she had. And yet, she could not imagine doing anything differently.
Again her eyes drifted to her belly.
“Does it pain you?” His shadow moved into her vision before his wide, heavy shoulders and long, muscular body. He stood behind her, towering in the reflection of her long, gilt-framed mirror.
“No,” she said softly. She loved his face. Every cleft and crag. Every re-routed line and angular hollow. “I have missed you.”
“It has been an hour.”
“Too long.”
His nostrils flared. “Aye.”
Her eyes dropped to his hands. They were vibrating. Not shaking—more of a fine tension. She blinked, noticing the subtle motion along his neck and arms, as well. “Bastian?”
He did not reply, his black gaze fixed upon her abdomen, his jaw flexing.
“Would you like to see?”
His eyes flew to hers. He nodded with a jerk.
She grasped the hem of her shift and removed
the garment over her head. Then, she stood naked before her husband.
And felt his eyes burning her alive.
Heat weakened her. Softened her. Beaded her nipples and made her ache.
His hands came to the sides of her waist, his fingertips resting gently against her skin. “Must never do it again, Gus.”
She lost her breath as tingles spread from his hands through her waist, spiraling up and out and down. “Do what?”
“Be hurt.” His tension increased along with the fever in his eyes. “I want to kill him. I want to take you. I want to stop seeing you be hurt.”
She fell back against his solid, powerful, sheltering body. Grasped his hands in hers. Pressed one over her navel and one over her heart. “I shall do everything in my power not to put myself at risk like that again. I promise.”
His sigh shuddered from him. His hands tightened against her. His lips came to her shoulder then nuzzled her neck.
She closed her eyes and stroked his wrists and arms, bared by his shirt’s rolled sleeves. Cool air whispered against her naked breasts and legs, but she was far from cold. No, indeed, as he suckled and kissed, his breath warm, his mouth hot, her flesh burned beneath his touch.
“Open your eyes, love.”
She did. She saw him, so much larger. She saw herself, flushed and ripe and needing.
“You see?”
She shook her head.
“I will keep you safe. I will give you pleasure. But you must let me.”
Her breathing quickened as one of his hands moved to her breast while the other slid down to the thatch between her thighs.
He kissed her ear. Stroked his tongue along the rim and beneath the lobe.
She watched her own belly quivering as his fingers began their work. One set delicately rimmed her nipple, drawing circles round and round. The other set mimicked the motion, circling the ripe nub at her center.
It was almost too much. Him, fully dressed, pleasuring her naked body with slow circles. While she watched.
“Now you see, eh?” His voice rumbled against her ear. “You see how well I can manage your pleasure.”
