by Merry Farmer
She would have felt far more confident about her incomplete plan if they hadn’t journeyed into a part of London she wasn’t familiar with. As far as she could tell, they’d skirted around Hyde Park and crossed Oxford Street heading north. Which meant that either Bart had no idea which parts of London were suitable for a man of his family’s fortune or that he didn’t have the money he claimed he had. The latter would have been interesting to contemplate, if Lenore hadn’t been so certain her life was in danger.
At last, the carriage stopped in front of a modest, but clean and respectable, hotel. The driver opened the door and helped her down, giving her a chance to scan the area before Bart alighted. If she wasn’t mistaken, they were near Paddington Station. If worst came to worst, she could make a dash for the train and get out of London. If she made a break for it right then and there, perhaps someone would be willing to help her.
“Come on, sweetie.” Bart marched up behind her, gripping her wrist like a vise and dragging her toward the hotel, dashing her hopes as he did.
There was very little activity in the hotel’s tiny lobby. It wasn’t like the Savoy or any of the other, newer hotels in a more fashionable part of town. There was no restaurant, and no one was loitering in the lobby as though waiting for London’s nightlife to whisk them away into some sort of adventure. The sleepy concierge nodded to Bart as he crossed the lobby and tugged Lenore up the stairs. He didn’t even look at Lenore, and so didn’t see her silently begging for help.
The sense of danger and dread in Lenore’s gut only grew as they continued up not just one flight of stairs, but three. Bart’s room was on the hotel’s top floor, which would make escaping from him even less likely than it could have been. All the same, Lenore took in everything around her, her heart pounding in her throat, searching for something, anything, that would allow her to escape. Absolutely nothing looked like it would be able to help her.
“Why don’t you want to go back to Wyoming?” she asked the moment they were alone in the hotel suite. “Does this have something to do with the ranch conflicts?”
Bart rounded on her, murder in his eyes. “It’s time you and me got a few things straight.”
Lenore gulped, unable to draw breath. She’d made a horrible miscalculation. He wasn’t going to tell her a damn thing. She scanned the room in search of escape. The suite was made up of an outer room and a bedroom. It had another door that might have led to a water closet, though it was closed. There were two windows on the wall opposite the door, but they were both closed. Through the closest window, she could just make out the dark shadows of buildings against the London sky. Her pulse pounded, and she thought she might be sick.
“I don’t want anything to do with you, Bart,” she said, her voice rough and frightened.
“It’s a little too late for that,” Bart laughed, taking a few steps closer to her.
“Nobody in England cares about the range wars in Wyoming,” she rushed on, hating how terrified she sounded. She was terrified, though. Beyond anything she’d ever felt before. “Let me go. Please.”
“I’ll let you go, all right,” he said, stalking toward her with lascivious intent in his eyes.
Lenore backed away from him, cursing her foolishness to high heaven. Bart kept moving toward her. “No one will know a thing. I won’t say a thing.” She backed all the way to the wall between one of the windows and a small table.
“You won’t.” Bart agreed, moving in to wedge her against the wall.
She was going to faint. Lenore was certain of it. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and when Bart bent toward her, lowering his face to the scoop of her bodice, she whimpered and burst into tears. Bart shifted slightly to the side, reaching toward the table.
“Just let me go,” she wept.
“It’s your choice.” Bart straightened. As he did, Lenore heard the distinct click of a revolver being cocked. A second later, the cold shock of the gun barrel touching her forehead made the edges of her vision go black. “Either you do your duty as a wife should and get yourself into that bedroom or I let you go…all the way to heaven.”
Lenore sagged against the wall, wondering if she truly would rather die than give Bart what he wanted. Chances were that he would kill her anyhow after he raped her. But if there was even a ghost of a chance that she could stay alive and make it through the night, she had to take it.
“All right,” she wheezed, tears streaming down her face. “Wife it is.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Bart rocked back, uncocking the revolver, but keeping it in his hand. He used it to gesture toward the bedroom. “Get in there and get undressed. As soon as I’m done pissing, we’re going to make this official between us.”
Lenore’s mouth dropped open, but not for any reason Bart might have thought. He’d just given her thirty seconds to save her life. She feigned utter defeat, slinking into the bedroom as he stepped the other way, toward the closed door. She watched long enough to confirm her suspicions that it was a water closet before darting the rest of the way to the bedroom.
As soon as she was in the room, she closed the door and locked it, thanking God the door actually had a lock. Bart would expect her to try to lock him out, which would buy her another fifteen seconds, if she was lucky. As soon as the lock clicked, she whirled to face the room. She was already crying, but those tears were relief as she thanked God once again that the room had a window. She wasn’t dead yet.
She bolted to the window, throwing it open and sticking her head out into the windy night. She was four stories up, but that hardly mattered when certain death was just a few seconds behind her. Heedless of anything else but her desperation to get away, she threw her leg over the window ledge and climbed out into the night. The drop below her was sickening, but the edge of the roof was only a few feet above her. If she could climb onto the roof, there might be another way down.
It was the only shot she had, so she climbed. The exterior of the building was made of brick, which provided her with tiny ledges and irregularities that she clung to with everything she had. She didn’t have time to second-guess herself or to hesitate, only to climb. The edge of the roof was easy enough to reach, but it took all of her strength and cunning to pull herself up, finding whatever foothold she could wherever she could. Her ball gown tore, her fingers went numb with cold and fear, and tears streamed down her face, but she pushed on. If she lost her grip and plummeted to the street below, so be it. At least she wouldn’t die by Bart’s hand.
She was barely holding on and losing her strength fast when she heard a commotion from the suite. Bart must have discovered the locked bedroom door. She could hear shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. Not that Bart’s anger mattered in the long run. Not that there was a long run. She could feel her grip slipping, and she wasn’t secure on the roof. She was going to fall. She was going to die.
“I’ve got you.” A warm arm clamped around her, yanking her up onto the roof. It took a moment, in her panicked and dizzy state, to realize that the arm around her was Phin’s. “Hold on,” he ordered her, crawling up the gently slanted roof until they reached a flat part. “I’ve got you.”
The commotion in the room continued. Lenore realized there were two voices arguing, not just Bart shouting. She expected to hear a gunshot at any moment, but it never came.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a weak and shaking voice.
“You didn’t think we would just let the bastard carry you away, did you?” Phin asked, his voice laced with the sort of wild humor that came with life or death situations. “We were on your tail before Swan even flagged down a cab.”
“We?”
They reached the flat part of the roof, and Phin paused to hold her tight. The light of a lantern shone through an open doorway, revealing how Phin had made it onto the roof.
“Freddy and Reese,” Phin said. “Reese is fetching the police. Freddy came with me. He’s waiting down in the hall while the concierge checks Swan’s room. I w
asn’t so patient. I’d hoped to find a way into the room from the outside, since the idiot concierge was fool enough to lead us right to Swan’s room, but this will do in a pinch.”
Lenore could only make a wordless sound of surprise in reply. It was utterly mad, but at least luck was on her side.
“Come on,” Phin continued as he pulled her to her feet and led her toward the door. “I don’t know what’s going on downstairs, but we need to get you to safety as fast as possible.”
“Where are we going?” she managed to ask as Phin whisked her down the stairs.
“My house first,” he said. “Then wherever we need to go where Swan won’t find us.”
Chapter 19
From the moment he and Freddy had leapt out of the carriage they’d commandeered at Lady O’Shea’s house to follow Lenore and Bart, Phin hadn’t been able to catch his breath or slow his heart. He’d nearly lost his patience entirely and beat the poor, sleepy concierge at the hotel’s desk who refused to let either him or Freddy go up to Bart’s room to confront him. The best they’d been able to do was convince the dolt to take them up to the fourth floor where they were told to wait in the hall while the idiot went into the room to tell Bart he had guests. Phin had spotted the stairs to the roof instantly and taken matters into his own hand.
He would be eternally grateful for acting the moment he saw those stairs. Lenore wouldn’t have been able to hold onto the edge of the roof for more than a few seconds if he hadn’t risked his neck to grab her and yank her up to safety with him. He’d never tell her how close he’d come to spilling over the edge of the roof himself, and if he were honest, it remained to be seen if they were safe.
“You found her,” Freddy gasped and leapt away from Swan’s hotel room door as soon as Phin and Lenore spilled into the hallway.
“She’d already climbed out the window and attempted to make it to the roof,” Phin panted, gesturing for Freddy to speed ahead of them down the main stairs. Phin would have taken three or four stairs at a time if he didn’t think Lenore might stumble trying to keep up with him. “What in heaven’s name is that idiot concierge doing with Swan?”
“I couldn’t tell,” Freddy said as they charged down to the lobby. “I think the young man grew a backbone at the last minute and tried to ask about Lenore. Swan shouted at him.”
“That’s why there was no gunfire,” Lenore gasped.
“I beg your pardon?” Freddy asked as they dashed through the lobby and out into the night.
Lenore had regained some of her color, but fleeing into the cold, lamp-lit night made her look as pale as a ghost again. All she managed to say as Freddy signaled to the driver waiting for them was, “He has a gun. More than one, if I know men like Bart.”
“Then we need to get you to safety as quickly as possible,” Freddy echoed what Phin had said on the roof.
“Swan will go to Reese’s house first,” Phin said, pausing to give the driver his own address before leaping into the carriage. “Lenore will be safer with me for the time being, but we need to leave London as soon as possible.”
“Bart will come after me,” Lenore said, panting to the point that Phin feared she might hyperventilate.
He threw his arms around her and held her close as the carriage lurched into motion. “He might try, but Reese wasn’t just heading to Scotland Yard for help, he went off to fetch Lord Clerkenwell.”
“Jack has wanted to act on our fears from the start,” Freddy added, resting a reassuring hand on Lenore’s leg. “He’s been hampered by formalities, but after tonight, I think he’ll be more than willing to take matters into his own hands without formalities.”
Lenore nodded tightly, then sagged against Phin. In spite of the danger that still nipped at their heels, Phin felt an immense sense of pride and love as he hugged Lenore close. He’d been a damn fool to be angry with her over preserving her life. While he still thought a lot of trouble could have been spared if she’d been honest with everyone, with him, from the start, he could see the full terror of her situation now. He didn’t want to think what would have happened if he had hesitated even a little in going after her. Timing had saved her life.
He loved her. He already knew that he did, but as Lenore’s breath steadied and her trembling stopped, as she clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder as she recovered from her trauma, he knew it in every fiber of his body, in every beat of his heart. He loved her with a passion that would forgive any mistake if only so he could keep her in his arms forever. If Swan’s sense of vengeance meant they had to flee London, flee England, and hide in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, he would go there happily, as long as he could be with her.
The world seemed abnormally calm as they reached his house and climbed out of the carriage.
“I’ll head back to Howsden House in case Swan shows up there,” Freddy said, staying in the carriage. “It’s where Reese is likely to go once he’s fetched Jack anyhow.”
Phin nodded to him. “If it becomes necessary for us to travel, I’ll send word somehow.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been put through all of this, Lenore,” Freddy told Lenore, a look of genuine affection in his eyes.
Lenore broke away from Phin and rushed to hug Freddy. “You know I love you, don’t you? You’re like a brother to me.”
“I know,” Freddy said, hugging her back. When he let her go, he stared hard at Phin. “Keep her safe, Mercer.”
“Oh, believe me, I will,” Phin said in reply, reaching for Lenore’s hand.
With a final wave goodbye, Freddy closed the carriage door and signaled for the driver to move on. Phin pulled Lenore toward the house, ushering her through the front door as fast as he could and locking it tightly behind her. He grabbed her hand and headed straight upstairs without bothering to turn up the lantern in the hall. At least Dora had left the lamp burning low so they didn’t have to stumble through complete blackness to make it to his room.
“It won’t do for you to make a grand escape wearing a ball gown,” he told Lenore as he lit the lamp in his room.
Lenore laughed restlessly. “It’s not exactly in the best condition now anyhow,” she said.
Phin glanced over his shoulder at her. Indeed, her dress was ripped and soiled in several places. At least the rips didn’t seem to be caused by Swan attacking her.
“How would you feel about wearing some of my old clothes and disguising yourself as a boy for our grand flight?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Lenore said, immediately reaching behind her for the fastenings of her gown.
The dress was far more complicated than Lenore could ever have managed on her own. Phin helped her with the impossible buttons down the back, then stepped to his wardrobe to find something small enough to fit her. The best he could come up with was an old pair of trousers and a cotton shirt, but they would have to do.
When he turned around to take the clothes to her and saw her in nothing but her chemise, drawers, and stockings, his heart chose the most inconvenient time possible to throb in his chest, sending a pulse of desire through him.
“Even in the middle of running for your life, you’re the most beautiful and desirable woman I’ve ever met,” he said, sounding as maudlin and lovesick as it was possible for a man to sound.
Lenore glanced at him after throwing her corset aside and laughed. “If you think I’m beautiful right now, then you must be in love.”
“I am,” Phin confessed, tossing the shirt and trousers onto his bed and moving to sweep her into his arms. “I am so in love that I cannot think straight. I gave my heart away to you long ago, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get it back.”
“Phin, you are the dearest, maddest man I’ve ever met,” Lenore laughed, a wild but loving light in her eyes as she threw her arms over his shoulders.
“I fully admit to being mad.” He laughed with her, the entire situation feeling absurd but wonderful. “I am mad for you. And I’m sorry that I ever doubted you or
even thought of being angry at you for things that I now see were beyond your control.”
She shook her head, pressing her body against his. “I should have told you sooner, you’re right.”
“I know now,” Phin said, bringing his mouth down to hers.
He had a thousand other things to say, a million ways he wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, but all of that vanished from his mind as his lips crashed into hers. He kissed her with every bit of need and love he felt for her, pouring his soul into their kiss. She sighed and lifted to her toes to kiss him in return, giving as good as she got. The intensity of her passion only fueled his own. She was his equal, his mate, in every way. His life would never be boring with her, but he’d never wanted a boring life anyhow. His heart knocked so loudly against his ribs that he could feel it in every part of himself.
Except the knocking wasn’t in his heart.
He pulled away from Lenore, keeping her in his arms, and turned toward his bedroom door, which he hadn’t bothered closing. The furious knocking was coming from downstairs, from the front door.
Lenore gasped as she heard it too and peeled herself out of Phin’s arms, snatching up the shirt and trousers he’d found for her to dress. “He’s found us already,” she hissed, stepping into the trousers and throwing the shirt over her head fast enough to prove had experience putting on men’s clothes. That only melted Phin’s heart more. Lenore was as unconventional a firecracker as they came.
“I’ll get rid of him somehow,” Phin said, lunging out of the room.
The pounding on his front door continued as Phin raced down the stairs, but it was accompanied by a woman, Lady Hamilton, in fact, demanding, “Let us in this instant, sir. Your reign of scandal is at an end.”
Phin swore sharply under his breath as he skidded to a halt at the door and straightened his glasses. Of all the worst times for Lady Hamilton to insist on pursuing her ridiculous grudge, she had to choose now.
