A Midsummer Night's Sin (23 page)

“You insolent pup! I could have you dead like
this,
” Hackett said, snapping his fingers in Puck’s face.

“Oh, very impressive, Reginald, if predictable,” Puck said, some of the amusement finally leaving his voice. “I suppose that means you’ve brushed aside my inquiry about refreshments? Very well, we’ll move on. But as we do so, would it be crass of me to point out that you’re making rather empty threats, standing in
my
house, with my brother holding a pistol directed at your midsection? Jack? You are holding a pistol on our friend Reginald, aren’t you?”

“I am now,” was Jack’s answer along with the slight sound of a small, silver pistol being cocked. “You could warn a person, you know.”

“You wouldn’t shoot me in cold blood,” Hackett retorted, not even looking toward Jack. “I’ve got the cargo, I’ve got the ship. I know the buyers. You’ve nothing without me.”

And here it was. The moment.

“Oh,
au contraire,
Reginald. You see, we’ve got the previously elusive Mr. Harley now, thanks to you, delivered straight to our doorstep. Don’t we, Mr. Harley? You don’t look the sort who couldn’t be convinced to cooperate. And then think—only a single
H
on that lovely sign. Oh, the possibilities!”

The slight man staggered where he stood. “I…um…that is…”

“Head or heart?” Jack asked conversationally, raising the pistol a fraction.

Puck wished he could order Reginald Hackett dead. But the man was Regina’s father. Still, the temptation was there, within him, he who had believed himself a civilized gentleman.

Reginald Hackett threw his arms out in front of him. “Wait!
Wait!
I can see I underestimated you. The pair of you. I could use men like you in the right places. Let’s talk this over. Tell me what you want. There’s no reason we can’t come to some sort of agreement.”

Puck spread his hands as he said, “But why would we need to do that? From where I stand, Reginald, my brother and I, along with our new friend, Benjamin, hold all the cards. Speaking of which, Jack here has several gambling debts, rather large ones. You must know how relatives are—a constant drain on the pock
etbook. Oh, that’s right, you have the earl, don’t you? And your brother-in-law, the viscount, as well, I suppose? We should split a bottle one day, Reginald, commiserate together. No? At any rate, we should probably address my brother’s debt now, before anything else.”

“All right, all right,” Hackett said, his massive head bobbing up and down as if attached to his body by a spring. He was a large man, an imposing man, and at the heart of things, he was a bully. Fortunately, like with most bullies, at the first sign of defeat, he became a coward, albeit not one without plans. He clearly believed that he could talk his way out of his present unexpected predicament, at which time he would collect himself and launch a counterattack on the posturing imbecile now crowing over him. “What do you need? Five hundred pounds? A thousand? Separate, of course, from our other arrangement. We can have an arrangement, can we not?”

“That depends,” Puck told him, putting out his left arm as if holding Jack back from his intended elimination of the man. (Hark, what was that? A sigh of frustration from the bloodthirsty crowd in the balconies?) “I admit that yet again, my curiosity all but overwhelms me, along with my interest in our share of the—do you slavers term it booty, or is that left for respectable pirates? Huh, respectable pirates. Is there such a thing? As opposed to those who deal with the white-slave trade, I would put forth that there must be pirates who wouldn’t deign to touch you with a very long pole. But never mind, you are not required to answer.
How soon can we expect to see a profit from the sale of these unfortunate women? As you have surely surmised, I was on the docks today and saw some of your handiwork. If you keep tossing the ladies to the fishes, I wonder if there will be any profit at all. Sloppy, Reginald. Damned sloppy. I abhor waste.”

“No, no, they were no great loss. They’ve already been replaced. And there’s two that will each bring five times what all the others will fetch put together. And…and a third worth even more. I can personally vouch for her purity. I’ve special plans for that one, a certain party even Ben here doesn’t know about. Yes, a very
particular
client. You need me. And I can use a pair of bright young men like you and your brother. Really! Some of my customers are like you—talk in circles, like they’re better than me. I’m too plain-talking for them, and Ben here thinks he can keep his hands clean if he only works with the books. There’s more than enough for everyone. I could make the two of you rich! I’m a generous man. Twenty percent. I’ll cut you in for twenty percent.”

“Dear me, now I’m insulted,” Puck said, shaking his head. “Jack? Are you insulted?
I’m
insulted.”

Jack made a small noise. Rather a growl. Some of his best acting, really, Puck thought.

“All right. Thirty.”

Puck tapped his index finger against his lips, as if considering Hackett’s proposal, enjoying the sight of the droplets of sweat running down the man’s florid face. “Forty. And pardon my frankness, but I feel I need
to say that I dislike haggling with merchants. Even a bastard son of a marquess has some standards.”

As Hackett had to know he didn’t plan to pay the brothers with anything more than a knife in the ribs the moment he could arrange it, he nodded his agreement. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Currently backed by a large pistol, yes. And I’d sail with the cargo, you say?” Puck asked, pushing for everything he could get. “That sounds rather delicious. I do adore travel. It edifies the mind. Where would I be going?”

Hackett visibly relaxed. “Here, there. And without a bird onboard who wouldn’t do anything you asked if you told her you wouldn’t sell her.
Anything.
Just not the virgins.”

“How extremely disgusting of you, Reginald. As if I would touch a whore,” Puck told him, managing a laugh. The monster was talking about his own niece, terming her his most profitable merchandise! “But now, we must return to less pleasant subjects, I’m afraid. I’m also a desperate man, sadly without other prospects. When can we expect to inspect the merchandise? It was difficult to tell the quality of those I saw today.”

“No need to see them. They’re safe where they are, no thanks to you. Just…just the pair of you be at the
Pride and the Prize
Wednesday night at midnight. We load then, before moving out into the river, and sail with the tide before light. Agreed?”

Knife the one once he leaves the docks, drop the other overboard in chains once free of the river. Prob
lem solved.
Puck imagined he could read every word of the plan in Hackett’s obsidian eyes.

“You make it all sound so appealing. All right, agreed,” Puck said and then looked to his brother, who had just cleared his throat. “Oh, and the five thousand pounds?”

“
Five
thousand? I thought we’d agreed on one.”

“Alas, no, Reginald.
You’d
agreed on one. With no profit until the merchandise is sold, we will need some funds immediately, to tide us over, you could say. Can’t leave my own brother here to starve in a gutter until I return, now can I? I’ll expect a draft on your bank first thing tomorrow. And now, good night. Thank you so much for stopping by, but I believe we can carry on without you until we meet again. I must see to my wardrobe, for one.”

“You want the draft delivered here? You’ll be here?”

“Where on earth would we go?” Puck answered somewhat testily, walking toward the foyer, sure Hackett and Harley would follow. “Just see that the draft is here before noon, because I have some need of visiting my own banker by one.”

The door had barely closed on their visitors’ backs when Jack uttered a scathing string of oaths that would have impressed a Tothill Fields tinker.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Puck told him in some admiration as they reentered the drawing room. “I mean that, truly. Some of that bizarre playacting was actually enjoyable, which makes me question my own sanity. It’s his own niece who he believes is so special.
You know that, don’t you? Man’s a monster, and I need a drink. Several, in fact. God, that Regina has had to endure him. The man is a pestilence.”

“You’re very good, you know. Better than I would have imagined. Although I probably could have survived without being termed the brawn to your brains.”

Puck smiled, even though his heart wasn’t in it. “Would you have shot our new partner Reginald if I’d said to shoot him?”

“The thought crossed my mind. Now, if you’re wondering what my answer would be if you’d asked me if I would have raked the barrel of that pistol across his ugly face, loosing several of his teeth, just on general principle?”

“Yes?” Puck prodded. “And what would that result have been?”

“Among other things, Wadsworth summoning the maids to clean up the carpet. But shooting him was out of the question as we couldn’t have been sure Harley knows everything we need to know. Hackett knew that, too, not that he isn’t even at this moment making plans for our untimely demises.”

Puck poured two measures of wine and handed one glass to his brother. “True. But we do know the women are still alive, we do know he plans to sail Wednesday night.”

“And that he’ll try to have us both killed long before Wednesday night unless he decides to do the deed on the docks, where he clearly feels most safe.”

“Yes, that’s also a possibility I considered while he
was still here. Was I too heavy-handed about having that meeting with our banker tomorrow at one, and we’ll be out and about, making ourselves easy targets?”

“Probably not. For all your bravado, he still clearly believes he’s smarter than both of us. I can sympathize with his reasoning. You were very nearly the twit, you know. I was close to wanting to knock you down myself. Now, before we both conveniently disappear into the night, would you like to know where the women are? Not that you’ll enjoy the news.”

“Why won’t I?”

“Because they could be any of three places. Wherever they were an hour ago, they’re bound to already be on the march to a second one. Our friend downstairs wasn’t included when the women were removed from the warehouse, so he can’t be any more definite than that. Another warehouse, this one in Southwark, would be his first choice—he graciously offered to lead us there as well as the two other sites if we aren’t first-time lucky. A defunct tavern right on the docks or, the worst of the lot, a warren of ancient prison cells in some sort of tunnels open to the Thames that probably have been there since the Romans held our fair island.”

Please, no, not another tunnel.

“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” Puck put down his empty glass. “We should be leaving for Half Moon Street before Hackett has the wit to set up sentries to watch us. I need to see how Regina is holding up, and we all need some rest before we begin searching again.
We don’t have that much time, not if Hackett has realized we have his man.”

“His man is dead, unable to tell us anything. He’s just not been discovered yet, inside the tunnel, his legs neatly sticking out into the warehouse. Poor man was garroted while trying to protect his employers. He’ll be seen at first light, if not sooner. Untrusting of the caliber of Hackett’s gang of ghouls, I believe Henry plans to set fire to one corner of the shed, sending smoke into the warehouse, just to help things along.”

Puck cocked one eyebrow as he looked at his brother. “I thought he was going to lead us to the other three possible sites.”

“He’s doing that right now, with Dickie and Henry. Then he’s dead. Don’t look at me in that manner, little brother. It’s the only way to trick Hackett, so that the women won’t be moved to a new, fourth hiding place, and lost to us. Unconscious or missing, neither will do what we want. Dead, on the other hand, accomplishes what we want.”

Puck considered this information for a few moments, and then nodded his agreement. This was a deadly game they were playing, and when weighed against those terrified women, the choice was simple. “Just let me inform Wadsworth that the trifle should be saved for Thursday night….”

R
EGINA SAT IN THE TUB
,
her knees drawn up against her chest, both the room and the water warm enough, yet she couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She would think she was finally fine, and then a sudden tremor would hit her, shuddering throughout her entire body.

Her cousin’s prison. The filth, the smell of fear.
Miranda, Miranda. What are you thinking? Have you lost all hope? Do you know we’re looking for you?

Thoughts of what she’d seen on the docks in what seemed like a lifetime ago and what had happened in the warehouse refused to leave her mind. They’d nearly been caught. Puck had stayed behind, long enough for her to have reached a level of silent hysteria that would have had her collapsed to her knees, sobbing with loss, had he not finally appeared up out of that tunnel, looking filthy, exhausted and yet triumphant.

When all she’d been was terrified.

All her life, she’d thought herself a victim of her birth, her future not in her control. But she’d been housed, clothed, fed…and safe. She didn’t know what it was to be cold or hungry. She’d felt oppressed, yes, but never abandoned, alone. Desperate.

She’d never
dared
anything. Left to her own devices,
there would have been no masquerade ball, no abduction, no meeting Puck, no desire, no passion…no
life.
She’d existed. She’d never really
lived.

When this was over—and at some point, with either success or defeat, it would be over—what then? She couldn’t go back to simply existing, she just couldn’t. She could never face her father again, not without wishing him dead. It wasn’t going to be enough, rescuing Miranda. Reginald Hackett had to be stopped, arrested and made to pay for his crimes with his life.

And then what of those he left behind? His wife, his daughter and the entire selfish family he’d bought and paid for? The scandal would rock London and destroy all their worlds.

Would the Crown confiscate his fortune—his ships, his warehouses, his fine country estate, his London mansion? That wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Regina knew she couldn’t be certain that her mother’s family would take them in, house and feed and care for them. After all, they could claim ignorance to Reginald’s crimes, and their titles would protect them from the worst of the scandal. But not if they took in the wife and daughter, brought them under their roof. Not then.

Puck will take us. Puck will keep us safe.

Another tremor shook Regina’s body.

Selfish, selfish, selfish! You saw all you saw today, and all you think about is yourself!

“Regina?”

Regina sighed, closing her eyes for a brief moment, and then looked toward the doorway. “Yes, Mama?”

“I don’t understand why we’re here,” her mother said, advancing into the rather Spartan bedchamber. “Your Aunt Claire said it was necessary that we leave Grosvenor Square, but when I asked her why we should abandon such a lovely hideaway, she simply began crying again, and I felt it unfair to push at her. But now I’ve come to you. Is your father on to us?”

“On to us, Mama?” Regina very nearly smiled. Her mother had taken to what she called her small
adventure
with surprising alacrity and enthusiasm, even if the full import of what may be happening to her niece had clearly not completely penetrated her mind. To Lady Leticia, a promised week without her husband had been reason enough to turn a blind eye to what might be an unfortunate liaison between her daughter and one of Blackthorn’s bastards. Perhaps her mother was selfish, too.

Only then did she notice the wineglass in her mother’s hand.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Lady Leticia said, cradling the glass against her breast, the vessel clearly a treasured possession. “I was upset, being roused so rudely as I was. It’s only the one portion. Or two…” She trailed off, and Regina could see the familiar
softness
of her mother’s features, which indicated that she’d been seeking comfort from a familiar friend. “I thought certain we were being taken back to Berkeley Square.
I can’t go back there, Regina. I will surely die if I go back there. I’ve been dying there for a long time.”

“Oh, Mama…” Regina reached for the toweling sheet that had been left beside the tub and stood up, not knowing what she would say to her mother, what she
could
say.

She shouldn’t have worried.

Lady Leticia shook her head, sighing. “I wanted to have them bound, you know,” she said, staring at Regina’s bare breasts. “As they did to me after you were born and your father insisted on a more sturdy wet nurse than he said I could have been. Perhaps that would have helped. Milkmaids are known to be overly generous in the region of the bosom. Others of the lower classes. It’s not seeming that my own daughter should—well, I blame Grandmother Hackett.”

Regina quickly wrapped the toweling sheet around her body before her mother’s attention could be drawn to the flare of her daughter’s hips, also to be numbered among her failings. She couldn’t very well hide her less than ladylike height, another cause of concern for her mother, but she did what she could. “Yes, Mama,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

Lady Leticia dismissed this apology with the wave of one hand, the one holding the nearly empty wineglass. Noticing it as if surprised to see it still there, she then drank up the wine in one long gulp. “No, no, it’s not your fault. I suppose men are attracted for some reason, although your dressmaker confided in me that she finds it much easier to create for those less well-
endowed. Not that a dressmaker should have anything to say in the matter.” She frowned, as if searching her mind for something she might have forgotten. “Was there something else you wanted, Regina?”

“No, I don’t think so, Mama,” Regina answered, unashamedly grateful for the wine that had clearly begun to both mellow and muddle her mother. “It’s well after three, isn’t it? I suppose you’re very tired?”

Lady Leticia pushed at her hair, which had begun to sag, thanks to Hanks’s necessarily quick application of pins as she had helped the woman dress for their short journey to Half Moon Street. “Yes, I believe I am.” She looked into her empty glass and frowned. “I think I’ll return to my chamber now, such as it is. Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night, Mama.” Regina managed to hold her smile until her mother had quit the room, but once the door had closed, her composure gave way, and she could barely stagger to the bed and throw herself down on it before bursting into tears.

She cried for Miranda. For all the women who had ever been in her father’s clutches…taken from all they knew and loved, bound in chains, sold to the highest bidder. Or drowned like unwanted kittens. She cried for her mother, who had lived her entire married life in fear, for all the wasted years, her wasted youth. She cried for herself, knowing that was wrong, selfish. She cried for Puck, who had put himself in such danger. She cried until she didn’t know why she was crying. She simply couldn’t stop.

She felt the touch of a hand against her temple, gently stroking the hair back from her wet cheeks, and nearly jumped out of her skin, then settled as she heard Puck’s voice close to her ear. “It’s all right, sweetings,” he crooned softly. “It’s all right. I promise. Everything is going to be all right.”

He eased himself against her in the bed, his long form pressed to her back, gathering her close, taking her pain, holding her against his strength.

“It’s not, you know,” she whispered quietly. “Even if we get Miranda back. She’ll never be the same, Puck. None of us will ever be the same. How could we?”

He slipped an arm around her waist, his mouth still close to her ear. “But we can be strong for her. We can right a wrong.”

Regina’s bottom lip trembled. She tried not to say the words but couldn’t hold them back. “I want him dead,” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “I’m as bad as he is, Puck, because with all of my heart, I want him dead. For…for what he’s done to Miranda and to my mother…and to all of those poor women. He’s a monster, and his blood flows in my veins. How…how am I supposed to live, knowing that? How can you even look at me?”

She wanted comfort. Perhaps even forgiveness. She didn’t know what she wanted.

But, whatever it was, it wasn’t what she got.

“I thought you were crying for your cousin, your mother and, as you said, all of those poor women,” Puck said almost coldly. “But you’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself to think about anyone else. My mistake.”

Regina struggled to sit up, forgetting about the toweling sheet, which quickly dropped open to her waist. “How dare you! It’s not your father who did this.”

“True,” Puck said, pushing himself up against the headboard, crossing his long legs in front of him. “All my father did—or shall I say all he did
not
do—was to marry my mother, thereby branding his sons bastards in the eyes of the world. It was left to my brothers and me, however, to decide who we are, to take the measure of our worth, to build our own lives. Who decides for you, sweetings, hmm?”

She didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him. “I do,” she admitted quietly. “I decide.”

He put a hand to his ear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear that.”

“I said,
I
decide.
Me.
I’m not my father. I’m not Grandmother Hackett or even my mother. I’m me. Who I am and
what
I am are up to
me.
That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I want you to
believe,
” he corrected. “Because, from where I’m sitting, I think Regina Hackett is fairly wonderful. And brave, tremendously brave. Not to mention…fetching.” He said this last as he lowered his gaze to her bare breasts.

“Oh!” Regina exclaimed, at last realizing she was all but naked. She quickly pulled the sheeting up and over her lower-class breasts. “You could have said something, you know.”

“And spoil the view? Hardly. Especially now that
you’ve done it for me, just as I was about to avail myself of what I hoped was an invitation.”

Regina felt her nipples hardening beneath the toweling, even as her very center tightened pleasurably in response to his words. “Of all the things I should be doing tonight, this is probably the very last…?.” she said, unable to avoid looking down at his trousers and the bulge that told her he was becoming similarly aroused.

He took hold of one end of the toweling and slowly, so slowly, drew it from her body, leaving her naked to his gaze.

“There’s comfort in the oblivion of physical pleasure, Regina. It’s why we mortals seek it. No thought, no regrets, no room for anything but the journey…and the destination. No need to think but just to feel. To escape, to fly free. Let me take you there, sweetings. Let me fill you with the delight that leaves no room for anything else.”

She sat there, transfixed, her legs tucked up beneath her, watching him look at her, feeling his hands on her even though he’d yet to touch her. He was seducing her with his words, filling her mind with wild imaginings. Ridding her mind of all she wanted gone.

He was so clever. She was so willing to clear her mind of everything but him.

She needed him to touch her. She needed his touch more than she needed air to breathe. He left the bed to stand beside it, stripping off his clothing, his eyes never leaving her, his soft words spoken in French now, in
toxicating her senses, telling her how much he wanted her, how her pleasure would be his delight. He stood before her now, naked, glorious, displaying his need. The small, hard bud between her thighs contracted almost painfully.

But he stayed at the side of the bed, not joining her as she thought he would. Instead, he smiled almost impishly—even at his most intense, he remained Puck, seeing humor in all things.

“Puck…you can’t just stand there,” she said nervously.

“True enough. But I’ve just had a thought. Come here, sweetings,” he said as he reached over and took hold of her ankle and pulled her toward him, splitting her legs around his hips, swiftly filling her completely. The move was so sudden and so neatly done…so blatantly sexual in nature. He was here, she was here; they would use each other to rid themselves of the ugliness of the day.

She tried to reach up her hands to him, and only then did he lift her, find her mouth, kiss her almost fiercely, his hands kneading at her breasts.

In little more than an instant it was as if they had become one person, the heat of their passion fusing them together. She held fast to his shoulders, tightened her legs around his waist, longing to be even closer, knowing that was impossible.

She ceased to think. She could only feel.

When he broke the kiss, it was to whisper hoarsely against her hair. “Nothing else exists now, sweetings,
nothing else is real. The world begins and ends here, with us.”

Slowly, he began to move inside her. Deep, deeper…impossibly intimate. She clung to him like a limpet, arms and legs wrapped around him as he tumbled their joined bodies onto the bed, holding on for dear life…because he was her life. He gave her life.

But it wasn’t her life that he wanted right now. It wasn’t life either of them sought, but oblivion.

“
La petite mort,
Regina. Remember? Find it with me. The little death. Don’t be afraid, let me take you there. We die together, just for the moment…?.”

And then she let go, let everything else in the world go, and allowed the impossible to take over, take control, until they collapsed onto the bed together, totally satisfied, totally spent.

“I take it all back. You’re no innocent. You’re a witch,” he said, breathing heavily against her hair.

“I know. And you’re a bastard. We’re well suited, I think,” she responded, nipping at the side of his neck. The world would come crashing back soon, but for now? For now, she was free. Puck had made her free. He knew her better than she knew herself, knew what she needed even as she floundered about, hopelessly lost. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, pulling her close, all gentleness now, all protective and comforting. “Idiot.”