Blood for Ink (The Scarlet Plumiere Series #1) (30 page)

The fire iron lay even further away. Even if she stretched out, she’d never reach it with her toes. What she could do with it then, she did not know.

The structure was round, with the fireplace in the center. The bed on one side, the hints of a kitchen on the other. No doubt she could find all sorts of weapons there, but she would need to be free to find out.

She turned her hand, to peek at the knot on top of it. The rope squeaked lightly and she froze.

Marquardt yawned dramatically and her stomach turned. She pulled her legs to one side and would have liked to curl into a ball to protect herself, if only from the memory of being kicked in the stomach.

“Good morning, Scarlet.”

She jumped at the nearness of his voice. His head hovered above her.

“I haven’t slept so good for a long while. Much easier to sleep in one’s own bed, don’t you agree?”

She said nothing and breathed carefully, trying not to inhale the dust stirred into the air with his movement.

“Come now, be civil. We have endured so much together, you and I. We very nearly died together last night. That should bond us in some way, surely.”

He toyed with a lock of her hair. She did not pull away, lest she anger him.

“I will find us something to break our fast, shall I, Scarlet?” Then his voice changed to falsetto. "Why Lord Marquardt, how gallant of you.”

He stood and walked away, laughing. She waited until he’d gone ‘round to the other side of the fireplace before she tried to wrench her hands free. With all the banging around the man was doing in the kitchen, she felt safe in using all her efforts. When the noises stopped, she settled back to her original position, though she was a little out of breath. She willed herself to breathe deeply, slowly, quietly.

“I fear I have not been
‘round much lately to stock the place, due to no fault of my own, of course. So if all I have to feed you are nuts, you can only blame yourself.” He bent in front of her and held out a handful of almonds, as if she might eat from his hand. "Here, now. Do not be ungrateful. If your stomach would not have growled so,
I
might have slept a bit longer, and
you
might have lived a bit longer. Again, no fault of mine. Now eat.”

She opened her mouth and waited. He narrowed his eyes and looked into hers for a moment. She tried to appear obedient. Satisfied, for whatever reason, he picked some nuts from his palm and tossed them into her mouth. They were rancid, but she ate them. He ate some as well and gave no indication he tasted anything wrong. She wondered if he was used to such spoiled fare, or if his mind was too occupied with horrible ideas that he had no attention to spare for such details.

When the nuts were gone, he cleared his throat and spit toward the fire, but the white stuff fell short. He didn’t seem to notice that either.

“So, would you care to know why the servants believe this place is haunted?”

She watched him carefully, remembering how much he disliked being ignored.

He laughed and a lock of hair fell across his face. He might have been a charming boy at one time. “It is not haunted, by the way. It was only the screaming they must have heard on the wind sometimes...”

His attention caught on the bed behind her and remained there. His words trailed away. His breathing changed. His nostrils flared. He acted as if he’d just run a great distance.

If he wanted her on the bed, he would have to release her. The time to fight was at hand. As soon as he untied one arm—no, two; she’d need both.

Finally, he looked at her, but not at her face. He bent down and scooped her up. She thought he might have forgotten the fact that she was tied to foot of the bed. But he hadn’t forgotten. She feared he meant to rip her arms from her body, but he merely tossed her legs up over her head. She landed on the mattress, on her belly. The bruises from his boot stole away her breath, as did the realization that he’d gotten her onto the bed without having to untie an arm!

For the first time since she’d been abducted, she considered the possibility that The Scarlet Plumiere might not be able to rescue herself after all. Marquardt acted queerly, to be sure, but his actions were practiced. He’d done this before. He’d tied a woman to the foot of his bed and had stolen away her hope with a clever trick. Perhaps his two maids had not been his only victims. And perhaps he was already familiar with all the ways in which a woman might try to escape him, and he knew just how to prevent it!

He leaned over her and a chill racked her body. Then she could not seem to stop shaking. The strange sound he made, sucking in air between his teeth, told her he was pleased with her reaction to him, so she took a deep breath, then another, willing her body to relax, willing her mind to think rationally.

Perhaps her only hope was to be rescued. And if that were so, someone would need to know she was there.

She raised her head and screamed...quite pitifully. She’d never been able to sing Soprano and her scream was loud but low—more like the bellow of a cow in need of milking.

Marquardt gasped in surprised, then laughed so hard he backed away from the bed and against the wall for support. She tried again.

He laughed again, shaking his head. “Sorry Scarlet. No wind today, I’m afraid. And those screams of yours won’t carry far.”

If it kept him crippled with laughter, she thought, she might be able to scream for a good long while. However, when she took a deep breath to do just that, she heard a squeal—the high-pitched squeal of a woman. She looked at Marquardt, to see if he had heard the same, fearing she’d imagined it.

He lunged toward the fireplace and grabbed his wicked cane, then raised it above her head. She winced and tried to duck her head beneath an arm, but it was no use.

“Please,” she cried. “Forgive me!” She truly believed she would not survive the blow.

But it did not come.

She twisted her head to look at him, then bit her lips and shook her head slowly, giving him some promise that she would not scream if he would spare her.

His arms held steady while he glared into her eyes. His jaw flexed, then flexed again. More voices added to that of the woman, as if a band of merry makers was headed for the island. He glanced at the door, then raised the cane a little higher; it would end now.

Still, she did not scream, kept her eyes on his.

With one hand, he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. Still holding the cane above her, he forced the cloth into her mouth. She did not resist. Finally, he lowered the end of the weapon to the ground. He then propped the thing against the footboard, only inches from her hand, then moved to the side of the bed.

Was he tempting her? All she could do was knock it to the ground, so she held still.

Something heavy was pulled from beneath the bed. The sound of it, dragging against the dirt on the floor, seemed louder than her scream had been, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The dragging stopped, followed by noises she could not identify. Her heart jumped when Marquardt’s weight pushed on the mattress beside her, but the only thing that touched her was a rope placed across her mouth, forced between her teeth like a bridle, then tied behind her head. She winced only when her hair was caught in the knot. Then his weight was gone. Her hair pulled painfully when she turned to watch him. He picked up his cane and peeked out the door. After a final glance at her, then at whatever he’d dragged from the under the bed, he slipped outside.

Livvy began to shake. She thought it might be relief. Then she realized she was crying, sobbing soundlessly into the cloth. She didn’t want to die.

Please, God, I do not want to die.

The door opened so soon she nearly inhaled the handkerchief in surprise. If he caught her crying, he’d take no pity. Besides, if her nose clogged with tears, she’d not be able to breathe.

She wiped her eyes on the dusty blanket beneath her chin and faced him.

Only it was not Marquardt, but Northwick closing the door. He turned and froze.

She started shaking again.

He placed a finger against his lips while, with his eyes, he drank in every horrible detail—her gag, her tied hands, her bare legs—but he did not go to her. Instead, he headed around to the far side of the fireplace...and disappeared.

Had she imagined him? How many times had she been struck on the head? Had those nuts poisoned her? Northwick had to be an hallucination. There was nothing that could have brought him to this hellish place.

“Nothing to fret about, Scarlet,” Marquardt said cheerfully as he entered a heartbeat later. “Just some servants collecting ice from the causey. I fear that means you’ll have to wear your gag for a bit longer. But I
am certain
we can find a pleasurable diversion while we wait for them to finish.”

He walked toward the cold fire, his every step echoing in her chest as if he trod upon her body and not the floor. He leaned the cane against the wall nearer the bed this time, as if to promise her she would not be able to stay his hand again should she scream.

Livvy looked past him and imagined Northwick appearing around the corner of the chimney, coming to her rescue, but he did not. Obviously, she was hysterical.

Marquardt crouched before the coals, held out his hands as if there was some warmth left for him there, then he rubbed them together as if over a hearty flame, as if he imagined a bright fire burning there. Was he taunting her, reminding her of the cold? Of her position on the bed, powerless to curl into herself to save her own warmth?

Or was he mad—imagining a flame where there was none? She still tasted the bitterness of the nuts that still clung to her teeth and tongue—a bitterness he’d seemed not to notice.

She found him staring at her then, his jaw dancing, his eyes enraged, as if she’d questioned his sanity aloud. She quickly blanked her face, as she’d seen Ashmoore do, but it was too late. Marquardt jumped to his feet and headed around the bed, to her right. She waited for his weight upon the mattress, but it did not come. Instead, he was rummaging through the thing he’d slid from under the bed.

Chains sang a brief song as they piled onto each other, hinting at a more permanent bondage. She pushed the thought aside. Just as she had with Gordon at Merrill’s, she refused to allow the man to control her with terror.

Chains? Fine. But there would be no more cowering. If once again he lifted that cane above her head, she would not plead with him. There would be no more fear for him to savor.

She turned her head, to test herself, to see if the ominous staff would bolster her courage or tempt her to have done with it all. But it could to neither. It was gone!

Her gag stifled any gasp that would have escaped her lips. Her first thought was that Marquardt might punish her for the thing going missing. But how could it be missing unless Northwick was truly there? She could see enough of the floor to know it had not fallen. Even if it could have done so without making a noise, the gnarled knot at the top would have prevented it from rolling more than a half turn.

She was so flooded with hope she barely noticed when the mattress moved beneath her. Hands grasped her around the waist and flipped her over, onto her back. Her arms twisted above her head and pain arched through her shoulders and remained, like a well-aimed blade. She fought with her legs to turn back onto her stomach, to relieve the pain, but he grasped her left knee, his fingers digging into her exposed flesh. The bruising grip distracted her attention from her shoulders and she stopped kicking.

A heavy, bitter-cold manacle clamped around her ankle but she refused to react. Marquardt stilled, staring at the door as if listening. Again, there came a merry shout, but no different than before. No closer than before. His head turned toward her, then shook back and forth.

“Scarlet, Scarlet. You must save your strength. We have yet to begin.” He brushed the dust from his fingers. “I have suffered a good eighteen months. I have lost my previous girth thanks to my Plumiere-induced poverty. So much so that no one recognized me when I returned.” He poked her in the chest, then slid his finger down the center of her belly. “Your fault.”

Had he a sharper fingernail, it might have cut the fabric and her skin with the pressure of it.

“So you see, you have brought about your own demise. Had you kept your little pen out of my business, I would be fat and happy. You would be... Well, you would hardly be here. And now, the only question is, how long can you hold on?”

He leaned forward, bringing his face within inches of her own, one hand pressed into the mattress along the right side of her body. The slight contact repulsed her, but she refused to let it show.

“I think, perhaps, you will
not
die today.” His voice was low, his breath foul. “‘Tis a fact, I would consider your little debt to me paid in full, and I would go so far as to let you go...if you managed to last, say,
eighteen months.
”

She did not react.

He frowned. His nostrils flared, but his voice remained pleasant as he sat back. “No. Too long. You could never last. Truth to tell, I could not last so long without tiring of you. Eighteen days, though? I think we might both last that long. And to give you hope, I shall make a little mark upon my beloved cane. One mark for every day you survive. In fact, you have survived an entire day already.” He stretched a foot to the floor and started to rise, then he froze. His eyes searched the short wall where his cane had been. His frown intensified. He looked to the door, then back at the fireplace, as if retracing his steps. Then he looked at her, as if expecting a confession.