Leslie Lafoy (36 page)

A more than half-full bottle appeared in the next instant, the glass glinting in the moonlight, the contents dark and sloshing. Whisky, she knew, watching him pull the cork with his teeth. He spat it aside and said, “You’re going to pay for cutting me, Feenie. You’re going to wish you had never laid eyes on me.”

She’d wished that years ago but knew better than to say so, to say anything. If she was quiet, if she didn’t look at him, didn’t challenge him in any way, he’d focus on the whisky and forget she was there. And when the bottle was empty, he would close his eyes and forget the world was there. It was then that she could slip away. She’d done it hundreds of times. She knew how to be patient, how to survive.

*   *   *

The inside of his head was white-hot but the disgustingly vile smell drew him through the pain and forced open his eyes. “Jesus,” he growled, his voice raspy as he roughly pushed away the hand holding the nasty little vial.

“No, it’s Sawyer, sir.”

He knew that, but he was too busy collecting his wits to frame words. He was in his room, on the floor, the back of his head pounding like holy hell. The last thing he remembered was coming through the door with Sera in … His stomach clenched and his blood turned to ice.

“Please do not attempt to rise just yet, sir,” Sawyer protested, pushing his shoulder back toward the floor. “You have been dealt a heavy blow to the back of your head.”

“I know that,” he retorted through bared teeth, shoving Sawyer’s hand aside and struggling to sit up. “Where’s Sera?”

Sawyer slipped an arm around his shoulders and assisted in the effort.

“Dammit, Sawyer,” he demanded as his butler helped him gain his feet. The world swayed and he grabbed the front of Sawyer’s nightshirt to still the two of them. “Where’s Sera?”

“She has been taken, sir. By force.”

His stomach churned and heaved. He stared into Sawyer’s face, focusing on the man’s eyes, on what he had to know to get Sera back. “Keep talking.”

“I immediately despatched Monroe to find Mr. Stan-bridge and Mr. Terrell. Assuming that they were still at Lady Hatcher’s, they should be here momentarily, sir.”

He didn’t give a damn about any of that. He gave Sawyer a shake. “Who took her? Did you see him?”

“Very clearly, sir. A tall man, rather thin for being the brutish type. A Yank, clearly of their most disreputable class.”

“Gerald,” he muttered, his fists tightening in Sawyer’s nightdress.

“There were no introductions, sir.”

“Was Sera all right when he took her out of here?”

“She was most distressed over your situation, sir.”

God Almighty, there were times when he wanted to strangle the man. Widening his stance, strengthening his balance, Carden pulled him closer. “Sawyer, forget you’re a goddamn butler and tell me straight out. Had he hurt her?”

“Physically, sir, she appeared to have been knocked about a bit, but she was still quite capable of struggling against him.”

She hadn’t been carried out. She’d been whole and sound enough to resist. The flood of relief sent the world reeling again. He released Sawyer and staggered to the armoire, grabbed the top edge and let it anchor him.

“Her willingness to do so, however,” Sawyer went on, “was tempered appreciably when he brandished his pistol and threatened to shoot Monroe or myself. I am sure he would have included Cook and Mrs. Blaylock as well were it not their night out, sir. The Yank was quite indiscriminate in whom he threatened.”

Oh, God. Sera. He knew the look that had been in her eyes as she’d faced the muzzle of that pistol. She had been afraid, but determined to be brave. He knew Sera. And he hadn’t been there for her. She’d faced it all alone. She was still alone.

“What the hell happened down in the foyer?”

Aiden. A small wave of relief came at the sound of his voice. His question, his obvious agitation, tempered it with apprehension. Carden turned his entire body to look at him. “The foyer?”

“It was the crashing of the table that awakened me,” Sawyer supplied hastily. “Monroe as well. When we arrived in the foyer, your lady was in the clutches of her assailant. It is purely speculation on my part, sir, but I believe that prior to that unfortunate turn of events, she attempted to run the Yank through with your walking stick sword.”

“Judging by the amount of blood,” Aiden added, stepping around him to gingerly examine the back of his head, “she slashed him good before he took it away from her. You have a helluva knot, but you’ll live.”

He’d already surmised as much. Watching Sawyer’s eyes, he pressed, “Are you sure she wasn’t cut?”

“I saw no indications of such an injury, sir. Her assailant was the one bleeding.”

Thank God. And good for Sera.

“Although, I must say, sir, that he seemed to be largely unaware of it. I detected the unmistakable odor of alcohol about his person.”

Yes, drunks didn’t feel much pain. He was going to let the bastard sober up before he exacted justice. And when that was done, he was going to show Sera how to use the sword effectively. The next time she needed to defend herself, one clean swipe would be all she would need. But he had to find her first and, with every second that passed, she was farther and farther away. Letting go of the armoire, he took a broad stance and squared his shoulders. His head throbbed, his teeth and eyes ached, but he focused beyond it all. On what it was going to take to find Sera.

“I have one man down and unconscious and another missing.”

He turned to see Barrett striding into the room, his eyes hard and lethal. Another small wave of relief stole over him. This one, though, came with confusion. “Man?” Carden asked.

“I didn’t know you were back from the tunnel until Seraphina mentioned it on the way to Lady Hatcher’s this evening,” he explained, stripping off his evening gloves. “I hadn’t pulled my men, Carden. They were still on post. Obviously one ran afoul of Gerald Treadwell. Monroe’s tending him. I have no idea where the other one is.”

Sawyer cleared his throat. “Might he be a decidedly small, wiry, furtive fellow, sir?”

All three of them turned to the butler, but it was Barrett who asked, “Have you seen him in the last hour or so?”

“The Yank took Mr. Reeves’s lady out through the conservatory and then the service gate. Monroe had already been despatched for help and I followed after them, hoping that I might see an opportunity to effect her rescue. Unfortunately, I did not and she was forced into a waiting hack which was quickly driven away.

“The fellow I described slipped from the bushes some distance down the alleyway and dashed after it on foot. I assumed it was an urchin attempting to catch a free ride. I would be immeasurably relieved to know that I assumed incorrectly, sir.”

“You did, Sawyer,” Barrett assured him with a clap on the shoulder that practically drove the man’s knees to the floor. “Joseph O’Mara is one of my best men, Carden. He won’t lose her and he’ll send word as soon as Gerald Treadwell lights somewhere with her.”

“And I’m supposed to sit here and wait until then?” he asked incredulously. Sera was being held at gunpoint and he was supposed to twiddle his thumbs?

“There’s nothing else you can do,” Barrett countered. “And getting angry with me about it isn’t going to make things move one bit faster.”

“Sorry,” Carden muttered, swallowing down his frustration and his heart.

Sawyer cleared his throat again. “Your pardon, sir. But there is one matter that needs your attention as soon as you are able to address it.”

Carden painfully cocked a brow and his man continued, “Monroe and I were not the only members of the household awakened by the scuffle in the foyer, sir. Your nieces were witnesses to your lady being rather brutally hauled away.”

Something else for which Gerald Treadwell was going to pay dearly. “Where are they?”

“In their room with Anne, sir.”

“I’ll go talk to them,” he said, starting in that direction despite not having any idea of precisely what it was that he was going to say when he got there. Aside from apologizing and begging their forgiveness for not being there to protect Sera.

“Sir?”

He turned back to find Sawyer at the foot of the bed, carefully holding a silver-plated dueling pistol in his hand.

“I confiscated this from Miss Beatrice,” the man explained, bringing it to him. “Do be careful. It is loaded.”

Carden expelled a long, hard breath and tried to calm his skittering pulse. “Where did she get it?”

“I have no idea, sir. I was returning from the garden, on my way up here to ascertain your injuries, when I encountered Miss Beatrice in the dining room. I have not the slightest doubt that she intended to find and shoot your lady’s attacker.”

Oh, sweet Jesus in Heaven. Bea? For crissake, she was only seven years old!

Aiden shook his head. “Don’t ever stint that girl’s allowance.”

“If you have no further questions of me, sir,” Sawyer said, “I shall see to preparing a cold compress for your head wound. If there is anything I can do to assure the speedy and safe return of your lady, you need but ask, sir.”

As the man started away, something in the deepest recesses of Carden’s abused brain softly clicked. “Sawyer?” he called, stopping his butler. “I do have one more question. When did Sera become ‘my lady’?”

“The day she walked into this house, sir.”

With a brief bow, Sawyer walked off, leaving him standing there, swaying on his feet and struggling to pull a full breath into his lungs.

“Carden?” Aiden called quietly. “We
will
get her back.”

It was a possibility. But only one among many and he knew it. Sera had warned him of her husband’s brutality, of his ruthless determination to achieve his ends. Carden hadn’t believed her, had dismissed her concerns and assured her that everything would be all right. And he’d been wrong; as wrong and as blind as a man could be. Sera had known what danger stalked her. She had feared for her life and now—too late—he did, too.

He looked between his two friends. “Alive? Unharmed?” They said nothing and in the silence, he added, “Don’t offer me hope you can’t guarantee.”

He handed the pistol to Aiden and then walked away, saying, “Don’t unload it. I’ll be taking it with me when we hear from O’Mara. I’ll meet you both in my study when I’m done talking to the girls. Interrupt if word comes.”

Pausing in the doorway, he turned back and considered the two of them again. He owed them honesty. “You both need to know … When I find Gerald Treadwell, I’m going to kill him. If you don’t want to be a party to that, I understand.”

They each met his gaze in turn and, although neither said a word, he saw their commitment in their eyes, their willingness to stand with him through it all and to the end. With a nod of thanks that became an involuntary wince, he left them, heading to comfort his nieces as best he could.

C
HAPTER
21

Sera had never been so cold. Or in so wretched a place as the narrow, deserted strip of street on which she stood, clutching the crate of her paintings. Pale light glowed here and there from the windows of rickety buildings that towered and teetered up from the cobblestones. All manner of waste and refuse littered the walk under her feet. Her stomach clenched at the smell and it took all of her resolve not to gag.

There was nothing she could do to suppress the shudder that wracked her body as Gerald clamped his hand around her upper arm. He pushed her ahead of him, toward a dark set of stairs that led down into the walk. She went, using the crate to hold her tattered hems above her feet and silently, desperately hoped that Gerald would lose his footing and fall.

He was drunk by the standards of most men, but not those unique to Gerald Treadwell. His speech was slurring, his gait unsteady. But slightly less than half the whisky remained and he wouldn’t stop until it was gone. And the time between the half and one-quarter marks was the most dangerous. He could still move, think, and, because his thoughts tended to be mean then, strike.

But once he passed the quarter mark … Just a few seconds would be all she needed to get away. He could come after her, but he wouldn’t be able to catch her. Not then. All she had to do was keep quiet and bide her time. She’d be home before daybreak. She’d be back in Carden’s—

Memory shredded her hope. The sight of Carden lying still and silent on the floor. The single second in which the vitality of him had been snuffed out like a candle. Tears welled in her eyes and she desperately blinked them back, knowing that if Gerald saw them, they’d earn her a slap.

Don’t look back, Sera. Don’t look back.

They reached the door at the bottom of the stone pit and he released her arm only to plant his hand between her shoulder blades and hold her against the door as he unlocked the rotting wood panel. It swung open on rusty, sagging hinges and he roughly pushed her through the opening and into a small, barely furnished room.

Two small windows, one on the street side, one on the alley side, provided just enough light for her to make out the outlines of a small iron stove, a cluttered wall shelf above it, a narrow bed, an oil lamp sitting on an upended crate, and a straight-backed chair.

“Put it down there,” Gerald snapped, pointing with the pistol to the space between the end of the bed and the coal stove.

She did as he told her and then straightened, waiting for another command, knowing better than to act on her own.

“Sit!”

She moved to the chair quickly and sat, dropping her hands into her lap and silently watching him put his bottle of whisky and the pistol on the upended crate beside the bed. If he turned his back … She saw the blow coming, tried to block it, and failed. The world reeled and went gray. Adrift in the fog, she felt the rough fibers of the ropes, knew that she was being tied into the chair. And no amount of fear or desperate realization could make her limbs move to resist.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall forward so that Gerald wouldn’t see the tears threatening to overwhelm her. She heard the scratch and smelled the sulfur, knew that he was lighting the oil lamp. Then he shuffled to the end of the bed and she heard him grunt just before there was a cascade of falling paper, followed by three heavy thuds. She started at the crash and risked lifting her head and opening her eyes just long enough to see what he was doing.