Barbara Pierce (25 page)

He turned left and crossed several bystreets before turning right onto a thoroughfare. Fayne barked a curt command
and tugged on the reins, slowing down his pair of dark bays. A quarter mile ahead, a farmer had overturned his wagon, and baskets of vegetables had scattered in the streets. The accident had drawn a mob of people scrambling for the trampled produce. Several fights had broken out, and the chaos had brought all street traffic to a congested halt. There was a long line of equipages blocking the street. Many of the passengers had disembarked from their coaches to get a better view of the accident.

Frustrated by the delay, Fayne almost signaled the bays to proceed so he could circumvent the congestion. An elegant crest on one of the stranded coaches had him pausing. There was a chance Nipping had also turned this way and was trapped. Jumping down from his perch, he grabbed a passing pedestrian by the shoulder. He offered the man an outrageous amount to guard his equipage, and once the bargain was struck, Fayne started down the street on foot.

He was prepared to open each closed door and check the interiors until he was satisfied. If Kilby was hidden in one of them, he meant to find her.

Kilby squirmed within Archer’s embrace. He was holding her so tightly, she could barely draw a breath. She wondered if he was intentionally trying to induce her to faint. The thought of what her brother could do to her while she was unconscious urged her to fight him off with renewed vigor.

“Oh, I like it when you wiggle your body against me,” Archer said, panting in her ear. “With each bump my rod grows harder.”

Kilby craned her face away from his. She scored his cheek with her fingernails. He reared his head back, cursing. His hand viciously connected with her cheek. Her head struck the wall of the tiny compartment.

“Enough,” she said, hitting him in the head and shoulders
whenever she managed to free her wrist. Every time he groped her thigh or her breast, Kilby fought down the bile in her throat.

“Enough? You stupid bitch, I will tell you when I have had enough,” Archer bellowed at her, the three deep scratches furrowing his right cheek dripped with blood. He touched his fingers to his face and noted the blood. “I’m bleeding. If you’ve scarred me, I’ll take the edge of a blade to your face and repay you in kind.”

Archer tried to kiss her again. When she turned away, he wiped his bloodied fingers down her cheek. He captured the front of her bodice and ripped the front panel, revealing the swell of her breasts spilling out of her corset.

“What a fine bounty you have been keeping from me.”

Kilby did not have the breath to articulate her rage in words. She pummeled him with blow after blow with her fists, but he seemed invulnerable to her attacks. As he bent his face to her exposed breasts, his hand jerked the edge of her corset downward.

“God, no—please!” she choked out. Kilby could not believe what was happening. Her own brother was determined to violate her in the coach. If the coachman heard the scuffling within the interior of the coach, he was dutifully ignoring it.

“Hold still,” Archer commanded gruffly. He had bared one of her breasts. “You’ll like this.”

Kilby felt only revulsion as his mouth covered her nipple. At the wet lash of his tongue, she mercilessly pulled his hair. Instead of releasing her, Archer buried his teeth into her delicate flesh.

She threw her head back and screamed.

The door of the coach was jerked open. At some point during their struggles, the coach had stopped. Kilby whimpered in gratitude. She could not see her would-be knight in shining armor because Archer was blocking her view.
She did not care, just as long as the man took her away from her brother. Blindly, she reached out, needing to touch someone who was decent.

Archer lifted his head and snarled at the intruder. “I do not pay you to interfere—” Whoever was at the door was not the coachman. His next words confirmed it. “Who the devil are you? Off with you, this is not your business.”

“I disagree. The lady is definitely my business,” Fayne said icily.

Kilby scrambled upright and covered her breasts. She could not take her eyes off him. Haloed by sunlight, he looked like the angel of vengeance. A part of her feared she was hallucinating. There was no plausible reason for him to be standing in the doorway.

“Kilby, come to me,” Fayne ordered roughly, not sparing her a glance. She need no encouragement and edged toward the door.

“You are not going anywhere,” her brother told her, pushing her back onto the bench. “Who is this man to you? He snaps his fingers and you obey like a well-trained whore.”

With lightning reflexes, Fayne slammed his fist into her brother’s nose. Archer staggered backward and sprawled on the floor. Archer cupped his nose and howled. “Bleeding Christ, you broke my nose, you bastard!” A considerable amount of blood was dripping from his nostrils onto his cravat. Pushing off the floor, he lunged for Fayne. “I will tear you apart!”

Anticipating the attack, Fayne caught him by the edges of his frock coat and dragged him out of the coach. Archer landed forcefully on his knees. Effortlessly, Fayne picked her brother up and slammed him against the side of the coach.

Fayne drove his fist into the marquess’s soft middle. “Not so mighty, are you?” He punched him again. “Bullying
women. That’s your cowardly manner. I should kill you for putting your filthy hands on her!”

“Fayne?” Kilby called out his name as she made her way toward the door. He was rigid with unbridled fury. She had never glimpsed this lethal side of him. Even the day at the fair when he battled Hollensworth, he still had a measure of control.

“Are you mad?” the marquess asked, stanching the flow of blood with the sleeve of his coat. “I see no reason why it should concern you how I deal with my own family. Who are you anyway?”

Fayne lifted her brother up and slammed him several more times against the coach. The back of Archer’s head made a sickening thwack with each impact. Kilby covered her mouth with her hand. She had no great love for her brother. Nevertheless, Fayne’s attacks were efficiently brutal.

“My apologies for not formally introducing myself. I am the Duke of Solitea.” Fayne kneed the marquess in the groin and released him.

Archer gasped and dropped abruptly on his knees. Groaning, he cupped his crotch. “Solitea?” He shot Kilby a withering look. “You’re not him. The man is dead.”

“Not yet.” Fayne seized the marquess by his throat. Archer gasped. “But you will be if you come near your sister again.”

After glimpsing the violence Nipping had planned for his sister, it was difficult to refrain from killing the depraved bastard. Since Fayne could not murder him in cold blood, he concentrated on giving the man a lesson in pain. Using the marquess’s ears as clever grips, Fayne smashed the back of Nipping’s head against one of the coach’s wheels. The man’s skull made a very satisfying crack. The marquess’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed facedown into the street.

It was a pity the man would eventually wake up. “See to
your lord.” Fayne barked the command at the openmouthed coachman. Kilby was quietly crying, her face pressed into the arm she was using to brace herself in the doorway. Without hesitating, he scooped Kilby into his arms. His argument with the marquess had already drawn enough attention from onlookers.

Striding in the opposite direction, he carried her to his waiting carriage. As he thanked the man for looking after his equipage, Fayne lifted Kilby onto the seat. He left her long enough to retrieve a small wool blanket from the small chest at the back of the carriage. Circling around, he climbed in beside her and wrapped the blanket around her trembling shoulders. Kilby had not spoken since she called to him when she thought Fayne was on the verge of killing her brother. Biting back a curse, he signaled the bays about their imminent departure. A swift snap on the reins and a low verbal command, and he turned the carriage around, putting as much distance as he could from Nipping.

Kilby’s slender figure trembled against the warmth of his body. Fayne’s heart ached. All he wanted to do was halt the carriage and cuddle her in his arms until the tremors subsided. Unfortunately, they needed to leave town immediately. “I need you to talk to me, Kilby. How badly hurt are you?”

She sobbed into her hand at the question, and the muscles in his abdomen clenched fiercely. Whatever had happened had left her terrified. A cursory appraisal of her injuries revealed that most were superficial. The front of her dress was torn and most of her hair had escaped the numerous hairpins she generally used to style her hair. One of her cheeks was reddened and her lower lip was split. It looked sore. Dried blood crusted at the corner of her mouth. There was also a smear of blood on her other cheek.

Fayne retrieved his handkerchief and offered it to her. She mutely accepted it. “Come on, little wolf. If you don’t
talk to me, I’ll think the worst and have to go back to finish off your brother,” he said, reaching over to stroke her knee. Kilby flinched at his touch. Cursing Nipping’s black soul to hell, he withdrew his hand. “Speak to me. I need some reassurances.”

Her lips parted and she exhaled a shaky breath. “How did you—” She intensified her bloodless hold on the blanket. “How did you know where to find me?”

Fayne scowled at her question. Kilby was not telling him what he really wanted to know. Then again, she was talking to him. “Lady Quennell. I had an eleven o’clock appointment with her. She told me how Nipping had taken you against your will.”

He felt her staring at his profile as his words sank in. A tiny line formed between her brows. “An appointment?” Kilby made a face. “Never mind. We can discuss it later. Fayne, you have to take me back.”

Denial flared in his green eyes. Kilby was hurt and she needed him. He did not want to hand her over to anyone. “To the viscountess? It will be the first place Nipping will look.”

“No.”

Huddled under the blanket, and shivering despite the mild weather, Kilby looked miserable. He was so incensed that he wanted to kick something, preferably her brother—again. “Well, if you think I’m taking you back to that madman brother of yours, his clout to your face must have addled your wits!”

She did not bother denying his accusation.

Kilby sniffed into a handkerchief. “You have to take me to Ealkin. I need to get to my sister.”

“Why?”

She extended her arms in a gesture of helplessness. “Fayne, do not misunderstand me. I am grateful for your timely rescue.”

Fayne did not want her thanks. Next, she would be apologizing for inconveniencing him. “I didn’t do it for your gratitude, Kilby.”

“I know,” she said, laying her cheek on his shoulder to placate him. “You are a decent gentleman.”

Fayne blinked at the compliment. Kilby was probably the only person who had ever described him in that fashion. “Why do I sense I will not like this next part?”

She sighed. “I once told you that my younger sister, Gypsy, has never recovered from our parents’ deaths.”

He recalled she had spoken briefly about her family the night he had encountered her at Lord Guttrey’s supper. Kilby had lamented over her concerns about her younger sister. She had said very little about her older brother. Now he understood why. “You mentioned that she refuses to talk.”

A spark of annoyance so much a part of the spirited lady he knew and well loved flared in her expression. “It is not simply stubbornness that prevents her from speaking. If that were true, Archer—” Kilby swiftly looked away, not finishing her admission.

She did not have to elaborate. Fayne had a pretty good idea how Nipping might have amused himself with a mute child who could not fight back. He tightened the ribbons in his grasp. “Will you despise me enormously if I end up being your brother’s executioner?” he mused aloud, half serious.

“Gypsy is his leverage, Fayne,” Kilby said carefully. “He knows I will do anything to protect her and he uses her to keep me in line. It is why I must return to Ealkin before Archer. He will never forgive me for leaving with you. I could not bear for Gypsy to suffer for my disobedience.”

Fayne silently agreed, but he was not going to deliver Kilby into Nipping’s greedy hands. “What would he do to her?”

Kilby’s face crumpled in anguish as tears leaked down her cheeks. “Archer has vowed to have Gypsy declared mentally unsound and a danger to herself and others. He will lock her away in some horrible asylum for the insane.” She clutched his arm, her eloquent violet gaze beseeching him to understand. “Do you see why I must get to Gypsy first? My brother will want revenge for the beating you gave him. He will take Gypsy and hide her someplace where I might never find her. Not in time.”

She burrowed her face into the edge of the blanket and sobbed. His poor little wolf had been through so much. Regrettably, there were more obstacles to face before day’s end. Fayne curved his arm around her back and pulled her closer. She hiccupped, and to his relief she leaned into him, accepting his comfort.

“Do not worry about Gypsy,” he assured her, chastely kissing the top of her head. “I’ll see to it your brother does not get his hands on her.”

There was a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Still, she shook her head. “Fayne, for better or worse, he is our guardian. How can you—”

“It can be done,” Fayne interjected, quelling her argument. The family name was influential in many powerful circles. He would appeal to the courts, if Nipping challenged him for either Kilby or her sister. There was no doubt in his mind that with the Solitea name and wealth behind him, he would emerge victorious.

Finally becoming aware of her surroundings, Kilby said, “We are heading in the wrong direction if we are traveling to Ealkin.”

Fayne gave her an assessing look. Kilby was still shaken by her ordeal with Nipping, but the blank shock he had glimpsed was fading. He wondered how Kilby would react when she learned that they were not going to her family’s country estate. It was a conversation he would rather have
with both hands free and preferably not in the middle of the street. “This carriage is fine for a drive in the park, but impractical for the miles we will need to cover. We will need some provisions, and you need a clean dress.”