Her Secret Fantasy (35 page)

If they were smart, he thought, they would know when the time came to stand aside.

“Gentlemen, pardon me for disturbing your game. I don’t believe it was your intent to kill me,” he said in a rather breezy tone, “but this gash on the back of my head has not stopped bleeding even now. Might I trouble you for a length of bandage that I may bind it?”

The request and his polite tone seemed to startle them. Then Jones began laughing. “Got ’im good, didn’t ye, Bates?”

“Nothin’ personal, Major,” Bates said with a modest chuckle. “I never ’ad nothing against ye.”

“Yes, of course,” Derek answered in a gentlemanly tone.

“Maguire, get him a bandage and a wet cloth, too. No harm in letting the blackguard clean ’imself up. Took quite a beating, he did, and took it well.”

“Yes, sir.” As Maguire got up and went into the tack room, Derek stood, ducking his head under the low top of his cell. He moved to the slatted metal wall of the cage nearest the men as Maguire came back with a clean white cloth of the sort normally used for bandaging horses’ legs.

“I’ll wet it for ’im,” Jones said wickedly, taking the cloth from Maguire. The thug went over to the nearest horse’s stall, dipped the rag in the animal’s water bucket, and then wrung it out with one hand.

Bates’s magnanimity did not extend to stifling Jones’s humor. He and Maguire both laughed at this cheeky insult as Jones brought the still-dripping cloth over to Derek.

“Are you going to unlock these shackles, or would you like to clean the wound for me, as well?” he asked mildly, unable to take the rag from the man, considering that his hands were still manacled behind his back.

Jones scoffed. “I ain’t doin’ it!”

“Don’t look at me!” Maguire said. “I ain’t touchin’ ’im.”

“Ah, ye both can hang, ye useless pair o’…” Still muttering under his breath, Bates trudged over, taking the key to Derek’s manacles out of his pocket. “Turn around, you coxcomb. You try anything, we shoot you. Understood?”

“Quite.”

A moment later, Derek’s hands were free. He rubbed his chafed wrists a bit, thanked Bates for this favor like an agreeable captive, and accepted the cloth with its share of horse slobber mixed with water.

So far, so good.

He returned to his seat on the wooden crate, where he tended the lump on the back of his head in watchful silence until the men largely forgot about him again.

With a careful survey of his surroundings, he searched for any way out. Damn it, if his head were not thumping so badly, it might have been easier to come up with a plan.

“Awful quiet over there,” Jones remarked after a while, glancing warily in his direction.

“Aye,” Bates agreed, “too quiet. If you’re scheming something, you may as well forget it. Unless you want another thumping.”

“Or a bullet in the heart,” Jones muttered as he took another swig from his bottle of whisky. “Don’t care what kind of bargain your little miss made with the boss.”

Derek moved forward, his gaze homing in on Jones suddenly. “What?”

Maguire began laughing. “Rather a shame, ain’t it, seein’ as how she’s a lady and all?”

“Was,” Jones corrected.

“Aye, was. Until now!” Maguire agreed.

They both started laughing, taunting him.

“Boss said he’d have her one way or another, didn’t he?”

“Smart man, our Mr. Lundy.”

“That’s why he’s rich and we ain’t.”

“What…bargain?” Derek asked again in a deeper, nigh sinister tone. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He could almost feel his blood beginning to curdle in his veins.

Their hilarity expanded.

“He wants to know what bargain!”

“I’ll bet ’e does! Don’t you worry your pretty head about it, Major Knight.”

“Aye, it’s only the reason you’re still breathing,” Jones said under his breath, flashing a dark grin.

Derek got up and went to the edge of the cage, gripping the bars. “Bates.” The single word, fraught with desperation, expressed his demand for answers, but Bates hesitated.

“You might say your young Lily promised Mr. Lundy certain favors,” Maguire piped up.

“It were sweet, weren’t it, the way she pleaded for this blackguard’s life?” Jones taunted, but Bates reached across the table and smacked him in the head.

“That’s enough! Shut yer maw! He don’t need to know the rest.” He turned to Derek, cutting off his questions before he could ask them. “Never mind about it!” he ordered. “The little fool brought it on herself.”

“Burglary’s a crime, you know,” Maguire chimed in. “Mr. Lundy could’ve turned her over to the constable.”

“Burglary?” Derek looked at them as horrified understanding dawned.

“You two, not another word!” Bates ordered, pointing in his underlings’ faces.

Derek was too wary of them to beg for information; it would only give them something more to use against him. But he was beginning to piece it together.

And he blamed himself.

Oh, Lily.
He closed his still-stinging eyes with a thousand curses speeding through his mind. His head throbbed harder.
I will get us out of here.

Think.

He needed to create a diversion.

He had to get out of this cage, and one of these men was going to have to be a pawn in his escape.

Longing to tear them and especially Lundy apart, somehow Derek found the self-control to approach them once again with a calm, steady demeanor. Resting his elbows on the bars of his cage, he cleared his throat. “Sure could do with a drink.” He watched them with a keen stare.

“I’m not surprised, after hearing that news about your little girly friend,” Jones said with a callous chuckle.

“You’re a pain in the arse, you are,” Bates muttered at Derek. He nodded at Jones. “Give ’im some of your whisky.”

“The hell I will! Give ’im yours!”

“Do it,” Bates repeated, giving Jones an icy stare. “It’s proper-like. Ask the soldier.” He nodded toward the cage. “An Englishman does not abuse his prisoners. We ain’t savages.”

Debatable,
Derek mused.

Jones snorted, but seemed to recall that Derek had dedicated his life to defending the same England they called home.

Derek hid his satisfaction.

Giving Bates a disgruntled look, Jones kicked his stool away as he rose. He swiped the tin dipper that Maguire had been drinking from.

“Hey!” Maguire protested, but Jones ignored him, pouring a splash of his whisky into the cup and then slouching over to deliver this to Derek.

Derek waited calmly as Jones approached. He could feel the savagery that years of war had taught him, alive, surging in his veins. A dark power, his to use. He didn’t really want to hurt the man, but if it came down to it…

Lily was all that mattered at the moment.

Perhaps Jones noticed the strange look in Derek’s eyes, for he hesitated slightly and hung back, reaching out almost gingerly to hand him the cup.

His fears were well founded.

Derek disregarded the cup and grasped Jones’s forearm, yanking him forward so he smashed his face on the bars and let out a bellow. Derek spun Jones about-face and with a wrench of the man’s shoulder pulled his arm high behind his back. He thrust his left hand through the bars, catching Jones about the throat in a choking headlock.

“Unlock the cage if you want him to live.”

It happened so fast that Bates spit out his mouthful of whisky while Jones flailed in astonishment, and Maguire stared, slack-jawed.

“Do it!”
Derek roared. They didn’t move fast enough. “You want to see me break his neck?” He began to squeeze, and Jones’s face started turning scarlet, strange choking sounds tumbling from his lips.

Jones’s one free hand scrabbled at the arm around his throat, but Derek ignored his struggles, only applying more pressure. “You let me out or I’ll kill him.”

“Why, you damned colonial.” Bates shot to his feet and reached for the nearby pitchfork. “You let him go or I’ll skewer you.” Bates angled the pitchfork through the slats and stabbed at Derek with it.

Derek arced his body out of the way, but when Bates took another vicious jab at him, trying to poke him full of holes, he had no choice but to release his hostage, grabbing the handle of the pitchfork instead. He wrenched it out of Bates’s hands and pulled it into the cage. In the next instant he had spun it around, prepared to use it as a weapon, but Jones, now freed, wanted his blood.

Jones marched over to his cast-off coat and pulled a horse pistol out of the pocket. “You’re a corpse, you bastard,” he said in a garbled tone, still rubbing his throat, panting.

When Derek saw Jones load a powder slug into the muzzle, he knew he had only seconds to react.

Angling the pitchfork through the bars of his cage just as Jones raised the pistol, Derek gripped the pitchfork like Poseidon’s trident and hurled it as best he could from his cramped, bent position.

The pitchfork sailed; his aim was true.

Jones’s gun went off as he threw himself out of the pitchfork’s path. His shot flew high, dinging off the metal bars, but as he fell, he stumbled over their makeshift gaming table. The board tilted on impact, hurling the contents of their table into the air.

The light playing cards fluttered down in a colorful shower, but the oil lantern and two open bottles of whisky catapulted three or four yards through the stable and landed in a tall, round pile of loose dry hay.

Maguire cursed in astonishment as the haystack burst into flames.

Inside the dim Gothic chamber, Lily lifted her tearstained face from her arm when she heard the commotion below. She had lain down in the small cubbyhole of the window nook and must have drifted off. She barely noticed the smell of smoke at first. But then a new set of sounds besides the incessant barking of Edward’s vicious dog gradually invaded her awareness. Yells and animal screams from the darkness outside.
What the deuce—?

Rallying herself from her despair, she pushed up to a seated position and peered through the glass.

At once, her eyes widened at the scene of mayhem below. The stable was on fire!

Smoke was pouring out of the horses’ stall windows and in one spot, flames had begun shooting through the roof. Horses were running free, careening in all directions in terror of the blaze.

Edward’s men were working frantically with cloths pressed over their nostrils and mouths. Some plunged back into the burning stable to rescue more of their master’s horses, while others rushed about with buckets of water, trying to put out the blaze. Their efforts were pitiful compared to the ferocity of the fire.

With one awestruck look, she was sure that Edward’s fine stable was going to burn to the ground, but only one question screamed through her mind.

Where is Derek?

Lily did not see him.

As she pushed the window open, her gaze probed the clouds of drifting smoke.

Where could he be? Dear God.
She gripped the windowsill.
What if he’s still inside there?

Something deeper than logic assured her that this was the case, and in a heartbeat, she knew she had to help him.

At once, she was on her feet. She flew across the room and fought against the heavy locked door, pounding her fists on it, shouting for any servant within earshot to let her out.

Nobody came.

Enraged at her situation, she gave up this futile aim and marched back to the window, knowing she’d have to take matters into her own hands.

It was a long way down, with a vicious dog waiting at the bottom, but as she leaned as far out the window as she dared, surveying her prospects, she spotted an ivy trellis a few feet to her right. If she could inch her way over to it, it could serve as a ladder that she could climb down—but then, what to do about the dog?

Now it was clear to see why Edward had ordered the dog tied there—to prevent her from even trying to escape.

Should she risk it?

Brutus would tear her apart before she set foot on the ground.
Ah!
With a swift glance over her shoulder, she recalled the tray of food the servant had brought up.

When she threw the lid aside, she found the food looking even more disgusting than before, clotted and cold. On the other hand, the fight dog was probably not a picky eater. Grimacing a little, she plucked the greasy, dripping hambone out of the soup bowl, shaking clumps of pea soup off it.

Then she went back over to the window, certain that this was madness. At the same time, she knew she had to act. When another glance in the direction of the stable failed to reveal any sign of Derek, she knew in her soul that if she didn’t help him, nobody would. They were not going to risk their lives to save a man they had wanted dead in the first place.

Her mind made up, heart slamming in her chest at the recklessness of her mission, Lily tucked the slimy hambone into her torn bodice with a grimace and set out for her descent down the steep wall of Edward’s mansion.

Crouching on the window seat, she climbed gingerly out the window. Turning by degrees until her back was pressed to the exterior wall, she slowly traversed the narrow platform of decorative masonry, feeling her way along with each agonizingly slow sideward step. A brief glance down made her dizzy.