Rheda tried to hurry, but Connor’s strength was waning. Then out of the shadows Daniel appeared. “Daniel! I’m so pleased to see you. Pick up Connor; we have to hurry.”
“What’s happened?”
“There is no time. I’ll have to explain when we get to the house.”
Rheda paced the drawing room. Connor lay wrapped in blankets on the settee, being warmed by the fire. Penny had let him have a thimble of brandy in a warm cup of tea and fed him scones. He seemed to be recovering well from his ordeal. Jamieson had gone to fetch Connor’s mother and siblings.
Rheda had wasted no time informing Stephen and Daniel what had occurred and where Rufus had gone. Stephen and his men left immediately to start the hunt. They had taken Daniel with them. Stephen had not wanted to let him out of his sight.
“Stop pacing. You’ll wear the rugs out,” Penny scolded.
She crossed to kneel at Connor’s side. “I just wish I could do more. Connor, can you remember anything else? Anything at all about the man that took you? Just close your eyes and try to recall ...” She reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes.
He grabbed her arm, his eyes opening wide. “His hand. When I bit him, I bit him really hard. He took his glove off to wipe the blood, and I saw it. He had a horrible growth on his hand—”
“Do you mean a birthmark?” Rheda asked, waves of fear beginning to crash over her until she could barely swallow.
“I don’t know. It was red and covered almost all of the back of his hand.”
Rheda gasped and sank back onto the floor. Her hand hovered over her mouth. She felt like she was going to be sick. Under her breath she uttered, “Oh, God. What have I done?” Icy chills were not kept at bay by the log fire directly behind her. “I don’t believe it. It can’t be ...”
Penny stopped buttering a scone and with her knife in hand asked, “What’s wrong?”
She raised anguished eyes to Penny. “I know who took Connor.” Hurriedly she got to her feet. “He’s in trouble. I’ve told him everything. I have to warn him—”
“Warn who?” Penny grabbed her by the arms. “Stop for a moment. You’re not making sense.”
Ignoring Penny, Rheda said to Connor, urgency underpinning her words, “In what direction was the man taking you? It’s very important. Think hard. Lives are at risk ...”
“Stop it, Rheda. You’re frightening the boy.”
“Think, Connor. Please ...”
He sat up and looked out the window toward the northern coastline. “We were heading toward Kingsgate Bay. I’m sure of it because I remember thinking that if I couldn’t escape before we left Harding’s Wood, I’d try and lose him in the caves just before Kingsgate.”
Rheda took his head in her hands and planted a big kiss on his head. “Thank you.” She turned and raced for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Penny asked, hands on hips.
“I haven’t got time to explain. When Jamieson returns with Meg, tell him to get word to Stephen and his men. Lord Hale took Connor. I think he’s at the old ruins at the entrance to Kingsgate Bay.” And before Penny could stop her, Rheda raced for the stables. It took her longer to saddle White Lily than it should have because she fumbled in her haste. She took a deep breath to try to calm her nerves.
Rufus was in terrible danger. Christopher would be expecting him. She’d told Rufus’s enemy everything. She needed to find one of Stephen’s men before it was too late.
If Christopher captured Rufus ... She couldn’t bear to think about it. This was all her fault. With her heart pounding louder than White Lily’s hooves thumping on the ground, Rheda prayed she’d get to Rufus in time.
Chapter 21
P
ain... .
Pain everywhere.
Now Rufus knew what it felt like to be stretched on the rack, waiting to be drawn and quartered. Every muscle in his body was on fire. The chains pulled taut; his joints screamed, wanting to pop from their sockets.
He tried to raise his head, but each tiny movement caused nausea to erupt deep in his gut and he fought the urge to vomit.
Rufus closed his eyes and stayed his head, trying to focus through the pain. His pride was in tatters at having let the enemy sneak up on him unawares and render him unconscious with one simple blow. He knew he’d been taken, but to where, and by whom?
He forced his eyelids to lift and waited for the haze to clear. He kept his body still, hiding his return to consciousness from anyone who might happen to be in the room. Like a fox testing the poacher’s trap, he evaluated his position.
He was chained in the middle of what looked like a dungeon. A well-fitted-out, comfortable dungeon. The slate stones beneath his feet were covered in Persian rugs. The wall to his right displayed an opulent wall hanging of Christ’s last supper; he hoped that wasn’t an omen. To his left stood a day couch covered with opulent fur throws.
A fire crackled behind him. He knew because the flames flickered shadows across the wall in front of him, and he could feel its heat on his back.
He looked down his body and his skin crawled.
Christ, he was naked. He jerked on his chains, the metal manacles cutting into his skin.
Stay calm. Fear is your enemy.
He swallowed his terror and flexed his muscles, assessing the damage. He clenched and unclenched his fingers and rolled his shoulders. Nothing appeared to be broken. But his shoulder joints felt as if they were about to explode. His arms were spread above his head, extended and pulled tight, chained to the ceiling. His legs, too, were spread wide, and he was shackled to the floor by the ankles, suspended in the shape of a cross.
If his enemy wanted him open and exposed, he’d succeeded.
The room was quiet. Deathly quiet. Sensing he was in fact alone, Rufus gingerly lifted his head to survey his prison. With the ringing in his ears and the haze clouding his brain clearing, he began to notice more. The room smelled musky. The air clinging to the inside of his nose was salty and damp against his bare skin. They were near the sea. There were no windows in the room, even though it was luxuriously furnished. Lighted candles licked the cold stone walls, casting an eerie glow around the chamber.
The owner of this place was obviously a wealthy man, and a man with perversions. His gaze landed on the grotesque stone statues positioned in each dank corner, and with frightening clarity Rufus understood who’d captured him. The man who “used” this room was an abuser of young boys. Connor’s kidnapper.
The bile he’d been keeping at bay rose into his throat. Rufus was certain he’d been found by the man responsible for the disappearance of the boys.
Fear grew to unimaginable proportions. He yanked on the chains with all his strength. The chains did not break.
His head drooped down to his chest once more, defeat a crushing weight. Without Rufus’s protection the degenerate responsible for Connor’s capture would go after the boy to silence him. His gut clenched in horror. That would lead him straight to Rheda.
He raised his head. He would not give up. Never. He had to escape. To save Rheda and Connor. Rheda. Adrenaline surged; his mind blocked the pain. He looked up at the ceiling and began to pull his arms down as hard as possible. If he could just slip his hands out of the manacles ...
Soon his arms shook from the strain, and blood dripped down his arms from where his skin had split against the iron bands.
“I’d stop trying to get free. You’ll break your wrists, very painful, and you still won’t be able to escape.”
Rufus’s head jerked to the right, and he swallowed in disgust. A man stepped through a stone door, closing it softly behind him. He wasn’t very tall. His head was sleeved in a black leather mask that had slits for his mouth, nose, and eyes. It tied at his neck.
The hood didn’t frighten Rufus. More disturbing was the fact the enemy before him was naked below his mask. His lithe body was covered in oil and gleamed in the candlelight. As he moved closer, Rufus realized his body was devoid of any trace of hair. Not that he wanted to look, but he was agog, as there appeared to be a chain running from a ring in the man’s foreskin to his scrotum.
Rufus could face many things. He could take a vicious beating, and had on many occasions. He had been whipped to within an inch of his life but ... but the thought of this “thing” touching him was a perversion he’d never had to face before. He hoped he had the strength to endure. The strength to escape.
The hideous vision reached out and stroked Rufus’s chest. Rufus jerked back, his nausea returning in force.
“My master was right. You are beautiful. Like a Greek god.” He began to walk around Rufus, lightly touching him. “I’m honored that my master has chosen me to prepare you.”
“Touch me again, and I swear you’re a dead man.”
From the pitch of his voice Rufus had no doubt the “thing” before him was a young man. A boy really.
His tormentor stopped in front of him once more, and in reply to his threat simply reached out and cupped Rufus’s balls in his hand and lightly squeezed. “Magnificent.”
Rufus fought against his bindings, trying to escape his touch but to no avail. He swallowed the bile in his throat.
With a sigh the boy turned and walked toward the chest along the stone wall. “But you are not for me.” He glanced over his shoulder, and the mask split as he smiled. “Not yet anyway. My master is the only man allowed to initiate a new pleasure toy.” He took out a bottle. “But if I am very good, if I prepare you well, I get to play once he is finished with you.”
Rufus’s heart was pounding in his chest, sweat peppered his skin, and he thought he was going to vomit. The thought of the boy touching him terrified him. As the boy approached him, with his hands covered in liquid, he tried not to let his fear show.
“Who is your master?”
The boy began by sliding his hands over Rufus’s chest, working the oil deep into his muscles. The pungent oil made his nostrils flare, and he gagged. The smell was sickly sweet.
Opium.
The oil contained opium. They were trying to drug him.
“Patience. Don’t worry. There is not enough opium in the oil to render you unconscious. It’s simply the master’s way to help you relax. To make you more receptive to his touch ...”
The boy worked quietly but earnestly. He moved around behind Rufus and worked the oil all over his back, from his neck all the way down both his legs. Working it into every crevice of his body.
Rufus struggled against the chains, but it was hopeless. He screwed his eyes closed, trying to imagine himself anywhere but here. Trying to imagine he was not being molested. He could not help the automatic reflex to clench his buttocks against the invading hands.
Once his back was covered, the boy moved to stand in front of Rufus, and Rufus knew what he was going to do. Bile threatened to choke him. He swallowed. “When I get free, you’ll wish you’d killed me when you could.”
The boy ignored him, coating his genitals in the oil, stroking him intimately all over. The boy’s voice was breathy. “Once all the opium seeping into your skin begins to work, you’ll have no choice but to enjoy it.”
Rufus gritted his teeth and tried to disassociate himself from the feel of the boy’s hands on him.
He could feel the opium beginning to work. He tried to tell his brain not to respond to the stimulus. But the boy knew what he was doing. Rufus pulled on his metal cuffs. The pain of the metal chaffing his skin kept him from succumbing to the drug’s numbing effects.
He could hear the boy’s ragged breathing as he grew more aroused in his work.
“That’s enough, Samuel,” a voice growled from the door.
Rufus’s head swung around to the sound of a familiar voice. His taut muscles relaxed with hope, only a few seconds later to begin trembling when he saw the apparition before him.
His revulsion turned to horrified surprise.
“Ah, Rufus. I do wish you’d stop fighting your body’s natural response to stimulation. I suspect that like the rest of you, your erection will be splendid.”
Lord Christopher Hale stood before him. But not the Christopher he knew. This man was dressed in a gentleman’s dressing robe of deep blue silk, and he was obviously naked underneath. His pupils were dilated, and the skin at the V of his neck glistened with oil, too.
Christopher took another step toward him and whispered, “The veins in your neck look as if they are about to burst, you’re trying so hard to resist.” He reached out and ran a finger from Rufus’s chest to his groin. “That can’t be good for you. Let me tell you, my fine friend, not even you will be able to withstand the opium’s effects for long.”
Rufus couldn’t control the tremors racking his body, but he fought not to let his horror show, willing every muscle in his face not to flinch. The touch of Christopher’s finger revolted him, yet his body and mind almost welcomed the chance to focus his anger.
“Aren’t you a clever one?” His voice strangled in his throat. “But not that clever. I found your lair. If I can, then my men won’t be far behind.”
Christopher merely smiled and cupped Rufus’s cheek. “Your men do not know where you are. I saw you leave Rheda with the boy on the beach. I will think of you when I take her to the marriage bed. Did she tell you she’d practically begged me to marry her?”
It took all of Rufus’s skill not to shudder at the deep knife wound of betrayal spurred by his words. “You lie,” he said, but heard his own conviction waning.
He refused to flinch when Christopher whispered in his ear. “She told me all about you, Rufus. How you ruined her and how you are here in Deal hunting for a spy. Why would she do that unless she did not want you?”
Christopher was likely playing with him, but how did he know about Rufus’s mission? He couldn’t, unless someone had told him.
Cold ice spears struck. Betrayal, Rheda’s betrayal, cut him to the bone. She’d been in league with this monster, an abuser of children, all along. Her treachery hurt more than anything this man could do to him. His body went rigid with anger. His gaze cold, he looked at the monster in front of him and said, “You can have her. I came for you, and now I have found you.”
Christopher laughed. “Bravo. No, my sweet thing. I’ve found you. How like your father you are. He was a beautiful man, too. But alas, like father like son. He did not understand the pleasure to be found between men. I killed him for it. Just as I will kill you.”
Suddenly, Christopher grabbed Rufus’s head with both hands and kissed him violently. It was not a kiss of passion. It was hard and brutal. Rufus tasted blood as the man ground his teeth against Rufus’s dried and cracked lips.
When Christopher let go and stepped back, Rufus jerked on his chains and spat the blood from his mouth.
“But unlike your father, I intend to initiate you into my erotic world before I kill you. I have been salivating over tasting you since you were a young man.”
Rufus blocked the images his words evoked. “You killed my father? Why? How?” The shock and the opium had numbed his brain, slowed his reactions. Only now did he see that Christopher had begun to untie the cord to his robe.
“If you behave I might tell you—just before I kill you.” Christopher moved in close and licked Rufus’s nipple.
Rufus counted to ten and forced himself to ignore the threat standing before him. “You’ve fooled us all, Hale.” He gazed at his captor. “You’ve been wearing a disguise. Padding I assume. There is not an ounce of fat on you.”
Christopher preened. “So nice of you to notice.” He ran his hand down over Rufus’s chest, stomach, and around to his buttocks. “My body is not as magnificent as yours. Yours is all gleaming, solid muscle.” He sighed and stepped back, then turned his palms up, his robe falling open. “I deemed a disguise necessary. In case anyone witnessed a boy being taken. No one would suspect me. As an overweight, wet fish, mummy’s boy, I’m inconsequential. I’m overlooked, ignored, and never a suspect in any wrongdoing.”
“You appear to be well versed with wrongdoing,
traitre
.”
Christopher laughed. “Oui. I knew the boy had heard me speak in French. A pity that. The boy has to die.” His eyes flashed with anger. “As now will Rheda. You really should not have involved her. Your seduction of her upset my carefully laid plans. Although I take no pleasure in women, they are essential for one thing only—an heir.”
Rufus shook his head. He was missing something here. “Why kill Rheda? She works with you.” It did not take long to understand. It was silly what a rush of relief did to his spirits when he was still chained and in danger of being raped. “She doesn’t work for you. She doesn’t know who you are. She came to you for help, nothing more—”