Say You Love Me (26 page)

“You call that alone,
mon ami
?” Henry asked casually as he kept his eyes on their prey. “He has already picked up some wench.”

Artie sighed. “Well, ’ell, it were easier nabbin’ the cap’n’s niece outta ’er backyard than it is this nabob.”

“I would agree, but since she turned out to be his niece, rather than just his enemy’s wife, I would rather not repeat the disaster that turned out to be.”

Artie snorted. “As if we knew. The cap’n didn’t even know, not till she tol’ ’im. Besides, wot’s to mistake this time? That’s our target. We just need to get ’im away from ’is servants long enough to grab ’im.”

“We have been waiting a week now to do that,” Henry reminded his friend. “But he
does not seem inclined to stray far from his coach or house.”

“I still say we shoulda took ’im from that tavern. We coulda whisked ’im out the back way, an’ ’is driver out front would still be sittin’ there waitin’ on ’im.”

Henry shook his head. “The cap’n said to avoid notice. That tavern was much too crowded.”

“And this street ain’t?”

Henry looked up and down it first before he confirmed, “Not nearly as crowded. And besides, people tend to mind their own business on the street. Who will notice if we quickly escort him to our carriage instead of his?”

“I still say we oughta just take ’im from that ’ouse ’e visits outside o’ the city. It’s so isolated, can’t be no one else in it.”

“There was a light from within the last time we followed him there. You were sleepin’.”

“You still bitchin’ ’bout me fallin’ asleep that
one
bleedin’ time?” Artie complained.

“Two times, but who is count—?” Henry paused, frowning, as he continued to keep his eyes on Ashford and the woman who had just joined him. “She looks scared.”

Artie squinted at the couple. “Maybe she knows ’im. If I was a wench and I knew what ’e was like, I’d bleedin’ well be scared, too.”

“Artie, I really do not think she is going along with him willingly.”

“Wot the ’ell? You mean ’e’s kidnappin’ ’er when we’re supposed to be kidnappin’ ’im?”

Kelsey’s driver had had to move her coach to accommodate a delivery wagon, so he wasn’t where she’d left him. He was quite far down the block, waving at her to get her attention. She started walking that way, but as for her attention, it was still on that unexpected meeting with her aunt and sister.

So she didn’t see Lord Ashford approaching her. She didn’t notice him until he grabbed her arm in a painful grip and began walking with her.

“Make a sound, my pretty, and I will break your arm,” he warned her with a smile.

Had he realized that she was about to scream her head off? She had already blanched completely just at the sight of him. And he was pulling her along, but moving toward her own coach, thank God. Would her driver realize that she needed his assistance? Or did it merely appear that she had met up with an acquaintance?

“Let go of me,” she ordered, but it came out as a timid squeak.

And he laughed. He actually laughed. The sound turned her blood cold.

She was going to have to scream despite his warning, she knew that now. What was a broken arm, after all, compared with what she now knew him to be capable of?

But he must have sensed that she was about to cause him difficulty, because he shocked her into utter silence by telling her, “I killed that bastard, Lonny, you know, for getting my hopes up with the promise of a virgin. He
should’ve just sold you to me, instead of auctioning you. But I’m sorry I did so now, because his brother has taken over the place. He’s a much straighter arrow and probably won’t permit whipping the whores. Ah, well, that place only ever offered me appetizers. I still had to go elsewhere to have my full pleasure, as I intend to have with you.”

He said it all so casually, as if he were speaking of the weather. Even the mild regret he was showing was not for killing a man but because it had caused
him
to lose something he was used to.

She was so horrified that she didn’t even realize that he had steered her off the walkway and into the street, where his coach waited, until he was thrusting her into that coach. She did scream then, but the sound was cut off abruptly as he shoved her face into the cushioned seat.

He held her like that until she discovered that she couldn’t breathe and complete panic set in. Was he going to kill her right then? When he did release her head, all she did was gasp for breath. That was all she could do, really. But it allowed him to gag her before she even thought to try to scream again.

Had her driver seen what happened? Had he even tried to help? But it was too late now. Ashford’s coach had taken off as soon as they were inside it, and at no slow pace.

The gag wasn’t all that restrained her. The moment she was able to sit up, she turned to attack him, but she barely got in one swipe
toward his face with her nails before her hand was caught and twisted behind her back, where it was then tied to the other.

The cords there were so tight that her fingers quickly numbed. The gag, tied behind her head, was just as tight, cutting into the sides of her mouth.

But those were minor discomforts. She knew that now. She wished she didn’t. She wished Derek had not told her exactly the kind of cruelties this man enjoyed inflicting.

She had to escape before they got to where he was taking her. She could still use her feet. He hadn’t tied those. Would the door open if she kicked it? Could she manage to dive out of it before he pulled her back? She was desperate enough to try. She just had to turn sideways so she could manage the kick…

“I would have waited until he got tired of you and tossed you out, but with the way he protected you, I knew he wasn’t going to give you up within a reasonable time period. My patience doesn’t last long. And unfortunately for you, my pretty, because of him, I won’t ever be able to release you now.”

“He,” of course, was Derek. But Ashford had caught her attention completely with that “won’t ever be able to release you now.” Did he fear Derek that much? If she escaped, she would naturally tell Derek what he’d done, and then Derek would go after him…yes, he had reason to fear Derek. And maybe she could make use of that—if he removed her gag long enough so she could speak.

“Unless I kill him, too, of course.”

Her blood went cold again when he added that. And he wasn’t even looking at her as he said it, but was staring out the window. It was almost as if he were talking to himself. Did insane people do that?

“He deserves it, for the inconvenience he’s caused me. But I haven’t quite made up my mind yet.” His eyes went to her then, so chillingly cold they could have been shards of ice. “Perhaps you can persuade me to let him live, eh?”

She tried to speak through the gag, to tell him what he could do with bargains like that. Only muddled sounds came out. But her eyes told him, showing the rage and fear and hate she felt. He only laughed.

She wasn’t stupid. If he was going to try to kill Derek, nothing she could do would change his mind. But Derek wouldn’t be unsuspecting of him, like Lonny must have been. Derek wouldn’t be easy to kill, either, which he’d already realized, or he wouldn’t fear him so much. If only she could work on that fear…

37

The large, musty old house showed very few signs of
habitation. Sheets covered what little furniture could be seen through open doorways. Drapes were closed against any light, making a lamp necessary to light the way. Cobwebs had gathered in corners.

But an old man had let them in, so someone did reside there. Only on closer inspection, he wasn’t very old, just very misshapen and very, very ugly. One arm was longer than the other, or perhaps it just seemed to be so because of the way his body was twisted. And his face was grotesquely disfigured; his nose had actually been cut off, and with cheeks that puffed out, he now bore close resemblance to a pig. The gray hair was what made him appear old when he really wasn’t.

Kelsey’s first horrified thought when she had that closer look at him was that Ashford had caused his deformities. Then she started paying attention to what they were saying as she was dragged down the hall.

The caretaker, John was his name, seemed
to worship Ashford for giving him a job when apparently no one else would. And she had to wonder what that job was. John didn’t seem the least bit surprised that Ashford had brought in a gagged and bound woman.

But then he asked, “A new pretty for yer collection, m’lord?”

“Indeed, John, and very troublesome to obtain, this one was.”

They came to some stairs that led down into abject darkness. John went ahead of them to light the way. Kelsey had to be yanked down those stairs, because she would
not
go down them willingly.

Collection? Dear God, she hoped that didn’t mean what it had sounded like, but she was afraid it did. They went through a long cellar, then came to yet another set of stairs that led still deeper under the house…and she could hear the moans.

It was like a prison. It
was
a prison, she realized when they passed one door after another with barred openings in them and heavy padlocks—and there was a stench that emanated from each room they passed that was foul enough to gag. The only light was a torch on the wall at the end of the corridor by the stairs. No light showed through the bars.

There were signs of construction at the end of that long corridor, where even more cells were being built. She had counted four locked doors. Four occupied rooms? She was pushed through the fifth door.

John was there. He had set his lamp aside
on the floor. There was a bed in the center of the small room with just a sheet on it. The room was new and clean. It smelled of fresh wood. Four buckets of water were set against one wall—to wash away the blood on her afterward?

“Very nice, John,” Ashford remarked, looking about the room. “And you’ve finished it just in time.”

“Thank ya, m’lord. I would’ve had it done a bits sooner if I’d had some help with it, but I understand why no one buts me can be allowed down here.”

“You do very well on your own here, John. Help would mean you would have to share.”

“No, I don’t wants to share. I’ll get the next room done by the end of the month.”

“Excellent.”

Kelsey wasn’t listening to them. She was staring in mesmerized horror at that narrow bed out in the middle of the room; the bed had leather straps with thick buckles attached to its four corners. Her fear got the better of her, seeing those straps. She’d have no hope left if they were put on her, and she didn’t doubt by then that that was exactly what Ashford intended.

She had tried kicking that coach door open. She’d only hurt her feet and amused Ashford in the process. He’d had a good chuckle over her effort. And his grip on her arm now was no looser than it had been when he’d first grabbed her, which was too tight to jerk free of. Yet she had to do something. And while
they were talking and not paying attention to her was the perfect time…

She fell into Ashford as if she’d stumbled against him by accident. It was the only thing she could think of that might make him loosen his hold. Pretending to faint might have done the same thing, except she wouldn’t have been able to get back up easily with her hands still tied behind her back.

And he did let go of her arm, so that he could push her back away from him. He did it so quickly that it was rather obvious that he didn’t like the contact with her, which she would have found quite strange if she’d had the time to think about it.

She didn’t. She took those few precious moments when she wasn’t restrained at all, and dashed out of the room. Behind her, she heard Ashford make a sound like a chuckle and say something that she didn’t catch.

She couldn’t credit the amusement, must have been mistaken, because it made no sense. But he didn’t give immediate chase, nor did his caretaker. And she found out why as soon as she reached the stairs and tripped on the first step, falling hard on those above it.

Her stupid skirt! She couldn’t lift it out of the way to climb the stairs, not with her hands still tied behind her back. That’s why the bastard was amused. He knew her long hems would hamper her.

Damned if she would let it. She
would
climb the stairs, just not as quickly as she would have liked. And lifting her legs as high as she
could to make each step, she reached the cellar above, and then the top of the other stairs to the first floor.

She made it so far that she actually thought she’d make it all the way out of the house. But she found the front door bolted closed. She was able to twist around to reach the handle and turn it, even though her fingers could barely move, they were so numb, but she couldn’t quite reach the bolt. It was too high up on the door.

Her disappointment was so overwhelming that she almost collapsed in defeat. But there had to be other doors leading outside. They couldn’t all be locked. Only she was running out of time to find one. And the pain in her hands, now that the blood was circulating in them again, almost immobilized her.

She should have looked for the kitchen instead, where she could find a knife to work on the cords binding her while she hid…she had to hide. And it was too late to find the kitchen, which was undoubtedly at the back of the house, where the entrance to that cellar had been—and where Ashford would be appearing soon.

The darkness in the house was a blessing. At least Kelsey prayed it would be. But the rooms on the first floor, they had so little furniture in them, would they offer her any hiding spot at all? She didn’t have time to look.

She could just barely make out the stairs leading to the upper reaches of the house, and she ran toward them. Stairs again, but what
choice did she have? The avenues to the back of the house and another door leading outside were going to be cut off at any second.

She made the right choice. She could hear Ashford before she even reached the top of the stairs. But even if he looked up, he probably wouldn’t see her. The lamp he carried didn’t cast a far-reaching light, held close to him as it was, and it created as many new shadows as those it dispersed.