Lady's Revenge Read online

  Instructional tool?

  Her interrogator seemed especially cruel and deliberate tonight. He always enjoyed toying with her, but rather than his normal cool detachment, a strange excitement laced his words. It was almost as if all his earlier sessions were nothing more than preparation for this one awful moment.

  Panic spasmed through her muscles, and she jerked against her shackles, splitting open old wounds. She forgot all about her savior in the shadows. For days she had been careful not to show her fear, careful not to incite Boucher’s baser instincts. But it all had suddenly become too much.

  Freedom. Its scent had filled the air seconds ago, making her reckless like a starving caged beast. All she wanted to do was run headlong into its warm embrace.

  “Ah, here we go,” Boucher whispered.

  Cora whipped her head around to watch her tormentor slide his freakishly pale fingers down a long clamp with four sharp, curved prongs that looked like they could wrap around something the size of a man’s fist.

  Boucher approached her left side, slowly, admiring his weapon with the same worshipful eyes as a child holding a Gunter’s chocolate cream ice on a hot summer day. She swallowed hard. Her muscles grew taut, and her body began to shake.

  He ran the bloodcurdling device along her breast, and she knew then what he meant to do with his newest toy. A vivid image of the prongs closing around her breast, squeezing until the blood pounded hotly against the strained surface—she bit down hard to stop an involuntary scream of terror.

  Through her fear, she managed to remember Guy. She needed to keep Boucher’s attention on her. Given her interrogator’s current fascination, she didn’t think it would be a problem. If she could distract Boucher long enough, Guy could make his move.

  Part of her longed for Guy to slip away undetected, return to England and remember her the way she had been before traveling to this godforsaken country. And another part of her, the selfish and frightened part, prayed he would be the savior she so desperately needed.

  Various schemes flashed through her fevered mind until one settled in place like the aftermath of a violent storm. Calm and surreal. And oddly sunny.

  She grabbed hold of it like a rope to salvation and dragged in a fortifying breath. There would be no second chances.

  “No,” she whimpered, having no problem dropping her mask of courage.

  He skimmed the breast-ripper over her chest again. “Tell me what my master wants to know,” he said, “and this time, I promise to stop before you scream.”

  “Very well.” She kept her voice low. Too low. “Please, no more pain.”

  Triumph lifted his placid features. “Go on. Speak up.”

  She licked her swollen, cracked lips. “Hurts.”

  He placed the well-cared-for clamp over her right breast. A warning. “You can have all the water you desire after you give me the names. Every single one. Leave no one out.”

  She forced a cough, a hard, rattling cough that scoured her throat and vibrated through her chest.

  “Tell me.” His knuckles slashed across her cheekbone, breaking skin already swollen with blood. His calm command stood out stark against the swift delivery of his fist. Warm liquid oozed from her cheek and slid into her hair. Black spots blanketed her vision. It was the incentive she needed to get the words around the mountain lodged in her throat.

  After nearly a fortnight of isolation and torture, Cora submitted.

  As expected, Boucher leaned close, listening greedily to a long list of coveted names. Her restraints made him bold, unconcerned for his own welfare. She spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable with precise measure. Careful to keep his attention locked on her words.

  Through the whiteness of his hair, she could see his scalp, a pale pink that looked far too delicate on such a monster. Such an odd thing to notice when her existence could be counted in seconds rather than years. She had no doubt that Boucher would kill her once she spoke the last syllables of the final name.

  When she shifted her attention to the doorway, it was empty. Her voice staggered for the merest second. Had Guy come to his senses? Or had someone attacked him from behind? So focused was she on keeping Boucher’s attention that she couldn’t recall hearing any signs of an altercation.

  Closing her eyes, she forced down her alarm, only to have it push to the surface again. Sweet heaven, she wasn’t ready to die. Exhaustion and a deep sense of failure penetrated her every muscle and thought. Had her incompetence killed Guy? She had become too confident, too complacent around Valère. One misstep was all it took to land her in a pit beneath his country chateau.

  She covertly searched the cell for Guy’s solid presence one more time. But with Boucher’s body angled over her the way it was, much of her field of view was blocked. Dammit. Where was he? She couldn’t bear the thought of his death on her hands, too. Her parents were enough. More than enough. Not Guy. Never Guy.

  When she pulled the last name from her lockbox, she knew her time had come to an end, and her body gave up the fight. It melted against the bloody table, boneless and beaten.

  Boucher’s body crashed into her, heavy and rigid. Pain shot through her ribs like a piece of jagged glass ripping through muscle. Air wheezed between her lips, and her eyes shot open.

  That’s when she saw the mahogany-and-pearl-handled knife protruding from his back. Boucher’s knees buckled, and Guy grabbed a handful of his collar and lifted him away.

  For a moment, Boucher stared at her with his pale, cruel eyes, glassy now with pain. His natural skin color provided a perfect mask for death. “You will still die.” His threat was delivered with a frail wheeze, but Cora felt his words sink into her bones.

  Guy whirled her tormenter around and slammed him to the stone floor. Boucher’s newest toy clattered uselessly to his side.

  A whip of silence cracked through the room. She and Guy stared at Boucher’s unmoving body as if waiting for him to miraculously rise. He didn’t.

  Then Guy’s burning gaze slashed to hers, and three years sifted away. They were once again in Mrs. Lancaster’s sitting room, standing face-to-face, aching for the other’s touch but unable to breach the line of friendship.

  “Guy,” she choked out.

  Two swift steps brought him to her side. He cradled her face, and she felt a pang of embarrassment at what he must see.

  “What are you doing here—?”

  “Shhh,” he interrupted, bending to test her restraints.

  “Helsford, what the devil are you doing?” another man whispered, skidding to a halt beside Guy. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Guy’s eyes softened, although his features remained harsh, savage even. “I’m saving Cora’s life, man.”

  Danforth’s incredulous gaze sliced to hers. “Cora?”

  She peered through rapidly swelling flesh to see the Viscount Danforth. She tried to send him a welcoming smile, but she managed only to rip open the weeping slit on her bottom lip. She settled for a simple, tear-clogged greeting.

  “Hello, Brother.”

  Three

  Guy cracked the butt of his pistol against the guard’s temple and dragged him inside the last of the empty cells. He glanced back at Danforth, who hovered in the shadows, holding a precious bundle of feminine skin and bones in his arms. As he stared at the two deBeaus, a heavy weight of dread pressed down on his shoulders.

  What if he couldn’t get them to safety? What if one of them died during their escape? He closed his eyes briefly, pushing back the pain. For as far back as he could remember, the deBeaus had been a part of his life. Every time his parents had found some new pleasure, they had readily abandoned their only son to unsuspecting family and friends, or they simply left him at Eton and made him the headmaster’s problem.

  The boisterous and unconventional deBeaus had given him more than a place to stay for a few weeks. They had given him a glimpse of what a real family could be, should be. They had given him a home.

  He set his jaw and motioned D
anforth forward. No one was going to bloody die. No one.

  Then he caught a glimpse of Cora’s wide-eyed countenance as Danforth strode by and felt another volley slam into his chest.

  Sweet Jesus, she was a mess. And frightened as hell.

  He wished he could sweep away her time in Valère’s dungeon like a broom swipes cobwebs from a darkened corner. But he couldn’t, and the realization nearly destroyed him.

  How long had she been held captive? How long had she suffered? Questions without answers ricocheted through his mind in an endless, haphazard circle.

  Getting Cora to safety was his only clear thought. The mystery of the empty cells, the absence of the Raven, and the reason for Cora’s presence in Valère’s dungeon all paled in comparison to getting out of this warren of dank passages that teemed with squealing rodents and rotting refuse.

  Guy bent to retrieve the guard’s lantern and then led the way toward the secret portal they had used to enter the Frenchman’s lair. “This way.”

  Every corridor he turned down looked the same as the last. The same musty smell, the same abysmal darkness. There were no chambers here, only unbroken stone wall. Even the floors were more primitive, nothing but hard-packed dirt.

  None of it mattered, though. Guy had memorized every turn in direction and every change in elevation. Had ticked off each alteration in his head, one by one, storing them in a compartment until it came time to use the information. The underground system of passages proved no challenge for his near-perfect memory.

  “Helsford, wait,” Danforth said.

  Guy came to an abrupt halt and swiveled to look at his friend, who had his ear cocked toward the unlit tunnel behind them. “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Mimicking Danforth’s stance, he strained to isolate the noise that had caught the viscount’s attention. Nothing but the sound of his own breathing penetrated the silence.

  Could he have missed a chamber somehow? Had Danforth picked up the distinctive rattle of a prisoner’s chains or someone’s moan of distress? Cora’s frail hand clutched the lapel of her brother’s coat with a desperation that tore at Guy’s heart. In that moment, he no longer cared about the consequences of leaving England’s most valuable spy behind. Whatever punishment Somerton and his conscience dealt out later, he would accept.

  Right now, he had two friends to protect, and his world narrowed down to that singular, inviolable goal.

  “Danforth,” he warned, eager to be away. Then he heard the sounds of pursuit. Masculine shouting and pounding feet echoed through the dungeon, pulsing down a multitude of passages, making it difficult to gauge their enemy’s location. He locked eyes with his friend and found the same feral determination to survive this night that pumped hotly through his own veins.

  “Go,” Danforth urged. “Run.”

  Guy was already turning away. No longer concerned with stealth, they bolted the final distance, nearly missing the portal leading to the outside. The flush surface of the door blended with the dungeon’s wall in both color and texture, giving the illusion of another unbroken corridor.

  He stood to the right of the door, waving the lantern in a systematic pattern, searching for the small, rectangular protrusion. When he found it, he handed the lantern to Cora so he could use every bit of strength at his disposal.

  With only the blunt tips of his fingers, he pulled and tugged at the stone device until he heard a distinctive click. The door cracked open and was followed swiftly by a suction of air. Now for the hard part. After three fortifying breaths, he braced one foot against the wall, curled his fingers around the door, and pulled.

  “Hurry, Helsford.”

  “I am,” he gritted out.

  Nestled inside the stone façade sat a heavy iron door. The slab must have weighed as much as a horse, for his muscles stretched and groaned and strained. Earlier in the evening, with the two of them pushing it wide, the barrier had challenged his strength, but not like this gut-ripping test of pulling the damned thing open unassisted.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he straightened and then squeezed through the twelve-inch gap. “Hand her to me.”

  Silent until now, Cora shoved against her brother’s shoulders. “You needn’t toss me from one pair of hands to the next like a sack of grain. I can walk.”

  Guy glanced at the stubborn set to her jaw, so familiar and dear. She never liked feeling weaker than them and would always push herself to try and match their strength, sometimes beyond what her body could bear. As she was now. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for his usual cajoling methods to soften her hard head. He held out his arms. “The burns on the soles of your feet tell me otherwise.”

  She turned her head away while Danforth maneuvered her through the narrow opening and handed her off to Guy.

  When she stiffened in his arms and a soft whimper escaped past her lips, sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered against her burning temple.

  Another shout from behind reached them, this time closer. Much closer.

  “Go on,” Danforth said. “I’ll get the door.”

  Guy wasted no more time. The narrow tunnel opened on the far side of the stables, a clever escape route built hundreds of years ago during one of France’s many religious wars. Whatever the reason for its existence, he was thankful for it.

  And he was glad to be partnered with Danforth on this particular mission. The viscount’s special talent lay in his ability to charm secrets from the most skittish female, a trait Somerton had put to good use over the years.

  Every powerful, self-serving man generally aligned himself with one of three types of women—a submissive woman, an embittered woman, or a stronger, more intelligent woman. Danforth had a way of flushing out a wife’s hidden desires and turning them to his advantage. The women divulged their husbands’ secrets, and Danforth satisfied their craving for a handsome, virile, attentive man’s devotion. His talent was both ruthless and effective.

  Cora pressed her insubstantial weight against his arm, straightening her back. “How much farther?” she whispered.

  Even in the dim light, he could see the battle she waged against an unseen foe. Had she sustained some type of internal injury? Broken rib? Punctured organ? Could she even now be bleeding to death? “Where are you hurt?”

  She started to laugh, but it was cut short by a swift intake of breath. After a moment, she managed, “An easier question might be—where am I not?”

  Unable to share her humor, he said, “Be specific.”

  She sent him a cross look. “Ribs. Broken or bruised, I’m not sure which.”

  Pausing midstride, he adjusted his hold. “Better?”

  She nodded, releasing a breath. “Thank you.”

  “The draught grows stronger, warmer—a good indication we’re nearing the entrance to the tunnel.” He resumed his ground-eating pace, terror prodding him to greater speeds. The sound of metal against rusted metal reached his ears, indicating Danforth was making progress. Incapable of completely setting aside his original mission, he asked, “Have you seen other Englishwomen here?”

  The ends of her butchered hair brushed the underside of his chin. “No.”

  He grew more and more weary of this damn espionage business. The out-and-out lies, the half-truths, the realities that were distasteful but necessary. Not knowing friend from foe. The life no longer held the glamour it once had. If not for a pair of anguished blue-green eyes, he would have moved on a few years ago.

  He shook off the thought. His reasons for becoming a cryptographer for the Nexus no longer mattered. Over the past year, he had worked with Danforth on several cases and was grateful for the added distraction. His restlessness had increased over the last few months when Cora’s society reports to Somerton had become scarcer.

  A few feet before the overgrown opening, Danforth overtook Guy and pushed the tangled vines aside.

  Guy dragged in a deep breath. The cool ni
ght air washed away the oppressive stench of the dungeon. But the horrific image of Cora fettered like a rabid animal would stay with him forever.

  Cora’s brother blew out the lantern and led the way to their awaiting horses.

  Guy pressed his lips to Cora’s ear. “Almost there.”

  Her head jerked once in acknowledgment.

  He couldn’t help but notice the foul odor coming from her weightless body. Rage burned anew. When Guy returned to retrieve the Raven, he would make sure Valère paid for the atrocities he had forced on Cora.

  They picked their way around protruding boulders, low-hanging limbs, and thorny bushes until they approached the area where their horses were tethered. Anxiety drove through Guy at the thought of Cora being jounced around on horseback at full gallop with a rib injury.

  He glanced down and found her gaze probing the darkness.

  Alert.

  Tense.

  Expectant.

  She appeared so vulnerable wrapped in her brother’s coat, but her brutalized face revealed nothing but an unflinching resolve. Guy had always been protective of her as a child, but seeing her in this state, stripped of all vitality, heightened his natural instincts.

  What the hell was she doing in Valère’s dungeon? The question continued to echo through his mind. The last he had heard she was still in Paris with her great-aunt, Lady Kavanagh, feeding on-dits of Parisian intrigue to Somerton.

  Jesus.

  The deep quiet of the forest was his first clue they were not alone. No insects chirped. No small animals scurried for cover. No wind whistled through the leaves.

  The second clue came in the form of a hushed yet heated conversation beyond the low rise ahead.

  Where they had left their horses.

  A cold wave of anxious fury swept through Guy’s body. He crouched low, peering into the distance. Danforth followed suit.

  Escape was impossible without their mounts. One hour before sunrise they had a rendezvous with a fishing boat that would take them to their awaiting ship.

  The waning moon seemed to mock them with its steady descent to the horizon.