The Bride of Devil's Acre (6 page)

Jacqueline nodded. Slowly stretching out her arms, she offered him her wrists.
   

Finn sawed through the rope and peeled the raw hemp from her wrists. Behind him, Devil swore softly as fresh blood seeped from the open wounds.

Jacqueline bit down on the gag still in her mouth to keep from crying out. She tasted blood, the inside of her cheeks rubbed raw from the cloth. Her wrists burned, but she ignored the pain to wrap shaking arms around herself. Gentle hands helped gather the ruined halves of her dress, pulling them closed and tucking the blanket more firmly around her.
 

“Stay here,” Finn ordered, seeing the girl fully covered. “I’ll be right back.”

Jacqueline nodded and reached under the hood. When a quick hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, she gave a startled cry.
 

Finn’s painful grasp had startled her. He released his grip slowly, his hand poised to intervene should she try to remove the hood. When her hand reappeared, it was to offer Finn a bloody bit of lace.
 

“I’m sorry,” Finn whispered, his voice heavy with regret as he accepted the gag and tossed it aside.

Finn turned to Devil. “This is your fault!” he said, his eyes hot.
 

Devil’s eyes narrowed. Despite what some may think, he was not responsible for all the evil in the world.
 

“I believe the man you’re referring to lies dead,” Devil said, tempted to give Carver a kick for good measure. Bloody hell. What was he supposed to do now?

“Aye, he was the instrument,” Finn said. “But you set this in motion.”

Devil scrubbed at his face with his hands. “I never intended for this to happen.”
 

Jacqueline listened to the soft, indistinct murmur of distant voices. Her body was on fire, pain beating a steady tattoo in time to her heart.
 

Devil locked eyes with Finn, the muscles twitching in his clenched jaw. Finn stared back at him, unflinching, his fists at his sides, waiting.
 

Devil darted a look over Finn’s shoulder, the first niggling of doubt stirring his conscience. Carver lay on his side, a pool of blood quickly cooling beneath him. The girl was curled up against the wall; she’d pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Her dress was ruined, and there was blood everywhere.

He couldn’t see her face, he realized, and thought that perhaps that was a very good thing.
 

“I didn’t know he would come back,” Devil offered. As far as excuses go, even he knew it was weak. “I ordered him away.”

“You should have kept a tighter leash on the man,” Finn said. They all knew how Carver worked.
 

“He had his uses,” Devil said.

“He should never have been around the girl to begin with!”

Devil’s eyes snapped back to Finn’s face and narrowed. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you did,” Finn insisted.

“You would have had me abandon the plan?” Devil asked.

“Yes!” Finn took an aggressive step forward.

“And we would have been one vote short!” Devil had seen how narrow the call had been.

“What’s one vote next to this?” Finn demanded, spreading his arms and taking in the room.

“One vote?” Devil asked. “Is that what you see this as coming down to?”

Finn was silent.

“Let me remind you just how many people depend on me, on us,” Devil said. “If that bill had passed, everyone in St. Giles would have been displaced. And where do you think they would go?”

Finn slipped his hands into his pockets, averting his eyes.

“I did what I had to do,” Devil said. Devil’s Acre and the people who called this place home were his, his to protect.

“Aye, at the expense of an innocent girl,” Finn said, softly.

“If that’s the price, then I’ll gladly pay it,” Devil said. One pampered life was nothing compared to what would happen to the men, women, and children living in Devil’s Acre if that bill had passed.

“But it isn’t you paying the price,” Finn said, knowing Devil wouldn’t understand. “The girl is ruined.”

“She was ruined the moment we took her,” Devil said, his voice hard. “Even you knew that.”

“Nay, she still had a chance,” Finn reasoned. “Between her father’s name and money…” Finn shook his head. “But there’s no hiding this,” he said. “There’s no hiding rape.”

“What would you have me do?” Devil asked.

“I don’t know,” Finn said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “But it’s your mess; you clean it up.”

The two men stared at each other. It wasn’t the first time they’d stood over a body together, but it was the first time Devil felt they stood on opposite sides. “Find Stubs. Get rid of the body.”

“He’s not going to like this.” Stubs was more Carver’s man than Devil’s, the two of them having come out of St. Giles together.

“I don’t care; just get it done.” Devil watched Finn leave. Alone with the girl, he tried to decide what to do. Her attacker lay dead by his hand, and he was prepared to return her home. What more could he do?

Jacqueline felt her body being lifted, her mind somewhere outside herself but still trapped beneath the darkness of the hood. Strong arms slipped behind her knees and shoulders, and a crisp, clean masculine scent replaced the stale scent of blood as she was cradled against someone’s chest.

“Is he dead?” Jacqueline asked, recalling the thick spray of blood against her chest, and the sound that could only be described as a death rattle.

Devil hesitated. Holding the girl in his arms, he tried to remind himself of all the reasons this had been necessary. “Yes.”

“Good,” Jacqueline whispered as the world went blessedly black.

“Where we going?”

Finn ignored Stubs as they hurried through the streets back toward the Hammer & Anvil. Crossing his arms, he pulled his coat tighter and tucked his chin to his chest. The weather had turned foul, and the rain was coming down in sheets, leaving Finn soaked to the skin.
 

Perfect night to dispose of a body.

“Least you could do is tell me what we’re about, seeing as how I’m out the coin ‘cause of you.”

Finn had found Stubs on St. Marks, the street that marked the divide between Devil’s Acre and St. Giles. He had had a whore pinned up against an alley wall, her skirts up around her hips and her thighs wrapped around his waist. Head tipped back, she stared up at the night sky with gin-glazed eyes. Despite adequate coin in his pocket, it seemed Stubs preferred the low-rent whores off Gin Lane.
 

“You could have finished.” Far be it for Finn to stop a man from spending himself in a women, especially one he’d bought and paid for.

“Not with you watching,” Stubs grumbled.
 

“Don’t like an audience?”

Stubs grunted.

“Ah, well, I find it adds a bit of spice to the mix.” Finn glanced back over his shoulder. Stubs’ disgruntled expression clearly indicated he did not see the humor in the situation.

“As for the coin,” Finn added, “she couldn’t have cost you much.”

They were approaching the Hammer & Anvil, the sign barely visible in the rain. The street was deserted, and there was no sign of Devil. Finn could only hope he was gone, taking the girl with him. “We’re here.”

Stubs craned his fat neck and checked out the cracked sign. “This place is closed.”

“Down here.” Finn led the way into the bowels of the building. Lighting a lantern, he held the flame aloft, illuminating the body still crumpled on its side.

“Bloody hell!” Stubs cried, recognizing Carver and stepping past Finn. Dropping to his knees, he rolled Carver onto his back, fresh blood seeping from the wound at his neck. “What the hell happened?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Finn said, setting the lantern aside and shaking out a blanket. “Help me wrap him up.”

“It matters to me.”
 

Short and fat, Finn wondered which came first, Stubs’ name or his physique.
 

Stubs stood, his fists clenched at his sides. He took a threatening step toward the Irishman. “You’d best best be telling me who’s responsible, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Finn snarled and let the knowledge of the number of ways he could kill Stubs fill his eyes.

Stubs was deflated, the aggression leaking out of his posture. “He was my friend. I would see his death avenged.”

Finn sighed. Friendships were scarce in Devil’s Acre, and were even more rare in St. Giles. That Carver had inspired such sentiment in a man like Stubs was something to ponder another day. For now, they had work to do.

“Grab his hands,” Finn ordered, taking Carver by the legs and preparing to lift him onto the blanket. “I’ll tell you the particulars later.”

“Where we taking him?” Stubs grabbed Carver’s wrists and lifted. The man’s skin was chilled and his head lulled back on his neck. More blood seeped from the gaping wound, thick and sluggish.

“We’ll dump him in the Thames.” Finn folded the blanket over Carver’s legs and secured it with a thick length of rope. “Here.”

Stubs caught the rope Finn tossed him, setting it aside and reaching for the blanket. The blanket stirred. Stubs jerked his hand back. “Did you see that?”

Finn looked up from the knot he was tying. “What?”

Stubs stared at the blanket. “I thought…never mind.”

“Hurry up. I want to get this done while it’s still raining.”

Stubs nodded. Must have been his imagination. No way Carver was still alive, not with his neck slit and his blood all over the floor.

“Grab an end,” Finn grunted. Carver may have looked like a snake, but he was still thirteen stones of deadweight.

They wrestled the body back up the stairs. A quick look confirmed the street was still deserted, only the most desperate would be out on a night like this.

The maze of deserted streets and empty alleys to the Thames seemed endless. The rain hadn’t let up. If anything, it had gotten worse. Rivulets of cold water streamed down the back of Finn’s shirt and soaked his shoes.
 

I’m taking tomorrow off,
Finn decided. Let Devil try and find him.

Stubs struggled as Carver’s body shifted in his grip. The body sagged between them and threatened to touch on the ground. “Hold up.”

“We’re almost there.”

“I’m gonna drop him.”

“He’s beyond caring; keep going.” Finn’s back was screaming, and he was ready to get this business done.

Stubs scrambled to keep up.

“There.”

Stubs looked past Finn. Even in the heavy rain, the oily black water of the Thames was clearly visible. “I see it.”

Finn scanned the banks of the river. There were no bridges spanning this section of the Thames, the government having deemed the expense an unnecessary waste. They would have to toss Carver’s body in and hope the current picked it up and carried it downstream.
 

Finn led the way toward an exposed mudbank. The heavy rain had saturated the mud, and his feet sank in the thick sludge. Finn swore as he pulled his foot free, the mud creating suction that let muddy water into his shoe. Stubs wasn’t faring much better.
 

The two men struggled to get close enough to the water’s edge, Carver’s body growing heavier by the second.
 

“This is far enough,” Finn said, wiping his forehead on his shoulder. His hat was gone, and his hair was plastered to his head. “Let’s swing him.”

Stubs moved parallel with the river, the body picking up momentum between then.
 

“On three.”
 

Finn counted down and heaved Carver’s body toward the Thames. Unfortunately, Stubs fumbled at the last second, losing his grip and dropping the body. Instead of sailing over the bank and out into the water, the body landed in the mud, only its lower half in the water.
 

Finn swore. Hands on his hips, he tipped his head back, letting the cold rain wash the sweat from his face. He prayed for patience. When he looked back, the body was still caught up on the bank.

“I’ll get him.” Stubs was already moving, his feet getting caught in the mud and driving him to his knees.

Finn watched, unwilling to help, as Stubs struggled to shove the body off the bank and into the water. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Stubs waded into the water, pulling instead of pushing, and worked the body loose.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Stubs muttered, coming to stand beside Finn. They watched as the body slowly floated down the river. The Thames wasn’t a swift-moving river, at least not here, and was slow to pick up the body. “Where do you think he’ll end up?”

“The sea, if we’re lucky,” Finn said, turning and heading back up to the street. But Finn wasn’t feeling lucky. “You coming?”

Stubs shook his head. “I’m going to stay here for a few.” Then he shrugged, embarrassed. “Say my good-byes, as it were.”

Finn cocked his head. “How surprisingly…sentimental of you.”

“He was my friend.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Three weeks later

“Mr. Henry Gates, my lord,” Benson announced, stiffly.
 

“Thank you, Benson,” Lord John said. He remained seated as Henry approached and stood before his desk. “That will be all.”

“Lord Edwards,” Henry greeted, bowing at the waist. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“It appears I had no choice.” Lord John tossed his pen on the desk and sat back in his chair. Gates had traded on his father’s name, ensuring his way in. “Sit.”

Henry stiffened at the order, hesitating a moment with his hand on the back of the chair before finally taking a seat across from Lord John. Most people deferred to his future title, treating him with the respect due the Gates family name. “I’m sure you can guess the reason for my visit.”

“You’ve heard the rumors?” Lord John asked. It had been three weeks since Jacqueline’s return. The exact nature of her situation was not common knowledge, but word of a broken down carriage and her disappearance had slowly made its way into polite society.

“I have,” Henry admitted. The
ton
was in a frenzy. The rumors varied wildly from an unfortunate run-in with bandits to a late-night rendezvous.