The Sweetest Revenge (2 page)

He tried to throw another punch, but his arm suddenly felt as heavy as solid iron. Forcing his frozen fingers into a fist, he lunged forward to deliver the blow, but the giant moved back, and Leo’s legs gave out.

How strange. He was melting. He looked down, expecting to see his torso rising out of the dark puddle that his legs had become. But no, they were still there, and he was on his knees. Except his knees would not support him either. Slowly, ever so slowly, Leo pitched forward.

He had a feeling he wouldn’t be seeing Sutherland and Archer again tonight.

His face smashed into the pavement, and everything went black.

***

Isabelle Frasier paused at the threshold of Lady DeLinn’s breakfast room. Morning sunlight poured in through the open panes of the tall windows, giving the room a bright, airy feel. Steam rose from the plates resting on the sideboard just beneath the windows, and the smells of fresh ham and toast drifted over her.

Beyond the autumn bouquet festooning the round table, Lady DeLinn stared at her coffee. Isabelle couldn’t see her face, only her dark, sleek, perfectly arranged coiffure. Opposite Lady DeLinn, her cousin, Miss Anna Tomkins, sat in rare silence with her back to Isabelle, tendrils of mahogany curls cascading down her nape. A near palpable tension thickened the air in the room.

Perhaps her two friends weren’t as unflappable as Isabelle had originally believed.

Of course, how could any logical person feel calm in their position? They had an earl tied up in the cellar, after all.

Lord Leothaid.

Her chest went tight at the thought of Leo so close, trussed and no doubt raging, but she pushed the feeling away. She took a deep breath, and Lady DeLinn raised her head. She cracked a tight smile and beckoned Isabelle inside. “Good morning, Isabelle. I am glad you are up early. I dismissed the servants, so pour yourself some chocolate and fetch something to eat.”

“Thank you, milady.” Forcing her leaden feet to move into the room, Isabelle approached the plates filled with kidneys, ham, eggs, and toast, but her stomach lurched at the sight of all that food. She poured a cup of the lukewarm chocolate, trying to keep her hand from shaking. It would be awful to ruin Lady DeLinn’s bonny carpet.

“Susan. I have told you time and again to call me Susan, and yet you still refuse.” Lady DeLinn’s words were sharp, but the smile in her voice softened them. “We are friends, are we not?”

Clutching her chocolate in both hands, Isabelle turned to the table.

Anna skewered a piece of ham on her fork, and her deep, mossy-green gaze met Isabelle’s. “I agree with Susie. We are all friends.”

And if they ended locked up together in a rat-infested cell in Newgate Prison, they would certainly need that friendship to survive.

Raising her fork in the air, Anna continued. “And if you call me ‘Miss Tomkins’ once more, I shall throw a fit. Trust me, Isabelle, you do not want to see one of my fits.”

Isabelle forced her lips to twist into a smile. “Oh dear. In that case, I fear I’ve no choice but to comply.”

It seemed neither smiles nor words could break through the tension. It lay thick and heavy, like pea soup, over the breakfast room.

She set the cup gingerly on the table, pulled out one of the heavy chairs, and sank beside her hostess. “How is he?” she asked in a low voice.

“Still sleeping,” Susan said, her tone equally low. She pressed a lace-fringed napkin to her mouth. Susan was slight and compact, with narrow features, sleek black hair, dark eyes, and pale, flawless skin. Though she was the same age as Isabelle, Susan had already been married and widowed. Before her husband died, she had borne him a son, who was currently in their country house in Derbyshire with his grandparents.

Isabelle always felt large and ungainly beside her hostess, a true bumpkin with her freckles and Scottish accent and generous curves. And compared to Susan’s and Anna’s cynical worldliness, Isabelle felt like a naïve innocent.

 For all she might be naïve, however, she certainly wasn’t an innocent. She hadn’t been since she and Lord Leothaid had been lovers. When he’d left her to attend Cambridge, the affair had been discovered and revealed by Leo’s brother. Shamed by her behavior, Isabelle’s father had disowned her and sent her away. She had been allowed to return to Scotland only after he died a few years ago. Her life since she’d known Leo had been simple and demure—she’d lived on the charity of her aunts and uncle for the past seven years.

“I think your Pierre might have hit him too hard,” Anna said crisply to Susan. “Perhaps he will not wake.”

Isabelle gulped. Lud, what if they had killed him?

“Nonsense.” Susan gave the younger woman a sharp look. “It is only the effect of the drug. It will wear off in time.”

“I hope you’re right—”

“I
am
right, Anna. The doctor has already seen him and said he will be perfectly well. Nothing is broken.”

“Doctor?” Isabelle breathed.

Susan fixed her cool gaze on Isabelle. “Yes. He will be discreet. I have paid him handsomely.”

Isabelle nodded faintly. It wasn’t her place to question any of this, and yet she couldn’t help it. Before last night, she’d never truly believed Susan and Anna would go through with it. How silly, really—they’d been set on their plan for revenge long before she’d met them.

Yet the possible repercussions for all three of them were simply horrific. Susan said not to fret, that Lord Leothaid couldn’t identify them, and even if he did, he’d never go through the scandal of a prosecution and trial. Still, Isabelle worried.

Susan grasped her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Isabelle, have faith. My servants are loyal. They will not talk. I arranged for a physician to be readily available in the event Leo needed him. And he has already proven useful, so I am happy I thought of it in advance.”

“Aye,” Isabelle whispered. Indeed, Susan had planned this down to the slightest detail. She shouldn’t be so nervous.

“Susie thinks of everything, Isabelle,” Anna said. “She has paced the drawing room for months, boring me to tears over every single bit of minutiae related to this undertaking.”

Anna took another bite of ham. Though she was the youngest of the three women, at twenty-one, Anna Tomkins was far worldlier than the delicacy of her features suggested. Her hair matched the rich wood of the breakfast table and her sparkling hazel eyes changed color with her mood. She was an undeniable beauty.

Susan had assigned Anna to do most of the speaking. With a grin and a wink, Anna had informed Isabelle that she and Lord Leothaid had engaged in very little conversation at all during their brief encounter. Since her liaison with the earl had been the shortest, he likely wouldn’t recognize her voice. Isabelle and Susan both had longer associations with Leo, and though she could usually hide it, Isabelle’s Scottish accent would certainly give her away, so they would mask their voices and limit their speaking to ensure he wouldn’t identify them.

Anna glanced up and reached across the table to clasp Isabelle’s other hand. Isabelle looked down at the two hands holding her own.

Susan and Anna had sought Isabelle out when she’d come to London with her great-aunt this spring. At first she was surprised by their kindness, but as she grew to know them better, she’d begun to understand.

Lord Leothaid had wounded them, too. Leo had made them all suffer.

“I trust you both.” She struggled to speak through a surge of emotion. “You…you are my only true friends.”

Susan and Anna squeezed her hands, and she simply sat for a moment, smiling. So this was camaraderie. So this was what true friendship was. Isabelle imagined their bond as a silvery cord of strength flowing between them, each contributing to it, helping it grow. The three of them together were powerful. Their combined strength could overcome any obstacle.

Almost.
She couldn’t ignore the sheer audacity of what they had done, or the resident fear coursing through her, reminding her that something could go horribly wrong.

A dreadful foreboding skittered up her spine.

Susan continued. “We must be strong. All three of us. It can be difficult to force understanding onto someone, and men are prone to be stubborn when challenged by the weaker sex.” Her lip curled with disdain. “But we will do whatever it takes. This is our goal, and we will not surrender until we have achieved it.”

“Never surrender!” Anna agreed, her tone vehement.

Both Anna and Susan turned to Isabelle, whose mouth suddenly felt dry.

Remember what he did to you
.

He’d ruined her in the eyes of the world. And at her darkest hour, he’d abandoned her. She might have led a happy life with a family of her own one day. But now she was naught but a worthless spinster, a burden to her family and society. She blinked away the stinging moisture in her eyes.

She would stand beside her friends, whatever their plans.

“I will never give up,” she whispered.

A shadow fell over the table. It was the incongruous Frenchman, blocking the light from the window. Isabelle looked up and felt the same little shock she experienced each time she laid eyes upon the man. For when she imagined a Frenchman named Pierre, she thought of a little bespectacled printer from Paris, not this giant.

His voice, too, was out of place. It seemed when the man opened his mouth, the words should come out as the coarsest street cant, not the cultured, smooth tones of Paris.

“The monsieur is awake,” Pierre said.

A cold sweat broke out on Isabelle’s temples. The periphery of her vision blurred. Swaying, she gripped the edge of the table. To see Leo again after all these years…

How would she survive it?

Anna clapped gleefully.

Susan turned to the younger woman. “Are you ready, Mistress Jane?”

Grinning at Susan’s use of her alias, Anna nodded.

“And you are certain he won’t know your voice?”

“Absolutely certain, dear Lady M,” Anna said gravely.

Lady M. Mistress Jane
. And Isabelle was to be Miss Juliette. What if she forgot herself and blurted one of their real names? What if she ruined it for all of them? She gripped the table so hard, her knuckles turned white.

Oblivious to Isabelle’s distress, Susan rose, a wide smile spreading over her composed features. “Then we shall begin.”

CHAPTER TWO

Someone touched Leo. A fingernail drifted across his cheekbone, over the gag, down to the edge of his jaw. He sat at the edge of the chaise longue and struggled to remain still, though every fiber of his being commanded him to fight. By now he knew that physical resistance against these villains wouldn’t help. His earlier efforts to escape had only resulted in chafing his skin raw.

Tight ropes, which only tightened when he struggled against them, bound his wrists behind his back. Metal shackles encircled his ankles and were attached by a heavy chain to a bolt in the wall. He’d struggled fruitlessly for several minutes before he’d admitted the truth: he was irrevocably, absolutely, and thoroughly trussed.

Though only a dim light edged through the linen of his blindfold, he was certain it must be morning by now. His valet must have already found him missing from his bed. Sutherland and Archer would have noted his absence from last night’s revelries and questioned his staff. Half of London must be searching for him.

The fingernail trailed the line of his jaw in an erotic touch. “Why, my lord, I do believe you need a shave.”

The words were flirtatious and teasing, as if the lady who spoke them were a debutante at a society ball and they were dancing a quadrille. Before he could stop it, a low growl erupted from his throat.

The fingernail left his face, replaced by a soft hand cupping his cheek. “
Tsk
, Leo. There is no need to become agitated.”

So it was “Leo” now. Who was this lady?

She played with him. He imagined her laughing silently, exchanging mocking glances with the other occupants of the room. Rage bloomed in his chest, and he jerked his ankles, making the chain clang against the wall.

“Let me go, damn you!” But of course his words came out as gibberish through the gag.

“Shh, Leo. Do be civil. After all, we are not harming you. Yet.”

A ripple of feminine laughter came from someone standing close by. Leo swung his head toward her. She didn’t speak, but the sound of her laughter made the hair prickle on the back of his neck. Power radiated from this woman. Was she the one who had called to him in the street?

Fury made every nerve in his body burn, but he clenched his teeth and tamped it down, commanding himself to think logically.

What had the woman on the street looked like? He remembered shadowy features. She was slender and had dark hair—or was her hair covered by a dark shawl? He couldn’t recall, couldn’t think through the throbbing pain in his skull.

And why didn’t she speak?

Another surge of anger flooded him as seemingly random, irrational thoughts tumbled through his mind. Two females. Teasing him. Making light of this…this
unspeakable
situation.

The first lady spoke again. “My heavens, Leo. You are as red as a beet. Is it because you are angry, afraid, or embarrassed to have been taken by three weak women?”

Three
women?

“Ah, I see your color deepens. Yes, there are three of us.”

“Good morning, my lord,” a third voice whispered from the foot of the chaise, proving her existence. A thrill rippled down Leo’s spine. He sat up straighter, cocking his head toward the sound of her voice.

This breathless, timid woman was different from the other two, yet he couldn’t pinpoint why. It was something more than the trepidation in her tone, something he couldn’t quite grasp.

Slowly, he turned to face the woman standing directly before him, the one who liked to talk. Three women, then. The frightened mouse, the silent leader, and the trio’s capricious voice. Who were they? Which one of them could he get to first?

“There now,” the talkative woman said. She patted his shoulder as if he were a lapdog. “You see? Three helpless women. Why ever would you be angry?”