While You Were Spying (Regency Spies Book 0) (45 page)

She whirled away from Roxbury and began to run, darting toward the house. She’d rouse the estate’s staff and come back for Daniel, but she’d taken no more than two steps before she was yanked back, Roxbury’s gloved hand like a vise on her arm.

She gasped as she was jerked back against him. “Where do you think you are going?” he rasped.

Her stomach rolled. There was something familiar about this, about the feel of his hand on her arm, the sound of his voice.

No.

She caught a glimpse of his face out of the corner of her eye and noted the red scar on his cheek, just to the side of his nose. It had an odd shape, but one she’d seen before. A dog bite.

It had been him at Tanglewilde.

Oh God. No.

She pulled away from him, and he clamped the other hand on her arm as well. “Let go!” She struggled, kicking and twisting. “I have to help Daniel!”

Roxbury tightened his grip and hauled her up against him. “With any luck, he’s already dead.” He turned her forcibly to face him, and his hand closed on her throat. “Right now, I have other plans. Plans that do
not
involve your footman.”

Francesca stared into his glacier-blue eyes. They were clouded with rage and lust.

“That’s right, Francesca. Look at me. This time you’ll know it’s me making you scream.”

“No,” she said, reacting instinctively to the chilling smile he gave her. “No!”

“You dare tell me no?” He backhanded her savagely, and she skidded to the ground at his feet. She tried to roll away, but he kicked her with one of his boots.

Coughing, she curled into a ball, trying to protect herself from further blows.

She’d barely caught her breath when she heard the snickering. Inching away, Francesca peered tentatively into his face. Head thrown back, he stood over her, laughing with utter abandonment. He saw her watching him and narrowed his eyes, all traces of humor gone in an instant.

“This is where I like you, whore.” He jabbed at her with his boot. “At my feet, underneath my boot.”

With a vicious tug, he grasped her by the hair and dragged her toward the crumbling keep.

She gasped. “Benedict!” She tried to concentrate through the searing pain of his hand in her hair and the throbbing ache in her abdomen where he’d kicked her. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want. But we have to help Daniel. He’s bleeding, Benedict. Please—”

“Shut up!” They’d reached the ruins and he threw her aside, her head narrowly avoiding cracking against one of the stones that had fallen from the castle a century ago. They were behind one of the few remaining walls, and she realized with mounting fear that she couldn’t see Winterbourne Hall from where she lay. She shifted her eyes to the sky and noticed how dark it had grown. Evening was fast approaching and with it the storm.

Roxbury must have followed the trail of her thoughts because he laughed. “No one from the house can see or hear you this far away. When they do search for you, they won’t think to look for you here.” His grin was malevolent. “Until it’s too late.”

Francesca fought to contain her fear. For the first time, she didn’t feel powerless in the face of Roxbury’s rage. For the first time, she knew her own worth, her own power. She had to escape him—she had done it before, and could do it again.

Only, she couldn’t seem to concentrate. Her entire body ached, and her thoughts kept returning to Daniel, lying sprawled and bleeding a few yards away. Then another fear gripped her.

Ralph.

The Ingletons’ servant coming with a message and Roxbury waiting for her here was too coincidental.

“Please tell me you didn’t hurt the Ingletons, Benedict.”

“Worried about them, are you?” He snorted. Still towering over her, he unclasped his ebony greatcoat and draped it on one of the low stone walls. Then he began to untie his cravat. “No, I didn’t hurt your precious tenants. If you had shown up at their door, they would not have known the reason.”

His cravat came undone, falling neatly across his waistcoat. He threaded a gloved finger underneath his collar, loosening it. Francesca tensed. She remembered Roxbury abhorred untidiness. Time and again, he’d reproached her for sullying his clothes with her blood after her beat her. Lord, she had to keep him talking. Her blood ran cold as the look in his eyes, cold as the sleet that had begun to fall.

“That scrawny boy fooled you?” Roxbury laughed. “I paid him to say he was from the Ingletons’ farm. I found him in the next town over, digging through the trash. He was all too eager to say anything I liked if I would give him a farthing or two.”

“Oh no,” she breathed. Grendell and Daniel were right to be suspicious of Ralph. He was a pawn in Roxbury’s plan to lure her away from the safety of Winterbourne Hall, to lure her away so he could—

She stared at Roxbury as he removed his coat. Her breath hitched and her stomach clenched. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you deserve it.”

A new panic engulfed her, sickening her, as she realized he planned to finish what he’d begun in Hampshire.

She scrambled away, but Roxbury was on her before she could rise to her feet. He tossed her on her back and pinned her body down, face inches from hers.

“I know it was you,” she hissed at him, scratching at his face and the wound she knew Lino had inflicted. “At Tanglewilde. It was you.”

He grasped her wrists, imprisoning them in a tight grip that immobilized her. With his free hand, he stroked her cheek with one finger. The leather of his glove felt slimy against her skin. “I cannot deny it.” He gave her a quick, almost playful kiss on the cheek.

She flinched.

“After I saw you with Winterbourne that day in the woods, I couldn’t help myself. After all, why should I be the only man in England who hasn’t sampled your charms?”

His lips brushed her cheek as he spoke, and she struggled to remain still.

“You always wanted him, didn’t you? You think I didn’t see the way you looked at him?
Lusted
after him?”

He grabbed her dress and hiked it up. “I’ll make you forget about him.” His hand groped her painfully, and Francesca screamed. She bucked and kicked, thankful when her foot landed a hard blow to his thigh. With an oath, he recoiled.

For a moment, they were both motionless, panting. Francesca’s mind raced. Oh Lord, how long had he been watching her? Waiting for this opportunity? He’d already made two failed attempts. She didn’t think he intended to fail again.

“You’ll never get away with this,” she hissed at him.

“Why not? I’ve gotten away with everything else.” He grasped her chin between his gloved fingers and twisted her face to his. “Do you think your precious husband will catch me? He thinks I’m in France. He’s in Paris even now searching for me.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about? Why would Ethan be looking for you?”

Roxbury didn’t seem to hear her. He released her and sat back on his haunches, a distant expression on his face.

“Fools, all of them. My last shipment of arms is waiting at Dover on the
Parvenu
—fitting name, isn’t it? In a few days I’ll sail for France. A very, very rich man.” He gave her a smug grin.

“My God, all this time, Ethan’s work...” She gaped at Roxbury. “He’s been searching for you, and that means”—her lip curled in disgust—“you’re a traitor.” Her head snapped back as he slapped her hard across the mouth.

“How dare you? You little bitch!” His face was inches from hers, his lips pulled back and his teeth bared in a feral grimace. She felt the warm trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. “How dare you accuse me of being a traitor when I’ve only done what I had to?” He pushed her head back, grinding it into the rock wall behind her. “I only did what you forced me to do.”

She gasped, fighting to escape his grip and the ragged rocks gouging into her scalp.

“You broke our engagement and left me with nothing. No way to pay the mortgage on Fountainview.” He stopped shoving her, gripping her chin between his fingers. “I needed that money.”

“My dowry,” she whispered. His courtship, their engagement—all a lie, a carefully crafted scheme to get his hands on her dowry. Deep down, she’d always known it. And yet, he’d managed to demean her, taking so much of her spirit that she had actually considered staying with him, no matter the abuse he heaped on her.

“You disgust me,” she spat.

She expected a blow, prepared for it, but he only laughed.

“Poor little Cesca,” he taunted. “Did you think I loved you? Stupid chit.” He gave her head a final shove, stood, and brushed off his trousers.

“But know this, if I am a traitor, you bear the blame as much as I.”

“You’re mad,” she breathed. With a sickening finality she realized his mind was truly warped and had possibly always been twisted, though she had never known the extent. And he hated her, blamed her for everything wrong in his life.

His icy blue gaze was on her, making her shiver. “But I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, Cesca.” He caressed the butt of the pistol protruding from his waistcoat. “This marriage of yours has caused me a great deal of trouble and inconvenience.” He took a step forward, standing directly over her. “I couldn’t leave without taking what I was owed. And you
owe
me.”

Francesca stared at him. He would really do it—rape her and kill her. “Oh my God.” She scrambled away from him, feeling the prison of the jagged keep wall behind her.

“Even God won’t help you this time,” Roxbury said and loosened the fall on his trousers.

E
than scanned the familiar cream façade of Winterbourne Hall and urged his mount the last half mile of their journey. Since arriving in England, he had kept up a frantic pace, and now the sight of his home—warm light spilling from the windows and smoke drifting lazily from the chimneys—tempted him to relax.

It would feel good to rest after the frenzied journey from Paris to Calais, across the stormy Channel, and then the grueling ride from Dover to Yorkshire. But he would not let his guard down until he saw Francesca, until she was in his arms, and he cradled her, safe and warm, in front of a blazing fire.

A blast of wind, thick with the smell of snow, cut through his heavy greatcoat and, increasingly anxious to see his wife, he spurred the horse toward the stable complex. She’d obviously been busy, he thought as he neared the stables. A new building in the final stages of construction stood off to the side, similar in design to her hospital at Tanglewilde. She was making Winterbourne Hall her home, and in a moment he’d see her, tell her how he felt, and they could begin to make it a home together.

But when he reached the stables, a groom informed him Francesca was not at home. The grooms had readied a coach and four for the traditional delivery of presents to the poor, but it had been over an hour and their mistress had not arrived.

“Where is she now?” Ethan asked his groom. In the menacing sky, the clouds were low and ominous, and a light sleet had begun to fall. With a storm coming, it was now too late and too dangerous for her to deliver the presents. Such negligence was not like Francesca.

“I don’t know, my lord. She and Daniel left some time ago, and should have been back by now.”

Fear, cold and biting, gripped Ethan, sending rivulets of ice down his back. “Where did they go?” He kept his voice controlled, but the urge to run, to seek her out, was almost overwhelming. He resisted. Years of training had taught him that blind actions, motivated by panic, were wasted. He needed information.

The groom shook his head. “I don’t know, my lord.”

The tree limbs danced in the wind again, taunting him.

Ethan grabbed the groom by the lapels of his coat. “Damn it! Where did she go?” At the end of his patience, he shook the man, but the groom kept repeating that he didn’t know.

Another of the grooms ran forward. “
I
know, my lord!”

Feeling like a desperate animal, Ethan released the man and turned on the other groom.

The boy took a step back. “The Ingletons’ farm, my lord. A messenger—”

Ethan didn’t hear the rest of the answer. He turned and mounted again, spurring the horse toward the Ingletons’ farm.

Roxbury. Somehow he knew Roxbury was behind this.

Ethan rode like a madman, so intent on his mission that at first he passed the riderless sorrel gelding shivering near the castle ruins. Then, with a curse, he turned his mount sharply and doubled back. He recognized the animal as one from his stables, but it was not a horse Francesca rode. She would have taken Thunder or one of the mares.

He squinted against the driving wind and sleet, searching the area until his gaze settled on the castle towers. The low clouds shrouded the ruins in darkness. As he watched the clouds swirling across the sky, he could almost feel the temperature drop another notch. He turned his horse toward the old castle.

Except for the hollow rush of the growing wind, the ruins were eerily silent, and the tenseness in his taut shoulders grew painful. Ethan left his horse tethered in the brush a few yards from the castle and approached cautiously, his hand gripping his pistol. He searched for Thunder but saw no sign of the animal. A few steps closer to the ruins, he found the footman lying near a tree and paused to turn him over. The servant had been grazed in the shoulder by a bullet, no more than a flesh wound, but the man was unconscious.

When Ethan turned the servant over, the man mumbled, “Over there.”

And then Ethan heard the laughter, low and sinister, echo from within the ruins. He forced himself to walk, not run, toward the sound of laughter, ducking behind what little shelter the fallen stones provided, until he reached the crumbling walls of the keep. The laughter stopped suddenly, replaced by shuffling and a moan. Ethan inched along the wall, the rough, uneven stones biting into his back. He reached a gap in the structure, easing forward to peer inside.

On the ground across from him was his wife with her legs parted and a man between them. As he watched, she threw her head back and gasped. He heard the man murmur and saw him hike her skirts higher.