Monks laughed unpleasantly and Matthew saw Grace shudder at the sound. Her face was pallid with terror.
Monks sneered. “She’s no lady. She’s a poxy whore.”
“No!” Grace gasped.
“Button your lip, slut!” Monks grunted and tightened the chain so she coughed against the pressure. He glared at the duke. “Do nowt to stop me getting away and I’ll let the lass go.”
That was a lie. Monks was in a towering fury and he’d vent that anger on Grace when he had her to himself. If he was caught, a hanging already awaited. What difference another murder?
Against every instinct he possessed, Matthew steeled himself to say what he must. “Release the girl and you have my word as Marquess of Sheene that you may leave unhindered.”
He ignored the duke’s movement of protest. Grace’s life was more important than revenge or punishment.
Monks edged toward the doors, forcing Grace into a stumbling backward walk. “Eh, and pigs might fly. I’m not daft. Happen I’m summat better off keeping the lass as a bargaining piece, your lordship. Collect her at the gate in half an hour.”
Collect her dead, Matthew knew.
If his beloved were dead, what use was freedom?
This had gone on long enough. He turned and seized a pistol from the nearest of the duke’s men.
“Let her go, Monks.” His voice rang in the silent room. Silent except for the uneven gasps of Grace’s breathing against the chain.
“You’ll not risk shooting the lass,” Monks sniggered.
“I won’t shoot her.” With a surprisingly steady hand, Matthew cocked the gun and aimed between Monks’s eyes.
“Don’t be a blasted fool, man!” Lord Wyndhurst whirled toward him. “You’ll hit her!”
The cool weight of the gun was familiar, even after all these years without touching a weapon. In his boyhood, he’d shown blazing talent as a marksman and had promised to become a crack shot. He hoped to hell his hours of pitching rocks at trees had kept his eye in. It seemed a fragile basis for confidence but as he leveled the pistol, he had no doubt he could do this.
He loved Grace too much to fail.
“Matthew, please,” Grace begged brokenly then fell silent as Monks twisted the chain. The harsh metal links rubbed the skin on her neck raw, Matthew noted with grim anger. Monks would pay for that. And so much else.
“Stay absolutely still,” he said softly to Grace. If she made a sudden movement or jerked Monks out of position, the bullet could go wild.
The lout towered above her, presenting an easier target than he realized. Strangely, everything in the room was uncannily clear as if illuminated by bright light. Matthew took a deep breath and said a silent prayer.
“You’re right full of hot air, my fine lordship,” Monks scoffed. “You’d no more have the gumption to shoot me than you would to swim to America.”
Matthew leveled the pistol. “I’ve always enjoyed swimming, Monks.”
Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. The bullet entered squarely between Monks’s thick eyebrows. The mud-colored eyes widened with shock. Then glazed in swift death.
Monks tumbled to the floor without a word, taking Grace down with him. She screamed as she fell, a jagged high-pitched shriek of terror. The sound broke the odd paralysis that gripped everyone in the room.
Wyndhurst burst into movement and rushed over to disentangle her. “Are you unharmed, child?”
“Yes. Yes, I am,” she said shakily. At the admission, some of the painful tension drained from Matthew’s shoulders.
“Bugger me,” Filey gasped, staring in open-mouthed surprise at Matthew. “I seen nowt like it.”
Matthew’s heartbeat quieted as his agonizing fear for Grace receded. Thank God his father had taken the time to teach him to shoot like a sniper. Thank God he’d kept up his target practice with whatever lay to hand in his prison.
Slowly, his arm lowered until the pistol dangled at his side.
He’d never killed anyone before. He’d imagined the act would be harder, more emotional. But he looked across at Monks’s motionless body and felt only a vague satisfaction.