an you should fall apart.
“Don’t even try it, miss,” the man said, reading her mind. “I’m a good shot, and I’d splatter your brains all over the floor if you ran. You don’t want to leave that kind of mess for the other servants, now do you? Let’s do this right and tidy, just you and me. No need to make a fuss.”
“You really think I’m willing to die without making a fuss?” she demanded, perhaps unwisely.
“Most people do. They accept it, and I makes it as painless as possible. You annoy me and I’ll make it hurt.” And he meant it—there was no mercy in his small, soulless eyes, only practicality.
“Fair enough,” she said after a moment. There was no way she could escape up here—he’d have a clear shot if she tried to get to the stairs. But there would be other chances as he took her down the flights of stairs, unless he was planning to toss her out the window. No, people would see her. “Where are you going to take me?” The sooner she knew what his actual plans were the sooner she could come up with an alternative.
“Somewheres nice and quiet-like. We’ll go out the back way and there’ll be a carriage waiting for us. With luck we won’t run into anyone. You ask for help and they’re dead too. You wouldn’t want to go to your grave with that on your conscience, now would you?”
“I’d rather not go to my grave at all,” she said frankly. “I don’t suppose you feel like telling me why you’re going to kill me?”
He gestured toward the stairs with the gun. “Twenty pounds.”
“What?” she almost shrieked, and at the last minute quieted her exclamation. “I’m only worth twenty pounds?”
He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I do most for ten. I got offered more for this one because my employer don’t want any more mistakes. Come along then. My associate is waiting in the mews for us.”
The mews, she thought. There was a good chance Mr. Quarrells might see them and rescue her.
“No one’s here, miss. The servants have all been summoned back to the house they came from, the man who stays in the cottage at the back has gone to London with the captain. It would be a waste of time to struggle.”
Personally she couldn’t think of a better way to spend her few remaining minutes or hours. But she was an actress. She might not have been able to convince the denizens of this house that she was a maid, but she could surely convince this hired brute that she was cowed and frightened, particularly because a good part of her truly was terrified. “All right,” she said, though the words were bitter on her tongue and she started down the narrow staircase, the man with the gun directly behind her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BEING ON BOARD THE Maddy Rose should have filled Luca with the same inner peace that always settled over him when he was out at sea, whether it was smooth sailing or fighting a fierce storm. If it weren’t for the cuckoo in his nest he’d be tempted to take his favorite ship out into the open waters, simply disappear for a week as he’d done so many times before.
But life had changed. He had a burgeoning business to deal with—two of Russell’s finest steamships to ferry cargo and passengers around the world, and now this beautiful indulgence. He’d been a fool to spend the money on the Maddy Rose—the age of the clipper ship was over, steam was replacing everything, and he had no quarrel with that. He was in the business of making money, and the profits from steam far outstripped what could be made from the smaller, lighter clipper ships.
Ah, but running with the wind was something he would never tire of. He could keep the Maddy Rose simply because he wanted to. He had more money than Croesus at this point, and he could spend it as he pleased. Besides, there were still certain runs that were best accomplished by the smaller clipper ships.
It had been easy enough to put pressure to bear on Matthew Fulton, simply by confronting him with the truth about the so-called maidservant he’d sent into Luca’s household. Matthew had managed to free up the title to the Maddy Rose, and he wouldn’t dare talk to its namesake or risk losing Luca’s very substantial business.
And now he was returning to Miss Madeleine Rose Russell with every intention of forcing her to admit the truth. He wanted the words from her, and he had every intention of getting them.
He was half tempted to simply throw her over his shoulder and carry her off, as his gypsy ancestors had done. He hadn’t lived within a tribe long enough to have learned the ways of the Travelers, but he remembered a surprising number of things, including the language and philosophy. His gypsy side abhorred the wealth and property he’d accumulated over the years, though it lauded his stint at privateering. His Gadjo side relished it.
Of course, it was the Romany way to carry a young girl off, but it was for respectable reasons. For marriage and children, and God knew he didn’t want to marry anyone. Gwendolyn was hanging on by a string, but he would sever that last bit today. The harbor was already in sight, and even with a smaller crew they’d have no trouble docking.
He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do with Russell’s daughter. Wart had been full of information. She’d been engaged until her father’s disgrace, and there were rumors that she’d lost what little reputation she had left by spending the night with her fiancé before he took off for parts unknown. Luca found the thought annoyed him. When a woman was as beautiful as Maddy it would only make sense that other men would have touched her, tasted her. Virgins tended to be more trouble than they were worth. But for some reason he didn’t like the idea of another man seeing her, touching her. And one night wasn’t going to make much of a difference in her bed skills—it would have simply dispensed with her virginity but left her essentially unmoved, unless her fiancé had taken a lot of time and trouble. And since he’d left her the next day, according to the omniscient Wart, Luca doubted it.
He watched the docks as they approached, Billy handling the wheel. He found he was impatient, eager, when he’d never been eager to get off a ship in his life, particularly one like this one. His maiden voyage as her owner, and all he’d done was rush back to the Plymouth area, rush back to Miss Madeleine Rose Russell.
He’d wasted enough time with her. What he’d do next was a conundrum. What he ought to do was send her away. What he wanted to do was… well, there were so many things he wanted to do to her that he could spend an hour just fantasizing and be in no condition to walk down the streets of Devonport.
He would deal with things as they unfolded. First, he needed the truth from her own mouth. What he’d do next with that mouth was another matter entirely.
He disembarked as Billy went through the paper work. The boat was fully stocked for a longer voyage—Luca had promised Billy a proper sail—but at the last minute he’d changed his mind. Simply abandoning Gwendolyn wouldn’t be enough to make her break the engagement—he needed to do something a little more outrageous. And while he was totally capable of simply breaking it himself, he had enough sympathy for her pride to give her an excuse. She cared so much for appearances and reputations, while he couldn’t give a tinker’s damn. But he’d led her on, and he was a man who believed in fairness if it were at all possible.
The sky was darker than it should be as he strode toward North Water Street, leaving Billy behind, and he felt a foreboding inside him that might or might not have something to do with the weather. That was another curse of his gypsy blood—he sensed things before they happened. It had always aided him in his life—that split second of foreknowledge had saved him any number of times and greatly increased his substantial assets. And right now he was sensing some very bad things.
He sped up, his long legs eating up the distance to the narrow terrace house on Water Street. He was about to bound up the front steps when something stopped him. The house was dark. With the coming of the storm someone should have turned on the gaslight—it was bright in the homes on either side of his. But his was dark and abandoned.
He kept walking, down to the end of the block and around the corner to where the mews lay, the stables and storage for the various town houses. He saw the carriage at once, tethered to the side of a back gate. It was small, black curtains shielding everything, and he knew he’d never seen a carriage like that anywhere near his house or his neighbors. He looked ahead, through the gathering shadows, and saw them on the narrow platform at the top of the back staircase, and he froze.
She was struggling, of course. Maddy would never be forced to do anything without a struggle, and the huge man holding on to her was having a difficult time managing her and the gun in his hand. It was a small pistol, adequately lethal if he put it to the side of her head and pulled the trigger, and yet the stupid girl was squirming, kicking, as he hauled her downstairs. He had the arm with the gun around her waist, lifting her, the other over her mouth to silence her, and he was so busy with the struggle that he didn’t even notice Luca’s stealthy approach.