CHAPTER13
Emma’s wrists and ankles were raw from the effort she had expended on trying to escape from the ropes binding them. Each tug at her restraints sent fiery pain shooting through her. But she had no choice. Biting down on her lip, she worked frantically to pull her hands and feet from the tenacious knots.
She had been left alone in a small, shadowy chamber that smelled of tobacco smoke, food, and sour ale. There was a lone bed, but the coverings on it were dirty, and she had entrusted her person instead to the rough-hewn floor, rolling from the bed the moment her captors had left her alone in the room. She had no notion of when they would return or what they would demand of her.
Her jaw ached and would likely sport a bruise from where one of her captors had cuffed her with rather too much force when she had screamed for help as they had hauled her into a hack and spirited her away. Black stars had danced before her eyes, and the pain had been fierce.
But it did not compare to the desperate ache in her heart.
Hart’s betrayal hurt far worse than the blows she had been dealt, and cut deeper than the rope twisting into her chafed and bloodied flesh. She was not sure which was worse, the knowledge that she had been kidnapped by ruffians for what nefarious purposes she knew not, or the understanding that the man who had stolen her heart had merely been keeping her as some sort of pawn to use against her father.
His betrayal made no sense. She could not fathom what dealing her father could have had with Hart Sutton or why he would have chosen to buy her father’s vowels and call them in at once. It was clear that whatever crime he believed her father guilty of, he intended to exact vengeance.
She had been a necessary casualty in his pursuit of revenge.
Gritting her teeth, she fought with the ropes on her wrists again. Curse him for making her fall in love with him and proving to be a heartless villain. Not that it would matter now. It was possible she would never see him again. That she would never see anyone she cared for again. She had no notion what the men who had absconded with her wanted, where they had taken her, or when they would return.
As if she had conjured them with her anguished thoughts, the scrape of the lock being removed warned her of the impending arrival of her captors. The taller of the two men who had taken her, with too-long dark hair flopping over his brow, loomed ominously at the threshold.
“And what’re you doing, little bird?” he asked. “Not thinking you’re going to ’ave a squeak for your life, there, are you?”
Like Hart, her captors used cant in their speech. Unlike him, however, their every word and deed was marked with thinly veiled venom, the threat of something far worse to befall her. A chill went through her as his gaze settled on her breasts, then dipped to her ankles, exposed in her effort to escape from her binding.
“Who are you?” she demanded instead of answering his query. “Where have you brought me?”
But her captor did not answer. Instead, he strolled deeper into the room, grinning lewdly down at her. “You’re a pretty mort, aren’t you? I can see why Hart Sutton parted with so much bloody darby just to ’ave you. You’re the one he bought, aren’t you?”
He knew.
Perhaps not her given name, but he knew Hart had purchased her innocence at The Garden of Flora. She wondered how many rumors were swirling. Wondered if anyone had guessed at her true identity. After all, she had so trusted Hart that she had been eschewing her mask. If she had ruined Abigail’s and Cassandra’s future hopes of making a match and finding happiness, she would never forgive herself.
A new chill swept over her. She wished she were standing instead of on her knees. How defenseless she felt, trussed up as she was on the floor before this foreboding stranger. But then, if he knew Hart, perhaps she could use that to her advantage.
“If you value your life, you will return me to Mr. Sutton,” she said, feigning a bravado she little felt. “He will be most displeased if any harm befalls me.”
“If any ’arm befalls you, is it?” He barked out a laugh. “The airs of a goddamn duchess, you’ve got.”
Before she could offer a suitably cutting response, the man caught her bound wrists and hauled her to her feet. Pain cut through her at his rough handling, but she bit back a new rush of tears, not wanting him to see her weakness.
He extracted a wicked-looking blade, and she did her best not to flinch at the sight, thinking of the wound Hart had suffered so recently. Bending, he cut the binding on her ankles. She had not realized how painfully tight the ropes were until they fell away and the blood returned to her feet and toes.
“You’ll be coming with me, then.” He gave her another long, lewd look before hooking his fingers in the rope binding her wrists and yanking her forward.
She swallowed against a surge of bile and followed him from the room. They traveled down a corridor and then he shouldered his way through a door, tugging her unceremoniously behind him.
The room was not empty. Instead, it was filled with a sea of tense faces, some of them strangers, others familiar.
One of them painfully so.
Her eyes met Hart’s hazel gaze across the distance, her heart giving a pang. He was pale, and she had no doubt he was in pain, judging from his expression. And yet he was here.
For her? Or for the revenge he was intent upon having?
“Emma,” he said, his voice hoarse, taking a step forward before the staying hand of his brother at his coat sleeve halted him.
Her captor pushed her into the center of the room, and she stumbled, nearly tripping over her hem and petticoats. Her slippers were torn and wet, so too her gown and undergarments after the manner in which she had been whisked from the streets.
“If you hurt her, I’ll gut you like a bleeding fish, Bradley,” Hart snarled at her captor.
The man merely laughed. “I’m quivering in fear. My arse is making buttons.”