A Lady Compromised (The Ladies) (24 page)

             
Chapter 36

              Lady Delia heard the door open from where she lay, still tied to the shaky little bed in the cellar of the little house where she was being held. She feared it was Gigi returning with more insults, but then at least she would distract her guardian, who seemed to become increasingly insane by the hour. Mr. Rosewood did not even look up until he heard boot steps that seemed heavier than Gigi’s light tread. He was pacing at the foot of the bed, alternately staring at Harriet or abusing Delia, whichever seemed to occur to him at the moment.

             
“Gigi, my love, is that you?”

             
“It is not, you disgusting maggot,” came the rough voice that Lady Delia had been praying for since her abduction.

             
“Mason!” she shouted, with Harriet immediately echoing. Mr. Rosewood dove for his pistol, which he had left on a table across the room and he grabbed it, pointing it at the Marquess’ belly as he strode down the stairs into the dank room.

             
“I would not suggest shooting me,” Lord Durham drawled icily. “As it is clear from your desperate and pathetic kidnapping attempt that—“

             
“Not another step!” screamed Mr. Rosewood madly, waving the gun at the Marquess, who had to duck to see into the room and had not yet reached the final stair. Durham arrested his progress but continued to speak calmly.

             
“Now, Rosewood, if you wish to extract any financial concessions from me, which is, I can only assume, the only reason you have resorted to the kidnapping of two tiresome young women, I highly suggest refraining from murdering the…’golden goose’ shall we say?”

             
“Stay back!”

             
“I will of course, do so, but suggest you contemplate how you expect to extort a ransom from a dead man,” the Marquess continued, looking calmly and raising one eyebrow at Rosewood as he slowly took the final step down into the grim cellar.

             
“I can marry your wretched fiancé even with you dead!” retorted Mr. Rosewood and Delia cried out from the rickety bed.

             
“No! I will never marry you with Mason dead!” Lady Delia shouted. “You will have to kill me before I would sign the marriage license!”

             
“I am afraid, Mr. Rosewood, you have little in the way of a chance at success. It appears Lady Delia does not wish to marry you. And, I, if dead, will be unable to pay your price for the release of my sister and fiancé. As far as I can see your only solution is to negotiate with me and put down your weapon.”

             
“I was not born yesterday, your
lordship
,” sneered Mr. Rosewood. “I have no interest in negotiating with your type, nor you. Leave this basement, return with a draft for fifty thousand pounds, and I will think about speaking with you at that time. Until then, I have nothing else to say to you.”

             
“I assure you that will not happen,” replied the Marquess easily. “I take exception to my fiancé and my sister being tied up, you see, especially while they are in the company of sniveling worms. In ugly houses, unchaperoned. I will not, Mr. Rosewood, be leaving.”

             
“You will do as I say! I am the one with the pistol!”

             
“And I am the one with the pocketbook, Mr. Rosewood. Now, I tire of this charade and I am growing increasingly displeased with the fact that Lady Harriet and Lady Delia remain bound and uncomfortable.”

             
“Try to untie them. See what happens.”

             
“Mr. Rosewood, need I remind you that your entire future depends on their safety and well-being as well as my own? Be reasonable. Put down the weapon and I will consider doing precisely as you ask. In fact, I have brought with me a draft from my bank. I need only fill in the appropriate name and amount.” Mason very gingerly drew from his breast pocket a leather-bound booklet and held it out in front of him.

             
Mr. Rosewood looked at last as though he had been taken off guard.

             
“A remarkably intelligent course of action, for someone as colossally stupid as yourself,” he spat. “You can think to bring a pocketbook but you can’t think to bring a pistol.”

             
“Alas, I am not perfect,” replied the Marquess with easy indifference. Mr. Rosewood stepped forward but did not realize that Lord Durham was not actually on the ground floor of the cellar but one step above. When Mr. Rosewood was within arm’s reach, the Marquess leapt at him, grabbing the gun and twisting it furiously. As he wrested the gun from the kidnapper, he heard Mr. Rosewood’s wrist snap. He screamed and Lord Blackwell came flying down the stairs.

             
“Delia! Harriet! Are you unharmed?” Lord Durham shouted as he pointed the newly wrested pistol at Rosewood, who was lying on the ground, grasping his broken wrist.

Lady Harriet was weeping quietly in the dark corner and Lady Delia struggled in her bonds.

              “Mason, please,” she sobbed. 

             
“You bastard!” Mr. Rosewood shrieked. Then the Marquess brought the pistol straight down onto his temple and he fell unconscious. Since Blackwell was looking in the dark for Lady Harriet, for there was only one low lamp in the room and it was near Delia, he was immediately at her side, untying the bindings.

             
“I’ll kill him,” he heard Lord Blackwell say as he comforted the Marquess’ weeping sister. “My god, Lady Harriet—“

             
“Don’t! Just—don’t! Don’t look at me,” she choked. Lord Blackwell saw her torn gown and tried not to notice her lovely breasts as he turned her gently around so that her back was to him. The rage in his belly made his hands shake as he clumsily began to untie her bound wrists. The instant they were free, her hands flew to draw close her chemisette and the Earl removed his coat to wrap around her, his gut twisting with terror at what might have already happened to her.

             
“Mason!” Lady Delia sobbed. He kissed her as he worked at her ties.

             
“My darling Delia, I am so sorry,” he said, “I—have you been—“ he couldn’t even bring himself to ask what had happened. He had seen his sister’s torn gown and Delia was lying on the bed with her skirts above her knees and his vision had gone black. Delia clung to him in terror and he could not but move a muscle.

             
“Mason! Don’t leave me!”

             
“My darling, I will not, but I must tie up—“

             
“Do not trouble yourself, Mason,” came Lord Blackwell’s voice. He was already using the bonds he had removed from Lady Harriet to tie up Rosewood, while she begged to leave the awful place.

             
“I cannot bear to see this room a second longer,” she wept. “Please.”

             
“My dear sister,” Lord Durham plucked Delia off the bed and carried her to where the Earl had his arm around his sister’s waist and was staring down at Rosewood. “We shall go immediately. Simon, with Rosewood tied up and unconscious, we can simply leave him here and return later to collect him and place him on a ship to Australia or with the magistrate. There is no rush to do so now.”

             
“Agreed. I have tied together his wrists and ankles. It’s extremely unlikely that he will be able to escape from this before we can return.”

             
“Quite.”

             
Lord Durham carried Delia up the stairs and the Earl helped Harriet, who was stumbling slightly with the Earl’s heavy coat still tightly pulled around her, but refusing the Earl’s offer to carry her. Her horror at her state of undress was all consuming.

              Chapter 37

              When the party at last arrived at Durham House, Lady Harriet fled for her chambers and called for her maid immediately, while the Marquess sent Miss Henry to her as well. He personally carried Lady Delia up the stairs to her chamber and had word sent to Lady Burke to come immediately to Durham House. Lady Delia was so cold she was shivering and could not get warm. The delicate skin beneath her eyes was smudged with purple and she looked so white, he was afraid at times that she had stopped breathing.

             
“Delia,” he whispered. She moaned and tears leaked out of her eyes.

             
“I was so afraid,” she said. “It was my fault! I should never have tried to deposit the manuscript! And poor, darling, Harriet! She is so terrified and it’s all my fault! That horrible man—“

             
“She will recover with your help, my love,” said the Marquess. “She is a strong girl. You must not feel so badly. It was my fault for refusing to go with you to the publisher. I should have known you would not so easily ignore your obligations.”

             
“Mason…what if you had not come? He was going to—“

             
“Don’t speak of it!” said her betrothed harshly. “I will kill him.”

             
“No,” she moaned. “I could not bear to lose you.”

             
“You are safe now.”

             
He then called for Amelia to bring a hot bath and once the copper tub was full, he dismissed her from the room. Amelia looked ready to argue but his lordship had nearly shouted at her to get out. “I will care for my own fiancé! She needs more help than you can give her. Go see that Lady Harriet has everything she needs. Now.”

             
Mason carefully pulled off Delia’s soiled gown and tossed it to burn in the fireplace. He never wanted her to see it again, or be reminded of that terrible day. She would never wear it again. Nothing that would remind her of the trauma would be permitted. He slowly eased off her undergarments, despite her protests.

             
“Hush, my love,” he said. “I will bathe you.”

             
“But—“

             
“You are not strong enough and are so cold.” He gently lifted her into the steaming bath and immediately began to wash her. The hands, which were soiled from trying to untie her bonds in the dirty basement, were submerged in steaming water and he massaged her back with a soft cloth. Then he bent to kiss her tear-stained face. Her glorious hair, so tangled and bedraggled from being dragged from the alley, he smoothed and gently combed. With every stroke, he vowed to murder Rosewood repeatedly, just as soon as his precious Delia was warm and safe in her bed.

             
“Mason.”

             
“Yes, my precious, darling, love?”

             
“I knew you would come for me.”

             
“Of course I would.”

             
“When can we be married? I am so afraid Christopher will force me—but he must agree—I cannot bear to be in this state of unknowing any more.”

             
“Oh my sweet, we will be married tomorrow if you wish. And I have something to tell you.”

Lady Delia looked at him through swollen eyes and asked what he would say.

“Christopher Rosewood is not actually your guardian. He lied. He has no power over you and can never hurt you again.”

             
Lady Delia’s violet eyes opened wide for the first time since the ordeal.

             
“He isn’t? But how were we all so fooled!”

             
“You were not fooled. Your actual guardian is the new Earl of Ellsworth, naturally, your cousin, Augustine Harcourt. But Rosewood had influenced your father to give him a legacy, which permitted him to be present for the reading of the will, during which you were judged too aggrieved to attend. He was then able to claim to be your guardian, knowing that your true guardian would not be present to claim his duties for a period of several months. He recollected, I am assuming, that within that time he could coerce you into a marriage. Or at least compromise you—“ Mason choked. He could not bring himself to utter the word ‘rape,’ “such that your guardian was not in a position to refuse the match.”

             
“Oh my god.”

             
“Do not think on it, my love. You are safe now.”

             
“I hate him.”

             
“I know. You are not alone.”

             
“No, I hate him. I will kill him myself,” Delia said. “He is a lying fiend and he terrified Harriet. I will shoot him through his black heart.”

             
“And I will be there to assist you,” Mason said soothingly, certain she did not truly mean it, though he was hard pressed to disagree. “You are not yourself,” he said, drawing her out of the tub and into a warm towel in front of the fire. “And now, my precious, beloved, almost-wife, Lady Delia, are you ready for bed?”

             
She nodded but clung to him.

             
“Do not leave me.”

             
“I never will.”

             
He lay next to her in the bed until her soft weeping had ceased and her gentle breathing resumed. He was afraid to leave her, for fear she would wake in a nightmare and find him gone. Though he hated to sleep next to her after promising he would not do so again until they were wed, he knew it was for the best. 

             
He drew a soft cotton nightgown over her head and suppressed the raging lust that had been tearing at him all through the bath and now was more powerful than ever. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and then her lips as he pulled the covers to her chin.

             
“Sleep, my love,” he said. “Tomorrow we will be wed.”

              Lady Harriet, too, was in the bath, but she was weeping with the terror of a young woman whose first experience with a man seeing her semi-clothed had been one of violence and terror. Worst of all, the incomparable Earl of Blackwell had been there to see her as well. And if she had for the past few months nurtured a
tendre
for him, when he had rescued her from that vile basement, she knew she loved him.

At this realization, Lady Harriet could not imagine what she would do when she next saw him. How could she recover after the man she had adored had seen her abysmally chubby body semi-clothed? Her mortification was complete. She was deeply ashamed to reflect on how clear it was that the evil Mr. Rosewood had desired her curvy body and that he had no interest whatsoever in Lady Delia.

Proper gentlemen did not like women who were built like her, Lady Harriet reflected miserably. Her curves were for mistresses and courtesans only. Not that the Earl of Blackwell would ever desire her. She was too unsophisticated, even if she hadn’t been far to plump. She was not the type of person to attract the Earl. She wept fiercely, thinking the man she adored would never love her now. Not after seeing her exposed flesh, not after witnessing her ugly tearstained face, not after Christopher Rosewood made it clear that her vulgar curves marked her as unfit for anyone but a criminal.

She resolved to go on a reducing regime like the kinds she had read about in
ladies’ journals. One simply ate cabbage and dry toast and she would soon be as slender and svelte as Lady Delia. It would not help her with the humiliation of her hopeless love for Lord Blackwell, but she would simply avoid him henceforth. He had rescued her, but unlike in romantic novels like
Annabelle’s Adventures,
she had been dirty, exposed, terrified and crying. It was nothing like a book. Nothing at all.