Captive of Sin (6 page)

But they’d left their escape too late. The thugs surrounded them at the mouth of the alley. Charis came to a juddering stop, her heart jamming in her throat.

“Stay behind me,” Gideon snapped, stepping between her and the closing circle of brawny sailors. The rough, flushed faces promised retribution, violence and pain.

Shaking, she pressed against the wall. Her blood pounded so loudly, she hardly heard the bustle from the crowded street so close.

“You’re making a mistake.” Gideon sounded as if the men posed no threat at all. He still held the pistol, but she guessed he was reluctant to shoot in case he hit someone in the street.

“No mistake, my hearty.” The ringleader’s swaggering confidence returned. “We’ll take our fun with you, then it’s the wench’s turn.”

“I think not.” Although she couldn’t see his face, she knew he smiled.

She opened her mouth and shrieked as loudly as she could. The shrill sound bounced between the narrow walls.

“Gideon.”

She strained upward to see. Akash loomed at the entrance to the alley. Next to him, Tulliver. Thank God. They must have been close enough to hear her.

The sailors dived at the newcomers. The world exploded into a fury of hard fists and boots and grunts of pain.

The violence transported her to the horrific afternoon when Hubert had hit her. She ducked her head and cowered against the clammy bricks. Black edged her vision as
the battle raged around her. Trembling, she clutched her sprained wrist to her chest and prayed for the nightmare to pass. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought a powerful urge to vomit.

Bodies hurtled close, then lurched away in the fight’s chaotic dance. Gideon brushed against her. She recognized his scent before she opened her eyes and saw him swing into the fray again.

The shouting crescendoed, became more confused. The brawl spilled out into the street. At a distance, she heard someone yell for the town watch.

“Miss Watson, let me get you out of here.” The calm voice emerged from the pandemonium.

With dazed eyes, she turned to look into Akash’s face. He was disheveled but had suffered no obvious injuries.

Disappointment scourged her that it wasn’t Sir Gideon. She blinked to dispel the foolish reaction and managed a brief nod. Akash took her uninjured arm and, shielding her with his body, drew her onto the street.

The scene was a wild melee. Difficult even to spot the original combatants in the milling crowd.

“Sir Gideon?” she gasped, digging her fingers into Akash’s sleeve.

He glanced down quickly with a smile so carefree, it astonished her. “He’s fine. Never better.”

She scanned the heaving mob and spotted Gideon. With his height, he was hard to miss. He swung punches with an abandon that left his opponents staggering. His face was brilliant with elation, a dazzling exhilaration she’d never seen in him before.

She staggered to an astonished halt.

He’d shown her nothing but gentleness. Yet the man she watched now took a savage delight in violence. She desperately wanted to despise him—she’d always loathed brute force, even before Hubert’s assault. But looking at Gideon, she couldn’t help but respond to the display of unfettered male power. He moved with a smooth beauty that was almost
mechanical, like a perfectly calibrated engine doing what it was designed for.

Her breath caught in her throat at how glorious he was. Every drop of moisture dried from her mouth, and her blood ran hot in her veins.

This new Gideon frightened her. But she couldn’t deny he thrilled her too.

The brief awareness shattered as Akash lunged forward to deflect someone who grabbed at her. For a horrified second, she stared into the reddened eyes of one of the sailors. The man faltered under Akash’s blow and fell cursing.

“Miss Watson, don’t just stand there,” Akash snapped, and wrenched her through the heaving crowd.

She stumbled and just avoided another blow aimed at her head. She couldn’t see Tulliver in the throng. Pray God he was all right. To her left, Sir Gideon dispatched with casual competence anyone who dared approach.

A man snatched at her injured wrist. She choked back a scream. Pain shot a red-hot blast up her arm. She screamed again as Akash struck her assailant down without a moment’s compunction, his aquiline face severe and expressionless.

Akash turned back to her and spoke almost roughly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, although her wrist burned with fiery agony. She pressed it to her breast and let Akash tug her toward the edge of the crowd. He dragged her into a deeply recessed doorway, where the cacophony marginally diminished.

“Are you sure you’re unharmed?” He was breathing heavily as he gave her a hard look.

“Yes.” She stared out at the street with utter dismay. “This is all my fault.”

Akash’s silence signaled agreement. The doorway was wide enough to accommodate both of them without touching. He released her and leaned against the stone doorframe, studying her with unfathomable brown eyes.

She frowned in confusion. “Don’t you want to help Sir Gideon?”

Akash shook his dark head. “He’d prefer I kept an eye on you.”

Her bruised ribs twinged as she made a convulsive movement toward the street. “He could be killed.”

A smile curved Akash’s mouth. “The man who can kill Gideon Trevithick hasn’t been born. Don’t worry, Miss Watson. He’ll live to chastise you for your rashness in running away.”

Something in his easy confidence settled her choking panic. “I had to go,” she said sullenly, guilt twisting her belly.

“Utter rot,” Akash said amiably. He darted a look outside. “Ah. At last. The watch has arrived. Peace will soon descend upon the streets of Portsmouth.”

It took surprisingly little effort to quell the brawl. Most participants just melted away into the alleys. Gradually, Charis’s heartbeat slowed. Heady relief bubbled in her veins.

Until she observed Gideon speaking to a well-dressed man, who clearly counted as the authority in town.

She shrank behind Akash. Renewed fear ate at her. Dear God, had she come so far only to fail now? If the authorities took her in charge, she’d be on a direct path back to her stepbrothers.

Akash glanced at her briefly. Gideon didn’t look at them at all. He was once again the contained, courteous man she’d first met. The fight’s wild berserker might never have existed. In a fever of nerves, she watched as Gideon pressed a wad of banknotes into the man’s hand, then turned away.

A few curious onlookers hung around, but everyone else had gone on their way. Charis still couldn’t see Tulliver. She’d faced rape and death, yet no trace remained of her ordeal apart from the blood and mud on the street.

“Wait a moment,” Akash said when she made to leave the doorway.

Three well-dressed men strolled toward Gideon. One stopped, stared, and let out an exclamation of delighted surprise. “By gum! It’s the Hero of Rangy whatsit.”

Gideon paused at the first loud hail. Charis had a clear view of his face. So often, the sheer beauty of his features made it difficult to read his expression. Now she couldn’t mistake how the blood drained from his cheeks and his brows contracted. He looked annoyed and on edge.

Hunted.

“Oh, hell,” Akash breathed at her side, tensing.

The man who greeted Gideon turned in open excitement to his two companions. “You know who he is. The cove the King just knighted. Lasted a year in some filthy hole in India. Bravest fellow in the empire, Wellington called him.”

His mouth stern with displeasure, Gideon retreated along the street toward Charis and Akash. He was close enough for her to hear him say in a forbidding voice, “I’m afraid you’ve made an error, sir.”

The man advanced, his hand extended. “Dash it, man! There’s no error. Your sketch is in every newspaper from here to John O’Groats, I’ll warrant. Anyway, I cheered you in Pall Mall when you and the cavalry rode by on your parade of honor.”

“You don’t…”

“Let me shake the hand of the Hero of…What was that heathen place they had you locked up? Some benighted name no Christian can get his tongue around.”

“Rangapindhi,” one of his companions said with audible enthusiasm. “By George, it’s a privilege to meet you, sir. By George, it is!”

The fuss attracted notice and quickly another crowd built up. But this time, it clamored with approval.

Wearing a coldly aloof expression, Gideon stood stock-still in the midst of the noisy mob. He looked like he had nothing but contempt for the congratulatory throng. His jaw was set, his lips thinned, his eyes veiled. He could never be less than handsome, but his frigid demeanor and stilted gestures repelled human warmth.

“Where in God’s name is Tulliver?” Akash muttered beside Charis.

“I haven’t seen him.” Charis craned her neck to observe Gideon. Curiosity and confusion warred in her mind. She thought she’d begun to understand the man who rescued her in Winchester. It turned out he was as unknown as the wastes of Greenland.

His admirers didn’t seem to mind Gideon’s lack of welcome. They shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulders. All to a man looked at him as if he’d just stepped off Mount Olympus.

Wheels clattered on cobblestones. A moving carriage forced people out of the way.

A familiar carriage with a familiar driver.

“About bloody time,” Akash said savagely, and wrapped an arm around Charis. “Come on. Run. And keep your head down.”

He didn’t need to tell her. She had no wish for anyone to see her face. She scuttled at his side, floundering to keep up with a man who made no allowance for her shorter legs or her injuries. The mad dash stirred all her fading aches into sharp agony, so her head rang when she finally reached the carriage.

Akash flung open the door and tossed her inside. She landed against the seat with a jolt that sent pain slicing through her. She stifled a cry and fisted her hands as she fought the giddiness. A breath hissed through her teeth. Another.

The worst of her dizziness ebbed. Ignoring her discomfort, she slid across the seat to press her face to the carriage window.

Both men were so tall, it was easy to locate them. Through the joyful hordes, Akash pushed his way toward his friend. Gideon retained that frozen, remote expression, but he didn’t break away from his devotees.

She couldn’t hear what Akash said to Gideon over the hubbub. She saw Gideon turn and head with jerkily precise movements toward the carriage. With visible reluctance, the crowd parted before him. Voracious hands stretched out to
pluck at his clothing, delay his departure, compel his attention. Doggedly he continued his automaton-like progress.

He climbed in and sat opposite. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t appear to know she was there at all.

Akash slammed the door on them.

“Aren’t you coming with us?” she asked frantically. Suddenly, Gideon seemed a frightening stranger.

He shook his head. “I’m staying to see to the horses. I’ll follow in my own time.”

There was a burst of patriotic cheering outside. Someone started to sing “God Save the King.” Clearly the locals were still stirred up at having a celebrity in their midst.

The celebrity straightened and shot Akash an angry glare. “For Christ’s sake, let us go.”

“God keep you, my friend. I’ll see you soon.” He stepped back and sent Charis an elegant bow. “Miss Watson. Your servant.”

Before Charis could respond, Tulliver whipped the horses to a pace dangerous in town streets. The lurch of the carriage nearly threw Charis from her seat. She clutched at the strap and stared bewildered at her companion.

He looked ill. As though he suffered intolerable pain. With a shock, she realized the set expression was endurance, not disdain.

Automatically, she stretched out to take his gloved hand. “Sir Gideon…”

“Curse you, don’t touch me!”

He wrenched out of reach. But not before she felt his desperate, uncontrollable shaking.

T
hrough the suffocating miasma, Gideon knew he’d frightened the girl. But conscience was a dim whisper against the screaming demons in his skull. He clutched his head with shaking hands to silence the howling devils. It didn’t help.

Nothing ever helped.

His sight failed, turning the girl’s face into a pale blur. His throat was so tight, he choked. He sucked a shuddering breath into lungs starved of air.

She said something. He missed everything apart from the end. “…get Tulliver.”

He forced himself to concentrate, pressed words to stiff lips until sound emerged. He didn’t want Tulliver. Tulliver would drug him, trapping the monsters inside his head.

“No.”

He sucked another breath through grinding teeth, even as thick darkness closed in.

“No Tulliver.” Then what he prayed wasn’t a lie. “This will pass.”

Words worn threadbare with repetition.

Perhaps one day the nightmare wouldn’t pass. The constant terror of that prospect made fear congeal like greasy soup in his belly.

I’m not insane. I’m not insane.

His gloved hands clawed at the worn leather seat as he battled for clarity. For control. For calm.

The demons were too strong. Horrible, shrieking phantom images rioted in his mind.

I’m in England.

I’m safe.

I’m free.

The litany failed. What freedom could he claim when grisly specters haunted his every moment?

“Please let me get Tulliver.” The girl swam toward him through murky water. At the last minute, he realized she meant to rap on the roof and stop the coach.

“No!” The word emerged as a croak.

Speech was so damned difficult. He wished he was alone. But what couldn’t be cured must be endured. The old aphorism, his nurse’s favorite, helped him to cobble together an explanation. Even if every word cut his throat like broken glass.

“Tulliver will give…laudanum.”

Opium hurled him into whirling oblivion. The dreams the drug brought threatened to send him mad indeed.

She frowned. “If it eases you…”

“No!” he all but screamed.

The girl recoiled. Good God, let him muster some control. He snatched another breath and fought to calm the frantic gallop of his heart.

She stared at him out of great, wide, terrified eyes. He loathed it when his personal…idiosyncrasies inconvenienced others.

Vaguely he told himself to assure her she shouldn’t be afraid. He wasn’t dangerous in this state. Unless she touched
him. Thank Christ, after that first tentative attempt to offer comfort, she’d kept her hands to herself.

What had he meant to say? Thought was elusive and fleeting as wisps of mist.

That’s right. Tulliver.
He set his jaw and spoke in a low, harsh tone. Quickly, before will failed.

“There’s nothing anyone can do. The best…” He stopped to fight back the caterwauling devils. “Please ignore me.”

“That won’t help.” Even through swirling chaos, he heard the firmness in her voice.

Every joint tensed into quivering spasms. His stomach heaved like a stormy sea. Waves of hot and cold washed over him. He lashed his arms around his chest, but nothing eased the agonizing cramps. This attack was one of the crippling ones.

On his own, he’d bear the pain until it passed. But he couldn’t distress the chit by vomiting all over her.

He’d have to accept opium’s poisonous boon.

“Can you stop the coach?” he managed to force through chattering teeth.

Mercifully, she didn’t question his change of mind. She banged hard on the roof. The carriage lurched to a halt. The abrupt movement set off jangling cymbals in his head, dimmed his sight.

The door wrenched open. Voices were a buzz in his ears. Tulliver passed in a tin basin.

“It’s a bad one this time, lad,” he said impassively, as Gideon’s shaking hands curled around the dish.

Gideon’s gut tangled into knots. He was seconds from losing control. He managed to snarl, “Take the girl.”

His world turned to violent black as he began to retch. He was lost on a hideous sea, lit by brief crimson flashes where pain flared into agony.

He had no idea how long it was before awareness returned. Opening bleary eyes, he realized someone else’s hands held the basin steady.

His mouth tasted foul. A hundred mallets battered his skull. Just the simple act of breathing threatened to split his chest in two.

Efficient hands removed the disgusting bowl. The same hands, soft and gentle, pressed a damp cloth to his burning forehead. He closed his eyes and groaned at the bliss of that coolness on his burning skin.

His belly was still rebellious. He concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

“Akash?” he rasped across a raw throat. Although he knew the hands didn’t belong to his friend.

“He’s back in Portsmouth.”

The girl. Miss Watson. Sarah.

With difficulty, Gideon cracked his eyes open. His blinding headache built with every second. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to sit upright.

His clothes were rank and dripping with sweat. Acrid shame for his animal filth assailed him. “I told Tulliver to take you outside.”

Her smile was dry as the deserts of Rajasthan. She knelt on the bench at his side. Her surprisingly competent hands supported his head. He was so sick and weak, her touch didn’t make his skin crawl with familiar revulsion. He had a vague thought that helping him couldn’t be easy with her sprained wrist, but the notion drifted off like a will-o’-the-wisp.

“Tulliver had his hands full.” Her voice softened into compassion. “Are you feeling better?”

“He’ll have the devil’s own headache. He always does after one of his takings,” Tulliver said calmly.

Gideon hadn’t seen anything beyond the girl. Now he looked past her to where Tulliver waited, holding the bowl.

“He has these attacks often?” The girl’s clear gaze rested on him with curiosity and concern.

Even in this state, his pride revolted at her pity. “I’m not an ailing puppy, Miss Watson. I can speak for myself.”

Her lips turned down at his childish response. Which he
regretted as soon as it emerged. Helping him couldn’t have been pleasant. She deserved gratitude, not pique.

The pounding in his head made rational, connected thought increasingly difficult. He closed his eyes and stifled renewed nausea.

“I’ll get the laudanum, lad.” Tulliver’s voice came from a long way off, masked by the painful throb of Gideon’s blood.

“The sickness has passed,” he forced out.

“The laudanum makes you sleep. You know sleep is all that brings you through. Do you want to stop at an inn? A bed might be better than rattling around in this rig.”

A bed. Cool sheets. Quiet. A cessation of movement. All beckoned like the promise of heaven.

He hesitated. He had to reach Penrhyn. Something urgent.

He opened his eyes and saw the girl’s worried face above him in the gloomy carriage interior. Of course. If they stopped, she might run.

They had to keep going. He’d have to accept the despised laudanum. And endure the harrowing visions.

“No…inn.” He shook his head. Even so much movement made his stomach revolt. “Get the laudanum, Tulliver.”

“Aye, guvnor.”

As the coach rattled on through the day and into the night, Sir Gideon slept like the dead.

At first his unconsciousness perturbed Charis. His illness had been so violent, she’d feared for his life.

He stretched awkwardly over a bench that was too short for his height. She studied his face, pale, drawn, handsome still. The muscles around his eyes were tight, and his mouth was white with strain. The certainty built that while he might lie motionless as a stone effigy, his dreams brought no peace.

She turned away and stared unseeingly out into the darkness. Who were these men she’d cast her lot with? Tulliver, who faced trouble with such stoic competence. Akash, clever, enigmatic like a strange foreign idol.

Sir Gideon…

She commanded her wayward heart not to flutter at the thought of her rescuer. It was like telling the sun not to rise. Every moment she spent with him only drew the net of fascination tighter.

He was famous, a celebrity. The crowd in Portsmouth had pressed about him, bristling with excitement. They’d hailed him as the Hero of somewhere called Rangapindhi. Was he home after some daring patriotic action overseas?

Her stepbrothers had kept her isolated for months. She hadn’t seen a newspaper or received any letters. Recent events in the wider world were a complete mystery.

If Sir Gideon was newly returned from India, it suggested a few explanations to things that puzzled her. His tan. Akash. Even his illness. Perhaps some tropical disease attacked him.

His horrific sufferings had cut her to the quick. Gideon Trevithick, her only bulwark against her stepbrothers, was unquestionably ill. But the nature of his sickness was an enigma. What ailment turned a man so quickly from invincible avenging angel to shivering wreck?

At dawn, Sir Gideon stirred from his deathlike sleep. The movement was slight but enough to disturb Charis’s restless doze. She opened bleary eyes, excruciatingly aware of her own aches and exhaustion. The carriage’s endless jolting had punctuated her erratic dreams. She’d checked him periodically through the night, but his sickness hadn’t returned.

Without looking at her, he groaned and swung his feet to the floor as he sat up. He rubbed his hands across his face in a weary gesture. Granting him a moment’s privacy, she
opened the blinds and looked out the window onto a wild and unpopulated world. There was a charged intimacy in sharing this tiny space after she’d seen him at his extremity. It made her nervy, shy, unsure.

The view didn’t help to restore her courage. They’d abandoned civilization miles past. The lonely, windswept scene was depressing, frightening to a woman with only strangers to rely upon. Staunchly, she reminded herself that her stepbrothers would have difficulty tracking her through this wasteland.

She wondered how much farther Sir Gideon meant to go. Since they’d left Portsmouth, the only punctuation to eternal travel was stopping to change horses. Hurried, efficient movement, a flare of torches, Tulliver rebinding her arm if the bandage had loosened, a hot drink shoved into her hands. Then away they went again. The beef broth from the last stop, a poor place in the middle of desolate moorland, had left a nasty taste in her mouth. Luckily, she had a cast-iron stomach.

She turned back to her companion, and an involuntary gasp escaped. “You look awful.”

He gave a surprised grunt of laughter and scraped his hand across the stubble darkening his angular jaw. “Thank you.”

She blushed. “I’m sorry. I had no right…”

“No harm done. I’m sure your observation, if not polite, was accurate.” He sounded like the man who had found her in the stable. Ironic. Distant. In command of himself.

Except now she knew his composure was a veneer.

He might sound like master of all he surveyed. But he didn’t look much better than he had last night when he’d shivered in her arms. Dark circles surrounded sunken, dull eyes. His tan held a sickly hue in the pale sunlight penetrating the windows. He badly needed a shave, and his hair was a tousled mess.

His eyes sharpened on her. With every moment, he looked more alert. “How is your arm, Miss Watson?”

She didn’t immediately recognize her false identity. Dear
Lord, let him not notice her hesitation. She needed to remember the danger she faced if he discovered who she was. Difficult when the last day had only built the affinity she’d so quickly felt for him.

Carefully she flexed her fingers. Hardly a twinge. “Much better, thank you.” She studied him as he sprawled against the worn leather upholstery. His long legs extended across the well between the two seats. The shabby carriage wasn’t built for a man of his height. “How are you?”

He stretched and winced, then leaned his head back. “It was just a passing inconvenience.”

His expression indicated movement was painful. After lying still for so long, he’d be stiff as a board. The continual rolling and jolting of the vehicle must be agonizing. She ignored his unconvincing lie and dropped to her knees on the rocking floor.

“Let me take your boots off and rub your legs. I nursed my father in his last illness. This helped him when he’d had a bad night.”

She’d forgotten no decent young lady offered to touch a gentleman who wasn’t a close relative. She remembered only when he tensed, and his dark eyes flashed with horror. “Miss Watson, please return to your seat. I assure you my slight troubles don’t warrant your concern.”

Clumsily, her cheeks flaming with mortification, she scrambled back onto her seat. “I’m…I’m not usually so rag-mannered.”

Yesterday he’d suffered her touch. He’d turned his face into her hand as she’d wiped his brow. But yesterday he’d been victim to his mysterious illness.

“It was a generous offer,” he said kindly.

She hated his kindness. Because clearly it wasn’t based on anything personal, like regard or respect. She hated owing her safety to that disinterested kindness.

Hiding a wince as the movement tested her sore arm, she fumbled to open a flask of water Tulliver had given her last night. “Are you thirsty?”

“Dry as sand.” He accepted the flask without touching her fingers.

Charis berated herself for noticing. And minding. Did she want to fend off a Lothario? She should commend Sir Gideon as a man of honor.

Sourly, she recognized her hypocrisy.

Fascinated, she watched the movement of his powerful throat as he tipped his head to drink. Nor did she miss the tightness around his eyes as he returned the flask and subsided against the upholstery.

“Does your head hurt?” she asked before she reminded herself he wouldn’t appreciate her solicitude.

A fleeting smile curved his lips. “Like the very devil.” He sighed heavily. “All of this must frighten you. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t frighten easily,” she said flatly.

He didn’t argue although he must know she’d been terrified in Winchester. More of his cursed kindness. She wouldn’t resent it nearly so much if he didn’t use it as defense against her curiosity.