Heartless (42 page)

Aurora smiled. “We will say he is off visiting relatives,” she said. “I suppose that could be true, could it not?”

“Who will you get to help you in this?” asked Leandra curiously.

“The season is just starting and I know of a certain young man who will be very willing to assist us,” Bri assured them.

Prestwich groaned. “You are not dragging Miles into this,” he said. “Miles has too much responsibility already.”

“Miles will love to squire us about, Adam,” retorted Bri, her green eyes sparkling at some secret joke.

“Only because I pay him,” muttered the baronet. “Very well. Use Miles if you must but please be nice to him. He has enough to endure from me.”

31

Derringer attempted to straighten his aching limbs. He had been tied up for months and loosed only when he had to relieve himself and then for only a few minutes at a time. He dipped his head, his hacked off hair flopping over his eyes. Tossing his head back only served to intensify the hammering behind his eyes, a constant pain in the past months. His hair was the first thing to go, the removal of which convinced Derringer of the very personal nature of his kidnapping. It wasn’t about money, it was about revenge.

Food was nothing more than a means to keep him alive and mostly conscious while they tortured him. They would visit to torture him and not return for several days. He could only assume they wanted him to heal a bit between sessions.

Physical torture, he knew. Physical torture, he understood. Physical torture, he could endure. Cuts, bruises, broken bones, all healed eventually. Such injuries were superficial, healing quickly to leave a scar as a reminder of the pain and nothing more.

If only they’d stopped at physical torture.

He groaned, flexing his fingers to restore some feeling. One hand was completely numb, trapped half under his body where he lay in the bunk. The rope binding him chaffed his wrists, a bead of moisture sliding over his palm. Blood, no doubt.

His physical weakness pained him far less than his emotional one. He knew the stupidity of forming attachments, the futility of negotiating with madmen, yet he did just that. He gave up the location of the late Earl of Harwood’s will. He gave it up to save Gabriel, the will’s location in exchange for his Gabriel’s life, and they’d killed him anyway, tossing him overboard like so much refuse.

The pain of that loss sparked something in him, a similar pain, one so old he barely recognized it. His mother’s passing when he was so young had seemed unreal at the time. He remembered seeing her lying in state, her beautiful features in silent repose. Peace lay easily upon her, as if she’d known it all her life. Yet he remembered not one moment in his parents’ marriage that was peaceful. They tormented each other, but his mother always had a kind word for her son, a gentle squeeze, a distracted kiss on the head. He’d adored her in the way of a child in awe of his mother, awed by her beauty, awed by her distracted kindnesses.

Smiles she’d bestowed aplenty, but the smiles never reached her dark eyes. And now, in the midst of physical pain, the anguish of loss and the terrifying fear of death, Derringer remembered her dark, sad eyes, eyes so much like his own.

The loss of Gabriel touched Derringer in a horrific way. He wanted vengeance, a painful, slow death for the ones responsible. And he knew who they were. They didn’t bother to hide their identities which only meant one thing.

They didn’t plan on letting him live.

He had to survive. His shoulders tensed as he pulled against his bonds, sending more blood sliding down his fingers. If he didn’t escape, Leandra would be in trouble.

His motions stilled, one thought freezing his blood. What if Leandra carried a child? How stupid he was to take her to his bed! Her life was already at risk, just through her marriage to him and now, if she carried a possible heir, she stood in the way.

He looked around the ship’s cabin, searching for a weapon, a path for escape, anything that might help. He came up empty, as usual, but it was something to occupy his mind in the long hours between meals and beatings.

His morale was fading, his faith in his own ability to extricate himself from any situation dissipating like morning fog. But his desire for vengeance burned bright. While pretending Gabriel’s death was the final straw, letting his captors think he was finally broken, he plotted.

The next step in their torture was cutting things from his body that would not kill him but leave him with little will to survive. Feigning that loss of will now might delay the inevitable. But he had to escape.

They had two of the three things they wanted: Harwood’s will and Gabriel’s death. All that remained was Derringer’s death. Fraser D’Arcy wanted him dead as payment long overdue for that horrendous beating the duke had given him all those years ago.

But there was still one person missing in all of this. He knew the identity of the final captor, but he did not want to believe it. There were only two people who would benefit from his demise, only two who may have known Gabriel’s real identity.

His aunt and cousin.

“So you are awake,” inquired a new voice, a pleasant voice, soothing and low. Misleading. 

He growled low in his throat, hating that his suspicions were realized. “Martin, release me now.” He forced his body up into a sitting position on the bunk. It was not easy, his bruised, weakened muscles protesting, but he refused to face his captor while lying helpless. “Release me now and I won’t kill you as slowly as you deserve.”

“I hardly think you are in any position to be making demands, cousin,” replied Mr. St. Clair calmly. “I now hold all the dice and you will do as I say, or you will die.”

“You mean I have a choice? How magnanimous of you, worthless scum. Tell me, oh cowardly one, what must I do to ensure my survival?”

Martin moved across the tiny cabin in seconds. He struck out, snapping Derringer’s head back with the force of his blow. The duke glared, a trickle of blood coloring his bottom lip, his coal-black eyes taking on a dangerous glitter.

“You had better pray whatever god you worship will save you, Martin, because when I am free, I will hunt you down like the dog you are and tear you limb from limb,” the duke promised with unutterable calm.

A flicker of fear passed through Martin’s eyes even though Derringer was quite unable to make good his threat at that moment. The duke’s reputation was such that even tied up, immobile, those who crossed him still feared him.

Martin’s blue eyes darkened and his slight form stiffened. “You would do better not to make threats, cousin. I can still kill you and I happen to know your friend D’Arcy wants just that.”

“I assume that whatever you have planned, you will end up with my title. So what is it, dog? I disappear? My body is found somewhere quite soon, washed up on my own beach perhaps but too mutilated to be identifiable? You can’t honestly be considering letting me live? If so, you are far stupider than even I gave you credit for.”

Anger settled on Martin’s normally placid features. The expression was so ludicrous that Derringer wanted to laugh. A split second later, however, he knew he had severely underestimated his cousin.

Fire streaked his face, from his jaw to his hairline. Shock paralyzed him, his eyes squeezing shut, the pain so profound he couldn’t determine the cause. He opened his eyes and stifled his outrage.

Martin held a long, wicked looking knife up in the light of the lantern that sat forlornly on a small table. The shiny blade glinted and the duke caught the almost maniacal look that entered his cousin’s eyes as he watched several tiny droplets of blood slither down the blade.

Derringer nearly growled. The miserable cur had actually cut him! From his chin to his hairline, judging by the ribbon of pain throbbing across his face.

Just what he needed, he thought. Yet another thing to make him appear a little less than human, inspire fear in even those few souls who didn’t already know his identity.

“I have the strongest urge to skewer you on this blade,” Martin murmured. A shiver snaked through Derringer’s body at the strange tone in Martin’s voice. “But I will resist—for now.”

“What do you want from me, Martin?” inquired the duke, keeping his tone as neutral at possible. He ignored the steady pain in his face. He’d experienced worse.

“Other than your title, you mean? I want your wealth, of course… and, I think, your wife. Such a pretty, taking little thing she is, Heartless. I shall enjoy making her mine.”

Derringer restrained his fury just enough to bite out, “And if she carries my son?”

The ugly twist of Martin’s mouth at the suggestion struck Derringer as odd. Did he not realize the possibility was there?

Martin shuddered, extreme distaste coloring his normally even tones. “Such a waste. She shall have to die.” His lips twitched at the corners as if enjoying some grand jest. “Perhaps I shall push her from the third floor landing. What think you, little duke? Her warm blood cooling as it soaks into the carpet, the same carpet that drank of your mother’s lifeblood. How fitting for one whore duchess to die as her predecessor.”

Crimson rage flashed in Derringer’s brain. All he needed was to get his hands free so he could snap Martin’s neck. Snap his neck and make him pay—finally—for her death.

The duke blinked. Martin’s threat put an image in his head, an image of Leandra, dead, choking in her own blood. But Leandra’s face faded, changed, became another woman’s features, prettier, classical, etched in porcelain.

His mother. He saw her, lying on the landing, her blood strangling her as she gasped for breath. She reached for him, grasping his small hand, squeezing with the last bit of strength she possessed. When she let go, he didn’t understand, not until he looked up and saw his father standing on the landing above.

The old duke descended, staring at his wife as he did so. His gaze shifted to his son, the silent boy who stared from his mother to his father and then up the stairs. He glanced at his sire again, suddenly knowing without a doubt that his mother was there because of his father.

And his father shook him, threatened him, ordered him to forget. And the boy Derringer was then knew fear for the first time in his life, knew his father would kill him as surely as he’d killed the duchess.

As surely as Martin would kill the new duchess.

The memory faded, Martin’s face coming into sharp focus. The knife glinted as the other man turned it this way and that, watching Derringer the whole time.

“You remember?” Martin mused. “How was it, cousin, watching her life slip away? Did you revel in it? Did you feel... powerful? Was it exhilarating?”

The duke growled, yanking at his bonds. To think his cousin was so far gone, so detached from reality. It sickened him, the very thought. But there was nothing he could do about any of it, not until he escaped. If he could only get loose and get his hands around his cousin’s white throat.

His exertions reignited the fire in his cheek, a warm trickle of blood sliding down.

Martin took a step back and smiled malevolently at Derringer. “Ah well. I will have to experience it for myself, I see. Meanwhile, I, and the crew, require some entertainment, cousin. At your expense, of course.”