Miller, Raine - The Undoing of a Libertine (Siren Publishing Classic) (34 page)

Strawnly moved quickly toward the hack, pushing Gina ahead of him. The driver looked worried, bolting up in the seat, holding out his palms.

“Sit your arse down, driver!” Strawnly screeched.

“It’s all right,” Jeremy told the driver. “You’ll take him wherever he wants to go so he doesn’t hurt her. I’ll pay. Here.” Jeremy passed up a pound note to the nervous driver, who accepted it with a shaking hand.

“Stand back, Greymont. That’s close enough!”

Not nearly close enough was more like it. The malevolent snake still had Gina, and there was a good ten feet between them. Jeremy held his breath and waited. He stared at his beautiful wife in the clutches of a vile beast who had a fucking knife on her neck!

“Gina…I’m going to get you. Everything will be all right.” He nodded, sucking in a gasp, and then he focused on Strawnly. “Let her come to me. You have everything you want, Strawnly. Release her and go.” He held out his arms out to Gina.

“Oh, Jeremy, I’m so sorry,” Gina whispered.

“It’s all right, sweetheart. I’m going to get you,” he told her.

Strawnly grinned evilly. “This is touching, really, you two,” he mocked. “But she feels good, Greymont. I’ve missed her.” He snaked out his tongue and licked her cheek.

Gina cringed and clamped her eyes shut.

“Suddenly, I feel the need for a companion on my trip abroad.” He leaned into Gina’s ear. “What do you say, little puss? Shall you come with me? I promise to fuck better than him.”

“Nooooo,” Gina sobbed, succumbing to panic. She struggled, realizing he intended to take her, until he pressed the knife in a little farther, her skin rising up on either side of the blade from the pressure.

“Gina, be still, sweetheart! You’ll be all right.” Jeremy held on to his composure, the instinctive part of his brain taking over, understanding that rash action on his part would only serve to get her throat slashed.

“Don’t do this, Strawnly. It’s madness to try and abduct her. Let her walk away.” He spoke in a dead calm to the demented Strawnly, attempting to impart some reason through the fog of insanity the man was cloaked in. “If you want ransom, take me instead and let my wife free.”

“Ah, but, Greymont, it’s not you I wish to fuck.”

“Strawnly, that definitely won’t be happ—” In the next moment, the street urchin, Danny, came around the corner. He treaded silently, walking slowly up behind at Strawnly’s shoulder. Jeremy met Danny’s eyes, and Strawnly sensed the change.

Strawnly turned back to find Danny, and the intrusion unsettled the balance of power just enough to give advantage. “Be gone, boy. This has naught to do with you!” Strawnly barked. He must have loosened his grip on Gina when he turned because she took the opening to struggle anew, twisting back from the knife.

Opportunity must strike when the moment is right, and though Frisk was not a human, he seized his opportunity just as astutely as if he were one, choosing just the best instant to serve his mistress. He shot out in a furious ball of flying fur and sank his adolescent canines deep into the back of Strawnly’s calf.

Strawnly cursed, buckling at the knee. To fight off Frisk, he had to let his hands go, and Gina dropped to the ground as she fell from his grip.

Danny jumped into the fray, wrenching Gina out of the mess, and Jeremy lunged for Strawnly. He was not completely conscious of what he did. A burning sting kicked him in the ribs, but he ignored it. Strawnly’s neck felt real good underneath his hands as he squeezed. In a mindless rage, killing this monster was all Jeremy could care about. “This is for what you did to her,” he gritted out.

Strawnly still had his knife though, and with the strength of the truly mad, he lifted it to strike at Jeremy’s head. Jeremy ducked to the side in the last second, saving his skull, but the blade of the knife went into his shoulder. White hot pain razed down through to his muscle. Cursing, he lost his grip on Strawnly’s neck.

Jeremy sank to the ground and clutched his shoulder, watching as Strawnly scrambled back toward the hack, kicking his leg out in vicious jerks. Frisk came away, flew about five feet, and landed with a yelp at Jeremy’s knees.

“Go!” Strawnly screamed at the driver, flashing the bloody knife. The driver didn’t need further motivation. The hack engaged the second the whip was cracked over the horse’s flank. Away it clattered, somewhere into the dark London streets, its depraved passenger escaping the retribution he was most definitely due.

Strawnly’s madness revealed only more certain from the cackling laugh that punctured out of the hack, its evil rumble causing all who heard it to shudder. The vile noise violated the very air of an otherwise lovely, moonlit night.

Chapter Thirty-One

None are so desolate but something dear,

Dearer than self, possesses or possessed

A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

—Lord Byron,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
(1812)

The Hallborough coach was full to bursting, probably never having had quite such an assemblage before. Jeremy, Georgina, Jane, Therese, and the valiant Frisk were contained within, while Danny and Luc rode pillion with Ned. They were en route to collect one more, as Danny directed Ned to the place where Marguerite had been kept against her will for four days. Or at least this was the gist of what Georgina was able to make out. Georgina had spoken very little, couldn’t really indulge in conversation quite yet, the shock of what had just happened still ruling her.

Jeremy was also quiet but held her tight to his right side, his grip fierce for a man who’d just been stabbed in the left shoulder. She could feel the deep breathing moving his chest and the thump of his heart, so very grateful his wound was not life-threatening. His head turned away from his injury and rested on top of her head.

The coach pulled to a stop. Jeremy disengaged from her and stepped out. “Do not get out of this coach for any reason. Stay. In. Here.” His voice was harsh, angry in a way she’d never heard in him before. “Do you understand me?” he rasped, his eyes narrowed, his frown just as hard as his voice.

“Yes,” she choked out, vowing she’d never disobey him again as long as she lived.

“Let’s go get her,” he said to Luc and Danny, the three of them taking to the back entrance.

Therese looked at Georgina sadly. “The world can be so cruel sometimes, but you should try to find the good wherever you can. Your husband loves you, Mrs. Greymont.”

“And I love him.” Georgina nodded, a sob escaping from deep in her chest. Frisk crawled into her lap, as if sensing her pain. She buried her face in his warm fur and shuddered to think where she might be right now if not for him.

“Thank you, Frisk, for saving me,” she whispered. She turned to Jane and asked, “How did he—”

“He was frantic to go to you, Mrs. Greymont. The whole time, he scratched at the door like a wild thing. I popped the latch, and out he went.”

The sounds of the men returning, low and hushed, interrupted the conversation. “We’re going to need the room in here so I can hold her,” Luc said, his deep voice tremulous.

“Jane, will you ride outside with Ned?” Jeremy asked her, his voice low and clipped.

“Of course, Mr. Greymont.”

Jane got out, and the massive Luc took her place on the seat, cradling in his arms a battered, but lovely, blonde woman wrapped in a blanket. Her neck and face were bruised and her lip bloodied. Her eyes were closed, but it was clear she was awake and utterly terrorized.
Just like when Tom found me.

“
Mon Dieu
,” Therese gasped, “what have they done to you,
chéri
?” She put her hand to Marguerite’s cheek, and the woman flinched back in a whimper, terrified of even that gentle touch.

Georgina didn’t need an explanation. She had lived this very nightmare herself. She knew exactly where Marguerite’s mind was, the terror, the shame, the agony of remembering, and the unbearable intimacy of touch.

“Don’t touch her,” she blurted. Jeremy and Therese turned to stare at her. Luc kept his eyes on Marguerite.

“She cannot bear it just yet. It hurts, in her mind. Just talk to her. She’ll hear you. Tell her she’s safe and that you’re going to take care of her, and tell her—tell her it’s not her fault—” Georgina lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s all she needs right now.”

Jeremy squeezed her with his good arm and leaned against her. His anger from before seemed to have fallen away, and she was grateful. She thought his skin felt cold to her though. His weight was heavy, but she didn’t mind in the slightest. Having him safe beside her was all she wished for right now. Quiet enveloped the passengers, except for Luc, who murmured soft whisperings to Marguerite in French, his love for her apparent in any language.

When the coach stopped again, Therese got up stiffly. Luc carried Marguerite out and then turned back to Jeremy. “I’ll make sure.” There was steely determination in his eyes.

“You know where to find me,” Jeremy told him and then leaned heavily back against Georgina again, as if he could barely hold himself up. He stomped his foot on the floor of the coach, and Ned pulled out for the final jag to the townhouse in Grosvenor Square.

Now that they were alone, she reached out to him. “Jeremy, I am so sorry for everything I’ve done. I shouldn’t have come, but that letter arrived and—”

“Shhh,” he hushed her. “It’s my fault. I should have told you why I came here. I lied to you…wanted to protect you from him…from gossip…from being hurt again. Love you…so much…”

Something was terribly wrong. He wasn’t talking right, and he was so very cold. When she put her hand on his chest, he winced. Her hand came away wet, the cool night air chilling it instantly. As she held her palm up, a shaft of light from a streetlamp lit up the coach. It was a deep, dark red. Blood!

She pulled open his jacket frantically and saw his white shirt was soaked underneath his waistcoat.

“Jeremy! Oh, no, no, no, God, you’re bleeding so badly!”

Screaming out the window to Ned, she told him to get them to the closest hospital. The coach swayed in a deep turn, their speed increasing quickly. Frisk hunkered down in the corner.

Jeremy moaned from the force of motion, and she used the momentum to push him flat on his back on the seat. Opening his waistcoat and then his shirt, she found the stab wound, right between his lower ribs on his left side. She bunched up the loose fabric of his shirt and pressed firmly onto the bleeding cut, while kneeling on the floor of the coach.

“Don’t you die, Jeremy. You stay with me, now. I need you to fight to live!” She begged him, tears streaming down her face. The thought of losing him was too frightening to contemplate. “I love you…and I can’t live without you, Jeremy! Please don’t die!” She wept, her hands trying to keep the blood from vacating his body by force of will. “Please, please, please, my Jeremy, my lover, stay with me!”

His eyes flickered open. He spoke softly, his lips barely moving. She leaned forward to hear him above the din of wheels flying over the cobblestone streets. His eyes looked at her with love in them.

“Gina… You…were…the best thing to ever happen…in my life. I hope you have our child inside you…right now. …Don’t want you to be…alone… You’ll be such a good mother…so strong…and brave. Love…you…both…always…”

And then he closed his eyes. Those beautiful, deep blue eyes of his curtained off, and he spoke no more.

Georgina kept the pressure on his wound and prayed. Prayed like she had never prayed before in the entirety of her life. If there was anything she could offer, any wall of fire or earthly hell she could have walked through in order to save him, she would have done it, and done it with her whole heart.

* * * *

Death was not so bad, he thought. It is peaceful, and calm here, like a sanctuary. An angel spoke to him. She smelled of fragrant eglantine. He liked the scent. He could not see the angel, but he could smell her and hear her. She had a lovely voice and spoke the sweetest words.