The Dark Lady (6 page)

He dropped the blade and it clunked on Matthew’s fleshy body. The filthy, ballooned figure sparked no pity in him. He started forward and his boot squelched. More blood. A thick pool of it.

God, what kind of hell had Eva endured that she would kill so brutally?

“Wait!” she hissed.

“Come now,” he snapped back. Ignoring her protests, he yanked Eva into his arms, lifting her off her feet and cradling her against his chest. “We have to go.”

“Eva?!” a girl’s fragile voice called out. Her gaunt frame darted out from under the bed and sprang with surprising speed to her feet. “This is him? The man who came to save you?”

Nodding, Eva forced herself out of Ian’s embrace, her feet thunking on the floor. Quickly, she glanced up at him, clutching fistfuls of his dark coat. “We have to take Mary. We must.”

He snapped his gaze from one woman to the next, unsure how the hell he’d gotten into such a situation. “Christ, this is a debacle.”

Mary drew up beside Eva, her wiry body crackling with ferocity. A sharp little cackle of exultation tumbled from her mouth. “I killed that bastard and he deserved it. I’d kill every one of them.”

Ian blinked at the tigerish voice echoing from Mary’s small frame. “Later. You can kill them later.”

Mary’s eyes glowed with such ferocious courage that he had to yank his gaze from them before he could formulate his thoughts.

He should just leave this other girl. He was here to save Eva. But one look at Eva’s imploring face and the other girl’s elfin one, so frail from neglect, and he found himself saying the words he should not: “We all go.”

“Thank you.” Eva gasped. “Thank you.”

They hurried out into the hall, their harsh breaths like a wild chorus of wind. But they had gone only a few feet when they heard the heavy, furious clomp of boots tearing up the stairs.

The keepers. They were coming.

“Back passage?” he demanded. There was no time for softness. Later—he could be soft with her later. When she was safe.

Eva didn’t even flinch at his abruptness but rather whipped a finger toward the end of the hall. He grabbed up both girls’ hands and ran toward the dark stairwell, racing them to escape. The three of them, an incongruous sight, dashed down the hall.

The girls in their ratty shifts, animated with a mad sort of hope, could not dim his own fury and awareness that they were but a heartbeat away from capture.

As they ran down the passage, the screams and pounding registered among his controlled thoughts. The others. The other girls locked up behind the doors in the long passage. How many were imprisoned here in never-ending hell? He scrubbed the thought away, knowing what he must do, resolving to return. To save them all after the two firmly at his side were safe.

They clattered down the last of the back stairs, not giving a whit for silence, all of them knowing pursuit was on their heels like devil dogs. His shoulders banged on the wooden walls, the stairs were so narrow, but the girls were fleet as they charged downward and spilled out into a small hallway that led to a door.

Mary’s hand tore from his and she flung herself at the door. “Locked!”

He’d never seen anything like her madness, her body flailing passionately against her barrier to freedom. “Step back,” he ordered.

She didn’t listen but rather raked her hand down the wood.

Eva tried to grab her, but Mary wouldn’t stop.

Not allowing himself to regret the use of force, Ian seized Mary’s shoulders, pulled her away, and shoved her
into Eva’s waiting arms. He raised one booted foot and slammed with all his might. The hinges screamed and then the cheap wood shredded, the panel giving way and swinging open drunkenly. “Go!”

If they could just reach his carriage, they would be away from this place.

They tumbled out into the frigid air, the wind tearing up the walled yard. In the distance, the arched gateway onto the moors beckoned, open. Snow swirled fiercely, blurring the air.

His carriage sat not twenty feet away, his coachman shivering in the blistering wind. “Make ready!” Ian shouted.

The coachman shook himself, his movements slow before he realized what was happening. He yanked up the reins, his whip coming to attention.

When they were mere inches from the carriage door, a pistol shot cracked through the air.

Ian stopped and looked back to their pursuers. As he turned to face Palmer’s men, he pushed the two girls behind him and slowly inched backward, the door to his coach so close they could reach out and touch it.

Four keepers stood at the ready. Their big bodies were a shapeless mass of mindless aggression. In their hamlike hands they held ropes and cudgels.

Mary leaned forward, her teeth bared. “Come on, then, bastards. I’ll eat your damn hearts out!”

Ian’s innards shook at the promise in her rough voice. What a powerful young woman she was. He couldn’t help hating the audacity of men for locking her up.

Indeed, her words seemed to shake the keepers. They shifted on their mud-caked boots, glancing at one another.

One of them, russet haired with a pinkish scar running down his cheek, stepped forward. “Step away, my
lord. You cannot escape and we must put them back in their cell until this matter can be sorted.”

Ian willed Mary and Eva to slowly move to the coach door as he stared the piece of filth down. The keeper, sensing the head of a pack challenging his weak authority, retreated slightly. Ian stood stock-still, his eyes narrowing as he said very quietly, his voice as hard as iron, “You touch either of them, and you’ll be no more than a wet spot on the snow. I’m taking them. Both.”

“No, you are not.” Mrs. Palmer pushed her way through her keepers. The full length of her wine red skirts, dark as blood amid the pristine snow, swished as she tucked them around her to avoid the trousers of her men. In the dark night, she stood powerfully, unafraid and livid.

“I will take them both,” Ian repeated, praying that his sheer presence and a strong bluff would get them out of this.

Mrs. Palmer snapped up a finger and pointed it at Mary, her gaze piercing through the night. “She is mine and she is a murderess.”

“She belongs to no one.” Ian locked gazes with the woman, quickly trying to calculate a plan of escape. Mrs. Palmer had her brute squad ready to charge and he had two small women to protect. It was an impossible position. “It was self-defense.”

Unflinching as a battle-hardened general, Mrs. Palmer countered, “She has no self to defend. Quite simply, she is owned by others.”

A small growl came from Eva. Ian reached out, curling his fingers around hers. “Well, I own this one, do I not?” His guts twisted. Negotiating for human life was all too familiar. Then he nodded to Mary. “I will give you another hundred guineas from your bank on the morrow for this one. Something for something, yes?”

Mrs. Palmer lifted her brows and a muscle twitched in her smooth cheek as strands of hair flickered about her face. “A tempting offer, my lord, but I must refuse. She is a secret far too valuable to part with. She stays. But don’t concern yourself. Murderess though she may be, she won’t be harmed. She’s the daughter of someone far too important for that, no matter how mad she is, no matter if she happened to slay one of my fellows.” Mrs. Palmer slipped a pistol easily from her skirts, triumphant. “You see, I am a woman prepared. Now, no matter what you say or do, I swear Mary stays.”

“Fine,” he said flatly, swiftly plotting how to get Mary out without them all being shot. “We’ll go. And quietly.”

“Mary?” Eva questioned, her eyes luminous and large as twin stars in her pale face.

Ian tore his gaze from Eva’s. But Mary’s was worse. With her pale skin and short black hair, she might have been Eva’s sister. In her pale visage was a grim resignation that she would now never be freed. ’Twas a look for an old woman. “Get in the coach,” he mouthed. “Do it now.”

Mary’s eyes flared, but she needed no second telling.

Ian jerked his own pistol free, ready to shoot. He spun back toward the pack of disgusting inhumanity. He would gladly kill Mrs. Palmer, woman or no.

Eva yanked the door open and sprang in, Mary fast behind her.

Mrs. Palmer’s eyes flashed with fury. “Close the gate doors!” And just as Ian vaulted toward his coach, another pistol shot cracked and wood splinters exploded from the swinging, still open door.

He didn’t waste a second glance back, but threw himself into the vehicle as his coachman struck up the horses. They were too slow. He knew it in his gut. Yet they had
to make it. The fear of losing Eva to this nightmare of a place uncoiled in his innards. He would do whatever it took to protect her.

The cool steel of the pistol weighed heavily in his palm, a familiar companion. He’d use it if necessary. And, damn it, it was about to be necessary. He swung his gaze to the door, but before he could start for it, he caught sight of Mary.

Mary held herself rigid in the darkness of the rattling coach, her gaze traveling from Eva to Ian, then briefly back toward the asylum. She’d found some mysterious calm. Her delicate features were serene as she smiled slightly. God, she couldn’t be more than eighteen.

“No matter what, Eva,” Mary whispered, “remember, I’m free now. I’m free.”

“Mary?” Eva demanded, her voice twisted with confusion.

Mary shoved the coach door open. As she threw herself forward, Ian grabbed wildly for her. His guts dropped as she tumbled back out into the yard, his hand grasping at empty air.

“Mary!” Eva screamed.

As the coach raced forward, Mary’s slight body rolled along the snow-covered earth before she was up again, her little feet planted on the frozen ground. “Come on, then, you bastards!”

And she ran . . . in the opposite direction of the gate.

The keepers, all of them, sensing the most important prize was within reach, turned and bolted for her. Mary’s body flickered across the yard, her little shift as fragile as the snow falling about her. A wild creature desperately trying to break free of its trap.

The sudden feeling that all the carnage of battle would never compete with this one moment of savagery swallowed Ian.

He watched, horror-stricken and in awe, as Mary tore across the landscape.

Eva’s arm tugged at the socket as Ian attempted to jerk her away from the swinging door. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the heavy hands of the keepers as they twitched, bearing their rope.

“Don’t look,” Ian commanded, his voice raw.

But she did.

Mary darted back and forth, a cornered animal, her feet sliding over the icy patches, a wild and defiant figure. “Mary!” Eva’s heart splintered at the sight before her, though she knew her friend couldn’t hear her scream.

One animal grabbed Mary’s arms. Another seized her feet and in an instant they had her on the ground. The third yanked out a rope.

And on the faint wind, she heard Mary cry, “Go!”

The world exploded around Eva in pain. She couldn’t leave her friend. She couldn’t. Not after they’d survived so much together. She couldn’t look away, or draw breath.

Suddenly she was in the air, yanked up by strong arms.

Her body jostled as she met contact with Ian’s hard chest.

“I’ll come back!” Eva shouted over the din of carriage wheels flying onto the rough road. She screamed with all her force, though Mary would never hear her proclamation. “I will!”

The door slammed shut so hard, she thought it might suddenly drop from its hinges.

With Ian cradling her tight against his unyielding chest, the coach raced off into the night. Away from hell, away from Mary, and back into the world.

A world full of memory.

E
va couldn’t speak as they flew over the Yorkshire moors. The moon hung like Matthew’s lantern, throwing its rays down on the snow. The cold white surface glittered hard as diamonds and rolled on for miles.

The little iron charcoal burner tucked in the corner on the floor couldn’t penetrate the cold. It couldn’t penetrate the veil she’d woven so thoroughly over her past.

And the sway of the coach. Oh, God. The sway of the coach made her sick.

If she closed her eyes for a moment, she’d feel the rain. The panic. The mud sucking her down. The curricle in the mire . . . and the feeling of flying before she crashed down hard to the earth . . . lifted her eyes and saw.

She gulped back sickness and her eyes snapped open. “We have to stop.” She panted.

“We can’t.” Ian gazed fixedly out the other window. Every muscle in his face was hard, his lips a rigid line.

“Yes.” She gulped again, saliva filling her mouth.

“No, Eva.” Each word bit out of his mouth. “We must go—as far as possible.”

Her stomach rolled with each bob of the vehicle over the rough terrain and the thought of the little white bundle. The little white bundle so far from her grasp. Unmoving, soaked by cold, lifeless rain. She lurched forward and twisted the brass door handle.

“What the hell are you doing?!” He slammed his fist to the ceiling and they came to a jerking halt.

She shoved the door open. Without even climbing down, she pushed her face out into the cold air and vomited. Her body heaved and her arms could barely keep her from falling face forward into the snow.

“Damn it,” Ian hissed behind her, grabbing her and trapping her against his strong body.

She groaned, her mouth acrid and her body clammy despite the sudden ice cold circling her.

His large hand caressed her back and his other hand came to support her head, brushing back her feathery hair from her face. “There you go, love. There you go.”

Eva leaned out the coach a little farther, her hands braced on the door ledge, and savored the cleansing sensation of the bitter cold. White flakes piled up in the banks before her. She let her eyes trail to the miles of it stretching out forever. It was so frozen, so perfect. So unlike the pain and wild unhappiness flooding her.

Why had she been so stupid? So foolish? That reckless stupidity of hers had ruined her life . . . and her baby’s. Pain racked her heart and her face twisted into a grimace before she shook the hideous thoughts out of her head.