The Dream (33 page)

“You’re sailing with the morning tide,” Rayne reminded him.

Nick ignored them both and rode off into the night.

Jason thumped his fingers on his thigh. “What else did you find out?” he asked Sheldon.

“Nothing. Why?” The other man settled back into the cushions. His calm demeanor grated on Jason’s nerves. He caught enough of what Taber said earlier and realized Sheldon was not new at this game.

“Are you the new man?”

Sheldon only smiled. “We were to meet tomorrow morning was what I was told.”

Jason ignored him and tried to ease the panic inside him. He had to hurry. He could feel it.

It would take them at least half an hour, if not longer, to get over to the docks and the inn. He prayed and kept praying. Hoping he would not be too late to help Emily.

* * * * *

Theodore searched at the dock. This was it. There had been few ships sailing this morning. But he’d found one to take on a willing hand for the passage to France. Then he’d find a way to get them to America.

He figured if the lofty and mighty marquis wanted to follow them, he’d think they sailed immediately for America. This would give them some time.

Some time for him to teach his errant wife her place since she’d obviously forgotten it.

The woman made the rage roar to life inside him, made the blackness breathe hot, made him want to send her straight to hell.

“You will stay in our cabin the entire voyage,” he dictated, tightening his grip on her wrist. She stumbled and he yanked her onward. “Move it. There is still much to teach you before we sail. I was interrupted before, but on the ship, I shouldn’t be.” He knew he would have to leave her for a bit. After all, he’d offered to work to pay their passage across the Channel. He’d originally meant for her to work as well, but seeing how she flirted, how she looked at other men, like the innkeeper, he would make her stay in the cabin.

If the shipmates had a problem with it, he would tell them she was expecting and that she shouldn’t do anything. Lord knew she’d lost enough of his babes, he knew that to be likely in her case. Even if it had been punishment for her sins. All those babes. All his babes.

The black-red haze clouded his vision and he realized where they were. He stopped, and breathed deep. In only a few hours they’d be sailing.

“Come, wench. We don’t have all night.” When she stumbled yet another time, he cuffed her again upside the head.

Their footfalls dulled over the damp wood of the plank as they made their way onto the
Black Feather
. Crates were being loaded, lighted lanterns swung from their hooks as the ship rocked in its moor. Men shouted.

The first mate, Damon—Theodore remembered his name, sounded like demon. The man was probably as evil as the rest in this pagan land—walked up to them. Yet, even as he watched, the man shifted, rolled with the deck, seemed to grow even larger. Theodore blinked, and rubbed at the pain in his temple.

Damn monsters were everywhere. Perhaps the gates of Hell had opened and spewed the demons out into the world. He looked to the sky wondering if he’d hear the trumpets, see the horses winging their way down, bearing their messages from God.

“You here already?” the man said. He was tall and lithe, yet his muscled arms flexed as he crossed to them. “Thought you said you’d be here right before we sailed.”

The man looked to
Rebeckah
and smiled. “Welcome aboard.”

She didn’t raise her head, thank the Almighty, otherwise it would go worse for her.

“My wife is not feeling well.” He stepped in front of her, keeping her hand locked in his.

Damon kept staring at her, his gaze narrowing. Theodore cleared his throat. The man’s eyes jerked back to him, and an easy smile flashed across his face.

Theodore was not fooled. He’d seen the look, wondered if the man wanted
Rebeckah
. Probably—all men seemed to lust after her.

“You’ll need to come up and help us as soon as you get settled,” Damon replied. “Captain Nightingale’s not here at present, but he will be shortly.”

Theodore nodded.

“I’ll let him know you’ve arrived on board, so he knows we won’t have to be waiting on you. Follow me, I’ll show you to your cabin.”

Theodore listened to Damon rattle on about this and that. He needed to teach
Rebeckah
a lesson but didn’t want to arouse suspicion. He was hardly a stupid man. Some did not respect the privacy between a husband and wife. He wanted no interruptions for what he had planned.

They went down a hallway and Damon stopped by one door, opening it. “This is your cabin.”

Theodore promised to hurry and get settled so that he could help on deck.

He shut the door behind him and flicked the lock.

The lock echoed through her. Emily flinched at the sound. Damon. She’d met Damon. Think, she had to think, but her head hurt so bad and her other bruises were starting to ache. Her ribs were a constant pull and her entire face pulsed with pain.

All she had to do was scream. One long and loud scream. But what if no one heard her? What if, for whatever reason, no one came? Then what?

She knew what. Theodore would show her no mercy. The baby. Under the cloak, she put her hands on her lower abdomen and hoped, hoped with all that was in her to keep the baby safe.

“I don’t like that man. If he is truly a man,” Theodore muttered.

She startled at his voice.

“Take off the cloak.”

Gladly. The smell of it churned her stomach. She undid the clasp and tried to think, tried to figure out what to do.

She removed the garment and held it out to him.

His hand snatched it from her. “Now the gown.”

She looked at him. “The-the gown?”

His face tightened. She quickly tried to undo the back, but her fingers fumbled with the buttons. The front was ripped already and if it ripped further, she’d have no way to wear it.

“Turn around.”

Emily took a deep breath and gave Theodore her back, hardly breathing as she felt his fingers angrily slipping the buttons free. Several popped and scattered on the floor.

The gown pooled at her feet.

“Now the petticoat.”

Was he going to force her? Not that he would consider it so. After all, he was her husband, but the thought of him forcing himself on her was as sickening as simply lying there and passively submitting. The idea of his hand touching her crawled and prickled her skin.

Emily licked her lips, not moving.

His hands jerked at the waistband and she heard more material rip.

“I should make you take off that slip of material you’re wearing. Indecent. But then I don’t think you’ll go up on deck like that will you?” He turned her around, leaned down into her face. “And if you are naked, I know you’ll try to tempt me with your womanly charms, your wicked ways.” His eyes blazed with an unholy fire. She shuddered.

“Are you scared,
Rebeckah
? You should be. Remember what I told you to think on?” His voice so well modulated, sounded like he was instructing a wayward student.

His fingers squeezed her back, and Emily stiffened, tried to keep distance between them. “Think of the penance you must pay, wife.”

With that, he stepped abruptly away and brought her hands up. From his bag, around his shoulder, he withdrew out a length of rope and wrapped it around her hands. He jerked her to the bed and tied the end to the bedpost.

“You won’t go anywhere, will you?”

The ropes bit into her wrists, and her insides trembled. Why did he tie her to the bed? She would not beg him, but nor would she sit meekly and let him do whatever he wanted. She would never be able to do that again. Never, ever again!

His fist nudged her chin up higher. “Look at the anger and impertinence in those eyes.” He
tsked
and shook his head. “The hell fiends have turned you,
Rebeckah
.” He took another strip of material out and quickly gagged her. “Wouldn’t want you calling out for help. Who knows what these people would do. Heathens might try to keep you from me, and I could never have that, could I?”

The material tasted of the pipe he favored. Emily’s stomach pitched and she took several breaths through her nose, hoping, praying she would not be sick.

Think of something else, anything else.
Ravenscrest
. The garden. Jason. Joy.

She closed her eyes.

Something clunked on the table. She opened her eyes. Theodore laid two guns side by side on the table. Jason’s pistols! Oh God, he’d had Joy’s locket. What if…

She must have made some noise because he looked at her.

“I had to use them,” he said shaking his head. “The demons came after me.”

Good Lord, the man had gone completely crazy.

Demons? He’d always gone on about the wickedness of women, but never had he mentioned demons coming after him.

The sight of the guns should have scared her. They were, literally, in the hands of a madman.

But they were Jason’s guns. And for some unknown reason, they calmed her.

“I’ll be back, wife. I must go help prepare for our journey.” His voice was calm now, devoid of emotion and he smiled at her as he took the next object out of his bag.

He laid the strip of leather beside the guns. “While I’m gone, decide if you want to be purged,” he laid his hand on the leather she knew he could wield like a fencer his rapier. “Or if you want to pay the full price for your sins.” He tapped the pistols.

For the first time, real fear, horror of what he just said, coated through her.

A beating? Or death?

And with him, the line between was so small he could cross it with ease. She knew, had the scars to prove it.

Oh God. Please, please help her.

He smiled and her blood iced.

* * * * *

Jason stormed out of the inn, Rayne and Sheldon close on his heels.

The innkeeper had told him all he needed to know. The beaten woman—God, the words still rumbled fury through him—had whispered Jason’s title. Luckily the bastard with her had been kind enough to tell the innkeeper’s wife the name of the ship he was sailing on. And she’d had on a bloody cloak. Dark stained cloak. Jason knew, knew it was blood.

As they jumped back into the carriage, Rayne said. “Everything is going to work out,
Jase
. It will.”

Jason whirled on him in the small confines of the carriage. “How the bloody hell do you know that? He has her. Didn’t you hear the man? Beaten. She’d been beaten, the whole damn side of her face was swollen.” Jason had never wanted to hit Rayne as he did at that moment. But he knew it would accomplish nothing and Rayne wasn’t the man he wanted to pound into the ground anyway.

“Yes, but she was lucid enough to give the man your name,” Sheldon offered.

Considering Jason currently had his best friend locked to the side of the carriage by his forearm, Jason thought Sheldon was being rather brave. Or maybe stupid, given his current mood.

“And she could walk,” Rayne added.

Jason took a deep breath and sat back, jerking his coat straight.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rayne and Sheldon exchange a glance.

Rayne said, “What are you going to do when we find them?”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Jason asked, glad his calm voice cloaked the rage pouring through him.

“You’ll kill the bastard,” Sheldon muttered. “Though God knows he deserves it. Think of the scandal.”

Jason turned slowly to look at the other man. “I owe you a debt I cannot ever repay for what you found out for me. And without a doubt, you know what you’re about or you wouldn’t be one of Taber’s men. However, I don’t give a bloody damn about a scandal. This man will never harm mine or me again. Nor will you question what I can or cannot do. And if you think I can’t make a body disappear, observe and learn.”

Sheldon’s eyes never wavered. “And here I thought my biggest worry this eve would be my uncle’s party. I’ve heard things about you,
Ravensworth
. Glad you owe me. I would not want to be on your black list.”

“No,” Jason told him, “you wouldn’t.”

Rayne shifted. “What would you have us do, Sheldon? Let the man walk after the blood he’s spilled tonight?”

Sheldon shrugged. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. The blond man shifted and looked out the window. “The
Black Feather
is one of yours?”

Jason didn’t see any reason to answer the man.

Rayne mumbled something. “If you don’t end this,” he said to Jason, “I will.”

Jason looked into Rayne’s dark eyes and said, “She’s mine. Joy is mine. What makes you think I won’t ‘end’ this?”

Rayne shrugged. “Again, what do you plan to do?”

Jason thought for moment, then smiled. “Give as good as he has, of course, then feed the bugger to the sharks.”

The carriage sped through the night and toward the harbor.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emily worked furiously on her wrists. The ropes were not as tight as she thought they were and after wiggling and twisting her wrists first this way and then that, she’d managed to get one coil off, but they were still tied.

If she could just get a little more slack, she could get her hands free.

The ticking clock within her beat against her brain as powerfully as Theodore’s fists had.

She wished the gag were out of her mouth, she could work on the ropes with her teeth. Voices from above muffled through the floors. Things thumped above her and feet moved back and forth. So many people and how did she get a one of them to help her?

She could have screamed for help if he hadn’t thought of the gag. And it was smart he’d tied her because she would have gone straight up to the deck and demand Damon to take her home to Jason.

Still she kept at it. Her wrists were raw when she heard footsteps in the hallway just outside the door.

“What are you doing down here?” a voice asked.

Emily stopped, jerked on her wrists, again and again, ignoring the fire along the abraded skin.

“I’m just checking on my wife. She’s ill.”

The voices were muffled.

“Don’t be long.
Cap’an’s
on board now.”

“I won’t.”

Emily jerked and tugged, another inch. Just a little more.
Please
.

The door opened and she stilled, her insides quivering. He would know. He would know.

Theodore, shut and locked the door. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”

His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. Stupid. So stupid.

A chair tumbled to the floor in his haste to reach her. Emily tried, she scooted as far from the edge of the bed as she could, but still he struck. He hit her on the shoulder.

“I should have known you would try to escape. Try to cheat what consequences you have coming.” She looked under her arm and saw him straighten, reach over and grab the coil of leather.

No! She jerked and pulled against her bonds, yelling behind the gag, even as she heard the first blow whistle through the air.

The whip stung across her back, grabbing her breath.

“Whore!”

Again it bit across her. She huddled down, jerking and pulling against the ropes. Please, please, please.

The leather snaked over her bare arm and she moaned at the bite.

“Slut!”

They kept falling, sapping her strength. She could feel welts growing where he struck.

She knew from experience he’d already rent her chemise.

Still the blows fell as she tugged and jerked, blood slicking her wrists.

The rope slid off.

* * * * *

Jason jumped from the carriage, running down the boardwalk.

Nick stood on deck talking to Damon. Jason raced to the ship. His boots thundered up the gangplank, the ends of his
Garrick
flapping around his knees. He had to get to her, he had to.

“Where is she?” he yelled.

“Who?” Nick asked.

“Emmy.”

“What?”

“She’s here, she’s on the ship.”

* * * * *

Emily jerked the gag from her mouth, hissing as the leather snaked down and sank its fangs across her back. Rolling, she kicked out, grabbed the whip and jerked, pulling him down with her.

His hands grasped her arms, but she twisted, kicked. “Get off of me!”

The attack took him by surprise and in that instant, she was free. She scrambled off the bed and lunged for the pistols.

Theodore grabbed her from behind, but she held on to the edge of the table. His arm slithered over hers, his rough clothing fire on her back. His hand reached one of the pearl-handled guns.

Emily jabbed her elbow back just as he picked it up and grabbed the other pistol.

They rolled apart like the Revelation sky when Judgment calls.

His pistol, calm and steady pointed at her.

Hers jerked with her breaths.

“You’re no more than a whore. You think he really wants you? He only wants to control you and your body,” Theodore hissed.

Emily almost didn’t answer him. “You’re a sick and twisted man. You could have been great, could have saved so many, I think. But some blackness in you grew and all you spread was pain.” Tears filled her eyes, trickled down. “You killed your own child, an innocent child, both children!” she screamed, her gun wavering. “I hate you with all that I am. And I thank God for leading a man like Jason into my life.”

His face twisted. Footsteps pounded overhead. “I warned you. Purging or death. You’ve chosen your punishment.”

Thunder echoed in the hallway. “Emmy!”

Jason. He would not take this from her. She would not allow him to pay this price. It was hers to pay, not his. Never his.

Emily raised her gun, clasped her bloody wrist like Jason had taught her to. Theodore cocked his pistol.

The door crashed open. She never took her eyes off of Theodore.

“Put the guns down,” Jason’s voice, low and deep smoothed over the room.

And still her eyes stayed on those green ones of the devil.

“The demons have stolen you from me. They’ve come,” Theodore said. His finger squeezed the trigger.

“No!”

Click.

Emily smiled. “Looks like the demons stole your ball.”

She pulled the trigger, ready for the recoil and barely flinched when the pistol kicked.

The explosion ripped through the room, deafened all noise.

Her eyes locked with Theodore’s. Time stood still. He wavered, then looked down at the large stain reddening across his middle. His gun clattered to the floor.

Emily blinked. And Jason was suddenly there, his arms tight around her. She heard people talking but couldn’t make out their words.

Then like someone snapped their fingers, noise and clarity returned.

“Get him the hell out of here!” Jason yelled. “Emmy. Emmy, love, talk to me.”

“Evil. All evil. The blackness is coming, coming. It will sweep you all away, straight through to Satan’s domain.”

“I’m sorry,
Cap’ain
, I didn’t know. Swear I didn’t,” another voice said.

Emily closed her eyes, breathed deep the spice and man that was only Jason’s scent.

He took the gun from her fingers, and rubbed her back. She hissed, bowing up.

At her quick intake of breath, Jason pulled back and looked at her. When his hands came away, he saw they were smeared with blood. She was bleeding. Oh, God.

“Emily?” He turned her around, saw her back and everything in him shattered. Her chemise was split in a dozen places, the tears red and gaping.

He bit down, pain shot up his jaw. “Damn it all. Darling, hang on. Just hang on.”

She looked up at him and he blanched at the side of her face all swollen and already a conglomerated mass of bruises. Dried blood darkened a line under her nose, across her cheek and under her lip.

“Sins of Eve must be avenged,” the man on the floor hissed.

Jason needed to get her home. Her hand came up and he saw the abraded and abused delicate skin of her wrists. He closed his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She smiled, actually smiled at him. “I’m not. You’re here. I knew you would be.”

Her faith humbled him. “Not soon enough.”

Her grin grew. “Just in time by my count.” Her breath shuddered out and she closed her eyes.

“I need to get you home.”

She shook her head. “Not yet.” She looked around him to the man on the floor, the others in the room, Damon in the doorway. “What’ll happen to him?”

Jason stepped in front of her. The sight of what the bastard did to her snapped his control. He saw her wince as she shifted. God she had enough scars the man had given her, and now there would be more.

“String him up,” Jason said, not turning from his wife. Cataloguing all the damage. “And fetch me the cat ‘o nine tails.”

“Demons are everywhere.” The words made Jason look over his shoulder at Theodore. Blood already soaked the front of the man’s shirt and trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“He’ll be dead on his own soon,” Emily said.

He met Rayne’s and Nick’s eyes. Both of their fury came nowhere near his.

They hoisted him between them. Nick snapping out, “Damon, do what Raven said.”

“Yes, sir.”

A tremble shook through Emily. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, but was afraid he’d hurt her if he did. Not knowing what to do, he kissed the side of her bruised mouth.

She grabbed his hand. “You don’t have to do this. I shot him.”

Did she think he didn’t know that? “And for that alone I will beg your forgiveness until the day I die. You are mine to protect.” He gently traced the curve of her cheek, wishing his touch could take the swelling, bruise and pain away.

She laid her hand on his chest, and looked into his eyes. “And a certain man I admire and respect taught me that women often have to stand for themselves, even when they know there are others who will stand in front of them.”

His gaze ran over her. “Did he…” He bit off the words, swallowed past an even darker rage than he thought possible. She was in her chemise.

Emily grabbed his face in her hands, standing on tiptoe. “No. I was currently too filthy with wickedness for him to force himself on me. He mentioned it would take long
purgings
for me to be good enough to do my duty. No. No.”

Relief that she’d been spared that slid through him.

“I’m all right, Jason. I am.”

She was far from all right. “The baby?” he asked. She’d been beaten. He could not get past that fact. He knew the kind of monster she’d been married to, knew better than anyone the horrors she lived through and still the proof slapped in his face this way slammed him into a storm of emotions like none he’d ever known.

Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, then closed it. “I feel all right.”

He should get her home, but the need to see to the man who’d hurt her, who had hurt his daughter roared through him.

She leaned up and kissed him. “I’ll wait a bit. I could sit down.”

“I should get you home,” he repeated yet again.

Her head shook slightly. “And then come back here? No, go do what you have to, then come get me and let’s go home. Home.” Those dark chocolate eyes of hers widened. “What about… He had Joy’s locket. That’s why I went with him. He said he had her, that he… Did he… Where is…”

He laid his finger against her lips. “She’s at home. She’s alive and safe.” And that was all he’d tell her for now.

She studied him. “I love you.”

“I love you, more than anything else in this world, Emmy.”

She nodded and sighed, her breath catching. “He’ll be dead in a minute, won’t he? I killed him.”

Her face paled.

“No, he killed himself.” With that he guided her to the bed.

“I don’t want to stay in here. Can I go somewhere else?”

The rope hanging from the bed flared the fire of rage in him anew.

He picked her up, careful of her back and carried her out the door, down the hallway to the captain’s quarters. Passing one of the crewmen in the hallway, he said, “Bring some water and clothes to the Captain’s quarters.” He put her on the bed and asked again, “Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

Jason straightened, noted every bruise on her, every mark, at least those he could see.

On a breath of fury, he turned and stalked from the room. He met Rayne on the steps. “He’s almost gone. You could just let him die.”

“I could.” Jason strode past him and up onto deck. The night cloaked them in darkness, lanterns lit the circle of men surrounding the one held between Damon and another sailor.

Nick stood holding the cat
o’nine
tails, the strips of leather, black snakes against the deck.

“I can do this,” Nick said.

Jason ripped the end of the whip out of Nick’s hand and walked to the man. He’d been stripped, a pale smooth chest faced him, a large wound trickling blood down his front. All he saw in his mind was Emmy’s scar, the wide one that snaked around to cradle her breast. He saw Joy’s face, covered in blood, her wide vacant eyes seeing nothing.
Franny
, a bloody huddle on the floor of the nursery. The guards dead, their families without them. But it was his family, bloody and beaten that pounded against him.

Jason reared back and hit Theodore Smith as hard as he could. The man’s head snapped around and he moaned.

“You know who I am?” Jason asked, nudging Theodore’s chin up with the handle of the whip.

The man’s color was ashen, his eyes wide, and still he smiled. “The whore’s lover.”

Jason hit him again. “I’m your worst nightmare. The man on your dark horse.”

“You should die with her,” he muttered.

“Perhaps, but not by your hand.” He leaned until his face was inches from Theodore’s.

Jason knew he only had minutes left. “Tie him up.”

The two sailors tied his hands around the mast. A white, perfect back faced him. This man who had marked and scarred Emily’s was as flawless as a babe’s.

Fury roared through him. Jason shucked off his coat, and pulled his hand back. The leather thongs hissed through the air, snapping on that back. The man jerked and with satisfaction, Jason saw red welts spring up and cry blood.

Again he pulled his arm back, brought the whip down harder this time.

“Evil…” Theodore mumbled.

Again and again, Jason welded the whip.

Theodore shuddered as the next blow fell, then went utterly still.

Dozens of red welts marked the man’s back.

Jason shook his head. Rage still pounded through him. He walked up, stared into the man’s unseeing eyes. Theodore Smith was no longer breathing. “Damn you for denying me justice, you sorry bastard.”

He moved back, dropped the whip and strode across the deck, to the stairs.

“Jason—” Rayne started.

He ignored him and kept going, through the circle of men. At the edge of the group, he halted. Emily stood in the doorway that led to the stairs.

Well, hell, he hadn’t wanted her to see that.

Jason took a deep breath and then a step toward her. When he reached her, she wrapped her arms around him and said, “Take me home.”