Untouched (29 page)

His uncle’s lips curved up in a faint, chilly smile. “You know better than that. I am skilled at inflicting maximum pain

with minimal permanent damage. You’ll have some bruising but you’ll mend quickly enough. Now, once again, where has

the slut gone?”

“I don’t know.”

This time Matthew was prepared for the blow. Or he thought he was until the dizzying pain shot through him. He

tightened every aching sinew against the scream that rose from his belly and battered against his closed lips. If the beating

continued, he knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of keeping quiet. He’d screamed before on this table, he’d scream again.

But he wanted to delay offering his uncle the satisfaction.

“You know…” He paused to draw in enough breath to speak. After his collapse, he was in no fit state to withstand much

more and he suspected his uncle realized that. Still he struggled to maintain the remnants of his defiance. “You know

violence doesn’t work on me, Uncle. You’ve tried it before. Even if I knew where Mrs. Paget is, I’m less likely to tell you

with every blow.”

“Yes, you’re a dumb ox under torture.” His uncle hit him again, harder.

“I told you I don’t know where the bloody girl has gone!” Matthew shouted, writhing uselessly against his bonds.

Although eleven years of captivity had taught him he’d never break their deathly grip, no matter how he struggled.

“Yes, but I don’t believe you,” his uncle said in a quiet voice.

“I don’t know where she is, you bastard!”

“Temper, temper.” Lord John’s lips curved in a chilly smile.

Matthew’s powerlessness was a physical pain in his gut. Every muscle coiled tight enough to snap. He gave up his futile

attempts to break loose. A red hot rope of pain extended across his torso. Even the shallow breaths that were all he could

manage threatened to hurtle him into unconsciousness.

Through the scarlet haze, he heard his uncle continue speaking. “You’ll be easy enough to break, nephew. You’re soft.

You’ve always been soft. You hate to see creatures suffer. Especially creatures you love.”

“What do you mean?” Matthew gritted out through closed teeth.

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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“I wonder how long your air of heroic and silent suffering will last once your dog is howling with pain.”

Bitter nausea filled his mouth while his dazed mind tried to comprehend what his uncle said. Horror swamped even his

physical distress.

Over eleven years, he’d watched his guardian test the boundaries of evil but this, this was beyond anything Matthew had

ever imagined. Lord John couldn’t mean to torture Wolfram. Not if he still claimed any trace of humanity.

He injected every ounce of the contempt he felt into his voice. “Uncle, even you must shrink from abusing a dumb

animal.”

“I don’t cause the pain, you do.” Then more sharply, “Tell me where the jade is or face the consequences. I can smell a

plot a mile away. This plot stinks worse than you do.”

“You can’t do it,” Matthew said, even while he reluctantly accepted that his uncle would balk at nothing. “The dog has

never harmed you.”

“In war, the innocent always suffer, don’t they?”

“Don’t do this, Uncle. For the love of Christ, don’t do this.” He hadn’t begged Lord John for anything in years, not since

he was an ailing boy and unaware of the depths of his guardian’s evil.

“Tell me where the wench is and you have my word the dog remains unharmed.” Lord John paused. “You know, I would

have thought you’d learned your lesson about defying my will the last time, when I had your nurse and her husband

transported.”

Oh, yes, he’d learned his lesson. He’d learned this life wasn’t worth living. He’d learned he’d do anything to end this

travesty and wrest control of the Lansdowne fortune away from his uncle.

Six months…

Grace, you don’t know what you ask.

Wolfram had been a loyal, undemanding companion. Since the day he’d arrived as a hairy, ungainly puppy seven years

ago, he’d offered Matthew nothing but devotion and trust.

Now Matthew must betray that trust.

Because he couldn’t betray the woman he loved.

He kept his voice expressionless. “I don’t know where Mrs. Paget is.”

“I’m sure witnessing Filey and Monks at work on your dog will jog your memory. You remember how…thoroughthey

can be.”

Lord John gave his stick a peremptory tap on the flagged floor. The door opened and Filey sidled in, cradling a freshly

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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

bandaged hand to his chest. He’d clearly been waiting just outside.

“Aye, your lordship?”

Matthew sucked in a breath of the fresh air that poured into the room. It cleared the mist of pain from his head, even

though his ribs still felt like they were on fire. He needed to do something to save Wolfram. But what?

Christ, he loathed his uncle.

“Fetch me the mongrel.” Lord John lifted the collar of his coat against the faint breeze through the open door.

“Aye, your lordship. Right away, your lordship. He’s skulking in the woods somewhere. Bit me when we was holding

down…looking afterLord Sheene.” An expression of shifty pride crossed his jowly face. “But happen I put a bullet in his

sorry tail as he took off.”

“You shot my dog, you bastard?” Matthew shouted, struggling yet again against his bindings and just as uselessly.

Hatred rose to gag him. His muscles tensed to agony. If sheer rage could free him, he’d be knocking Filey’s teeth down

his neck right now. He pulled so hard against the leather ties that the skin of his wrists split and hot blood trickled down

over his hands.

“Aye, happen I did. And not before time, my lord.” The undercurrent of satisfaction in Filey’s voice made Matthew vow

yet again to kill him. But promises of vengeance wouldn’t halt the coming abomination. If Wolfram was still alive to be

tortured. He sent up a brief prayer that his dog was dead. Even while the thought made his heart kick with angry grief.

The idea of Wolfram crawling off into the undergrowth to suffer a slow, miserable death turned his stomach. Although

given his uncle’s abhorrent plans, it would be better if Wolfram died before Filey found him. Acrid sorrow flooded

Matthew as he recognized that his dog was yet another innocent victim of Lord John’s iniquity.

An expression of chilly anger crossed his guardian’s face. It was the most emotion he’d shown since Matthew had opened

his eyes. “If the cur is dead, I will be most displeased, Filey. Most displeased.”

Filey’s pasty face developed a sickly hue. “Aye, your lordship,” he muttered. “Were only a bit of fun.”

“Burn in hell, Filey,” Matthew said in a low vicious voice, then looked at his uncle. “Let me up so I can look for

Wolfram. You can’t leave him out there hurt and alone.”

“Of course I can,” Lord John said indifferently. “Although of course I’ll bring the dog in for your tender ministrations, if

you tell me where the slut is.”

His fists clenched, slimy with sweat and his own blood. Hoping against hope that Grace had remained true to their plan

and headed toward Wells, then for London, Matthew said in a flat voice, “She has family in Bristol. I assume she went

there. She didn’t tell me she was going. She must have seen her chance with the gate open and me out of my wits.”

Lord John frowned, as if considering what he heard. Did his uncle believe him?

“That’s where Filey and Monks found her. Ask him,” Matthew added desperately.

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“Bristol?” Lord John said slowly. “It’s possible. It would make sense to find a place where she could mix with the

populace. A woman like her could always earn a coin on her back.”

“She’s no whore!”

“If she wasn’t when she arrived, you’ve made her into one,” his uncle said without emphasis.

“Eh, I’m not sure about Bristol, your lordship.” Filey scratched his head with his good hand. “If I remember rightly, the

lass said she was lost when we took her.”

“She has family there,” Matthew said. “That’s all she told me. Now let me up to find my dog.”

“Your madness has returned and you must be controlled.” His uncle had the temerity to smile, a brief baring of teeth.

“Surely you recall that much from previous fits.”

“I’m not mad. I had a temporary physical relapse that has now passed,” Matthew snapped. “You know that as well as I.”

“How can we be sure?” His uncle’s voice was smooth as oil. “I’ve sent for Dr. Granger. He’ll give us his diagnosis when

he arrives.”

Matthew bit back an appalled curse. Dr. Granger was the more brutal of the two physicians who had certified him. For

three miserable years, Matthew had endured beatings and purges and bleedings. He was lucky he’d survived.

His uncle permitted himself a small satisfied smile before he turned his attention back to his henchman. “Filey, set the

search parties on the cur’s trail. Woe betide you if he’s dead. He’ll be a useful lever if Lord Sheene has lied to us and we

need to force the truth from him.”

Filey bowed. “Aye, my lord.”

“Then you and Monks will take two men and ride to Bristol. Someone will have seen the jade on the road if she went that

way. Check for Pagets in the city. Check the area where you found her. If you pick up no trace by tomorrow, leave the

men to continue searching and come back.” Lord John turned to Matthew. “What was her maiden name?”

Matthew said without a word of a lie, “I have no idea.”

His uncle nodded, for once believing him immediately. “No matter. We have enough to go on. I shall return, nephew.”

By now Matthew’s throat was so parched, he felt as though he’d swallowed the Sahara. And he desperately wanted to

rinse the repulsive taste of stale vomit from his mouth. “You’re just leaving me?”

“For the moment,” Lord John said with obvious indifference. “Filey, you have your instructions.”

They closed the door behind them, abandoning him to an airless room and a heart brimming with guilt and futile rage.

There was nothing he could do for Wolfram. There was nothing he could do for Grace. There was nothing he could do for

himself.

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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He was so damned helpless, he wished to hell he were dead.

Dusk had fallen and Grace still hadn’t met anybody by the time the narrow track joined three roads. She looked up at the

signpost marking the crossroads, squinting to read the words.

Slowly, she made out the faded lettering. And nearly shouted aloud for joy.

Matthew had always been vague about the estate’s location and she’d been unconscious when she arrived. But it turned

out she knew exactly where she was. Or at least where she went.

Marked clearly on one arm of the signpost was a village a few miles away whose name was almost as familiar as her

own.

Purdy St. Margaret’s.

Her cousin, the Reverend Vere Marlow, was vicar at Purdy St. Margaret’s.

For the first time in months, since well before Josiah fell sick, her heart leapt with genuine hope. She forgot her weariness

and her blistered feet and the way her heavy dress irritated her sticky skin.

If she reached Vere, she was safe. If she reached Vere, she could find help for Matthew.

A joyful bark behind her made her turn in surprise. She squinted into the sun and raised one hand to her eyes to shield

them from the dazzling light.

A huge brindle shape hurtled up the track toward her.

Wolfram?

What was he doing here? How had he escaped?

Then she remembered that the gate had been open for the cart to depart. Perhaps his jailers’ panic over Matthew’s illness

meant they’d been too distracted to shut it again. Either that or he’d escaped when Monks had ridden in pursuit. He must

have followed the scent of the wagon or of Monks’s mount, then picked up her trail from where she’d climbed down.

What if he’d caught up with her at that moment? Her belly clenched with horror as she imagined what could have

happened if he’d run up when she’d hidden in the woods. Her bid for freedom would have been over before it had begun.

“Wolfram! Good boy,” she said, crouching and stroking his shaggy coat. He licked her face and butted her with his blunt

head and whimpered with delight. He was dusty and panting and almost pathetically happy to see her. The rope she’d tied

to his collar still dangled from his neck.

“Good…What’s this?”Wolfram flinched as her fingers brushed a wet patch of hair near his haunches. When she lifted her

hand, it was sticky with drying blood.

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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Wolfram?” Heavens, what had happened after she left? Had there been some kind of brawl? Had Matthew been injured?

Killed? He’d promised her that his uncle would do anything to keep him alive. But who knew what could happen in a

crisis?

No, she had to believe he was still in this world. Or she couldn’t bear to go on.

Very gently, she explored Wolfram’s injury. From what she could see, the graze wasn’t serious. There wasn’t even a lot of

blood. Wolfram whined and pressed his trembling body closer to her. She automatically put her arms around him.

“You poor darling. We’ll get you help. Don’t worry.” She spoke to comfort herself as much as the wolfhound.