The Fall into Ruin, page 16
She would not let them get away with fleecing and humiliating her.
Lucinda was used to lengthy revenge schemes. It was one of the ways she had yet to be caught red-handed. When would she meet a foe worthy of her rather than these inbred halfwits? Was Anthony Germaine her adversary or would he prove as useless as the rest had? Either way, she now had to work to a timeline.
The bottom line for Lucinda was that she couldn’t leave the country until she had the funds the Clairmont sons stole from her. Destroying a few unworthy gentlemen along the way would put the smile back on her face. She would watch them burn and then she would take her child to a place where beauty didn’t equal a tool of men. Where love was honest and so were the citizens. Her child would have a happy life and be cherished, bastard or not.
Lucinda should have been one of those children herself but she had been wrenched from the arms of her dying mother and forced into a workhouse until she was old enough and strong enough that her little body wouldn’t be ripped apart by the depravities of the sick and twisted. She’d learned very early in life that her beauty would make her an even bigger target in London’s underground society and that her bastardry was a stain that would never wash away despite who had sired her. Had England’s elite forgotten that one could not choose one’s father? Why was the child always blamed for the parent’s shortcomings? She had that in common with Anthony Germaine. Both she and he were persecuted for their origins. She had used it to her advantage while he still thought some good could be salvaged.
“Where is Germaine?” Lucinda asked Rose, interested in the fact that he wasn’t there—her fiancé.
“He has nothing to do with this,” Rose assured her, but there was a strange flash in her eyes and it wasn’t anger or stubbornness.
Lucinda had also learned about a man’s expressions. His telling signs. “He does if he’s telling the world about me.”
“Not the world,” Rose was quick to add. “Just me, Michael and the lads. No one else knows.”
“And his brother-in-law, Trelissick, his sister Daniella?”
“I don’t know anything about any of that. It’s none of my concern. You are though. You must give me something attainable otherwise I’m afraid you’re going to wind up disappointed and never be able to leave here.”
“Something attainable?” Lucinda tapped her finger to her chin as though deep in thought. She already knew what she wanted. “Bring me Germaine and the money Josiah and Samuel stole from me and I might consider the matter settled. With you at least.”
“I didn’t ever harm you in any way. Why have you been coming after me and my men instead of going directly for my brothers?”
“Your men?” Lucinda scoffed. “They are your brother’s men through and through. They are Ashmoor’s men and your father’s villagers. They do not belong to you nor will they be loyal to you when they are offered more or the truth of their treachery is revealed.”
A murmur went through Rose’s comrades and a few denials sprang forth. Lucinda didn’t want to hear any of them. Rose Clairmont was useful to them because it was her land, her money, her jetty, her goods. If they were discovered, chances were they would throw Rose over just to escape with their own hides intact in the same way her brothers had done to Smith. It was the way of men: pass the buck, find the scapegoat. Why hadn’t Rose yet realised she was their scapegoat? Any fool could see it.
“These men are my friends. They would give their life for mine as I would for them,” Rose declared.
Lucinda stood, taking her time, ensuring all who saw her noticed her delicate condition, considered her slower and less of a danger. “Would you?” she asked the men at Rose’s back. “Would any of you die for your mistress?”
“I would,” came from a dark-haired fellow, a few years older than Rose by the looks. “We all would.”
“Excellent.” Lucinda put two fingers into her mouth and gave one long piercing whistle. Her own men, those who feared and admired her rather than liked her or felt obligated to protect her, swarmed the tavern, weapons in hand, ready to do what she commanded of them. Good men were really not good at all as Rose would soon find out. They relied on the coin you paid them. They were only as loyal as the depths of their fear and the amount you paid them to be.
Rose’s friends went for their weapons but their mistress jumped to her feet and called, “Hold steady. We didn’t come for a fight.”
“And you’re not getting one,” Lucinda assured the now frightened girl and her panicked men. “I need you to return to your home and gather up what I need.”
“I will do as you have asked but upon two conditions of my own.”
“I hardly think you’re in a good place to bargain.”
“Neither of us have the time nor the leisure to do this any other way,” Rose pointed out.
Lucinda held her palm up and curled her fingers back and forth. “What are your conditions?”
“Germaine is not to be harmed. At all. And you have to take me with you.”
Lucinda almost swallowed her tongue. “Take you where?”
Chapter Fourteen
Rose’s nerves were absolutely shot. She had not much energy left both from the harrowing journey and from the day’s events. There was one more feat to be accomplished for her though. Two if you counted just surviving the room. She felt hemmed in with nowhere to turn now that there were so many large men in the small space.
“You must take me with you to France or the Americas, wherever you are headed next.”
“Why would you want to leave England? Why would you want to go anywhere with me?”
“You burned my ship already and I can hardly waltz into the next port and book passage. I need to flee my father and it’s you or it’s marriage. I am out of time and out of options.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” the villain said but Rose was buoyed by the fact that the other woman hadn’t said no immediately. “What if your father comes after us?”
“He won’t. I’ll get the servants to cover my tracks well enough. My family will think me dead in the ocean. Suicide. No one will question it.”
Michael grabbed her arm in a fierce grip and hissed in her ear, “Have you lost your mind?”
Rose turned to face her friend, her hand over his where it almost bruised her arm. “I am a grown woman, Michael. Why should I stay here and marry? Smuggling has been fun, helping the villagers worthwhile, but we have danced with the danger for too long. It’s time for my next adventure far from here.”
“But with her? She’s a criminal. A pirate. A thief and a murderer.”
Lucinda sighed and said, “I can hear you.”
Michael dismissed her with a quick glare but then came back to Rose. “I won’t allow it,” he said.
Wriggling from his hand, Rose put her hands on her hips and stepped back. “You won’t? How are you going to stop me, Michael?”
“I’ll tell your father.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to believe a word you say unless you confess it all and then you’ll be off to the gallows while I am either locked in my room or married off to Germaine or Harcourt. No one wins then.”
“This is not a game where there are winners or losers, Rose. Only dead or alive. You’re a woman and you’ll be all alone.”
Just the way she bloody well wanted it. She turned back to face Lucinda or Smith or whoever she said she was. “Do we have a bargain?”
“You want to go to France and Germaine is not to be killed?”
“Not to be harmed. At all.”
“What am I supposed to do with him if he’s not dead?”
She couldn’t believe she was about to say her next words but she couldn’t let him die because of her. Because she had asked him to come, to help. “Bring him along but leave him where you leave me. By the time he makes his way back to England to reveal your part, you will be long gone, living under a new name with your baby, somewhere safe.”
Smith was thinking about it. Rose waited. Smith held her hand out and Rose shook it. “Looks like we have a bargain.”
A thrill danced through her veins and Rose couldn’t prevent the smile on her face. She had almost done it. She was nearly free of it all. Her father, her family, society, her suits and her suitors. She could make up her own rules and be free to do as she pleased. She wasn’t daft enough to think France didn’t have restrictions but she would be an unknown there. She could gather enough funds to make a comfortable life for herself as no one in particular. Just a woman with the means to take care of herself. She could claim to be a widow and even take a lover. Or not. She could look for a husband of her own choosing. Or not. She wouldn’t even have to eat pigeon pie ever again. Her day was looking up and up.
“Rose,” Michael began again. “I won’t let you do this.”
Smith stepped in with a gesture to a few of her men. “If you’re not with her, then you’re against her and I can’t risk that.” Two of her men took Michael by the arms, another wrapped an arm about his throat as soon as he began to fight back.
Rose reached for the dagger in her boot and approached, ready to defend her friend as he would her. Until an arm snaked about her middle and she was pulled roughly against the chest of a beast of a man who smelled as though he had rolled in piss. She kicked out, called out, writhed against the man-prison. “Let him go,” she shrieked. The others in their party were similarly subdued until not a one of them could help themselves let alone Michael. They were hopelessly outnumbered after all.
“We have a bargain—you can’t do this,” Rose yelled and attempted another kick, her head jolting backwards viciously trying to find a point where she could do some damage.
Smith tut-tutted and shook her head. “You didn’t say anything about your men not being harmed.”
“He must return with me. We won’t leave without him.”
Smith gave another signal and the men began dragging Michael out towards the back of the tavern.
“You can’t take him,” Rose screamed, terror rising inside of her until she was almost unable to breathe. He was more a brother to her than her own ever had been. She wouldn’t risk his life to fulfil her own.
Smith stepped before Rose, twisted the dagger from her grip and then slapped her hard on the cheek. Rose flinched, swore, met the cold eyes of a woman she realised she had underestimated.
“You have given your conditions, Rose Clairmont. You will return here before seventy-two hours have passed with Germaine and my blunt. For every hour you are late, your man will lose parts of himself he may value. A finger, a toe, an ear. If you fail to return at all, I’ll kill him and then come to collect what is mine from your father’s home and I won’t be using the servants’ entrance.”
Moisture collected on her eyelids but Rose didn’t cry. Defeat filled the places she had previously been happy, in control, hopeful.
The vice around her eased and then disappeared. She stumbled but then caught herself, straightening her shoulders and stiffening her stance. Smith offered her the dagger back, ivory handle first, and for one moment, Rose wondered if she could press the heel of her hand against the knife and drive it home, straight into the heart of London’s worst.
Not only could she not stab an unarmed opponent, she could not kill a pregnant woman either. No. All she had to do was convince her brothers to hand over the money and get Anthony to follow her back to Smith. Smith’s men would capture him but he wouldn’t be hurt. Smith had given her word. Hadn’t she? Was her word worth anything to Rose?
Probably not but Michael was. It had been him and her against the world for too long. He was like the brother she’d always wanted. She would do anything to save him. Even if it meant betraying everyone else around her…
*
Lucinda steepled her hands before her chest and gave a chuckle. Rose Clairmont was on her way back to Hell’s Gate to get her money and the man who would be her one-way ticket out of the Channel. She wasn’t stupid enough to think Trelissick wasn’t close to tracking Smith down but he would never fire upon the ship his brother-in-law was held captive on. Neither would Clairmont send a fleet after a ship carrying his youngest daughter. The threat of scandal alone would leave the earl dawdling to even put on his boots.
“There’s no need to look quite that happy, sister.”
Lucinda looked to her ‘hostage’ and her smile grew broader. “You were fabulous, brother. So very convincing.”
“What if she returns to Hell’s Gate and calls the authorities down upon you?”
Opening her eyes wide and putting her hands beneath her chin, she mockingly put on the airs of a naïve chit in love. “But she loves you, Michael. Didn’t you know?”
Michael, Lucinda’s brother and fellow bastard, beamed. “In her own way, yes she does. Silly girl.”
“All girls are silly,” she remarked. “Rose is no different from the rest.”
“I’ve spent a long time grooming her, sister. Don’t completely disregard her ingenuity.”
“And don’t you disregard her worth to us. The only way to draw the Clairmonts out will be with their sister. The fact that she will willingly come along with us is a great boon but in the end, she too will have to die.”
“She hates her father just as much as you do. She would probably kiss you for ending her misery,” Michael pointed out. This was why he was better served on Ashmoor’s estate than at her side. He was softer around the edges. He’d been raised as a bastard but as a useful bastard in his father’s house. He’d never known real hunger. He’d never known real danger or pain or terror. He had a hatred for his sire much the way Lucinda did only hers burned so much brighter, hotter, deadlier.
He hadn’t spent a decade exacting vengeance the way she had. The blood of the men who had hurt her was on her hands, in her memories, a part of her soul. There were plenty more left but she was running out of time. Her baby would not be born into hatred. Her baby would not endure even one second of London’s prejudices. Her baby would never be taken from her, never know defeat or loss, never be broken inside until all the pieces felt like they would fall out.
Her vengeance would be final. It would be swift. It was going to be deadly.
Chapter Fifteen
Too angry to doze. Too angry to ride. Too angry to do much more than sit and brood and grind his teeth together. Anthony thumped his clenched fists against his thighs and stood, resuming the pacing that was the only action stopping him from roaring to the ceiling like a depraved animal. He couldn’t go after the fool girl because he had no idea where the hell she went. It wasn’t to see the vicar’s wife.
Bloody hell.
If Rose’s padded undergarments were here, then she would have to return, assuming she didn’t have several sets hidden away in her rooms. She could have anything hidden anywhere. She was out of control. Reckless. Immature. Naïve. Stubborn. She was just like Daniella only worse. At least his sister had the wits about her to keep herself alive and reasonably safe. Rose had no idea the consequences that could befall her and if she did, she clearly didn’t care at all. She had no idea the mess she was making of her life or that of her men.
Would it stop once Smith was out of the equation? Would she see the light and give up the smuggling and ‘adventure’ as she put it? He rather doubted it. She would have to be sent to an abbey or an asylum just to preserve her own heartbeat. He’d like to take her by the arms and shake all the nonsense out.
But she wasn’t his.
Not yet.
Not likely, ever.
A very, very small, no, infinitesimal, part of him admired her tenacity. But she was going to get herself and those around her killed. He liked the way she had avoided marriage like it was a deadly pox. He liked the way she commanded her men and the way they respected her in return. But. She wasn’t the right woman for him. She had too much passion. Too much fire. Too much yearning for the thrill.
Anthony had worked so hard to bury those traits in himself.
He wanted to help protect the city and her citizens. He wanted to work on the side of good and just. There was a thrill in that too. A sense of pride. Of logic. Of fairness for all those who stayed on the side of honour and respect. Criminals belonged in prison or hanging for their crimes. Newgate wouldn’t be necessary if there were more men like Anthony and fewer like Smith and her cohorts.
“Fuck,” he roared into the growing darkness. If Smith had taken Rose or hurt her in any way, Anthony wouldn’t bother handing her over to the authorities. He’d kill her himself. Honour, principle, righteousness be damned.
He thought the thought and a small voice in his head told him he wouldn’t. He wasn’t a murderer.
A commotion beyond the door had Anthony backing down behind the screen and calming his nerves, schooling his breath. He didn’t have to wait long. The door opened and in filed Rose, flanked by her men, all looking defeated, bedraggled, soaked to the weary bone. Rose sniffled and wiped her face on the back of her hand. She looked like something the cat might have dragged out of a pond.
All thoughts of being gentle, of catching her off guard or going easy on his future bride, went out the proverbial window as he stood and made his presence known. “Where the hell have you been, Rose?”
She jumped and the men around her drew weapons, closed ranks, immediately alert.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her hand at her throat, her eyes red-rimmed and wide.
“Where did you go today, Rose? And think carefully before you answer because if you tell me you went to see Smith, I’ll lay you over my knee and spank some sense into you.”
The last thing he expected was for her face to fall and then crumple, tears running tracks over the dirt on her cheeks, her hair in complete disarray as huge sobs racked her body. He reached for her, just made it to her side before she let go and fell to the floor, half collapsing, completely giving up the pretence that she was strong and in control.
