Chapter Twenty-Two
Violet tried the doorknob for what must be the hundredth time. Wrapped her fingers about the knob and turned it with a sharp twist born of pure, unreasonable hope.
Still locked.
Just like the windows she’d tested earlier.
She let her forehead rest briefly against the cool wood and vented at the knob again out of pure frustration.
Blast you, Percival! She couldn’t stand the silence that settled over a room when the key had been turned and footsteps had retreated and no one was coming.
She had thought she would never stand inside that silence again. So blast you, too, Reginald!
With a scowl, she straightened and stepped away from the door, smoothed her skirts with stiff hands. She got three steps before she swiveled to glare at the knob. Fine. Let’s try one last time.
She marched over and twisted the thing angrily.
Locked.
What had her governess always said? To persist in a useless effort is not fortitude, but obstinacy. How many hours had passed since she’d started this futile ritual? She couldn’t say. More than a few. Nevertheless, she’d rather be obstinate than do nothing at all.
A short, mad, breathless laugh escaped her before she could stop herself.
She pressed her lips together at once, as though sound itself might be dangerous here.
The bedchamber answered her with silence—thick, upholstered, oppressive silence, the sort that could choke a person if exposed to it for too long. Spiraling would do her no good here.
Her gaze swept the chamber again.
The room could have been cut from any rich house in London. Stripped of anything that might be used as a weapon, that was.
A cage, then.
One simply lined with patterned wallpaper. Violet preferred a good old dungeon over this.
A bed large enough for a queen dominated the chamber, and Violet refused to go anywhere near the thing. Given who had taken her, what was intended of her, she would have lit it on fire if she could.
She turned from the door and crossed the chamber to the wall beside the fireplace. If there was one thing her brother had taught her—unintentionally, and at great cost—it was that locked doors were rarely the only doors. She went to the nearest wall and pressed her palm flat against the paneling.
Sound.
Violet refused to rejoice just yet. She moved her hand slowly along the seam of the wallpaper, tracing where the paneling met, feeling for a catch, a hollow, a betrayal in the wood beneath her palm.
Nothing. She leaned her weight in, listening.
The panel did not shift. It did not reveal anything other than its stubborn indifference to her inquiry.
She stepped back and tried again, this time with the tip of her fingers, tapping lightly, methodically. One panel.
Then the next.
Then the next.
The panels held fast beneath her palms.
Her hands fell to her side. How long had she been at this? They’d never have given her a chamber with a possible secret door. Would she ever escape at this rate?
Drake.
The name came with a violent jolt, her body remembering those last moments her mind had been trying, unsuccessfully, to forget.
Was he dead?
The question struck without warning, sharp enough to rob the air from her throat. He had collapsed at her feet again. How could such a strong man have such a dreadful penchant for collapse?
Not funny, Vi.
A bubble of laughter slipped free.
Without the refuge of humor, she would have gone mad within moments.
She pressed her fingers into her palms until the pressure hurt.
Drake Fury was not a man who ever stayed down.
He was born to rise. She had to believe that.
She also had to do her part, so she moved back to the wall and began again.
The scrape of a key sliding into a lock snapped her attention to the door. Violet retreated at once to the window, the farthest point from whoever was about to step into her chamber.
Percival.
The name formed even as the door pushed open.
Violet lifted her chin, readying herself for the sight of him, for the smile she hated, for the voice that never failed to make her skin crawl.
But it was not Percival who stepped inside.
The man who entered was taller, broader, and his features, in part, resembled hers.
“Reginald.”
He smiled. A small, sinister curve of the mouth.
“Good day, dear sister.”
Detestable. “I should have known you’d never give up,” Violet said, fists clenching, “but I had hoped you’d come to see the light.”
“I am your guardian, Evangeline,” he said, as though that explained everything. “I do only what’s good for you.”
Her temper flared. “You have no idea what is good for me. Good is not confining someone to their chambers, demanding complete obedience, or punishing them by removing, item by item, everything they cherish.” Which he had once again done with Drake. “Where is he?”
“You mean that bastard son of the Duke of Crane? He’ll be dealt with soon enough.”
“Let him go, Reginald.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot do that.” He shook his head for emphasis.
“My strife with him came long before you two met, but he is just another example of why you need a guardian such as me. I became responsible for you the moment our mother died bringing you into the world, and you will remain my duty until the day you die.”
“Mother’s death? You dare lay that at my feet?”
“I dare state facts,” he replied coolly. “She was not strong enough. That much is evident.”
Something hot and blinding surged behind her eyes and for a moment she could not speak at all. The staggering audacity of this man confounded her.
“You were a boy,” she said after a moment, her voice trembling despite her efforts to remain as calm as him. “A boy who decided, in his arrogance, that a woman’s death must belong to someone. And you chose me.”
“How could I not?” Reginald countered. “Father was undone. Grief hollowed him out until nothing remained but his corpse. You know that as well as I do.”
What did she know? She couldn’t even recall those days. She’d been too young. By God, her brother belonged in Bedlam. “You are madder than the maddest man in Britain!”
His gaze hardened. “Mind your tone.”
“No,” she said, stepping forward despite trepidation. “I have minded it all my life. I have swallowed your rules, your judgments, your punishments. Tell me, brother, did it feel good to make me cower in fear of you?”
“Women require a steady hand. Left to themselves, they become reckless. Emotional. Weak. You have proved that point.”
Her lips curved, cold and furious. “And you believe that hand belongs to Percival?”
Reginald inclined his head. “He is as good a man as any.”
And he listens to you. “He is the worst of them,” Violet snapped. “Right alongside you.”
His eyes flashed. “At least we are not criminals.”
“Oh, do not fool yourself,” she said softly. “You are the worst sort of criminal. You hide behind the authority your title provides, but strip you of that, and you are even less than dust.”
His fists clenched. “Take care, Evangeline. My patience is already bare thread.”
Blazes. How she hated that name. “I am not Evangeline any longer,” she said, and the full truth of that settled inside her like something finally coming to rest. “I am Violet now.”
Reginald regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then his mouth curved again, not into a sinister or even humorless smile this time, but something colder. “We have lingered long enough. I did not come merely to reminisce.”
Her pulse quickened. “Then why are you here?”
“Why, to present you with a wedding gift.”
Right. Percival had mentioned a wedding gift. A sense of foreboding slid through her.
“Come,” Reginald said, turning toward the door. “I shall escort you.”
“No.” Violet lifted her chin. “I will not leave with you.”
He arched a brow, his smile remaining in place. “Are you quite sure?”
She stilled. “I am.”
Reginald studied her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. “Do you not wish to see your lover again?”
What?
Drake was her wedding gift?
The creeping dread inside her sharpened into something far worse. She searched Reginald’s face for mockery, for exaggeration, for any sign this was merely another attempt at manipulation. She found none. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “What have you done to him?”
“Nothing,” Reginald replied smoothly. “Yet.”
She took an involuntary step toward him. “If you have harmed him—”
“You will do what?” he interrupted. “Glare at me? Denounce me?” His gaze hardened. “How has that served you so far?” His eyes flicked, briefly, toward the door behind him, and he let out a low whistle.
Four men came up behind them.
“You can come willingly, or you will be dragged. Either way works for me.”
Violet fortified herself. Whatever lay beyond that door, she knew one thing with terrible certainty. If Drake lived, she would walk into hell itself to reach him.
She would escape. She would not let them win.
*
Drake sat forward on the only chair in the room, forearms braced on his thighs, head bowed. The throb behind his eyes would not allow him to lift it for long.
He felt like utter shite.
Outside the door, the roar of the crowd surged and fell in waves. Shouts. Laughter. The wet sound of fists finding flesh. A fight was already underway, then. A lesser one. A prelude. It would not be long now before they came for him.
Good.
The waiting was worse than the blows. Pain was honest. It declared itself and demanded an answer in kind.
Waiting offered nothing. No target, no leverage, only the slow erosion of readiness and state of mind, which was probably what these fools were aiming for.
They wanted him to doubt his strength. His own instincts.
Drake shifted with a grimace, testing his balance as he rose. The world tipped immediately, swaying hard enough that he had to plant a hand against the wall. The room lurched, then steadied, though the ache in his skull flared in protest.
Damn it.