Chapter 19
Heather’s lungs were afire. Her muscles ached, and her feet throbbed in time with her rapid pulse as she ran.
They wove around inebriated men and between rows of buildings, and yet footsteps still rang out behind them.
“I…can’t go…much…further,” Heather huffed out. “We will…have…to fight.”
Percy led her around a sharp corner into a close, and stopped, forcing Heather to bump into his back. They crouched beside some piled crates.
“We must…catch our breath,” he gasped.
Lanterns were lit at the end of the close, giving light to the soiled space around them. It was far from ideal, but preferable to being caught by the earl’s men.
Rapid footfalls rushed past the close.
“I can’t see ’em!” one voice said.
“They’re around here somewhere,” another replied. “Keep looking.”
The voices faded, and Heather let out a deep breath.
Low, grating laughter echoed around them, and the hairs on the back of Heather’s neck stood on end. Who—
“No,” Percy whispered, interrupting her thought.
The rosiness that had flooded his cheeks after their run abruptly fled, and his breath stuttered.
“Did ye think tha’ ye could get rid of me?” the voice taunted. “Tha’ ye could steal from me?”
Percy turned a fearful and urgent gaze to Heather. “I’m afraid we have to run again, sweetheart.”
She nodded.
“Go. Now.”
Click.
Heather paused in the middle of her first step. That sound was unmistakable. It was a pistol being cocked.
“Ye took summat from me, Percival,” he drawled. “So I shall take summat from you.”
“No!” Percy pressed his back to her, protecting her from the man.
Heather turned, peering over his shoulder at a hulking form with red hair, a grizzled grey-and-red beard, and horrific scars marring one side of his face. He had broad shoulders and a barrel chest, over which he wore…a bastardized Redcoat.
She gasped.
Butcher.
It’s a ghost. Percy’s pulse raged through his body as horror washed over him.
Impossible. The man had survived. After all Percy’s sodding confidence in his plan, it had failed bitterly. He’d thought the nightmare of Butcher was gone forever, but he was sorely mistaken.
“Tha’s right,” Butcher sneered, the pistol aimed at Percy’s chest never wavering. “I’m alive. Me own son betrayed me, like th’ fucking coward ’e is. Couldnae even face me.”
There was no time to think. He had to act.
Butcher scoffed. “And now th’ bastard has nae words fer—”
Percy ran at the man, gripping his wrist and lifting.
Crack!
Blinding hot pain shot through the flesh of his arm, but he gritted his teeth against it as he fought with the enormous, muscular man.
“Percy!” Heather called. “You’re—” She broke off with an echoing scream, and Percy’s chest constricted.
“I got ’er, lads!” a voice said behind him.
“Bring her to the earl.”
There was a scuffle behind him, even as he landed a blow to Butcher’s gut.
“But I want to try her out first,” one man said plaintively.
“Hanley’s orders were—”
“Yes, I know, damn it.”
There was a muffled shout before one of the men cried out in pain.
“The harridan bit me!”
“Take ’er blade.”
There was more of a scuffle, and every nerve in Percy’s body cried out for him to abandon Butcher and go to help Heather. But Butcher was more dangerous.
“Pick up ’er feet.”
“But she’s kicking! Christ, but she fights like a hellcat!”
The pistol clattered to the ground, and Percy slammed his forehead into the big man’s nose. Butcher laughed, his blood-soaked teeth glinting in the lantern light, before a meaty fist slammed into Percy’s jaw.
Blinding pain shot through his head, forcing him to blink away the blurriness.
The scuffling behind him began to fade, and his throat constricted. Heather. He couldn’t let them leave with her.
In a quick succession of blows, he landed one to Butcher’s throat, the injured side of his face, and his cods. But aside from soft grunts, the man showed no sign of injury.
“Ye forget, boy,” Butcher sneered, “t’was I wot taught ye ’ow t’ fight.”
Fuck.
Percy went for the man’s eyes, but Butcher side-stepped and jabbed Percy in the ribs. The wind left his lungs in a wheeze before Butcher leaned back and landed a flat-footed kick right to Percy’s chest.
Pain lanced through him. And another blow knocked him flat on his back. Air. It was all he could think about. Not the pain, not the hot ooze of blood seeping from his head and tickling his scalp and arm. But air. He couldn’t breathe.
Rapid throbbing pulsed throughout his body and fluttered with his erratic heartbeat. This was it. Heather had been taken, and he was going to die. He’d failed.
Butcher’s grating laughter found its way past the rushing in his ears, just long enough for him to register the boot approaching his face. His world went dark.
If they had been brave enough and sought her out one at a time, Heather was certain that she could have defeated the earl’s ruffian footmen and lent her aid to Percy. Instead, she’d watched as he fought for his life against Butcher, and Lord knew how that had gone.
Would Butcher keep Percy alive, or would he plan some sort of…torture? It was not to be borne.
She ought to have told Percy how she felt about him when she’d had the chance. She ought to have realized how she felt about him, for pity’s sake! But now it was too late.
He mightn’t have returned her feelings, but while that would be painful, it hardly signified. She detested the thought of his going on with his life and not knowing how deeply she had come to love him.
Now, she sat in a chair at the table in the America’s wardroom with her wrists and ankles bound together, waiting for whatever punishment Hanley had planned for her.
At least her hiding place for the documents had been successful, for one of Hanley’s men had already conducted a cursory search of her person and missed them entirely.
Footfalls and shouts echoed about the frigate as they sailed away from the Golfo Mexicano, and Heather strained her eyes and ears, focusing beyond the doors.
The room, while almost entirely shrouded in darkness, was markedly similar to that of the Sapphire.
A long, dark table stretched along the centre of the space, flanked by walls of white doors to the officers’ cabins.
It carried the scent of the sea and unwashed bodies, and the familiarity of it brought the threatening prickle of tears to her eyes. It reminded her of Percy.
One of the wardroom’s doors swung open to admit two footmen and the earl, his spine slightly curved, his diaphanous skin pinkened—no doubt by the anger she saw flashing in his blue eyes—and his jaw clenched.
In his hand, he carried a dangerously swinging oil lantern, and Heather’s stomach dipped nauseatingly.
“I see that I gave you far too much leniency, Calluna.” He set down the lantern and sat heavily in the chair at the table’s head, his repulsed gaze sweeping her from head to booted foot. “We shall have to remedy that immediately. Just look at your hideous attire. It’s entirely unbecoming.”
The fluttering of nerves began in her abdomen, and her chest constricted as both fear and anger battled for control over her emotions. “What do you intend to do with me?”
“I shall make you pay,” he drawled. “Every day for the rest of your life.”
A detestable crawling sensation washed over her skin, and she fought back a shiver.
One of the footmen standing guard behind the earl huffed a sneering laugh. He was one of the cowards who had apprehended her in San Luis, who had refused to face her alone.
“There is no getting away this time, Calluna,” the earl continued.
Every day for the rest of your life… The realization crashed down on her like a terra-cotta pot. The old shite still meant to marry her!
A wave of gooseflesh began on her calves and worked its way up until the hairs on her head stood on end and a deep hopelessness washed over her. This was the end. Her position on Bow Street was truly gone, Percy was at the mercy of the man who raised him, and her—
She choked back a sob. Her cherished plants and her mother’s beloved notebook were gone. All was entirely lost.
The earl stepped closer, his gaze dark and laced with malice. “I believe you have something of mine.”