Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
In the end, escape was easier than Elizabeth expected, for Mr. Harris chose a thief’s exit over a warrior’s. He let his men play out their coin to keep Finch’s dealers and thugs no wiser, taking but a handful with him to smuggle Elizabeth, Jasper, and Annabelle out.
They left Finch where he lay and his guard’s unconscious body at the door in greeting. Harris thought it best the East End assume Jasper Audrey had slit Hieronymus Finch’s throat. It wouldn’t be the first time Jasp had escaped The Canary’s Lair.
The hansom ride back was silent. Harris kept Bella close, and Elizabeth supported her husband’s weight, his body still wrapped in Finch’s thick drape.
As her sister curled deeper into Harris’s arms, Elizabeth listened to her husband’s ragged, rapid breaths.
He leaned so heavily against her shoulder it began to ache.
When the hansom pulled up to Milton’s townhouse, Harris jumped from the carriage to run inside, bringing servants back with him to whisk Jasper from Elizabeth.
Before she knew it, Gerald was helping her out and barking orders for the doctor to be fetched.
Soon Murdoch was leading her upstairs to her room, where Ginny’s voice soothed, All will be well, ma’am.
Leave it t’ Murdoch an’ Gerald. Some warm milk before bed.
Elizabeth protested—she wished to see Jasper—but Murdoch insisted the doctor be allowed to do his job.
Elizabeth might go later, after. Ginny’s voice lulled her more as she was stripped of her wig and bawdy dress, then tucked into bed and plied with milk.
Elizabeth’s head sank into the softness of the pillow, eyes closing as Ginny smoothed her brow with a warm cloth.
Before she knew it, she’d drifted into a deep but troubled sleep, only to awake in a sweat, heart racing with visions of blood flowing from Jasper’s split head, drowning them all in a wave of murky red that rushed like rapids through Finch’s cavernous, glowing vault.
Elizabeth leapt from her bed and flew to her husband’s room to make sure he lived, breathed.
She was stopped dead in her tracks by the sight that met her.
Gerald sat slumped in a chair beside his master, snoring faintly, with Mutton sprawled at his master’s bare feet. And Jasper, poor Jasper, lay on his chest, his back riddled with wounds, his flesh wickedly flayed. They’d washed and stitched his injuries, but the slicing cuts and striped lashings—
Elizabeth bit her knuckle to stem the cry about to burst from her pounding chest.
She forced herself to look, to burn her husband’s wounds into her brain, while she quietly, bitterly wept. She knelt beside him, careful not to wake him, and though she knew she ought to ask permission, she brushed a curl from his pale forehead and traced the lines of his gaunt, exhausted face.
He was returned to her. That was all that mattered.
She remained on the floor beside him until her head fell to his bed, matching him breath for anguished breath.
“Lizzie.” Milton’s voice startled her awake. “Go.”
For a moment she wasn’t sure where she even was. Her knees felt stiff and sore. “Jasper.” She raised her head, confused. “I—”
“Go,” he ordered more forcefully.
“But—”
“Leave!” His voice was harsh, his eyes fierce, burning.
She blinked back tears. “No, I’ll not go! I’ve worried sick and will not now—”
“Gerald!” He barked, the butler snorting awake. “Take her away. I want her gone. Now.”
And Gerald, standing quickly, took Elizabeth in hand to drag her from the room.
“Why are you doing this? Gerald, let me go! Why do you not wish to see me? Jasper, I wish only to—”
But he averted his gaze, refusing even to look at her, as Gerald ushered her back to her chamber and locked the adjoining door behind him.
Elizabeth stood alone in the middle of her bedroom.
Her husband did not want her. Had he ever?
Naked and chained, like a dog on a leash. Worse. Treated worse than a bloody dog.
Milton brutally berated himself for walking straight into Finch’s trap.
He’d grown soft in wealth and foolish at that—a fool, as well, to think marriage to a blueblood might achieve a blasted thing.
He’d endangered his wife, her sister, and Ginny.
Three women at Finch’s bleak mercy all because of him. Fuck!
He strained at his irons until the shackles bit his wrists.
“Feels like home, don’t it, Jasp?” Finch’s voice rang out in the cave’s echoing darkness. “Like y’ never left, eh? ’Cause y’ ne’er did, boy. An’ now, thanks t’ you, I’ll have meself a fine wife, with yer own fine missus to do me every biddin’.”
His laugh sent a shudder down Milton’s taut spine before that voice hissed sudden and low in Milton’s left ear. “I couldn’t ask fer a better whippin’ boy, Jasp. Missed yer somethin’ awful when y’ left. Though y’ didn’t leave politely, didya, lad? Y’ left me fer dead.”
The slow drag of Finch’s blade dripped blood down Milton’s hip.
He knew this course of torture, knew exactly how Finch toyed with flesh.
He prayed for death. Harris would marry Bella, and Li would counsel Elizabeth as his widow, ensuring Ginny and the rest of staff remained employed, secure.
He wasn’t needed. He’d failed them enough.
“Jasper…” Finch’s lips brushed his ear, the man’s breath hot as hellfire. “Where’d y’ go, boy? I want yer here, with me. ’Tis what makes this so delightful. Remember all the good times we two had? Remember how y’ screamed so loud y’ begged me fer a gag?”
Milton panicked like a child. Anything but—
Too late, a stale rag was shoved into his mouth and knotted tight behind his head. He thrashed and strained and—
“Jasp!” A hand shook Milton’s arm, puncturing the scene. “Jasper, you’re dreamin’. Wake!”
Milton’s eyes flew open to Gerald’s concerned face.
“’Twas but a dream. You’re safe, lad. Safe.”
Sweat poured down Milton’s cheeks, or were they tears instead? He lifted his hands to his face and saw they shook.
“Rest now. Go on, sleep.”
“Gerald, how long have I been sleeping?”
“Drink this.”
Milton took one sip of the bittersweet liquid and thrust the glass back. “No laudanum, damn you! I do not wish to sleep!”
His butler frowned but set aside the glass.
“Don’t let her see me like this.”
Tears. Bloody tears streamed uncontrolled down his face.
“I couldn’t bear it, do you hear me? Keep her away, Gerald. Whatever it takes, keep her out.”
Death would be a better fate.
Annabelle shivered beneath the bedclothes, terrified to be alone with her thoughts.
Arthur had tucked her into bed at The Leaf after shooing Janie’s curious self out—You’ll get yer missing frock back, woman, off with you now, ’tis late!
—but the specter of Finch, gutted by her own hand, ate at her conscience.
She could still feel the blade’s resistance as she’d pressed hard through cloth and flesh, the shock on Finch’s face, his sharp intake of—
Arthur brought her hand to his lips. “I’ve things t’ attend to, luv. Get some rest.”
“Arthur…”
“Hush now. We’ll discuss all once you’ve slept.”
“Arthur, stay with me, please?” She couldn’t bear to be alone. Not yet.
He met her eyes with kindness, then slipped under the bedclothes and wrapped her in his warm, strong arms. Only then did she feel safe, burrowing into his comforting heat.
And she must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew a hand stroked her awake, softly cupping her cheek.
Annabelle pressed her face deeper into that hand to escape the light that pierced her eyelids.
“Mrs. Harris.” Arthur spoke softly. “You are without doubt the bravest, most reckless woman to grace this earth. Why, I ought to turn you over my knee for the insanity of what you and your sister attempted last night on your own.”
She opened her eyes to peer up at him. “Kiss me, Arthur.”
And he did. He met her lips with pulls and nips as his hand crept softly up her leg.
“Should I discipline or reward you, wife?” he murmured at her neck.
“Arthur…”
“Yes, luv?” His tongue traced a path down her collarbone, his hand nearly at its destination.
“Arthur, I do not wish to wait,” she whispered. For she didn’t. She’d nearly lost him, nearly been lost herself to Finch. Arthur Harris was all she wanted now and forever.
“Blast it, Bella!” His demeanor instantly changed. “I told you before I’ll not—Christ, woman, why must you be so bloody insistent?”
Annabelle was aroused, embarrassed, and wounded, all at once. No, she was humiliated.
He must think her no better than a tease.
“I am sorry I displease you.” She swallowed her hurt and grief.
“You are right, of course. I am intolerable in a great many ways, but as your wife, I do not think I am being unreasonable in this.” She willed her heart not to break.
“Perhaps it were best we part beds, now that pretense is no longer needed.”
“Bella…”
“This way you may get on with your business, and I with my life.”
She threw off the bedclothes to vacate his chamber as fast as her legs would carry her. She was like any other woman with loose morals who offered herself at The Leaf. No, worse. Because those women Arthur had bedded, and he would not bed her.
From the hall she heard him loudly utter, “Fuck!”