Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Let it never be said that Penny Frey was unwilling to sacrifice himself for his friends.
That silly thought rattled through Penny’s brain as the guard shoved and manhandled him down the stairs.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the oaf grunted, grasping Penny’s arm when he tried to make a break for it and yanking him down the hallway.
The man must have been prodigiously stupid to say something as obvious as “You’re not supposed to be here”. If he was that thick, then perhaps Penny might be able to talk his way out of the situation.
“I meant no harm,” he said. “They thought you might want a distraction.”
He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Pretending he wasn’t alone had always been a good ploy to make street bullies and other grunts think twice about taking him on, but in Trebarral Castle, that ploy might land more people than just him in trouble.
As it turned out, he didn’t need to worry about anyone other than himself for the moment.
“What is all this noise?” the man who had been pointed out to him as Dalhurst the day before demanded, stepping into the hall from the very room that the guard was dragging Penny toward.
Dalhurst wasn’t alone. A second man who looked equally rankled and angry stepped out into the hall with him. “Is he one of the servants?” he asked.
“No,” Dalhurst answered at once, then moved closer to scrutinize him in the dim hallway. “I’ve never seen this man in my life.” He stopped in front of Penny, narrowed his eyes, then said, “No, wait, I have seen him. He’s that blasted tinker who came to the house the other day to disrupt things.”
“A tinker?” The second man made a disgusted face.
Penny’s heart raced. He was in a horrific situation, but so far, Dalhurst and his friend didn’t suspect why he was really there. That meant he could protect Greer and give him the chance he needed to rescue Lord Fabian.
“Finest wares this side of London,” Penny said, breaking into a ridiculous smile.
Dalhurst’s and his friend’s answering glares were enough to wipe the smile from Penny’s face. More than that, his heart sank straight into his gut like a rock dropped from a cliff as Dalhurst’s friend’s expression turned thoughtful.
“He’s a pretty one,” he said, reaching a hand toward Penny, “if a bit scruffy.”
Penny jerked away from the man’s touch, old memories resurfacing so fast and hard they made him dizzy. “Let me go,” he said, voice hoarse and humor completely gone, knowing that wasn’t about to happen. “I’ll leave right quick, and we can pretend none of this happened.”
He’d miscalculated everything. He would not allow himself to be lost to the nightmare that almost swallowed him once before. More than anything, he wanted to cry out for Greer, for his help and his love, but if he did, Greer might be captured, too.
“He asked me if I wanted company,” the guard said with a sniff, oblivious to Penny’s growing panic.
“It was all in good fun,” Penny said, twisting in an attempt to free himself from the guard’s grip, now that the man was distracted. He would do anything to avoid being taken.
“How did you get into the castle?” Dalhurst asked, looking like he would rather slit Penny’s throat than toy with him.
“Oh, you know,” Penny said, fighting to continue to seem like a lovable scamp and not a serious threat as his panic made it difficult to think. “As one does.”
“Did any of the servants let him in?” Dalhurst’s friend asked. “You said they were loyal and discreet.”
“They are,” Dalhurst told him. “I pay them well enough. None of them know the truth about Lord Fabian in any case. They think I’m harboring a sick friend.”
That was an interesting fact…that Penny had no time at all to contemplate.
“Let me go and we’ll call it a good laugh,” he said, knowing there was no chance of his freedom coming so easily.
“He’s feisty,” Dalhurst’s friend said, inching closer. He grabbed Penny’s face and wrenched it up as he studied him. Penny gasped, and his entire body shuddered with remembered fear. “I have clients who like the feisty ones. They enjoy breaking them.”
The paralysis that gripped Penny nearly undid him. The time for fun and games was over. “Let me go,” he said as firmly as he could manage.
“I don’t think so,” Dalhurst’s friend said. He took a step that forced Penny to walk backwards.
“I swear, I was just looking for a bit of fun!” Penny called out as he was backpedaled toward the staircase that would take them down to the ground floor.
With any luck, Greer would hear him and know just how dire the danger had become.
“I’ll leave here and never come back. You don’t have to worry about me. ”
“What if I want to worry about you?” Dalhurst’s friend asked cradling Penny’s face lasciviously. “You’d fetch a pretty penny.”
Penny’s fear reached such towering heights that he nearly laughed. The surreal feeling of having a man with evil intent inadvertently call him by his nickname for the exact reason he’d earned that name, Pretty Penny, was bizarre.
“Hammond, you cannot be serious,” Dalhurst huffed, following as his friend, Hammond, reached the stairs and started to drag Penny down. “There isn’t time for this. You need to concentrate your efforts on moving Lord Fabian, not on acquiring a new bauble for your collection.”
“I can do both,” Hammond said. “My carriage is big enough for two bits of baggage.”
“Who are you calling baggage?” Penny snapped in mock offence. He needed to stop playing the fool and start working out a way to escape before the situation got the better of him. That was what had saved him as a lad, and it was what would save him now.
“Fetch Lord Fabian and bring him down to the courtyard,” Hammond said as if making a decision. “If you’re so reticent to have the boys here, I’ll take them to someone who will handle them more efficiently.”
“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Penny said, attempting to break away yet again when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
He made it as far as struggling out of Hammond’s grip, but the guard was still right there. He lunged after Penny and wrestled his arms behind his back.
“I’ll go get the other,” Dalhurst said, clearly not pleased with the turn of events.
Penny couldn’t decide if the man’s departure was a good thing or not as Dalhurst headed back up the stairs. Equally unsettling was the appearance of the butler who had been so dismissive of him when he’d arrived the day before.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the butler said, gaping at Hammond as if he wasn’t certain whether to treat the man as a guest or an intruder. “What is the matter here?”
“It’s none of your concern,” Hammond snapped. He then ignored the butler and nodded at the guard. “Take him out to the carriage.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard said, then jerked Penny forcefully in an attempt to get him to move.
Penny used the movement to pretend to stumble. He might not have been strong enough to fight the guard, Hammond, and the butler, but he could slow down his abduction.
“I was just playing around,” he insisted loudly, once again trying to signal to Greer, wherever he was, that he was still in the castle. “Just let me go and we’ll say nothing of it.”
“Would you like me to call for the constable, sir?” the butler asked.
“No!” Hammond barked with such ferocity that the butler leapt back, eyes wide.
For a split second, Penny wondered if the butler might be his greatest ally after all. The man did not appear to know what was happening. Dalhurst had mentioned the servants were unaware of the truth of what was going on.
Before he could do anything with that knowledge, Greer came bursting down the stairs, taking everyone unaware.
“What the devil?” Hammond demanded.
Greer went for him first, punching the man in the face and sending him reeling.
Both the guard and the butler were stunned, but Penny swallowed whatever shock he felt and lunged for Greer.
“The castle is under attack!” he shouted, mind spinning as he scrambled to come up with anything that might help them escape. “Call the constable!”
Blessedly, the butler darted down the hall and disappeared through a door that would, hopefully, take him to the servants’ hall. Whether out of fear or to send for help, Penny didn’t know and didn’t care.
Another stroke of luck was that the guard rushed to help Hammond, who was sprawled on the floor and stunned, instead of attacking Greer and Penny. “Sir?” he asked. “Sir, are you well?”
“Come on,” Greer said, grasping Penny’s hand and pulling him toward the stairs.
Penny went with him, speeding up to the first floor. Halfway there, his mind caught up to what they were doing.
“Where are you going?” he asked breathlessly. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get out of the castle?”
“Lord Fabian.” It was Greer’s only reply, but Penny felt those two words in his gut.
“You found him?” he asked.
Greer didn’t answer. He charged up the stairs, Penny racing with him.
The door of the tower room stood wide open when Penny and Greer reached it, but any hope Penny had that they’d be able to grab Lord Fabian and flee to safety was crushed at once.
Dalhurst had beat them to the room, and as they burst into it, he had a weak, naked, and sagging young man clutched to his side as he tried to loop the man’s arm around his shoulders to help him walk.
“Let him go,” Greer demanded, charging all the way into the room.
“Hammond!” Dalhurst shouted, glancing past Greer and Penny into the landing.
“He’s not coming,” Penny said, striding up to stand by Greer’s side. “You might as well let us all go.”
It was a pointless thing to say, but it had been worth a shot. Surprisingly, Dalhurst dropped the young man, who crumpled backwards onto the room’s small bed. The movement wasn’t a surrender, though. Far from it. Dalhurst reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.