Chapter 26
When Maria woke, the world was a single painful throb behind her left eye.
That was the only thing that was immediate. She did not know much else.
Her wrist jerked when she tried to lift her hand, where a thick rope was biting into it. And then all at once, the memories began to return.
A hand on her arm, cloth over her mouth. Her name being called out. And then the face that she saw.
She dragged air into her chest and rolled to her side.
“Mr. Rondell,” she said, and heard how dry her voice was. Parched, even.
“Duchess,” he said, as if the title were a private joke. “Welcome to my home.”
“Why have you brought me here?” she should have screamed the words, but she could not muster up the energy to.
“You want me to tell you everything?” he grinned, as if this were some fantastic joke. “No, it’s nice seeing you again’? It was rather rude of you, really, how you decided to do so abruptly.”
She swallowed. “Untie me.”
There was little use in engaging in whatever strange games he was attempting to play with her.
“Not yet.”
“Then at least water,” the words came out like a sob.
He considered her, then reached for a chipped mug on a crate and held it to her lips. She drank it straight, almost gagging at the rust-like taste. Of course, he had not opted to feed her fresh water.
He withdrew the mug and set it aside. “Better?”
“Why have you brought me here?”
“See, you keep asking questions,” he grinned again. A thought occurred to her that if her hands were not tied, she would have liked to knock that grin right off his face. “But I do not know if you wish to know the answer.”
She pressed her lips together.
“But if you really wish to know,” he continued, grinning, “it was really your own doing. Or rather, your husband's.”
Stephen?
“Really. He brought this on himself,” he continued. “Otherwise, I am quite the gentleman, as you know.”
“You’re holding a bound woman hostage,” she said. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes, I do. Clearly,” he said. “But you are my leverage.”
“Leverage,” Maria said flatly. “So this is revenge.”
“It’s justice,” Owen said. “Your husband humiliated me. He ruined everything I built.”
“You mean the lies you built,” she shot back.
“Stephen told me the truth about you and saved me from your ill intentions. Did you really think the truth would stay hidden for long, and you would not get your reckoning? The ‘private vows’ you whispered to women and then vanished. It makes me sick just to imagine it.”
“Don’t make them out to be so innocent,” his smile twitched. “They knew the game.”
“They were tricked,” she said. “You preyed on them, taking what you wanted and leaving them to pay the price.”
“I gave them attention,” he said. “Better than their own families ever did. And they enjoyed it.”
“That is disgusting,” Maria said. “And Stephen was right to stop you.”
“He tore down my name,” Owen’s eyes hardened. “He told every club. Do you know what that does to a man in this city?”
“It kept others safe,” she said.
“It starved me,” he snapped. “He dragged me through the gutter and called it moral. So I will drag him.”
“By holding me here against my will?” she said. “That’s your brave idea.”
“It’s the fastest way,” he said. “You are what he will do anything for.”
“You deserve prison,” Maria said bitterly. She had never met a man as disgusting as him.
“He won’t put me there if I hold you,” He leaned closer.
“He will. You underestimate his sense of justice,” she said. “And he’ll sleep fine after.”
“You think so?” His voice was calm now. “He’ll see the trauma that I’ll put you through. That stain doesn’t wash.”
“The only stain here is yours,” Maria said. “You chose this.”
“I chose a life,” Owen said. “A good one with willing women.”
“Not willing,” she said. “Fooled.”
“Same result,” He shrugged.
She stared at him, sick. Did he have no conscience at all?
“Stephen didn’t ruin you. He showed people what you were.”
“And that cost me everything,” Owen said. “So I’ll cost him. When I break him through you, everyone will see that too.”
“You think you’re clever,” she mustered up the courage, “But you’re a coward. You couldn’t fight him straight, so you went after a woman. You really are bankrupt in more ways than one,” she said.
“Defending your poor little husband so ardently?” He stepped close again. “You really love him, it seems.”
“Yes,” the words came immediately. It was no longer even a question in her mind what she felt for him.
“And does he return those feelings?” Owen grinned. “Or is he just keeping you in that marriage as a way to protect you?”
“That is between us,” she said. “Not you.”
“But it makes you easier to use,” he said. “You’ll keep quiet, and you’ll try not to make it worse for him. That helps me.”
“You are wrong,” Maria said. “I will do anything to make it worse for you.”
“Sharp tongue for a duchess,” He laughed once. “You want another lesson?”
“Try it,” she said, voice flat. “And when he walks in, he will not let you live this through. Didn’t you learn the lesson the first time?”
He held her stare for a long second, then smirked and stepped back. “Talk big while you’re tied.”
“I won’t be tied long.” She held his gaze. “You’re a small man, and you will have your reckoning.”
Owen’s smile flickered, just once.
“You will not take that tone with me,” he said.
“Why,” she whispered, “because I remind you what you are?”
His hand lifted, and the slap cracked across her cheek, a flaring pain that made her ear ring. It was not the worst she had endured in her life, but it had the peculiar cruelty of being given as a lesson by a man who had decided he was owed something that he did not even deserve.
He stared a second at what he had done and then set his mouth hard. “Be quiet.”
She swallowed. Her lip had gone numb.
“I will be quiet,” she managed, “when I have nothing left to say to you.”
“You have plenty left,” he said. “Save it for him.”
As if summoned by the word, sound rose beyond the door, followed by the sound of running footsteps. Owen’s head snapped toward the noise.
Was it him? A raw hope took root in Maria’s heart.
“Stay here,” Owen snarled, and turned for the door. “Hold the front!”
The corridor exploded with noise again, and the door flew open, slammed back, then swung wide.
Stephen burst into the room, and he came straight for her without looking at anyone else.
“Maria,” there was a desperation in his voice that she had never heard before from him.
“Stephen.”
This was not the reunion that she had hoped to have, but the relief she felt was palpable.
He took one step toward her.
One of Owen’s staff hurled himself at his back. Stephen turned without looking, caught the man’s arm, and drove him into the jamb. The man crumpled. Stephen’s hand flexed once, shaking off the impact, and then he was at her side again.
“Hold still,” his hands immediately went to work at the ropes, trying to bind her hands together.
“Not much else I can do at the moment,” she sighed.
Stephen worked at the knot, and the rope came free. The second knot slipped faster, and as soon as her wrists were loose, Maria went straight into his arms. He caught her hard and held on, one hand at the back of her head, the other around her waist.
“Stephen,” she began to sob into his chest.
“I’m here now,” he told her, and she looked up at him. That was when he noticed the red mark on her cheek. His body went cold so fast that it scared her. “Did he hurt you?”
“I…” Maria stuttered out.
“How charming,” Owen interrupted them. “But it’s rather rude to storm into a man’s house without permission, Your Grace.”
Stephen didn’t look at Owen. He kept his gaze on Maria. “Who did this to you?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. She did not know how to admit something so humiliating.
Owen, not seeing the shift in Stephen, laughed.
“I did,” he said. “Call it my answer for what you did to me. Consider it the start of your lesson.”
Stephen reached him in two strides. He hit Owen once, then again. Owen crashed into the chair and the wall. Stephen drew back for a third blow.
“Stephen!” Maria’s voice snapped through the room.
He stopped at once.
“I’m here,” he said, steadying himself and crossing over to her. “I’ve got you. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No,” she shook her head.
Owen pushed himself up, swaying. He wiped his mouth, saw the blood on his hand, and stepped toward Stephen with his fist raised. But before he could swing, heavy boots pounded down the hall. Two constables burst through the doorway.
“That’s enough,” the first one said.
Owen froze, then tried to shove past. The second constable caught his arm, twisted, and forced it behind his back. The first grabbed the other’s wrist and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.
“This is my house!” Owen shouted, struggling. “All of you are trespassing.”
“You’re under arrest for abducting the Duchess of Verwood,” the constable said. “You’ll speak to the magistrate.”
Owen tried one last lunge toward Stephen, but to no end. The constable pushed him to the wall and held him there.
“He won’t be bothering you anymore, Your Grace,” the constable said to Stephen, who still looked just as murderous as he did a moment ago when he was beating Owen to a pulp.
But the moment he turned to face her fully, his expression softened. It suddenly did not matter anymore where they were, or that Owen was struggling and shouting in the background as he was being carried out.
All that mattered was that they were together again.
He seemed suddenly uncertain what to do with his hands.
“May I….” he started, “Maria, may I lift you? Your legs…”
“They will hold,” she said, trying them. They wobbled, though. He saw the wobble and stepped in, hands at her waist.
“I’ve got you.”
She let herself lean against him as he lifted her up and carried her over to where she could sit down.
“There,” he said softly. “Steady.”
She was not steady. He glanced at the welt on her cheek and winced.
“I should fetch a cloth; you need treatment.”
“Later,” she said. “This is enough for me now.”
His eyes moved to her mouth, then away at once.
“We will go back home,” he sighed. “Everyone has been worried about you. This… I cannot even imagine what would have happened if I had not arrived in time.”
“But you did,” she said. “And somehow, I held onto hope that you would.”
“Owen is a dangerous man,” his lips pressed together. “More so than I thought. If I had any idea that he had such inclinations of revenge, I would have never let him see the light of day since the day he was ousted from the city.”
“He’s gone now,” she sighed, looking at the door. “And I don’t think he will be bothering us any longer.”
“I will make sure of it.”
She held back on what she really wished to say next. But Stephen caught on.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure if…” she said. “What does this change between us?”
“Everything,” his reply was firm. “But let me get you to safety first. We will talk about this.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” she said as he began to gently lead her out of the room, “ And I’m glad you came.”
“I would have come if every road were shut.”
“Even if I didn’t want to see you?”
“Especially then,” he said, without pride.
There was the sound of footsteps again, and a disheveled Nicholas appeared at the door.
“Maria?”
“Here,” she called.
“Good God,” Nicholas said, taking in her cheek, the rope on the floor, Stephen’s bloody knuckles. “Are you…”
“I am,” Maria said, “Stephen came just in time, and he rescued me.”
Nicholas pressed a hand over his eyes, then down his face.
“I should never have let you walk alone.”
“Nicholas,” she said gently.
“I promised to keep you safe,” he went on, voice breaking, “and I failed in the simplest way.”
“You didn’t fail me,” Maria said. “You can’t stand between me and every bad thing.”
The two exchanged a look. Somehow, their bond felt even closer now.
“Constables have him,” Nicholas reported to Stephen now, “They’ll carry him to Bow Street and then to the magistrate. I promised to sign whatever is required twice.”
“I will add my name to yours,” Stephen nodded once.
“You will add your fingerprints as well,” Nicholas’s eyes flicked to Stephen’s knuckles.
“He deserved worse,” Stephen said.
“Yes,” Nicholas said, “and the law will provide an acceptable portion of ‘worse’. Meanwhile, we need to get Maria to safety.”
“Let’s go,” Stephen said, leading her out. “This nightmare is over.”