Chapter 23 #3
“Run,” she gasped out, coughing as the breath was knocked from her lungs. She looked up at Nicholas, her vision swimming. “Nicholas, run!”
“No, Mama! I cannot leave you!”
“Run, get help!” Her voice cracked sharply, a desperate, commanding shriek that echoed off every pane of glass. “Go now, Nicholas! Run!”
Charles scrambled through the dirt, grabbing ruthlessly at Nicholas’s ankles again. Penelope threw herself forward, using both of her hands to shove Charles’s chest backward with a frantic, adrenaline-fueled strength.
“Run!”
Nicholas hesitated for one terrible, heart-stopping second longer, his huge eyes filled with absolute panic.
Then Hector barked savagely beside him. The massive hound lunged forward, his teeth fully bared, snapping inches from Charles’s face. Charles recoiled instinctively, throwing his arms up to protect his throat. “Get that damned monster away from me!”
“Go, Nicholas!”
Finally, the boy bolted. He turned and tore toward the back doors of the glasshouse.
“Hector, guard him!” Penelope cried out.
The loyal hound turned and tore after her son immediately, his heavy paws throwing up damp earth as they raced through the exit.
Charles swore viciously, a string of foul oaths ripping from his throat as he realized the boy was escaping toward the main house. He lunged toward the central path, intending to give chase.
Penelope lunged from the ground, her fingers wrapping desperately around the muddy hem of Charles’s dark coat sleeve. “No! You will not touch him!”
Charles spun back toward her, and the expression in his dark eyes made the very blood in her veins run dead cold. It was the look of a man who had lost all reason.
“You stupid, worthless woman,” he panted.
Charles seized her by the collar of her gown, dragging her upright.
“There,” he panted, his breath hot and ragged against her skin. “There is the sweet obedience you should have learned years ago at Romwich Hall.”
Penelope shoved against his chest wildly, her nails clawing at his heavy coat. “Let me go!”
“No.”
He dragged her flush against his rigid frame, pinning her arms down. His hands moved greedily, disgustingly over her back, her waist, and her hips.
Penelope fought with every ounce of strength she had left, twisting and kicking hard enough to make both of them stumble blindly into an iron support beam.
Please God, she prayed silently, let Nicholas’ legs carry him fast enough. Let him reach Malcolm.
Above them, the glass panes rattled dangerously from the sheer force of the impact.
Charles’s face twisted with a demonic rage. Slowly, his large hand rose and closed tightly around her throat.
“He only married you because I forced his hand in London,” Charles sneered, his eyes glittering with an unhinged, feverish light.
“No…”
“Yes! I threatened his reputation, and he took you to save his own pride. And when he eventually tires of your tears, and your bastard son, and your endless, pathetic fear… what then, Penelope? Where will you run when he turns on you?”
“He will never… he will never become you,” she choked out through her restricted throat.
Gathering every remaining shred of her strength, she jerked her knee upward with a savage, blinding speed, striking Charles squarely between his legs.
Charles doubled over instantly, a strangled, agonizing curse ripping from his throat as his grip vanished.
She tore herself free the exact second his hands released her and ran blindly down the central path. Her heavy silk skirts tangled around her legs, threatening to trip her as she sprinted frantically between the endless rows of planters.
The rain was hammering the glass roof overhead now with a deafening, thunderous force that drowned out the sound of her own gasping breaths.
Behind her, a roar of pure animalistic fury echoed through the glasshouse. “Penelope!”
She reached the midpoint of the path when a heavy hand suddenly caught the trailing back fabric of her green silk gown. The expensive silk ripped with a loud, violent tear.
Penelope screamed at the top of her lungs as Charles yanked her backward with brutal strength, the force of the pull nearly throwing her entirely off her feet.
Charles caught both of her wrists in his iron grip this time, twisting them painfully behind her back as he slammed her down against the nearest long wooden potting table. A dozen clay planters shattered to the stone floor around them, raining shards and dark earth over her slippers.
Penelope fought wildly, bucking her hips, biting, and screaming beneath the crushing weight of his body.
And then, somewhere beyond the deafening roar of the pouring rain and the sound of crashing glass—
Hector barked savagely.
Charles froze instantly, his entire body stiffening above her.
Penelope heard it too, cutting through the darkness like a holy savior.
Malcolm.
A wave of relief so violent it physically dizzied her hit her chest, her knees nearly giving out beneath the potting table.
Charles looked toward the distant front doors, a sudden, blinding panic flashing across his aristocratic features for the very first time.