Chapter 29
The moment she stepped inside of the warehouse, Beatrice could sense that something was wrong. She knew at once that she was not alone, but she also knew, with utter certainty, that Rupert was not there.
He would never tell her to come to a decrepit, frightening warehouse in a deserted area and then hide in the shadows. But the presence that she felt the moment she entered was certainly hiding. And it wanted her to be afraid.
Goosebumps shuddered up her arms, and the back of her neck prickled as she felt eyes boring into her. Somehow, she kept herself from screaming. But she turned at once and tried to run back through the door that had just slammed shut behind her.
Then, hands were grabbing her. Hands that came from both sides of her, reaching out of the darkness and fastening around her arms, holding her in place.
She screamed. It was ripped from her throat, ricocheting around the empty warehouse, bouncing off of the walls. But the scream did nothing. The hands had her, and she could not move.
She tried, of course. She tried flailing this way and that, trying to dislodge whoever had grabbed her. But they held tight, and then she heard voices. As her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, she saw two figures emerging from out of the darkness on either side of her.
Sir Reginald and Miss Isabella Thornton.
“Do not even try to struggle,” Sir Reginald snapped, as his fingers dug into skin, so tightly that she knew he would leave a bruise. “We have you, and there is no escape now.”
“Listen to him,” Isabella snarled. Her hair was beginning to come down from her coiffure, and she looked more wild and dishevelled than Beatrice had ever seen her. “He will not hesitate to hurt you if you try to get away from us.”
“Let me go!” Beatrice shouted, although she knew, even as she said it, that it was pointless.
Sir Reginald let out a cold laugh at this. “You can try to bargain and beg all you want, Miss Ashford, but none of it will help you. We have you, and you will not be escaping unless your fiancé does exactly as we tell him to.”
Beatrice tried struggling once more, but Sir Reginald’s hands only tightened on her. She let out a cry of pain and finally fell still, looking between the two of them, her heart hammering.
“That is better,” Sir Reginald cooed. “Now, what shall we do with you, Miss Ashford?” He smiled at her, a cruel, terrible smile that made her stomach churn with fear.
“What do you want?” She snarled, even though she already knew.
“We want your fiancé’s title,” Reginald said, “the one that should have been mine by all rights, and which might have been by now, had you not got in our way.”
“Me?” Beatrice stared at him in shock. “What have I done?”
“It was your presence on the road that made it impossible for us to end him right then and there,” Sir Reginald said, raising an eyebrow at her as if it was obvious.
“My hired guns told me that they could not kill an innocent lady, nor could they get any closer and try to shoot Rupert again, in case you were able to identify them later to the authorities. Very unfortunate, I must say. This whole matter would have been dealt with weeks ago, had you not been with him.”
Beatrice said nothing to this. It was madness, to think that if she had not snuck away from Mrs. Hughes and fallen in a river, only to be rescued by Rupert, that he might be dead right now.
She had never been so grateful for her stubbornness than that moment.
“I was not there when you tried to kill him the other day,” she murmured.
“No,” Sir Reginald agreed, “but I do believe that it is your presence that has given my nephew so much persistence. You make him want to fight for himself. Before, he was a wreck of a man, a rake with no purpose other than his own amusement. And now, he actually wants to be the duke.”
Beatrice was not sure she believed this version of Rupert, but she decided it was not worth arguing. Sir Reginald had her in his power, and she did not want to antagonize him. What she wanted was to find a way to try and save Rupert.
“You will lure him here now,” she murmured, “thinking that he will try and rescue me. Will you not?”
“How very clever you are,” Sir Reginald sneered. “Yes, of course we will.”
“And what will you do once he gets here?” she asked. “Will you kill him?”
“That is one option,” Sir Reginald said, and he touched the front pocket of his jacket, where she could see a bulge.
So, he had a gun.
The thought made her sick, and she closed her eyes as dizziness threatened to overwhelm her.
“You do not have to kill him,” she said, opening her eyes and staring at him desperately. “There is another way.”
“Oh? And enlighten me as to what that might be.”
“You can… you can have him sign over the title!”
Sir Reginald looked amused. “Yes. I have thought of that. And I did come prepared for it. But death is so much quicker. So much cleaner. And so much neater. He cannot come back and challenge me later, once he is tired of you and regrets giving up his title for you, if he is dead.”
Anger burned inside of her at Sir Reginald’s taunt, but she forced herself to remain calm and level-headed.
“Yes, but if he is dead, you will be the first person the authorities look for,” she said. “You are the one who stands to benefit from his death, and if they find him with a bullet hole in him, they will certainly investigate you and discover you were the one behind it.”
“I have covered my tracks well,” Sir Reginald said, but Beatrice scoffed.
“I figured out you were the one behind this,” she said. “Which means the authorities will not be long behind me.”
Sir Reginald said nothing for a moment. He looked at Isabella, whose face was very pale, then back at Beatrice, who schooled her expression into one of calm determination.
“But if I have him sign over the title…” he began slowly. “Then the authorities can do nothing about it. They will be forced to accept it.”
“But I cannot trust that the duke would not eventually renege on his word.”
“I would ensure that he did not,” Beatrice said at once.
“And you think you have that kind of power over the duke?”
Beatrice was not at all sure, but she tried to sound convincing as she said, “I do. He loves me.”
Sir Reginald laughed, and on her other side, Isabella’s fingers tightened on her arm.
“Love… love is not enough for a man to give up his titles and wealth, Miss Ashford. But that is a very adorable idea.”
Sweat began to prickle on the back of Beatrice’s neck and under her arm. She had to make him agree… she had to.
“It is enough,” she insisted. “He will do this for me, if I ask him to. And to save his own life! And perhaps, as the duke, you could give us some small living, and we would disappear, stay out of your way.”
Sir Reginald gazed at her for a long moment, then he turned to Isabella. “We will tie her up in the back room,” he said. “And gag her, to keep her from talking.”
“But…” Beatrice began desperately.
“I will try it your way, Miss Ashford, just to see what happens. It amuses me to wonder if my nephew is really so weak and pathetic that he would give up his title for the woman he purportedly loves. If he does, then you will have your living, and you will promise to stay out of my way as I make myself the duke. But if he does not… well then, he will die.” He leered at her. “And then you will, as well.”
Laughing, he dragged her back through the warehouse to a door at the rear.
Inside was a small room, one with windows that were hung with dark curtains.
It was still dark, but nowhere near as pitch black.
There was a chair in the center of the room with ropes all around it, and it was into this that Sir Reginald shoved her.
He and Isabella then proceeded to tie her tightly to the chair.
It was very uncomfortable, the prickly rope biting into her arms and wrists and legs, cutting off circulation, but she did not scream.
There was no point.
They would not let her go, and there was no one around to hear it, anyway.
“I shall wait outside for the arrival of my nephew,” Sir Reginald said to Isabella. “Put a gag on her, so that she does not make any noise. I do not want him knowing that she is here, or attempting any sort of rescue.”
His eyes flickered to Beatrice. “And I do not want her screaming if I have to shoot him.”
He left the room, closing the door firmly behind him, leaving Beatrice and Isabella alone. Beatrice was so afraid that she felt she would be sick. She stared up at Isabella with wide eyes that were already beginning to stream with tears.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered, before Isabella could put any sort of gag on her.
Isabella scowled at her. “You know why I am doing this,” she snapped. “I want to be the Duchess of St. James.”
“And that is worth the life of the duke?” Beatrice asked incredulously. “I thought you cared for him!”
Isabella hesitated, then passed a hand over her brow.
“I do care for him,” she said, her voice quavering slightly.
“I have always cared for Rupert, but he is the one who does not care for me!” she added viciously.
“For years, I pursued him! For years, we were close friends, sharing confidence, spending night after night at dreary balls together. But never once did he look at me with anything like love or affection! I was sure he did… sure that he would marry me… but he made it clear that he thought of me as a friend only. A friend! How can a person be so close to someone else, share so much with them, and just see them as a friend? It is impossible!”
Beatrice licked her lips. She thought of her friendship with Nathaniel. It certainly was not impossible, but she did not say that.
“I am sorry,” she said instead. “That must have been very difficult. And even more so to see him being a rake with other ladies.”