Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Now is not the time to be weak, my dear,” a sweet voice softly scolded.
Nigel had been surprisingly gentle as he brought her into the room with the other women, but even so, Ellen sank to the floor and bowed her head against her knees the moment he released her. She sniffled as she heard the kind tone and raised her head.
A beautiful young woman with red hair and green eyes smiled at her. She reached out and tentatively touched Ellen’s bruised jaw. She winced and pulled back as her breaths started to come in shorter bursts; her chest felt tight and constrained.
“What is your name?” the woman asked, helping Ellen back onto her feet.
“Ellen,” she rasped out.
“I am Deborah,” the woman replied, pushing Ellen’s mussed dark curls from her face. She then pulled out a kerchief and began to wipe her tears from her cheeks. “You cannot show them fear, Ellen. Even if you feel it threatening to take over you, you must not.”
Ellen started to bow her head, but before she could get too far, Deborah had her finger crooked under her bruised chin and was forcing her gaze back up.
“Chin up, Ellen,” Deborah urged. “Do not let them see your fear. There are those out there who enjoy such a thing, and you do not want to end up being purchased by such a man! There are those out there that make women mistresses, and some that only use their win for a night. There are others, though, who can be kind. They are lonely for female company and only wish to talk. A rare few are here to take on wives so they do not have to wade through the stress of courting. You have a chance!”
Ellen’s eyes widened as shock and fear trembled anew within her veins, but she snapped her mouth shut and quickly brushed the fresh tears from her eyes.
“There you are,” Deborah said with a satisfied nod. “Do not give them—or the man who brought you here—the satisfaction of your tears.”
“Is there any way I can get out of this?” Ellen asked, grabbing the woman’s hand just as she was about to walk away to help another crying woman.
Deborah turned to the side, just enough to show off the women in front of the mirrors on the other side of the wall.
“You want to know why some are happy to be here, and some are not?” she asked.
Ellen quickly nodded.
“It is because the happy ones know the rules. This might be an auction, but the lady still chooses. If she is purchased by someone she does not like, she can invoke her right to be sold again. The house supports that because, when a woman enters independently, all the funds go to the house instead of being split with the guardian. It is the same as if she does not want to go home with her ‘guardian’.”
As she said the word, Deborah gave her a knowing look; she knew exactly who put the bruises on Ellen’s face.
“When you go on stage, try to find a man you would be comfortable going home with, and speak to him with your eyes. Lead him to win the bid,” Deborah urged.
“But I do not know how to do that!” Ellen whispered frantically, “And they all wear masks! How am I supposed to know which ones are good and which ones are bad?”
“That one!” someone snapped from the doorway, interrupting them.
Ellen and Deborah both turned to the voice, and Ellen’s fear threatened to override her again as she found a woman pointing directly at her.
“Trust yourself to make the right choice,” Deborah whispered, giving her a gentle shove. “Go. All will be well.”
Ellen was certain all would be well as she walked on trembling legs toward the brightly lit stage.
All you have to do is beg me. Benedict’s words echoed in her ear as she raised her hand and winced at the bright light. All you have to do is beg and I will take you home. This can all be over if you just choose me.
It would never be over, though. Ellen knew that, even as part of her screamed to give in to Benedict’s trick and stop the auction.
Even as a chorus of eager shouts and a mass of hungry eyes settled upon her as the bid began.
She had refused to give him the satisfaction, no matter the cost. Ellen lowered her hand, and forced her eyes to slowly scan the crowd as men started to shout out numbers.
She found Benedict almost immediately. He was the only one in the crowd not wearing a mask. Instead, he wore a devilish smirk, as if he knew at any moment, she was going to yield and start to beg.
“Five-hundred pounds!” a man called, his voice old and hoarse.
She looked toward him, and could not hide the sneer on her face as she saw tufts of gray hair sticking up above his masked face.
“Six-hundred!” another called.
Her gaze shot to that voice, bile threatening to rise in her throat as she saw the most obese man she’d ever seen in her life. She glanced back at Benedict, who had been tracking the bidders, too. He looked back up at her and shrugged, with a look that said, your choice, on his smug face.
“Seven-hundred!” a man called from the back where she could not see.
The bidding started to slow, and Ellen’s panic once more began to rise. Forgetting Deborah’s advice completely, she cast a pleading look into the crowd.
Stop this. Someone, please stop this!
“Seven-hundred, going once!”
Please, God!
“Going twice!”
Then a man close to the center stage raised his gray mask.
Familiar features looked back at her, and she recognized the Duke of Blackford.
Unlike the others, he did not seem filled with frenzied desperation.
In fact, he looked as disgusted as she felt.
His green eyes were sharp and full of anger as he stared up at her, as if he were trying to relay some quiet message to her. Then she remembered his words.
I can help you. Did he hurt you?
Hoping she was not too late to accept his offer, she silently mouthed please in his direction.
At once the duke snapped his mask back over his face with one hand as he raised the other high in the air.
“Two-thousand pounds!” he bellowed, far louder than any of the other bidders thus far.
Hope sparked in her chest as she cast a glance at Benedict. His smirk was gone, and his gaze kept shooting back to the Duke of Blackford. The room went quiet for a moment. Even the auctioneer waited a beat.
“Four thousand!” Benedict called out, staring not at Ellen, but at the man winning her bid.
“Eighteen thousand!” the duke roared.
Even in the crowded darkness Benedict stood in, Ellen saw him pale.
“Twenty thousand!” another bid came in from the back again.
Ellen looked back at the duke, her eyes imploring him to not give up.
“Fifty thousand to be done with it!” the duke’s deep voice boomed through the auction.
“Wait!” Benedict shouted, but his cry fell on deaf ears as the auctioneer slammed his gavel and declared the winner of the auction.
Ellen expelled a deep, long-held breath as she saw the Duke of Blackford already heading to the side of the stage to claim her.
On trembling legs, she forced herself to move off the side of the stage to meet him.
She raised her arm to take his extended hand, but just as their fingertips touched, Benedict appeared.
“No!” she breathed, feeling his iron-clad grip wrap around her hand and shove her behind him.
No, no, no! I did not beg for you!
“You are not taking her,” Benedict stated, squaring up against the Duke of Blackford.
“Let her go.” The duke’s voice was deep and full of warning as he said those three small words.
“Problem?” Nigel asked, appearing from around the stage.
“Yes,” Benedict quickly replied. Ellen did not miss the panic in his tone, and despite herself, she felt a sliver of wicked glee cutting through her worry. “I am this one’s guardian, and I have changed my mind. I do not want her sold.”
Ellen glanced anxiously around Benedict’s side to the duke. He seemed strangely calm and poised. Nigel, however, was red-faced and enraged at Benedict’s announcement.
“The sale has already been completed,” Nigel snarled. “You know the rules better than anyone here. You should have spoken up before she went on stage! Or, better yet, not have put her on the stage at all!”
“It has not been completed,” Benedict countered, his tone growing more panicked as the duke chortled behind his mask. “Has he handed over the money yet? Does he even have that much?”
“If you would look to your accountant’s table, Mr. Nigel, you will see my associate taking care of that as we speak,” the duke calmly replied.
They all turned to see precisely that.
“I will pay more,” Benedict said hurriedly to Nigel. “I can get the funds to you by the morning.”
“No!” Ellen spoke up.
All three men turned their attention back to her. Ellen faltered for a moment under their intense gazes, but she drew strength as she remembered Deborah’s words.
“The auction house makes more money when a woman chooses to enter on her own, yes?” she asked, staring at Nigel.
He let out a grunt as he nodded.
Benedict paled further as he shook his head.
“I am speaking as a woman who chose to enter this auction, then,” she stated defiantly, tossing a hate-filled glance at Benedict. “I am choosing to give my bid completely to the house as long as you uphold this man’s purchase.”
“You cannot do that!” Benedict snarled.
“She can, and she did,” Nigel barked back.
“Do not make me get Stanhope involved in this,” Benedict cautioned as Nigel reached for Ellen. “He will take my side, and you will lose your job!”
Nigel chortled as he wrapped his hand around Ellen’s arm. “Doubt it.”
Nigel’s grip was nowhere near as brutal as Benedict’s, but it still stung as he pulled her away from Benedict and pushed her toward the duke.
She stumbled at the last moment, but before she could even gasp in surprise, hard, muscular arms gently wrapped around her and placed her safely and firmly on her feet.
“No,” Benedict said, shaking his head, as he reached up to yank at his hair. “No. This is not how this was supposed to happen.”
“Not for you, anyway,” Ellen said bitterly.
Benedict’s cold eyes sparked with fury as he lunged for her.
Ellen flinched and closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the fresh bruises he was no doubt about to give her.
She felt nothing. She opened her eyes, and her mouth fell open as she found Benedict dangling wide-eyed and red-faced from the duke’s grip as he held her torturer up in the air by the neck.
“You do not touch her again.” The duke’s voice was cold and full of fury as he spoke the words in an eerily calm, low tone.
Benedict began to cough as he kept squirming in the duke’s grip. His now bloodshot eyes turned to Ellen, and that was when the duke gave him a violent shake.
“Do not even look at her,” he snarled.
“It is time to go,” a man said.
Ellen turned slowly from watching her cousin’s face turn purple, and found another man in a gray mask standing on the duke’s opposite side.
“Yes, it is,” Nigel agreed gruffly. “You got your woman. We got our money. Best you leave now. We don’t allow fighting in here.”
Still, the duke did not let go or look away from the man in his grip.
“Please,” Ellen whispered, tentatively reaching up and placing her hands gently on the duke’s biceps. “I want to go.”
“Never again.” The duke aimed his growling words at Benedict, then released him.
He fell to the floor in a coughing fit, clutching his throat as he tried to rasp out Ellen’s name. It was too late. The hand that had once been strangling her cousin was now wrapped firmly and gently around Ellen’s, and she was being led out of the auction by the Duke of Blackford.