Twenty-five
In which we learn what happened, a mere ten minutes earlier.
Had it been an hour? Surely it had been an hour.
Lucy took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing nerves. Why hadn’t anyone thought to install a clock in the washroom? Shouldn’t someone have realized that eventually someone would find herself tied to the water closet and might wish to know the hour?
Really, it was just a matter of time.
Lucy drummed the fingers of her right hand against the floor. Quickly, quickly, index to pinky, index to pinky. Her left hand was tied so that the pads of her fingers faced up, so she flexed, then bent, then flexed, then bent, then—
“Eeeeeuuuuuhhh!”
Lucy groaned with frustration.
Groaned? Grunted.
Groanted.
It should have been a word.
Surely it had been an hour. It must have been an hour.
And then . . .
Footsteps.
Lucy jerked to attention, glaring at the door. She was furious. And hopeful. And terrified. And nervous. And—
Good God, she wasn’t meant to possess this many simultaneous emotions. One at a time was all she could manage. Maybe two.
The knob turned and the door jerked backward, and—
Jerked? Lucy had about one second to sense the wrongness of this. Gregory wouldn’t jerk the door open. He would have—
“Uncle Robert?”
“You,” he said, his voice low and furious.
“I—”
“You little whore,” he bit off.
Lucy flinched. She knew he held no great affection for her, but still, it hurt.
“You don’t understand,” she blurted out, because she had no idea what she should say, and she refused—she absolutely refused to say, “I’m sorry.”
She was done with apologizing. Done.
“Oh, really?” he spat out, crouching down to her level. “Just what don’t I understand? The part about your fleeing your wedding?”
“I didn’t flee,” she shot back. “I was abducted! Or didn’t you notice that I am tied to the water closet?”
His eyes narrowed menacingly. And Lucy began to feel scared.
She shrank back, her breath growing shallow. She had long feared her uncle—the ice of his temper, the cold, flat stare of his disdain.
But she had never felt frightened.
“Where is he?” her uncle demanded.
Lucy did not pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know!” she protested. “Do you think he would have tied me up if he trusted me?”
Her uncle stood and cursed. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy asked carefully. She wasn’t sure what was going on, and she wasn’t sure just whose wife she would be, at the end of the proverbial day, but she was fairly certain that she ought to stall for time.
And reveal nothing. Nothing of import.
“This! You!” her uncle spat out. “Why would he abduct you and leave you here, in Fennsworth House?”
“Well,” Lucy said slowly. “I don’t think he could have got me out without someone seeing.”
“He couldn’t have got into the party without someone seeing, either.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“How,” her uncle demanded, leaning down and putting his face far too close to hers, “did he grab you without your consent?”
Lucy let out a short puff of a breath. The truth was easy. And innocuous. “I went to my room to lie down,” she said. “He was waiting for me there.”
“He knew which room was yours?”
She swallowed. “Apparently.”
Her uncle stared at her for an uncomfortably long moment. “People have begun to notice your absence,” he muttered.
Lucy said nothing.
“It can’t be helped, though.”
She blinked. What was he talking about?
He shook his head. “It’s the only way.”
“I—I beg your pardon?” And then she realized—he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to himself.
“Uncle Robert?” she whispered.
But he was already slicing through her bindings.
Slicing? Slicing? Why did he have a knife?
“Let’s go,” he grunted.
“Back to the party?”
He let out a grim chuckle. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Panic began to rise in her chest. “Where are you taking me?”
He yanked her to her feet, one of his arms wrapped viselike around her. “To your husband.”
She managed to twist just far enough to look at his face. “My—Lord Haselby?”
“Have you another husband?”
“But isn’t he at the party?”
“Stop asking so many questions.”
She looked frantically about. “But where are you taking me?”
“You are not going to ruin this for me,” he hissed. “Do you understand?”
“No,” she pleaded. Because she didn’t. She no longer understood anything.
He yanked her hard against him. “I want you to listen to me, because I will say this only once.”
She nodded. She wasn’t facing him, but she knew he could feel her head move against his chest.
“This marriage will go forward,” he said, his voice deadly and low. “And I will personally see to it that it is consummated tonight.”
“What?”
“Don’t argue with me.”
“But—” She dug her heels in as he started to drag her to the door.
“For God’s sake, don’t fight me,” he muttered. “It’s nothing that you wouldn’t have had to do, anyway. The only difference is that you will have an audience.”
“An audience?”
“Indelicate, but I will have my proof.”
She began to struggle in earnest, managing to free one arm long enough to swing wildly through the air. He quickly restrained her, but his momentary shift in posture allowed her to kick him hard in the shins.
“God damn it,” he muttered, wrenching her close. “Cease!”
She kicked out again, knocking over an empty chamber pot.
“Stop it!” He jammed something against her ribs. “Now!”
Lucy stilled instantly. “Is that a knife?” she whispered.
“Remember this,” he said, his words hot and ugly against her ear. “I cannot kill you, but I can cause you great pain.”
She swallowed a sob. “I am your niece.”
“I don’t care.”
She swallowed and asked, her voice quiet, “Did you ever?”
He nudged her toward the door. “Care?”
She nodded.
For a moment there was silence, and Lucy was left with no means to interpret it. She could not see her uncle’s face, could sense no change in his stance. She could do nothing but stare at the door, at his hand as he reached for the knob.
And then he said, “No.”
She had her answer, then.
“You were a duty,” he clarified. “One I fulfilled, and one I am pleased to discharge. Now come with me, and don’t say a word.”
Lucy nodded. His knife was pressing ever harder against her ribs and already she had heard a soft crunching sound as it poked through the stiff fabric of her bodice.