The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,67

and be on our way.”

The carriage lurched to a stop. “That wasn’t a long trip. We’ll be done and at Martha’s before we know it.”

“Shut up, you stupid cow. We’re to be quiet.”

The door opened beside Elspeth’s head, and rough hands pulled her out. She opened her eyes and tried to get her bearings, but her legs would not hold her and she slumped to the ground. The two men followed her out of the carriage.

“She’s delivered. Right and tight. Where’s our money?” the man from the carriage asked.

“You’ll get your money,” a gravelly voice replied. “Go on over there to me man. He’s got your gold.”

The two men from the carriage walked to the alleyway alongside the building. There were no nearby streetlamps, and everything felt and sounded deserted. She had no idea what part of the city she was in, although she could faintly smell the ocean and old fish. She was somewhere near the harbor. She slanted her eyes to where the men walked and swallowed a cry as a man came out of the shadows and stabbed the carriage man in the chest. The other one, the one in the dress clothes who’d lured her and Alexander’s aunt, saw his partner go down and turned to run, but another man caught his arm. He wrestled free but had not gone ten steps when a gun fired and he fell. They would leave no loose ends, Elspeth thought.

“What’ll we do with the bodies?”

“Drag ’em to the alleyway. We’ll be gone soon enough.”

Someone took her arm and pulled her up, dragging her toward a door in the building. The night air was bracing, made goose flesh rise on her arms, but it cleared her head further, and she would need all of her wits to save herself. She leaned down as if in pain and felt the side of her leg with her elbow. Her knife was still there!

“Come on, girl,” a rough voice said at her side, pulling her along by her arm. “Unless you want to end up like your carriage mates.”

Someone behind her laughed, a sing-song giggle that made a shiver trail down her back. She walked beside the rough-voiced man and stood still, looking around the door for any identifying markings, while he put a key in a metal lock. He pushed her inside, into the pitch dark, and she heard another giggle.

“Scared of the dark? You should be!”

A lamp flared behind her, and she could make out the large room she was in, a warehouse, she guessed, but one that had not been used for ages. It smelled of dust and a boggy, stagnant pond. She could see stacks of wooden crates and others haphazardly opened, their contents spilling out.

The rough-voiced man pushed her forward to another door and held her by the neck, squeezing until she felt as though she would faint and then running a finger down her neck and back. The top button on the back of her dress popped to the floor. She took in a jittery breath, knowing his intent, wondering how she would live through it. If she would live through it.

“Let me relieve you of these lovely pearls. Family heirloom?” He laughed as he took the pearls from around her neck, brushing her breasts with his knuckles as he did.

“Put her inside and lock it,” the giggler said in a serious voice. “The letter’s been sent. Is Furbelow and his boy still outside? Go check.”

The door beside her opened and she was pushed inside, falling to the dirt floor. She’d not given them any idea that she was capable, only that she was biddable, and she would bide her time before revealing that she was no such thing. She pulled herself to her knees and stood, inching toward a sliver of light on the wall ahead. She heard critters scatter and felt something run across her velvet shoe. She refused to think about it. Concentrated on her sisters’ faces, on Payden and James and Aunt Murdoch. They would be frantic. She would make them proud even if she died doing so. She sniffled and then straightened her shoulders. She would not, she would absolutely not, think about Alexander Pendergast and how shabbily she’d treated him, maybe the last time in her life she would ever see him.

Alexander and James went back to where the Thompsons still stood on the side of the empty ballroom with MacAvoy. Servants carried full dishes, quickly discarded when the lights went