The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,69
little more until it came off in her hands. She fit it back to its nail holes, leaving it away from the window and lighting the room enough for her to see.
There were definitely rats in the room. One large one had been bold enough to creep over and smell her feet. She kicked it viciously and heard a thud and squeaks from its brethren as it hit the corner of the room. She crept around the room, looking for anything she could use as a weapon other than her knife, but there was nothing, and even if there was, what would happen if she hit one of them over the head? He would shout and bring the others. She must kill one of them. She must kill them and do it quickly. She had no choice if she was to gain a few moments. Her hands quivered, and she touched her knife through her dress and petticoats, checking the thin pocket that held the dagger in its sheath.
The door opened, and light spilled into the room from behind the rough-voiced man. She flattened herself against the wall and wondered if this was the time to kill him. He took a quick look over his shoulder and must have liked what he saw. He pushed the door closed behind him.
“It’ll go easier for you if you’re nice to me, you know,” he said.
“Why would I be nice to you?” she whispered and was glad that her voice shook. Let him think she was fragile.
He touched her hair, running his fingers through it, leaned closed, and smelled it in his hand. “Ah. That’s the perfume of a nice young lady, it is.” He wound his fingers through the curls at the back of her head, holding her still.
Elspeth closed her eyes. She would go somewhere else in her mind, she thought, somewhere with Alexander, somewhere clean and new, somewhere away from the physical reality of what was going to happen to her body. He pressed his mouth to hers and grabbed her breast, twisting and pulling. She winced but could not pull away. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the fabric, and thankful there was no leather or heavy vest or coat. It would make killing him easier.
“Go ahead. Fight a bit. I like that,” he growled and kissed her neck and the tops of her breasts.
The door opened wide and lit the room. “Hands off the merchandise,” the giggly man said.
The rough-voiced man groaned in her ear and grabbed her bound hands, pushing them against his crotch and rubbing them over his erection. “Who’s to know?” he said. “She ain’t going to tell anybody.”
“Wait till we have the boy and have him on the ship. Then you and the others can fuck her all you want.”
He dragged a finger over her chin. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve got a big cock, and you’ll come to like it, darling.”
The door closed, and the light dimmed. She spit in the dirt and slumped down the rough, dirty wall, the scuttling around her less important than her knees giving way. She said a prayer then and asked for forgiveness. She asked for strength. She asked that Alexander would know that she’d not been angry at him at the party, just those short hours ago, only that she wanted him beside her. That she was selfish. She took a deep breath and pulled her bound hands to her mouth, pulling the rope with her teeth.
The parlor was silent other than the occasional whispered exchange between Aunt Murdoch and Mrs. McClintok and the clink of a teacup on a saucer. Alexander was charged with pent-up anger, his heel lifting and dropping in a staccato rhythm. James paced in front of the fireplace, and Kirsty sat beside their aunt, holding her hand and sniffling. The room was dark aside from the light from a low blaze in the fireplace. MacAvoy was at the front door, and a guard was at the kitchen doors. Payden and Robert sat beside each other on a low footstool. Graham stood sentry by the door to the parlor.
James had taken Alexander upstairs when they’d first arrived and given him a dark sweater to wear and grease to blacken his face. He’d put it on liberally and now waited. Sick to his stomach thinking of what she might be going through. Trying to tamp down the need to kill.