The fluttering of nerves began in her abdomen, and her chest constricted as both fear and anger battled for control over her emotions. “What do you intend to do with me?”
“I shall make you pay,” he drawled. “Every day for the rest of your life.”
A detestable crawling sensation washed over her skin, and she fought back a shiver.
One of the footmen standing guard behind the earl huffed a sneering laugh. He was one of the cowards who had apprehended her in San Luis, who had refused to face her alone.
“There is no getting away this time, Calluna,” the earl continued.
Every day for the rest of your life… The realization crashed down on her like a terra-cotta pot. The old shite still meant to marry her!
A wave of gooseflesh began on her calves and worked its way up until the hairs on her head stood on end and a deep hopelessness washed over her. This was the end. Her position on Bow Street was truly gone, Percy was at the mercy of the man who raised him, and her?—
She choked back a sob. Her cherished plants and her mother’s beloved notebook were gone. All was entirely lost.
The earl stepped closer, his gaze dark and laced with malice. “I believe you have something of mine.”
CHAPTER 20
Agony roared through Percy’s head as he slowly came awake. He was dimly aware of movement and voices around him, but he could scarcely focus through the pain.
Someone touched him gently before a sharp pinch jabbed him in the arm. He groaned.
“Nae much longer now,” a voice said soothingly. “We’re almost done ’ere.”
Percy knew that voice, but the fuzziness in his mind prevented him from identifying it.
“Ye’ve lost a lot o’ blood, Percival,” the voice said again.
“I want ’im alive long enough fer ’im t’ see the results of ’is insolence.” This voice he knew:Butcher.
Percy’s blood turned to ice in his veins.
“As y’ wish, Butcher.”
Something tugged on the bullet wound on his arm, and in a moment of clarity, he realized where he was: the surgeon’s room. Duncan was stitching him up, surely. But why go to the bother of healing him when Butcher was sure to kill him anyway?
To torture you, his mind whispered.
Clearly, Butcher had reclaimed his ship and his crew. Percy was but a prisoner.Fuck. He’d lost. He’d lost sodding everything. Hell, even Heather’s plants were forfeit, likely already tossed into the sea.
An ache settled deep in his chest.Heather. There’d been a moment, lying abed with her in his arms, when he’d thought that maybe they could be more than paramours, that she could behisin truth. For his feelings wouldn’t be shaken, no matter how many times he’d told himself that it couldn’t work due to his past…his blood.
But look at what had happened: his life of piracy had come back to haunt him, and she had paid the price alongside him. For if Butcher hadn’t stopped them, Percy would have been able to get Heather safely away from the earl’s men. Now she was trapped with a man from whom she’d stolen incriminating evidence. Fuck knew what the man would do to her…
Percy’s heart squeezed painfully. He’d been charged with her protection, and he’d once again failed. He’d not even had the cods to confess his feelings for her…
A cavernous void of emotion opened behind his sternum and began to spread, the numbness both calming his pulse and bringing a biting sting to the backs of his eyes.
“Ah,” Butcher drawled. “Ye’re awake.”
Percy squinted his eyes open to see the man who’d raised him, his blazing gaze belying his gratified grin.
“So glad tha’ ye’re able t’ ’ear this,” the man continued. “We’re approaching yer whore’s ship even now.” He laughed, the sound grating along Percy’s nerves. “Aye, ye’ll get t’ see me kill ’er afore I keelhaul ye.”
The earl wheezed a laugh,and Heather blinked in an attempt to see him through the tears blurring her vision.
He sneered. “I will, of course, graciously take you back once you’ve handed over the stolen documents—you thieving whore—and you will have no other recourse but to accept. We shall be married directly upon our arrival to my uncle’s estate, and I shall be lauded a hero.”
