Groggy, Anthony moved his head sending a jolt of pain through his skull. He flexed his hand to locate the source, but he couldn’t move. It was as if he was paralyzed. But, as his vision cleared, he saw, he sat in a chair with numerous coils wrapped tightly around him. He closed his eyes, trying to remember. Nothing. A total blank.Think.Still nothing. Only darkness.
“Are you awake, Anthony?”
Rachel.His heart soared.
“I’m tied on a chair right behind you.”
He groaned. “Where we are?
The scrape of boots on a stairway and a lantern held high, scattered light, diminishing the shadows. “Greetings, Lord Anthony. Welcome to your final resting place, the attic of the late Captain Johnson.”
He shook his head to clear the haze. “Cuthbert Noot?”
“Of course.”
“I see you are hale and healthy, back from the dead.” Gone was the former well-groomed estate manager. Filthy, missing teeth, ragged clothing, that coal-dust speech. “Except for your exceptional wart, you’ve changed your appearance, Cuthbert.”
Cuthbert grinned like a Gargoyle. Unhinged. “No thanks to you, Lord Anthony. I survived the prison. A friend helped me. I’m going to kill the both of you, then the rest of your family.”
“My assistant, George? The flowerpot? The axle on the carriage? I assume your maneuverings?” Anthony spat out, his words spiked with venom. He hated the bastard for catching him unaware. “The deal was to trade Miss Thorne for me.”
“No deal.”
Anthony cursed his own stupidity in not keeping more of a vigilant eye and the prey of such a beast as Cuthbert Noot. Wished he had made his father’s timeline to five minutes. To keep Cuthbert talking was imperative. “Who helped you? Had to be someone with influence?”
Cuthbert laughed so hard, he choked on his saliva. “I’ll take that secret to my grave. He’s rich and powerful. Got me out of Newgate, staged a fight where another inmate was killed to take my place. All’s I had to do was agree to kill you. Like getting ten Christmases wrapped in one neat package.”
Rachel’s dog howled outside.
“Who else is helping you? You must have had help, getting my assistant’s body to Lord Chelmsford’s.”
“I have four of my men downstairs. Newgate recruits eager for a coin.”
Blood dripped from Anthony’s head wound, down his forearm and pooled on the floor as he strained against the the ropes. Cuthbert was good at knots. “Four? You’ll need more than that.”
“Brave words, Lord Anthony. You’ll never get free.” Cuthbert’s lips pulled back. “Percy Devol may have failed and your sister lucked outfor the time being. Heard she had a brat. He’ll die with her husband.”
Rachel seethed behind him. “Jacob will kill anyone who comes close to his wife and child.”
“What do you plan to do with us?” Anthony asked the inevitable, listening to the dog ratchet up its barking. He felt Rachel’s fingers, trying to undo the knots. An exercise in futility.
Cuthbert fixed him with a disquieting intense stare. “I plan a slow death. Fire. My men are moving wood into the living room, building a roaring fire. A drawn-out death for you and Miss Thorne, Lord Anthony, like you planned for me in Newgate.”
His heart sank. The house was a pile of tinder. Once the inferno started there would be no escape. “Let Miss Thorne go.”
“You think I’m mad? There will be no witnesses.”
“You won’t get away with it. There will be investigations.”
“And like the other investigations your father has started, nothing will come of it. That rich lordship will make sure of it like he did the others.”
Cuthbert’s eyes were dead, devoid of any humanity, the opaque grey darting over Rachel exhibited an unnatural pagan gleam. “Your wife cuckolded you. Had an affair with Lord Ward, planning to meet him the day she died.”
“You’re lying.” Cuthbert’s revelation hit him like a sucker punch.
“I startled her horse…it reared…she fell…knocked the breath out of her. I had my time with her. Spread her legs like the whore she was, begging and screaming.”
“You, son of a bitch.” Anthony’s ears pounded. Celeste did not die from a random fall. She’d been murdered.
