The lash knocked Gordon off balance, and before he could regain his footing, the two grooms had grabbed his arms. Stanfield closed in and began pummeling Gordon with his huge fists, smashing into his face and gut. Gordon had learned some fighting skills at the Westerfield Academy, but he couldn’t break free of the grooms.
Callie screamed and tried to wrench her father away. “Stop it!Stop it!You’re going to kill him!”
“Good!” Her father jammed a knee into Gordon’s genitals.
Gordon collapsed in agony as the world blackened. Callie dropped to her knees and covered him with her own body. “He hasn’t ruined me! He was helping me to escape that vile marriage you’re trying to force me into!”
Stanfield grabbed Callie’s arm and wrenched her to her feet. “You’re still a virgin?”
“Given the amount of ground they covered during the night, there hasn’t been time to do much else,” Gordon’s father drawled. “I’m not sure the boy is capable of anything more. I’ve wondered if he’s a molly boy. He certainly doesn’t look like a son of mine. He’s far too pretty. His mother was the worst mistake I ever made.”
The insult pulled Gordon to consciousness and he tried to struggle to his feet. “Shut your evil mouth!”
Stanfield kicked him back into the hay, then kicked him again. “Mind if I beat him to death, Kingston?”
“Feel free to kill him,” Gordon’s father said with exquisite malice. “I have better sons.” He turned and strolled from the barn.
Stanfield was winding up for another kick when Callie threw her full weight against him. “Stop this! You’ll have to kill us both because I’ll never let you get away with murdering him!”
When her father hesitated, Callie said frantically, “If you stop beating him, I promise that I’ll marry your horrible friend and act like a good and obedient wife! I’m a virgin—he’ll never know this happened. But you must promise to stop hurting Richard!”
Her father paused, frowning. “For all your wild behavior, you’ve never been a liar.” His eyes narrowed. “You swear that you’ll be a good, obedient daughter and go through with this marriage?”
“You have my word,” she said bitterly. “But tell me, how did you find out so quickly that we’d eloped?”
“One of your sisters has a better sense of duty than you’ve ever had,” her father replied. “She saw you sneaking out and guessed where you were going. After she woke me up, I drove over to Kingston Court. When Lord Kingston saw you were both gone, we set after you. Satisfied?”
Callie’s lips thinned. “I can guess which sister it was. May she rot in hell!”
Her father shook her. “Don’t forget your promise! You behave and I won’t touch your filthy lover again.”
She yanked free of his grip. “You can’t order your servants to hurt him, either.”
He frowned, then nodded. “But you’d better be a damned obedient bride!” He gestured to one of the grooms. “Take her outside.”
As Callie was escorted roughly from the barn, Stanfield stood over Gordon’s bleeding body, his hands on his hips. “I’m sorry that I can’t finish the job, Lord George, but she’s worth a pretty penny married off.” His lips twisted in a vicious smile. “I won’t kill you. But, by God, you’ll wish I had!”
Chapter 2
London, summer, 1814
Gordon was bored. Months had passed since anyone had tried to kill him. Luckily, this tedious spell of safety should end soon. Lord Kirkland had summoned him, and Kirkland was an excellent source of missions that required Gordon’s varied and nefarious skills.
Gordon was bemused by the fact that he and Kirkland had become friends of a sort. They’d known each other since their school days at the Westerfield Academy, a small, elite school for boys of “good birth and bad behavior.”
Gordon had hated all the schools his father had sent him to, of which the Westerfield Academy was the last. He actually enjoyed learning, but he picked up new material very quickly, and then was physically incapable of sitting still. When he was a boy at Kingston Court, he and his brothers had been tutored by a young curate who had allowed his most restless student to prowl around while his brothers struggled to master Latin or maths or the globes.
The marquess had never understood, so when Gordon reached an age to be sent off to school, he was placed in one of the most brutal academies in Britain so the masters would force him to sit still and behave properly. Despite the school’s best efforts to beat him into submission, Gordon had become ever more difficult. At the end of the year, he was asked not to return. The same thing happened at the next school. And the next. Gordon was rather proud of that fact.
By the time he reached Westerfield, he was so angry and rebellious that even calm, caring Lady Agnes Westerfield, founder and headmistress of the school, had been unable to reach him. He’d hated the school, hated his classmates, and rejected all friendly overtures. He skipped classes whenever possible, and when he showed up, he acted conspicuously bored and uninterested. To amuse himself, he’d perform brilliantly on exams just to madden his teachers.
Gordon had particularly hated Kirkland. Despite his youth, Kirkland had a cool, ferociously intelligent composure that was damned unnerving. Gordon felt disapproval whenever the other boy looked his way.
His hatred had been sealed during one of the school’s Kalarippayattu sessions. The ancient fighting technique had been introduced to the school by the half Hindu young Duke of Ashton, and learning it had become a school tradition. Gordon had enjoyed the fighting, which helped him work off his restlessness.
Despite his general anger with the forced captivity of school, he seldom truly lost his temper. But one day in a fighting session he succumbed to fury when matched against a sharp-tongued classmate. He might have killed the boy in a rage if Kirkland hadn’t intervened, yanking Gordon out of the fight, slamming him to the ground, and pinning him there. “Control yourself!” he’d ordered with razor-edged menace.
Later, Gordon was grateful he’d been prevented from committing murder even though he despised the little bastard who’d provoked him. But the public humiliation made him hate Kirkland even more.
