“You are excessively rude, Mr Steamer,” she cried, averting her eyes.
They all laughed, Conway even crying out, “How do ye do, Mister!”
She looked quizzically at Darcy, not at all understanding why they were so amused. Darcy said, “Steamer must be only a nickname.” When she continued to stare at him perplexed, he added, “On account of his pipe.”
Darcy reached across the table and busied himself with closing the writing box while the other men laughed. Steamer finished with the chamber pot and did not bother to fasten hisplacket. “What is the matter, Nan?” he taunted. “Have you not seen a man’s yard before? Want to touch mine?”
“I think it closer to an inch than a yard,” she cried, disgusted by their coarse talk.
Conway, Colton, and Markle all laughed heartily, but Steamer’s eyes filled with a dark rage. He stormed toward her so quickly Elizabeth leapt up to back away. Steamer brought his right arm across his body as he came near. She heard Darcy’s chair scrape back, and he called out, “Don’t!”
Elizabeth did not have a moment to even raise a hand to defend herself. Steamer whipped out his arm, and the back of his hand connected with her cheek with a resounding crack. The blow brought her to her knees as her neck snapped to the side. Lights spotted across her eyes as her teeth rattled together.
She heard Darcy yelling, and then someone was punched. Probably Darcy. Her mind spun, and her vision along with it, and she had to brace a hand on the ground to keep from tipping over. She had never been struck in all her life. The pain was alarming, and so was the terror at wondering what Steamer would do next.
“That is enough, Steamer,” she heard Markle say, although she could not focus her eyes on anything but Steamer’s shoes and the ground in front of her. The shoes moved away, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Markle would not allow further violence against her. “Get up, Nan.”
Elizabeth fought against the pain in her teeth and neck, and the confusion of being smacked to the ground. Her cheek throbbed, and she fumbled to rise. Another moment, then she could figure out how to keep her balance and stand again.
“I said, get up!” Markle yelled. A fist plunged into her hair, and grabbing a handful, Markle tried to yank her upright. She gave a shriek that felt ripped from the pit of her stomach. Herneck twisted again, and she heaved herself up to make the agonising pain stop. “If I tell you to do something, you do it.”
Markle’s hand still held a cruel grip on her hair. Her head was bent at a terrible angle and tears streamed from her eyes. Darcy was yelling for him to stop, along with a string of curses and oaths to make them pay that would never happen. It was useless on his part to try to defend her.
Markle bent his face close to hers, staring into her eyes. He was not much taller than her, but seemed to relish the control he had in this moment. His blue eyes looked soulless.
“Nan, do you understand? If I say to do something, what happens?”
“I do it,” she said through pants of pain.
He let go of her hair with a shove, and she had to brace herself against the chair to keep from falling to the ground. Although she had not eaten since last night, she felt waves of nausea come over her.
“Colton, take this to Hunsford and find some boy in the village,” Markle said, handing him the letter. “Tell him to deliver it and wait for an answer, and then watch the house to see what happens. See if she sends for her banker in town before you come back. Make certain you are not followed.”
Elizabeth took large breaths in and out, but she still felt terror settling in her stomach. Her hands were shaking, and tears of excruciating pain and fear blurred her vision.
“Do you want me to return here, or meet you at the next house?” Colton asked.
Elizabeth tried to look at Darcy, and moving her head made her feel sick. He was back in the chair, with Conway pinning him down by the shoulder, holding a pistol to his head. Darcy had been right. There was no guarantee Markle would let them go if he got his money.
“No,” Markle said as though considering the answer. “We shall move them tonight, so you might as well go ahead to the next safe house. I need to see about the load from Holland and will meet you there.”
Elizabeth kept her balance now without the chair’s help. She met Markle’s eye, and did her best not to flinch.
“Kirby, lock these two upstairs, and then go down the street to find some breakfast for us. Then you can go home, unless your mother has been drinking too much.”
Kirby moved to the door and then turned back, asking, “Breakfast for them, too?”
“Of course,” Markle said, giving her a smirk as he answered his nephew. “We are not barbarians, are we, Nan?”
Bile rose in her throat, and she staggered to the stairs ahead of Darcy. Elizabeth only just made it to the basin on the washstand before her stomach heaved.
Chapter Seven
Elizabeth had stumbled up the stairs ahead of him, and by the time Kirby locked the door behind Darcy, Elizabeth was retching over the washstand. Darcy burnt with an indignant rage, an implacable hatred he had not known he was capable of feeling. What manner of human being would brutalise a woman?
When she was done, Elizabeth sank to the floor. Darcy watched her cautiously shift to put her back against a box with her legs stretched in front of her. Her eyes stared at nothing.
He hated feeling helpless. Steamer and Markle’s cruelty was terrifying, and he had been powerless to stop it. The sound of the hand smacking her face would remain forever seared in his mind. Darcy was on the verge of punching a wall at the frustration that his influence, his money, his connexions, his own will had been utterly useless.
