How could Gideon possibly desire her over them?
They were traveling at a fast clip, and the club was soon out of sight.
Lord Berwick placed his hand over hers to regain her attention. “Berry—”
Whatever he was about to say was cut short when their carriage came to a sudden, jerking halt that knocked her out of her seat. In the next moment, they heard shots and shouts, and then the carriage door flew open.
Berry screamed as a masked man pulled her out. “Help! Help!”
A large hand clamped over her mouth. “Shut up or we’ll kill Lord Berwick.”
They could have threatened to kill her and she would have continued screaming. But to threaten this man who had cared for her like a father for all these years? The scream died in her throat.
Although she dared not cry out, she still fought to break free from her assailant’s grasp, and had almost succeeded when another man came up from behind her and hit her over the head so hard, it dropped her to her knees.
A blinding pain shot through her temples. However, the blow did not knock her out completely. She was dazed andher eyesight blurred, but she forced herself to blink away the fog surrounding her vision because she needed to make out whatever details she could about her assailants.
“Take them both,” the man who had struck her said, and she recognized Lord Hawthorne’s voice.
He then grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back so she was forced to look up at him. He called her a horrible, blasphemous word, and then said, “You won’t escape me now, you stupid—”
He suddenly released her and fell to the ground while yelping in pain. He uttered more vile words.
What had just happened? Berry was suddenly free of his grasp.
A young man urgently whispered in her ear, “Quick, Lady Berry. Come with me. I’m Henry. Mr. Knight’s man.”
She staggered to her feet and leaned on Henry as they ran in what she hoped was the direction of the Musket Club.
She heard footsteps behind them and, suddenly, footsteps rushing toward them as Henry called out, “Joss! Pudge! Help!”
A man told Henry to “get her inside quick.”
“Save Lord Berwick,” she cried, and then collapsed at the club’s door.
Someone picked her up and began to carry her up a staircase. “Berry,” came the anguished voice she recognized as Gideon’s. “You’re bleeding, love.”
“Gideon! Oh, Gideon!” She wrapped an arm around his neck and held on tightly while she tried to tell him what happened. The other arm hurt too much when she tried to raise it, so she left it dangling at her side.
“Hush, sweetheart. My men are after them. They’ll save Lord Berwick. Just lie still. You’re badly hurt. Henry will tell me what happened when he returns. He’s leading the others to Lord Berwick.”
Another fellow spoke to Gideon. “Shall I have one of the boys fetch Dr. Farthingale?”
“Yes, at once.” Gideon shoved open a door and carried her inside. “Berry, I’m sure you know of him. He’s treated the orphans at St. Brigid’s. He’s my doctor now, as well. And he’s the best there is in London.”
“But he must tend to Lord Berwick first. Hemust.” She sobbed against his shoulder. “He’s old…and Hawthorne’s men were beating and kicking him. How could they be so cruel?”
“I don’t know, love. But they’ll get what they deserve. Pudge and Joss have gone to rescue him.”
“And Henry?”
“Yes, love.”
“He’s the lad who saved me.”
“Yes,” Gideon said with a trace of wry relief in his voice. “Seems he was on Hawthorne’s trail after all.”
“He did not merely rescue me—I think he saved my life.”
