Shameless (14 page)

“I’ve some gingerbread to spare. Mayhap ye’ll get lucky and I’ll bid on ye meself,
yer ladyship
.” Her captor cast her a grinning look as he yanked her away from the platform and the sobbing girl into another hall.

Desperation had made Beth’s mouth go dry. She had to swallow before she could speak. “By helping me get away from here, you’ll make yourself rich. My family will see to it, I give you my word.”

“Aye, and no doubt they’ll pat me on me back while they’re doing it, and thank me for my good services to their daughter.” He stopped and rapped smartly on a door. “I’ve another one,” he announced as it opened.

“No!” But without further ado Beth found herself thrust into an anteroom. As she stumbled forward, rough male hands grabbed her shoulders from behind to stop her, and she registered the presence of perhaps two dozen other young women cowering together in the center of the small room.

The door closed with a thud. Beth’s hands were jerked behind her
back. A scream, shrill with desperation, pierced the muffling door. It clearly came from the girl on the makeshift stage.

“What are they doing to her?” Beth demanded, unable to help herself. Jerking away from the man who held her, she whirled to face the door as the crescendoing shouts and cheers of the assembled men turned into an explosion of what sounded like approval. As another panicked scream followed the first, she shivered at the heart-wrenching timbre of it and glanced wildly around. “Will no one help her?”

“Shut yer trap and hold still.” She was grabbed again, and this time her hands were securely bound behind her back. “Now get over there with the others.”

The man who had just finished tying the rope around her wrists shoved her roughly toward the congregation of females huddled together in the center of the chamber. He was one of two men in the room. Like the man who had dragged her here, these men looked to be servants. Armed servants, or, more properly, guards. Hulking and mean-faced, pistols in hand, they stood between their prisoners and the door. That door was the only way out, Beth saw as she fetched up against a sturdily built blonde in garish red silk who took several steps back in response to the unexpected collision. Clearly an interior chamber, the room was small, with walls of raw, rough plaster and a single torch burning in an iron sconce beside the door. There were no windows. Escape appeared impossible.

The scent of cheap perfume enveloped Beth as the group of females rearranged themselves to absorb her into their midst. Regaining her balance, she fought to hold on to calm reason in the face of a situation that was growing ever more nightmarish.

How has this happened to me? What can I do?

It was not, she was becoming increasingly convinced, a random act. Someone had caused this to be done to her deliberately. But who? And why?

To that she could discover no clear answer.

Taking a deep breath, she fought to force back galloping panic. One thought formed cold and clear as ice: no matter what the consequence,
she could not, would not submit to the hideous degradation that was clearly intended to be her fate. The very thought made her want to vomit. It was all she could do not to start screaming the roof down.

’Twill do no good to scream
.

“Sure, and there’s no help for any of us,” an apple-cheeked brunette to Beth’s left whispered as the screaming beyond the door was abruptly silenced. There was an Irish lilt to her shaking voice, and a tinge of red to her dark brown hair, which curled loosely past her shoulders. She wore a plain dress of coarse, dun-colored cloth, of unmistakably rustic origin. Her eyes were brown, and red-rimmed from weeping. Crude color tinted her lips and cheeks, and Beth realized to her horror that, like herself, like, as she discovered with a quick glance around, all the others, she’d been painted and primped. Painted and primped
for sale
. “If me poor mam could see what I’ve come to. She thought I was to work on a dairy farm, she did, and she was that glad for me to get the position.”

“We’ve all been right gammoned, and that’s the truth with no bark on it.” The blonde’s ample bosom heaved with indignation. “I was working in my uncle’s tavern when this swell who’d stopped in a few times offered to take me up to London and set me up in my own house. He swore I should have my own carriage and—”

“And ye believed ’im, lack-wit?” A tiny, pinch-faced, black-haired female in an ill-fitting black dress and white apron that bespoke a housemaid broke in, her voice dripping with scorn. “’Ow long was it afore ’e sold ye to this lot?”

“R-right away.” The blonde’s lower lip quivered. “He said beg pardon, but his pockets were to let.”

“At least I was snatched off the streets,” the black-haired female said with grim satisfaction. “Mary Bridger’s not such a nodcock as to fall for some gent’s plumpers.”

“Silence!” The sharp command from one of the guards made them all jump as the conversation, which had been conducted in whispers that had been growing ever louder, at last reached his ears. His threatening move toward them was interrupted by a quick knock and the sudden opening of the door.

“We be ready for another,” said a man’s voice. Beth couldn’t see the speaker, who stood just outside in the hall, but the women all drew in a collective breath and shrank closer together. It did no good. The guard who had tied her hands turned and grabbed the nearest female, a slender, fair-haired girl who cried out in fear as she was thrust just as quick as that from the room. The door shut once again, leaving the rest to stare at the thick wooden portal in stricken silence.

The thought that she would all too soon be the victim was written on every female face Beth could see. Acknowledging the harsh reality of that, Beth felt her heart flutter and her stomach cramp.

Please hurry
. She sent the prayer winging toward her sisters, toward their husbands and the scores who she knew were desperately searching for her, knowing even as she did that help wouldn’t come in time.

“Think we’ll get a crack at the leavings?” The second guard, the one who hadn’t tied Beth’s hands, ran lascivious eyes over the huddled prisoners as the crowd beyond the door, enlivened by a fresh victim, began to ratchet up their noise anew. Having wedged herself into the center of the pack and thus managing to put a small degree of distance between herself and the men, Beth nevertheless felt the weight of the guard’s gaze. Swallowing, she kept her eyes focused on the smoke-darkened wall straight ahead, and tried not to think about what was even now, from the sound of it, happening in the Great Hall. So far, at least, there were no screams. “Me, I fancy the ginger.”

Knowing that he was referring to her, to the color of her hair, Beth shivered inwardly as she pretended not to hear or be aware of his ogling stare. Her stomach clenched tight and her heart pounded like a parade corp’s drummer as she faced the terrible truth: she was trapped, and helpless, and the fate of the girl on the stage would soon be hers.

And then, even more horrible to contemplate, some man would force himself on her.

Her bound hands curled into fists.

I can’t bear it. I—CANNOT—bear it
.

The other guard snorted. “’Tis lucky we’ll be to see so much as an extra pint of ale at the end o’ this, I don’t doubt, much less one of yon toothsome females.”

“Ah, well, as to that”—the first guard pulled a flask out of his pocket—“what do you say to a flash o’ lightning now?”

Switching his attention to the flask, the second guard nodded and reached for it. “A nip’ll help pass the time, for sure.”

Passing the flask back and forth, they fell to talking and their attention shifted away from their prisoners, for which Beth was profoundly thankful. She felt cold all over, and she was breathing way too fast. Her legs were shaky, and her head ached abominably. The building roar outside the door was only marginally louder than the rush of blood in her ears. But her thoughts were now crystal clear, and focused on one thing: escape.

Even if they were to kill her for it, she was going to do her possible to get away. The plain truth was, she would rather die than submit.

“The next time the door opens, we must rush it. All of us at once. Do you hear?” Her fierce whisper brought the widening eyes of the captives swinging around to her face. Behind her back, her hands curled and twisted, her fingers probing the rope, testing the strength of the bonds. They were knotted tight.

“We dare not,” the brunette in the dun-colored dress breathed, with a frightened glance at the guards.

“They’ll catch us,” the blonde said with certainty.

“They can’t catch all of us.” Casting her own assessing glance at the guards to make sure they weren’t paying them any mind, Beth dropped her voice even lower. By now she was the focus of every eye and ear in the group. Heads bent her way. “The hall and stairs behind the platform are unguarded. We must just run past the platform, into the hall, then fly up the stairs as fast as we can. If all of us branch out into different hallways and hide ourselves, some of us will surely escape.”

“But the ones they find . . . ” The brunette shivered. “Ach, they’ll be so angry.”

“What can they do worse’n what they already intend by us? Beat us?” The black-haired maid—Mary—looked at Beth and gave a decided nod. “I’ve the stomach for a good mill, I do. I’m with you.”

“What about the rest of you? For this to have a chance, we must burst past them and flee as a group. Our only hope is in our numbers.” Still plucking futilely at her bonds—it was heartening to discover that she was no longer the only one to do so—Beth looked from one frightened face to another, and saw determination dawn in several. A few nods and murmurs of agreement led to more, until the whole group was in.

“The next time the door opens we rush it,” Beth whispered. “I—”

“No talking.”
The guard who had tied Beth’s hands glared at them. “The next one to clap her lips be the next one to—”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Beth’s heart lurched. It was soon—too soon. But whether it was or not, the time was at hand. Exchanging quick, frightened glances with the others, she realized that they knew it, too. She could feel the sudden agitation in the bodies pressed close around her. A collective tension shivered through the air. All eyes fastened on the door as it was thrust open.

“We be ready . . . ” the man in the hall began.

“Now,”
Beth cried, leaping forward, and to her relief the others fell in, rushing the door with her, barreling toward their only hope at freedom. The guards’ heads came whipping around, but it was too late: they were charging past, through the door, knocking aside the man waiting in the hall, stampeding in a terrified, determined group past the platform toward the stairs at the back of the hall.

N
EIL ONCE AGAIN HAD A PLAN
. It was a simple plan, elegant even, if he did say so himself, and virtually guaranteed to provide him with the desired result. Using the Cit’s blunt, plus the contents of another fat purse he had knicked for insurance upon arrival at the castle just in case the price for a redheaded lady-born might soar to unprecedented heights, he would blend with the crowd until she was brought out, then bid like all the rest and ultimately buy Lady Elizabeth. After that, it would be easy enough to carry her away and then within a few hours spirit her out of the castle. His plan would cause no commotion and could be accomplished with only a minimal degree of risk in the early-morning hours, which he calculated would be the best time to leave the castle and convey her back to the mainland. By then, most of the forty-odd men who were at that moment crowded into the Great Hall cheering and drinking and bidding to the skies for the right to deflower a frightened-out-of-her-mind wench could be counted on to be thoroughly jug-bit and sound asleep, and the majority of the male
servants (so far he had counted nine, but he was certain there were more) would most likely be sleeping, too. Fortune only had to favor him a little to allow him to get the chit away without the slightest notice being taken of what he was about.

The more he thought it through, the more he perceived that the plan was really quite perfect. His first instinct, of course, had been to act at once, making use of as many of his considerable talents as were needed to rescue the chit by brute force. But that approach had drawbacks, including possible injury to the lady if he was not quite fast or thorough or lucky enough. Then there was the problem of leaving bread crumbs again. Word of such an assault would be bound to spread through certain circles like wildfire, and would undoubtedly come to the ears of Clapham and anyone else who might be hunting him. Having shaken his pursuers off, as he’d hoped, he was loath to give them so precise a fix on his whereabouts, to say nothing of an inkling of the existence of his prospective hostage to fortune, as it were. The less anyone knew of where he was or what he intended to do, the better.

Stealth was clearly the better course.

Propping a shoulder against one of the massive pillars that supported the Great Hall’s soaring, smoke-blackened ceiling, draped in the black domino that, with its hood up, concealed all of him except the center portion of his face, which was in shadow, and the final twelve inches or so of his legs, Neil deliberately presented a picture of ease as he sipped a particularly fine Burgundy—the first decent wine he’d touched in nigh on three weeks—with real appreciation and waited for Lady Elizabeth to be brought out. His hunger had been appeased by a chicken drumstick that he had helped himself to as he passed the feast set up for the revelers in an adjoining room. His thirst he had slaked with a tankard of ale from the same source. Given that, and the wine, and the knowledge that he had only to wait and play his part to get what he had come for, no mayhem necessary, he should have been feeling relaxed as he watched the latest successful bidder count out his blunt into the hand of a genially smiling harpy with eyes harder than
the stone against which he leaned, who seemed to be in charge of collecting the funds. But he was not. His anger at those who had brought Lady Elizabeth here was tamped down and carefully controlled, but it was there, no less dangerous because it had gone cold. Wariness lest he be taken unawares had become an integral part of his makeup, and it kept him completely alert. He might lounge against a pillar, but he was ready to move if necessary, if Clapham or his ilk should unexpectedly show up or, indeed, if any threat to his person or object for being in the castle arose. As a result, his nerves were stretched taut as a bowstring, although he gave no indication whatsoever of being on edge. As they always did when he was working, his senses had sharpened, attuning themselves by dint of long practice to the slightest threat. Closing his ears to the noise around him, he listened for other things: the whisper of a knife being drawn, the click of a pistol’s hammer being pulled back, the too-purposeful tramp of feet. His eyes honed in on small, quick movements that struck him as being out of place. He had been in the business of surviving for so long that he could almost smell danger, or feel it in his bones like some people felt a coming rain.