Amethyst (38 page)

COLIN HAD CHECKED
the eight inns closest to St. Trinity, but there was no sign of Amy.

His disappointment was a physical pain, a heaviness in his chest that was weighted with a creeping sense of foreboding. To have come all this way, crisscrossing the City, one clue to another, and then…

Nothing.

And somewhere out there, Amy was…what? Sleeping, suffering, frightened, abused? Well, it was still Sunday, so even if she'd left London, he was fairly certain she wasn't married.

Yet.

Perhaps he was on the wrong track. Perhaps he should go back to Robert's father, or the King's Arms, and ask if anyone had heard from Robert in the past few hours.

Intending to make the depressing rounds again, he'd no sooner untied Ebony when a yellow glow caught his eye, penetrating the fog from down the street. At this hour, in this neighborhood, where citizens couldn't afford the luxury of candles at midnight, where decent folk went to bed with the dusk and rose with the dawn, that light could mean only one thing: a tavern.

He leaped onto Ebony and clip-clopped down the dark, empty street toward the glow. Bereft and desolate, Colin could only muster a faint hope that he might have reached the end of his search. As he drew nearer, the light from the grimy window illuminated a cracked wooden sign proclaiming it the Cat and Canary, and a swift glance up at the overhanging story assured him that it did, indeed, boast a few rooms for rent.

Colin tethered Ebony in a rough shed across the street, then took the time to thank him for his service and companionship with a bucketful of brackish water and a forkful of hay. After all, of all the multitudes of places in London, he had no real reason to think Amy was here.

ROBERT SHOVED AMY
back into the room and threw her on the bed. He pointed the pistol in her direction with one shaking hand while he attempted to lock the door with the other.

"Please, Robert—"

"
Shut up
. I don't want to hear one word from you." He frantically worked the lock, his hand fumbling. "God damn it to bloody hell. You'll pay for this, Amy. Mark my words."

At last the lock clicked into place, and he whirled around, wild-eyed, searching the room. With a sinister laugh and a flick of his wrist, the key landed in the flames of the fireplace.

"There," he said. "I'll take it back in the morning, when the ashes grow cold. Until then, we won't be needing it, will we?"

Cringing, Amy scooted back until her spine pressed against the dirty headboard. She pulled her knees up and hugged them tight.

Robert raised his arm and aimed the pistol at her again. "Lie down!" he barked, waving the gun wildly.

She dropped to the mattress, curled up in a ball, and let out a whimper as panic welled up in her throat. She whimpered again as she watched Robert switch the pistol to his left hand so he could work the buckle on his belt with his right.

She shut her eyes tight, as though by doing so she could banish Robert and his pistol and his belt from the earth. Any second now, she expected to feel the belt on her, the leather ripping shreds of her flesh in Robert's fury.

Instead, she felt Robert throw himself on top of her, flattening her to the mattress. The gun fell to the wooden floor with a meaty thud, and she twisted under him, intending to lunge for it. But Robert pressed her shoulders against the bed with his two fleshy hands, and his head descended on hers, blocking her vision and her access to the weapon.

He ground his lips against hers in a cruel ravishment of her mouth, until she tasted coppery-tinged blood. Her hands came up and pushed at his head, but to no avail: he was quite simply stronger and heavier than she. He forced her teeth apart with his, plunging his slippery wet tongue between them. She bit down on it, hard, but he didn't seem to notice, not even when his hot, salty blood flowed into her mouth.

She gagged. And she wished he had beaten her instead.

A lifetime later, after pinning Amy beneath the weight of his body, Robert came up on his elbows. Her mouth finally free, she screamed.

Robert laughed wildly. "No one will come," he taunted. "They all think you're delirious. And they've been well paid. You'll be
mine
after tonight," he growled. "No other man will want to touch you again."

COLIN PUSHED ON THE
Cat and Canary's door, and it swung open with a prolonged creak, revealing a plain wooden interior encrusted with years of accumulated dirt. He stepped inside and glanced around the tavern. It was a shame the blaze had missed this street, he thought with a grimace. This was the kind of firetrap London needed to rid itself of.

A nauseating reek of rancid food choked the air. A few scruffy men sat conversing morosely at one table. No proprietor was in sight. All was quiet.

Colin couldn't imagine Amy in a place like this, even as Robert's hostage. He turned to leave, but caught himself glancing uneasily over his shoulder. After a pause, he addressed the motley group at the table. "Pardon me, but is anyone staying above?"

The answer was a mix of shrugs and grunts that he took to be a negative. One man looked up at him, his bloated face showing surprise at finding someone of Colin's class in this tavern.

Colin focused on him. "I'm looking for someone…"

"Anyone
you'd
be lookin' fer'd be on Leadenhall Street," the man offered, inclining his head toward a street across the way, behind the shed where Colin had stashed Ebony. "Try the Rose 'n' Crown."

"Thank you kindly," Colin replied, moving to the entry. He couldn't wait to get out of this depressing establishment.

Halfway through the door, he heard a thud from above. His blood chilled. He swung back around. "Are you certain no one's up there?"

He would swear he heard a muffled yell. The men didn't react. One of them slowly rose, the legs of his chair scraping back on the wooden floor.

"No one's up there," he stated, running a dirty hand through shaggy hair that might have been yellow if it weren't so greasy.

A scream. Hysterical. Unrelenting. Anxiety sent Colin's pulse racing, and he felt as though his chest might burst. Noting a rough staircase in the back, he started toward it.

The yellow-haired man moved swiftly to round the table and block him. He wrenched a long, rusty knife from his belt and brandished it in Colin's face. "You cannot go up there."

Another scream sounded above. Colin's hand went to the hilt of his sword…and then to his pouch. He pulled out a gold guinea and flung it on the table, his eyes boring into the other man's.

"Room six," the man muttered, turning to scoop up the coin and test it between his teeth. "Third floor."

Colin bolted up the rickety staircase.

ROBERT RIPPED OFF ONE
side of Amy's stomacher and tugged at her laces. He parted the front of her bodice and freed her breasts with one long tear of the nightgown's fragile fabric, then grabbed them in both hands and pushed their lushness together.

His pale eyes gleamed recklessly, and he smacked his lips.

He fell to, sucking and biting her sensitive flesh, heedless of her screaming. Neither did he stop when she tugged on his neckcloth and pulled on his hair. His breath was heavy and labored; the stench of stale ale and old vomit suffused the air around them.

He wedged a hand between their bodies, working frantically to unlace his breeches.

She clawed long, bloody scratches along his cheeks. But instead of relenting, he growled low in his throat and tugged at the voluminous skirts of the wedding gown, bunching it and the nightgown around her waist.

Though she'd thought she could feel no more panicked, the cool air on her extremities fueled her useless howling to new heights. When Robert shoved his knees between hers to force her legs apart, her anguish was so acute that it overwhelmed any physical pain.

THE NUMBERS ON
the doors were too faded to read in the dark corridor. But there was only one room Colin sought, and Amy's unmistakable sobs led him straight to it.

"Stanley!" He pounded with both fists on the rotting wood that separated him from the woman he loved and her abductor. "Open up!
Now!
"

He ripped off his surcoat and threw it to the floor. Backing up a few feet, he made a run at the door and rammed it with a shoulder—the old lock gave with a satisfying snap, and the door flung into the room and slammed against the wall, barely staying on its hinges.

Startled, Robert rolled off Amy and slid over the edge of the bed, scrabbling to find the pistol on the floor.

Blinking and whimpering, Amy struggled up on her elbows, her gaze riveted to Colin in the doorway. He took a step forward as Robert rose, one hand clutching the waistband of his unlaced breeches, the other clenching the gun. A feral look hardened his bloodied features.

Colin took another step.

"Stay back, Greystone, you bastard." The pistol wavered as Robert growled. "She's
mine
." The flintlock had been half-cocked, primed and ready, and now he pulled back the lock.

The room reverberated with an ominous click.

A scalding fury burning in his chest, Colin advanced.

Robert's face registered sheer, unreasoning panic. His arm swung wildly as he squeezed the trigger. The pistol went off with a thunderous report.

Amy let out a shriek of terror, but Colin didn't flinch; his advance continued unchecked. The bullet was lodged somewhere in the wall of the corridor. Robert was left with a smoking gun in his shaking hands, the pungent scent of exploded gunpowder swirling around him.

There was insufficient time for an expert to reload, and Robert had already proven he was no expert. He flung the heavy pistol at Colin's head.

Colin ducked, and as his head came back up, he pulled his rapier out of his belt with smooth, practiced ease.

Without the false sense of security the pistol had provided, Robert seemed to shrink into himself. Colin saw the truth in his eyes: Robert knew he was no match for the Earl of Greystone—he'd known it from the moment Colin came into the shop, three long months ago.