Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (36 page)

“I imagine it would,” Ian agreed. “But then you don’t need a knife to do that. I’d be happy to demonstrate on you.”

She chuckled, and it was a sound of pure pleasure. “Ah, maybe another time, my colonel. Sadly, tonight for Minette must be of the business. She is not quite convinced of your story, you see. It is too convenient.”

Again Ian shrugged. “Every once in a while—not often, mind you—things actually do go that way.”

“Not this time, though, I think.”

In the corner, the silver-haired man stood, careful to keep out of the light. “This is very edifying, Minette. But I have a schedule. Keep me informed, will you not?”

Minette never looked away from Ian. “Of course,
chéri.
It should not be long.”

“Make certain of it.” He walked out, his back to Ian, so that all Ian could tell about him was that he was tall, thin, and wearing a signet with a ruby on his right hand.

Once the man was gone, Ian turned to Minette. He wanted to get back to the betrayal part. He was sure she was just goading him, wearing at his certainty. Even so. Could it be true?

Then she began running the flat of that damn knife right up his cheek.

“We will return to the flask, yes?” she said, sounding eminently reasonable, which sent sweat trickling down his back. “Let us spend a bit of time on who else knows of your…adventures. Who is this Tom Frane? Where did the letter go instead? To this Jack Absolute? I do not know this name. I thought I knew all your friends.”

Letter. Oh, God, Ian thought, his heart plummeting. Sarah had been right. Someone must have seen the correspondence.

“Yes,” Minette hummed. “A terrible thing, this, to have trust broken.” Again she smiled. Ian felt a
frisson
of dread slither down his back. He had been interrogated by the best. Not one had unnerved him like this woman with just a smile.

Please God,
he thought desperately
. Don’t let Sarah ever have to meet this woman. Let me kill the bitch first.

Just then the hinges creaked on the iron door, and another player entered the game. Even though he had never met him, Ian recognized him right away. Square, solid, and stolid, he had the obvious stamp of the Riptons about him. Blond, straight nose, high cheekbones, ears that made one think a bit of elves. So this was Sarah’s brother.

“Ah, here you are at last,” Minette cooed, not thinking to lift the knife away. When she saw that he limped, she tilted her head. “My dear duke, you are injured?”

He gave a wave of the hand. “Nothing important. An intruder.”

Minette stilled. The bully boys all looked to her for direction. “An intruder is always important,
chéri.
Especially if it interrupts us. Tell Minette.”

The duke actually ducked his head like a young girl. “It was nothing, I tell you. The old duke’s by-blow looking for money. Stupid cow. As if the worthless slag thinks she can trespass on decent people.”

Ian’s heart stopped in his chest. Sweet Christ.
Sarah.

Minette’s expression became almost dreamy. “The old duke was your father, yes? So this must be your sister. What is her name?”

The duke scowled, shifted, as if he were uncomfortable sharing with Minette. Ian understood perfectly well. “Half-sister. Not worth speaking of. Her name is Sarah. Why?”

Minette was peering closely at Ian. The minute she began to smile he knew that somehow he had given himself away. “Sarah,” she crooned, leaning close enough that Ian could see straight down her ample cleavage. “Is that not the name of the woman you kidnapped, my brave colonel? Can it be the same one?”

“Kidnapped?” the duke echoed, peering down at Ian. “What’s this?”

“How interesting,” Minette cooed, pointing the knife right at Ian’s eye. “Minette, she says this name and his eye, it is of a darkness. Minette thinks he knows her,
chéri.
I think he
fears
for her, this
petite bâtarde.
” She chuckled, finally lifting the knife away to consider it. “And Minette still cannot believe the handsome colonel here, he knows nothing. And is it not a lovely coincidence, this? That a woman named Sarah arrives just now.
Enfin,
something of interest.”

The men in the room all waited in silence for her conclusion, Ian with dread.

Abruptly she nodded. “She is still here, my duke?”

Suddenly looking uneasy himself, the duke nodded.

“
Bon.
” She nodded and finished her wine. “It is good,” she said, handing her glass to the second henchman. “Think of the enjoyment we can have with her tender flesh while we convince the colonel to share with us. Raul,” she said, turning to one silent helper. “Would you enjoy entertaining this young lady the colonel worries over? Minette, she thinks the colonel would like to see you and I…
entertain
this lady.”

Ian thought his heart would explode. It was all he could do not to erupt. He couldn’t, though. Not yet. Not until he could get his hands free.

The duke took a step back. “Here, now,” he protested. “Not the thing, ma’am. Not the thing at all.”

Minette tilted her head. “You grow squeamish, duke? How so? You have helped us, have you not?”

He took another step back. “Smuggling,” he said. “Brandy and laces. Not…
this.
”

“
This,
” she echoed, motioning to the room with her knife, “is part of what you have been involved in. It is far too late to be squeamish now, my duke. Besides, you say you hate this
bâtarde
of your family, who seeks to take advantage. Why protect her?”

“Because it isn’t…
right.
She may be a by-blow, but by heavens, she’s a woman. I won’t show you where she is. And if I don’t take you to her, you won’t find her.”

While they argued, Ian worked on his wrists, tied behind him. At least the ropes were growing slippery, probably with blood. Another few minutes should do it. Another few minutes would have to. He had to free himself before they could get to Sarah.

“You will not refuse, my duke,” Minette assured him. “You do not wish harm to your other sisters. Your mother. Now, Raul and I will go see to this Sarah.”

“No!” Ian blurted out, liquid with terror. “Nobody knows anything but I. Leave everyone else out of it.”

The words were barely out before he realized how big a mistake he’d made. He felt sick. Minette’s eyes had just lit with triumph.

“You see?” she said. “The colonel, he will think while I am gone about what he will do to save this
bâtarde
from too much pain.” Her smile grew rapacious. “But think, Colonel. If you give Minette what she wants, I might keep your little bird from any pain. Especially the harems of Morocco.” She smiled. “There are worse men out there than Raul.”

Holding the knife so that the faint lantern light slid down the blade like warm water, she floated up to him, an apparition in the faltering light, her eyes glittering and cold. Lifting that obscene knife, she ran it down his cheek, its touch whisper-soft, down along his neck, pausing over the pulse in his throat. He was sweating freely now. She knew just how to torture.

“It’s pointless,” he insisted, his voice raw and thick. “I’m telling you that flask is at the bottom of the English Channel. Tom Frane is nobody. It is a name for me. And Jack Absolute is a character in a play.”

“
The Rivals,
” the duke confirmed. “Why?”

“Another alias, Minette is thinking,” Minette mused. “Good. It is a question we will put to this Sarah. Perhaps she knows.”

Suddenly she sliced away Ian’s sleeve, from shoulder to elbow. Then, still smiling, she took that knife and sliced Ian’s arm, a four-inch cut that caused Ian to hiss in pain. She chuckled, her attention on the blood that immediately welled. He thought she might sip at that too. Instead she laid her knife in it, turning it back and forth until the blade was covered and dripping, as if she had perpetrated slaughter in this room.

“Now,” Minette said, with a shooing motion of her hands. “Minette is impatient. Come, my duke. Come Raul,” she said, floating out the door. “Let us be introduced to this Sarah. It will give our brave colonel here a little while to think on his answers.”

“You truly won’t stop this?” Ian demanded of the duke. “She is your
sister.
”

The duke, his face a rictus, turned away. Minette, a hand on his arm, the knife still held carefully in the air, led him through the door, followed by one of the henchmen.

And then they were gone, and Ian was left behind with the rest. Fury surged in his chest. Terror. Guilt. He had brought Sarah to this place. He alone, because he was too selfish to leave her behind. And now she would suffer at the hands of the most sadistic assassin he had ever met.

He had to get out of these bonds, or heaven only knew what that beast would do to her. Sarah, who only wanted to keep her animals and her family safe. Whom he had dragged into this disaster without her permission. Sarah, who should never have to know that such evil existed.

He wanted to rip that door off its hinges. But Minette had left three henchmen behind with guns. “I don’t know you,” the tallest man said, his voice oddly petulant. “I got nothin’ against you. But know this. Move a muscle, and I’ll kill you.”

“Worked for her long?” Ian asked, surreptitiously pulling at the ropes.

The small, mean eyes wandered toward the door. “A while.”

“She doesn’t let you share her prey with Raul?”

“The women? One day she will.”

Ian shuddered at the thought. He shrugged. “Seems a bit unfair.”

He could hear the man’s teeth grind. Ian didn’t even want to know what he was imagining. It was enough that he was distracted.

Ian worked his hands. Twist. Pull. Twist. Twist. Do it without moving his shoulders, so the men didn’t notice. The ropes couldn’t last much longer. Please God, they wouldn’t last much longer. He had to get to Sarah before they hurt her.

Twist. Pull. Twist.

Snap!

Sarah had said she would like a berserker. If she saw him in that little room in that moment, Ian wasn’t so sure she would feel the same. It was three against one, and the three never stood a chance. They just didn’t know it until Ian erupted from that chair.

It wasn’t easy. Each of his three opponents was at least his size, and hired for their brawn. But Ian had been hired for his brawn
and
his brain. Grabbing the leader, Ian spun him right at the other two. The guns clattered to the ground. The men didn’t. Ian smiled. When the first one bent to retrieve his gun, Ian slammed his knee into the
gàrlach
’s face. He heard the satisfying crunch of bone and spun again, landing a hard kick on the second man’s knee. The third man charged, roaring.

After that, it was chaos.

It took longer than Ian had hoped and cost him another broken rib and a second blackened eye, but in the end the three henchmen found themselves hogtied on the floor, and Ian in possession of three guns, two knives, and a set of fine brass knuckles.

Grabbing the lantern from its hook on the wall, he strode to the door. He reached out and caught sight of the remnants of his right sleeve, soaked through with blood. What had that been for? he wondered.

He shouldn’t have let himself get distracted. He was just reaching for the door when it slammed open right into him.

Ronald was going to pay for this, Sarah swore, struggling to keep the panic from swamping her. It was bad enough he had had one of his henchmen drag her down through the interminable cellars and dump her in this cobwebbed monstrosity. But just to make sure she knew how powerless she was, he had tied her to a chair and then walked out with the only light.

She was so cold. She hurt in a dozen places from that ride down the staircase, and she was terrified to put her feet down. She didn’t mind mice. Every barn in Christendom had mice. But the rustlings she heard in this lightless hell were not mice. They were rats. And Sarah hated rats. She had a memory of them crawling on her bed in the dark.

She wasn’t certain if it was a true memory, but she knew that the orphanage the duke had placed her in had been a breeding ground for rats. She knew she had tiny scars on her toes from the three years she had survived before being adopted out. She
hated
rats. And Ronald said he was getting ready to put her on a ship to the Antipodes that was surely packed with more. Somehow she had to get away before he had the chance.

She was good at knots. She had to be. She could certainly untie these in the dark, she thought, even behind her back. And then, when she was free…what? The door was not just locked, but hidden behind a blank stone wall. All the better, Ronald had informed her while rubbing at his injured shoulder, to make sure she left without anyone knowing. Even if Pip and Chuffy Wilde asked where she was, all Ronald would have to say was that he had sent her on her way.

She would think about that when it came time to face it. First things first.

She had finally gotten purchase on the first knot when she heard the rattle of a key in the lock. She froze. Ronald had promised he wouldn’t return until morning. Could it be someone had come to rescue her? Could Ian be looking for her?

Please.
Please.

Not Ian. She battled tears. The door screeched open to reveal three people standing in the hallway. Two of them held lanterns that cast a wild, sinister light over their faces: Ronald, looking oddly pasty and nervous; a behemoth with a hard smile and empty eyes. And a woman…oh, no. Oh, God. Sarah knew her. Gold hair that gleamed in the wavering light, and a voluptuous body straining a sleek red velvet gown.