Chapter Twenty-Nine

The devil drummed on Adam’s head. For some reason, he was strewn across a cold floor, not in bed next to his warm wife. Had he had a nightmare and fallen out of bed? A flickering light limned his eyelids in red. The transient nature of the light stabbed into his eye sockets with every shift. He moaned, trying to turn his face away into the cool wooden floor.

Get up. He would worry Lily if he did not. Letting out a shattered breath, he tried to pull his hand beneath him to lever into a sitting position, only to find that he could not. His wrists were bound tight behind him, not with crude hempen rope but with a starched length of cloth. A cravat—his cravat? With difficulty, he opened his eyes.

He was not at home. The walls were a nauseating green. The shutters were latched, keeping out the light and any prayer of orienting himself. The light emanated from a candle across the room. One look at it convinced him to protect his aching eyes. His mouth was dry and sour. The hair at his temple felt matted with sweat and crusted with the devil only knew what. He squeezed his eyes tight and took another shuddering breath.

“This is taking too deuced long.”

That was not his wife’s voice.

Heavy, purposeful footsteps reverberated through the floorboards and into his head. His stomach rebelled. He pressed his lips tight. Tepid water drenched him and he gasped, spluttering involuntarily and opening his eyes again. The toes of a man’s Hessian boots were planted not far from Adam’s head. He tasted the sting of lye and nearly turned out the contents of his stomach. He rolled onto his back instead, gulping for breath and praying that Chatterley had thrown the contents of his dishwater on Adam rather than his used bathwater.

With the water had returned clarity on one point— Adam had gone into Chatterley’s house and he had not departed. The crack to his head had happened when he’d dodged a bullet. More worryingly, it might have been the bullet itself. Steeling himself, he turned to study his captor’s face.

Chatterley was deranged. For once, he made no pretense at hiding his emotions behind the mask of civility. Adam had stood toe to toe with men who hated him on principle before, but none of them had fostered the depth of loathing in Chatterley’s eyes.

“At last, you deign to join us, Mr. Darling.” Chatterley’s mouth curled around Adam’s surname like he wanted to spit it out.

Adam said nothing. Movement at the door drew his attention to Chatterley’s stoic manservant. His expression was blank, his hands clasped at his back and his posture stiff and at the ready. However, there was something in the way he stared at the wall rather than taking in Adam’s prone form that made him wonder what the man thought of his master now.

When Adam tried to shove himself upright, white pain streaked from his temple to blind him. He nearly lost his lunch on Chatterley’s shoes. He remained on the floor, gasping, and blinked hard to clear his vision. Slowly, those boots came back into focus again.

Chatterley pinned him with one in the shoulder, wrenching the already aching joint even farther out of comfort. If Adam had been able to move, it would have been a fool’s decision. He envisioned the series of moves he would take to get the upper hand—knock Chatterley’s legs out from under him. Roll atop. Use his bound hands to slip into Chatterley’s pockets for a knife or something else of use. The manservant might put a stop to it, but not before Adam bloodied Chatterley’s nose.

He couldn’t move even a fraction closer to Chatterley. His head pounded. His vision swam and he tasted bile. When he’d hit his head, he may have done irreparable damage. Hell and damnation, was he going to die here, beneath Chatterley’s boot?

Pain spiked through Adam, lower than his head this time as Chatterley dug in his boot. His throat constricted. He was thirteen, trussed up in the hold of the Nemesis, being told what a pleasure it was for him to serve the Crown and do his duty.

No. He was not thirteen anymore. Those memories, unlike the ones of battle, were thin and worn at the edges. The floor didn’t sway beneath his cheek. He smelled the sludge off the bottom of Chatterley’s boot and the lingering lye of the water soaked into him, not the brine of the sea. Two decades had passed, and he was alive. He was free.

Lily. Think of Lily.

The pain retreated to a dull ache and intermittent throb. Chatterley stepped back. Derision dripped from his voice like venom as he muttered, “Lily, Lily, Lily.”

Adam froze, unable to breathe. He hasn’t done anything with her. He wouldn’t. Adam had left her safe in bed.

“That’s all I ever hear from your lips. Well, Mr. Darling, I know what you’ve done.”

Far less menacing a diatribe than the coward likely intended. Adam shut his eyes, centered himself, gathered his wits. Lily didn’t know he’d left the house. He had to return to her.

Chatterley kicked him in the chest. “Pay attention. I don’t care to repeat myself.”

Adam gasped for at least twenty seconds before he managed to draw in a decent breath. Chatterley’s boot had connected with something tender. It wasn’t the first time he’d kicked Adam.

When Adam opened his eyes again and made an effort to tilt up his face, his captor seemed appeased. “I thought…you didn’t care to get your hands dirty.” Adam wheezed, forcing out the words between short breaths. Something was wrong with his side. Cracked ribs?

“Your weak attempts to unbalance me won’t work.”

Perhaps because you’ve already lost your sanity.

Adam didn’t have the breath to return the quip. It wouldn’t help him, even if he did. He had to think clearly.

Unreasonably certain of his safety, Chatterley crouched to look Adam in the eye. “Since you’re so keen to speak of Lily, I know what you’ve done.”

The papers Adam had burned. The ones he feared were copies of the original. He should have sent the entire damn house up in a conflagration.

Chatterley cocked his head. “No clever retort, I see.” His mouth, as far as Adam could see without straining his neck, curved up at the edges with satisfaction. “But you see, this is the one time I need you to loosen your tongue. You turned Lily against me.”

“You did that on your own.”

Gingerly, as if he didn’t care to touch Adam, Chatterley gripped Adam by the hair and turned his head. His eyes were grim. His nostrils flared. “You convinced Lily that she was better off not capitulating to my request, not I. Where did you stash the armband? I won’t be played for a fool.”

“A pity… It’s the role for which you’ve trained…your entire life.”

Despite the breathiness of Adam’s delivery, Chatterley’s grip tightened. He slammed Adam’s head against the ground. The world receded.

…

Adam next woke to more unclean water and the tang of blood in his mouth. This time, he couldn’t even lift his head.

“Let’s try this again,” Chatterley said, biting off every word. “Where is the armband? You’ve already proven you don’t hesitate to steal from your wife.”

If Adam’s hands had been free, he would have strangled the lesser man. He launched himself at Chatterley in boiling rage, the pain an afterthought.

When the haze cleared, he was lying on the floor again and Chatterley was as far away as could be managed while still remaining in the same room.

“…not in any condition to answer questions, sir,” said the manservant by the door, his voice as flat as his expression.

Chatterley made a disgusted sound. “I’ll leave him to you.” He raised his voice, the edge as sharp as a blade. “Make no mistake, Mr. Darling. You’ll tell me where you’ve hidden that armband. And then I’ll turn you over to your captain. I hope you enjoyed your time with Lily, because you will never see her again.”

The thunder of the door shutting splintered across Adam’s skull. When he tried to move, he lost the battle with his stomach. The violent shudders of his body only intensified the pain in his skull. Spent, he lay limp, arms contorted behind his back, unable to so much as crawl away from the mess. Worst yet, he couldn’t feel his hands to move them. A full breath out of reach, he had nothing but his misery and helplessness to keep him company. Tears leaked from his eyes.

Lily. He wouldn’t come home and this time, she would never know why.

…

By dinnertime, there was no question, no hope. Adam was gone.

The last time this had happened… Lily’s heart skipped a beat. She had attempted to pay the innkeeper and discovered that the bank note was no longer valid. Her husband had signed her dowry into another account.

What had he stolen from her this time?

The armband.

She dashed upstairs, her heart thundering in her ears. She fumbled through the room she’d shared with him, a room that smelled ever so faintly of his cologne. Where had she set the case when she’d returned last night?

Dear Lord, had it only been last night? It felt like an eternity.

There—tucked into a corner behind the door. She fell upon it and clawed it open. Her heart felt like a winged bird, battering at the cage of her ribs. Loud and painful. Grimacing, she scattered her tools on the floor next to her, each clinking against the wood. She found the catch to the secret compartment beneath. The false bottom joined the strewn tools. Beneath…

When her hands met a cool metal object, she nearly wept with relief. Gingerly, she pulled it out, blinking away her blurry vision. Was it the original artifact or one of the failed forgeries, as she’d suggested to her sisters to use to buy them time? Her fingers slipped over her tools as she drew them nearer and skirted back into a pool of light from the dying sun. She fixed the monocle to her eye and peered at her prize. In her head, she listed all of the flaws Reid had so cruelly pointed out with her previous attempts.

None. She found none of them. This was the ancient armband.

Adam hadn’t stolen it? Relief gushed from her lungs in a long sigh. Tears flooded onto her cheeks. She cradled the object in her lap and turned her face up to the ceiling.

What was she to do with it now?