Chapter Twenty-Four

Liam never made it back from the magistrate’s.

He remembered arriving in the village, riding through it to Ford’s house, which lay up the hill by the church. Laying out Rebecca’s tale, and Mellors’s role. He remembered Ford’s assurances that something could be done. That he would ensure protection for Rebecca if she went to him, and gave a formal statement. From there, they would need to get more advice, and likely they would need resources, and time, to bring charges against Mellors, and ensure they stuck.

He had thanked Ford and rushed back towards Thornhallow, to prepare for his pursuit of Rebecca, but then...

There was nothing but sharp pain and darkness.

Liam’s eyes fluttered open at that memory, then shut again almost immediately. The pain which had been but a memory was now very real. His head ached, clouding his mind as he slowly regained full consciousness.

Someone had hit him at the back of the head; he could feel it throbbing.

What the Devil has happened and where the hell am I...? Lying on a floor somewhere...

Somewhere warm and comfortable, that much was true. He may be on the floor, but he was on what felt like a rich rug.

Liam forced his eyes open and found that he was still surrounded by darkness. Suffocating darkness.

A sack.

Someone had covered his head with a putrid-smelling Hessian sack. And tied his hands—he could feel the burn of rope against his wrists as he tried to move. That hurt, too. In fact, his whole body ached, as though he’d been thrown about like a sack of potatoes. Which he suspected was not far from the truth.

What the hell is this...?

Liam made the mistake of taking a deep breath, in an effort to keep calm and clear his mind, so that he could get himself out of whatever mess he was in. The thin and rancid air caught the back of his throat, and Liam coughed and groaned, gasping desperately for air.

There was a hollow laugh, footsteps, and then the sack was ripped from his head.

Blinking furiously, as the now overwhelming brightness blinded him, Liam welcomed the sweet breaths of fresh air.

‘Finally, you’re awake,’ drawled a familiar voice. ‘I was growing bored, and was about to have Rupert here fetch smelling salts.’

‘You,’ Liam growled, his eyes adjusting and recognising Mellors sitting in the chair before him.

My chair. My library. My house...

So he’d arrived back at Thornhallow after all—only not quite how he’d planned.

‘Do you have any idea how grave a mistake you’ve made? Untie me at once, you disgusting invertebrate.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ Mellors laughed. ‘Rupert, go and see that everything is ready.’

Liam heard heavy footsteps lumbering away, out of the library and through the hall.

Good—one less to deal with. Think, man, you need to get out of this...

‘You see, Reid, I don’t particularly enjoy people meddling in my affairs, and you’ve been doing just that.’

‘Whatever you’re planning, I can assure you, you won’t get away with it. I’ve already spoken to Ford. He knows everything.’

‘Won’t I?’ the Viscount asked, his eyes glinting dangerously and his mouth curling into a sardonic smile. ‘But I already have. Here you are, at my feet, powerless. Rupert’s knots are quite remarkable. As for your rather pathetic household, they’ve been rounded up and secured. Soon you, they and this house will be nothing more than a tragic memory.’

‘They aren’t a part of this,’ Liam snarled, trying with little success to loosen his restraints. ‘Let them go.’

‘You are hardly in a position to bargain, Reid. They are part of this now, thanks to you. You forced my hand, forced me to come here myself—’

‘Whatever your quarrel is with me—’

‘Whatever my quarrel is with you? My quarrel is that you presumed to interfere in an affair that has absolutely nothing to do with you,’ Mellors whined. ‘Fifteen years I’ve been chasing her, you know. Rebecca was smart, always a step ahead. I dare say, though, the chase was certainly invigorating. Had she not run, well, she would’ve been just like the others. Nothing.’

The others...

Liam’s stomach roiled at the thought of other girls like Rebecca—how many?—suffering because of this monster before him. He would get out of this bind, he swore—he’d got out of perhaps not worse but similarly dire circumstances before—and he would see this man hanged as a symbol of what befell those like him.

Justice.

‘And then—’ the man grinned, fuelling Liam’s rage ‘—just when I begin to grow weary of hunting her across England, she falls straight into my lap. First mistake she ever made, coming back here. I shall ask her about that later...’

Mellors’s words penetrated his haze of fury, and Liam’s heart stopped beating.

He has her. She didn’t leave.

‘As for you, well...you should’ve let it be. Enjoyed the life she bought you.’

‘The life she bought you...’ He threatened you with my life so you went to him...

The realisation of what she’d done filled him with both inexorable joy and breathtaking heartbreak. He really needed to get out of here. Luckily the bastard was enjoying the sound of his own voice.

‘Damn you, Mellors!’ Liam cried, beyond caring that his voice betrayed his pain, his fear at all he could lose. ‘You will pay for all the ill you have wrought. On Rebecca, on—’

‘Oh, do cease your remonstrations,’ Mellors sighed, rising to his feet. ‘Really is dreadfully boring.’

‘Time to go, my lord,’ came a voice—Rupert? ‘Shouldn’t tarry, it’ll be taking off now.’

‘Excellent, thank you, Rupert, out in a moment,’ Mellors called back.

With a sickening grin, he strode to the window, tore down one of the silk curtains, then turned back and stopped by the fireplace. He stoked the fire, slid away the screen, and with a disturbingly overenthusiastic flourish threw one end of the curtain into the fire. It caught immediately, whirling and twisting into a mighty flame.

Mellors laughed and stepped away, before coming to loom over Liam.

‘Not that I don’t trust Rupert’s capabilities, but best to make sure things are done properly. On that note, I really must be going.’

‘I don’t think so,’ came Rebecca’s voice. ‘Not quite yet.’

The sound of shouts and a creaky wooden cart had torn Rebecca from her daze. Hours she’d sat there at the window in Rochesdale, in the gaudy, stifling room the Viscount had declared her own, staring out onto the dales and fells which only months before had seemed to sing as they welcomed her back into their embrace.

There had been nothing else to do but wait.

It had been meant as a torture—the slow ticking of the gilded clock on the marble mantelpiece, the solitude—time for her dread to grow as the hour of her surrender drew nearer. Yet Rebecca had been grateful for the time to prepare herself. To say her prayers, and find some peace.

And then, she’d heard the noises.

So at odds with the calm silence otherwise permeating the house, they had caught her attention.

She’d slipped quietly from her room, along the corridor, until she’d found a room which overlooked the tradesmen’s entrance. From her vantage, she’d seen a couple of brutes driving a cart meet Francis. She’d seen them discussing the covered bundle in the cart—unmistakably a man. Gesturing, they had beckoned the Viscount, and when they’d lifted the blanket...then she had seen the man beneath. And though his head had been covered, she’d known him in an instant.

There had been more shouting, and gesticulating, and then the brutes had driven off south. Somehow Rebecca had known precisely where they were going. Thornhallow.

Francis had returned inside, and she’d slipped back to her room. She’d heard shouts ringing throughout the house. Orders. Preparations. And then, not half an hour later, the sound of a door slamming, and the Viscount riding out.

It was not difficult, since Francis trusted that she would not run away, to do just that. To steal into the stables, and lead away a thoroughbred stallion with no one the wiser. Just as it was not difficult to slip into another house, particularly one she had lived and worked in.

No, slipping back into Thornhallow Hall to find her family was no great feat at all.

No, no, no, no... Get out of here, Liam thought, as he rolled over to be sure his mind was not playing tricks on him.

Sure enough, there Rebecca was, standing at the doorway, a pistol pointed at Mellors, another tucked in her belt, the image of a fierce and formidable pirate warrior queen.

It might have been romantic had it not been so terrifying.

‘Rebecca, you need to leave, go, before—’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Liam,’ she said, her eyes never leaving the Viscount as she carefully made her way towards them. ‘Step away from him.’

‘Be careful with that, my dear.’ Mellors smiled derisively, nonetheless doing as he was told, arms raised, careful to seize the opportunity to move away from the fire growing behind him. ‘No need for anyone to get hurt.’

‘Do not doubt for one second I know how to use this.’

‘Rebecca, please, just—’

‘Liam, enough,’ she said sharply, stopping beside him. Without losing her focus she dropped down and handed him a knife from her pocket, before rising again, the pistol still aimed and at the ready. ‘You might’ve had it all, you know. If only you’d left them alone.’

‘In my defence,’ Mellors drawled, eyeing the door, ‘he went to the magistrate. I was otherwise quite prepared to keep my word.’

‘Strangely enough, I believe you.’

‘Well, one mustn’t dwell... Might I suggest perhaps we adjourn elsewhere? Things are beginning to heat up, if you’ll forgive the witticism.’

‘How are you doing, Liam?’ Rebecca asked, her voice as calm as she appeared, though she hadn’t failed to notice the growing flames in the library, nor the smoke drifting in from the hall. ‘Time is rather of the essence just now.’

‘Almost, there,’ he said, finally freeing his hands.

Liam rose, but did so too quickly and stumbled, still dazed from the blow to his head.

Rebecca moved to catch him, but in that second of inattention Mellors seized his chance, and ran for the door. She fired and nicked his arm before he disappeared.

Just as she made to follow there was a tremendous roar and crash in the hall, followed by a scream. Liam grabbed Rebecca’s arm, but she shook him off, extracted the other pistol from her belt, and ran after Mellors, determined to end it once and for all.

Struggling to keep steady on his feet, the smoke increasingly hindering his breathing and his sight, he stumbled out after her.

Why did I have to be cursed with the most stubborn woman in the world?