The carriage was dark, all the faces shadowed save for the faint stream of lamplight filtering in through the dusty windows. The air was putrid. A devastating mixture of body odor and moldy-fabric and Mrs. Musgrave’s pease pottage still wet on his shirt.
He strained his wrists against the coils of rope.
Mrs. Musgrave stared at him.
The bearded man—with his brawny shoulders and heavy breathing—finally seated himself next to her and leveled the gun with both hands.
“Ye wrote the letters,” Tom rasped to her.
“It may surprise you to know, dear, that I have been writing letters for a long time. It did not avail anything. The constable did not believe the truth, and Mr. Foxcroft refused to listen. He would have killed the rest of his life had I not intervened.”
“Meg.” Betrayal soured through him, and the nausea surged with speed up his throat. “Ye did this to her. Ye almost killed her.”
“For which you will thank me when you know the truth.”
“Ye’re wrong.”
“And you are blind, Tommy.” Leaning across the carriage, she reached out and covered his bound hands with her soft, wrinkled ones. “None of this is your fault. You are as much the victim as my Elias and that poor Elisabeth and countless others they have destroyed.”
Tom should have writhed from her touch, but he couldn’t move. She blurred a little. He blinked harder. Disbelief fractured him as he whispered, “Ye lied, all this time, for something ye cannae even prove.”
“Which is why I must do this.” She squeezed him. “You sought the truth, Tommy. I am giving it to you.”
Hair whipped at her face, her mind screamed as she darted around a wingback chair and stumbled for the drawing room doors. She slung herself against them, fumbling with the knobs, thrusting her body against the paneled wood.
No, no, no.
“Got you!” Orkey’s sticky fingers fisted the back of her hair. He yanked. Pain flared. “No more runnin’ or I’ll—”
She twisted around, spit in his face, and ripped out of his grip with a cry of agony. Her scalp stung. She made it halfway across the drawing room before the full weight of his body lunged on her back.
Her forehead smacked the rug with so much force she wilted.Tom.She tethered herself to his name, pulled it around her like a cocoon as Orkey turned her over.
Panting, he hauled her back to her feet. He shoved her backward into the glass-paned bookshelf. “You dirty little rich thing.” Face scrunching, he barged his knuckles across her chin.
The impact snapped back her head. The bookcase rattled. She whimpered, tried to hide her face, but another blow pummeled into her stomach.
Again.
Then again.
Glass fragmented behind her.No, please.She crumpled, but he snatched her hair and dragged her up. “Let me go.”
Tossing off his hat, he threw her to the chaise lounge and slung away the cylinder pillow.
“Please. I beg of you—”
He backhanded her mouth.
She tasted blood, warm and metallic, and her lungs suffocated when his face dipped inches above her face.
His breath poured over her. Foul, hot, panting. “You beg.” Spittle sprayed her. “You have no idea how many years I been begging the streets. People like you never did nothing. You never cared about the likes of filth like Vern and me—”
A crash shook the room.
The doors banging open.
Help.
