Page 1 of The Duke’s Man-At-Arms (The Duke’s Guard #11)

T he angel of the streets slowly opened her eyes and blinked. Her vision did not clear, and for a moment, she feared she was still inside that musty-smelling rug. The insistent, painful throb at the back of her head made itself known now that she regained consciousness. She tried to raise her hand to touch the back of her head, to see if it was bleeding, but couldn’t. She could not move. The instinctive urge to cry for help was stifled by the foul-tasting gag covering her mouth.

Digging deep for strength, she tried to recall what happened, but for the life of her she could not. Where was she? Who had hit her? Her belly roiled and sweat broke out on the back of her neck and behind her knees. The telltale signs, and her body’s warning, that she was about to vomit! Desperate to take back control from whomever had wrested it from her, she knew she had to hang on. She could not cast up her accounts now… Not when she was bound and gagged! She’d choke to death!

Tears welled up as she felt her will slipping. Concentrate! her mind screamed. She needed to think of something… Anything! She had to calm down. Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out through her nose three times. Reaching for calm, her mind called up the image of a giant of a man with broad shoulders—his physique, heavily muscled. His eyes, an intense emerald green. The memory of his carrying two little girls who clung to him as if he were their savior filled her mind’s eye. The sudden thought that he could be hers too, if only she would let him, calmed her. Her stomach finally settled and the nausea disappeared.

How could she have been so careless after nearly a decade spent living a double life? She’d skirted discovery many times, but had never been injured or abducted. It was as if a private guard followed in her wake. But she only had one guard, not five, nor ten. By day, she was the quiet daughter of one of the ton ’s favorite widowed physicians. Oh, she would attend the odd musicale or visit to a museum now and again, but when dusk fell, she moved in and around the edges of the stews of London, helping those who thought they were beyond it. Giving aid to women whose families had tossed them out. It had been her mission in life since that night…

She blocked off the memory, shoving it back to the back of her mind with the rest of that nightmare. She had been cautious when necessary, enlisting the aid of one or two men she trusted with her secret—and her life—when she could see no other way to protect the young women she had rescued.

To her shame, she realized that she had not only been self-righteous, but arrogant. Being so sure of her cause, positive no one but her could do what she did, had led her to believe herself invincible. Determined not to let the men who violated women, tossed them aside, and ruined their lives further by maligning them to all who would listen get away, she gave herself fully to her cause. These women still had value. They mattered… She mattered. What had been stolen from them could never be replaced, but she had helped heal the scars on their bodies until they were strong enough to begin healing the scars on their hearts. She helped them find employment and a chance to regain their self-respect. If only she could finally find a way to heal her own heart.

The pain in her head increased with each beat of her heart, as the reality of her situation hit home. No one would be coming for her. It had always been essential that no one know who she was, or her location. Whenever she felt the prickle of awareness and fear on the back of her neck, it was time to move. Time to find new rooms in a different building. No one knew of her location except her current guard, Greenwood. Had he been gravely injured? Dear Lord, had he survived the attack?

Trussed up and lying on the cold floor, she had naught to do but try to reason out what had happened. She quickly came to the conclusion that it had to have been intentional. Surely no footpad would be plying his trade at that hour of the day! She had heard a scuffle and knew Greenwood was trying to protect her. Then pain exploded in the back of her head. The rest of the fog in her brain lifted as her circumstances became perfectly clear. She had never been attacked before, but now that she had, the first prickles of awareness tinged with fear filled her. Though she could not see it or touch it, it felt as if her abductor’s net slowly closed around her.

Her secret had been uncovered. Someone without a conscience, a heart, or a soul knew of her crusade and wanted to bring it to an end. The only reason that made sense to her was that whoever it had been was either trying to hide or cover their tracks by eliminating her.

Michaela was strong, and she would survive whatever her captor had planned for her. She had survived that long-ago night in the garden, determined that it would not define her future. She had kept her secret for years, until recently, when a wounded kindred soul needed to hear that she was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Aimee had been so brave insisting that Garahan and O’Malley go back and rescue the others, with little thought to her own safety. Those two little mites came to mind again, clinging to the handsome Irishman who had sparked what she thought had died inside of her. Hope. Hope that she, too, deserved a chance at a life where she would eventually be able to forgive herself for being too weak to fight off the despicable man who had stolen not only her virtue, but her dignity and her dreams. Those women did not deserve what happened to them, and neither did she.

She shoved that memory aside and whispered O’Malley’s name in her head. He was a healer like herself, but also a warrior, the duke’s man-at-arms, protector of innocents…as well as those who’d had their innocence stripped from them. Her heartbeat returned to normal, and her tears dried. She opened her eyes with renewed purpose—she had to escape! Wriggling her jaw from side to side was painful at first, but she kept at it. Opening and closing her mouth, she finally loosened the gag.

The pain in her head increased, but she ignored it by bringing up the memory of the helpless look in O’Malley’s eyes when he tried to extract himself from the two little girls he and his cousin had rescued along with the others. At last she worked the gag off her mouth and took in great gulps of air. It wasn’t fresh, and smelled oddly of the Thames, but at least the disgusting taste of the gag was gone.

She shifted one shoulder forward and then the other, pulling against the ropes binding her wrists together, fighting to loosen them. It took all of her willpower to keep working at the ropes. When she felt the trickle of warmth on her hands, she realized her attempts were all in vain. The ropes had not budged, and she’d rubbed her wrists raw. Whoever had tied the rope did not intend for her to escape. But the need to free herself overrode the pain in her bleeding wrists. She refused to give up and give in! Michaela twisted, tugged, wriggled, and pulled, but to no avail. She may have managed to remove her gag, and calm her roiling belly, but she hadn’t been able to loosen her bonds.

Exhaustion crept up from the soles of her feet, threatening to claim her. She fought against it, knowing she needed to stay awake. The throb in her head, blurred vision, and nausea had returned, and the possibility that she was concussed was not to be ignored. Studying at her father’s side, assisting him with his patients, had taught her that and more, and it enabled her to save those whom Society deemed unfit. Had anyone discovered what had happened to her that night, not only would her reputation have been in shreds, but her father’s as well.

The ton would have refused to allow a physician with a pariah for a daughter to tend to them. What if her father had demanded satisfaction and called Lord Haversham out, demanding that they meet on the field of honor? She could never have let that happen. So she’d kept silent and lived with the shame that threatened to eat her alive until she paid attention to what was happening around her. She was not the only young woman to suffer such a fate. From that moment on, her life had had a new mission. She no longer hoped to study to become a physician and work alongside her father—a dream unheard of at the time. She would be the hand that lifted others who suffered such treatment out of their guilt and misery. Heal them, clothe them, find employment for them as they learned what she had had to do—forge a new path for her life.

Michaela bit the inside of her cheek when she felt her eyes closing again. She had to stay awake. Botheration! She could not do this alone. She rarely asked for help because it could be dangerous to those she gave aid to. But lying on the floor in the dark, unable to free herself, she knew of only one man who could rescue her and tend to her head injury. Michaela needed Emmett O’Malley!

Though the memory wasn’t clear, she vaguely recalled Greenwood fighting to protect her. She had been grabbed not two steps from the door to her new building, where she’d recently procured rooms to continue her work, and had been struck on the back of her head.

Unless something horrible had happened to her guard, she was confident he would send word to Garahan and O’Malley, mayhap even Gavin King of Bow Street. She bit her lip, trying to decide who would be able to reach her first. Garahan was recovering, adjusting to the injury he’d received after rescuing Aimee, his new wife. Though she would never discount Garahan’s strength and ability to regain the balance and acute sense of awareness necessary to perform his duties with the partial loss of eyesight in one eye, she wondered if O’Malley would be the one to find her.

Lost between the pain in her head and her thoughts, she heard the echo of footsteps coming toward her. Would she meet the person responsible for this travesty, or would it be one of his henchmen? Trepidation filled her as the footsteps drew near and stopped. A key scraped in the lock, and the hinges squeaked as the door opened. A tall man holding a lantern at his side stood there, but it was too dark to see his face. The shadowed hallway hid it from her. She felt his gaze on her, and the wild hope that mayhap this was all a mistake filled her. Had they grabbed the wrong woman? Was he here to set her free?

“So the rumors in the stews of this city are true. There is an angel who sweeps in to rescue fallen women… A fallen woman herself.”

Her heart began to pound. It was the voice from her nightmare! How in God’s name had he found her?

“I wondered where you disappeared to after that night in the garden. I confess I was surprised not to hear that your body had been found floating in the Thames. Isn’t that what most women unable to bear the loss of their only valuable asset resort to?”

His questions battered her as he intended them to, but she refused to answer. The sudden silence after the rasp of his voice slashed through her hard-won confidence, chilling her to the bone.

“Do you remember what happened that night, Miss Colborne?”

The acid in her empty belly roiled and his voice had her skin crawling. She remembered his anger and harsh words, the violence that followed, as if it had happened hours ago instead of years.

“When I heard that a certain boarding house had been closed down and young women had been rescued, I wondered if the rumored angel of the streets could possibly be you.” He stepped over the threshold and lifted the lantern in his hand so the light shone on him. “I dismissed it because I knew you to believe yourself above others…above men such as myself. You would never stoop so low as to help damaged goods.”

Lord Haversham looked just as she remembered him, impeccably dressed in a dark blue frockcoat of the finest wool, and a pale blue jacquard waistcoat shot with threads of gold that glistened in the soft light. The stark white of his cravat was crisply folded to achieve the waterfall effect, giving the appearance of a gentleman, but she knew it was just the outside shell. A shell that hid the demon within. Everything about him was unchanged, even what she had not noticed until it was too late…his hollow black eyes.

Had she made the wrong decision all those years ago by not telling her father what Lord Haversham had done? Her lack of action at the time had left her guilt ridden. Had he gone on to ruin more than one young woman, or had his anger been focused solely on her because of her dream to become a doctor? Rage began to build inside of her as she recalled all he had stolen from her. She curled her hands into tight fists and clenched her teeth. He was in for a surprise if he thought he would touch her again! Her legs were unbound, so she was not totally defenseless.

He continued to stare at her without speaking until, finally, he said, “I cannot allow you to continue to interfere in my most profitable business, Miss Colborne. What a pity your looks seem to have deserted you along with your innocence.” He sniffed and lifted his chin as if disgusted by her very appearance. Thank God! Fear that he would touch her dissipated. “I had thought to see if you had learned how to pleasure a man since our diverting time in the garden.” His lip curled in disdain. “You’ll need a bath and fresh clothes first.”

“You are despicable.”

“I see that your temperament has not improved. Let us see if it improves after another day spent locked in with the rats.”

“Rats?”

His laugh had ice sprinting up her spine. “Surely you recognized the scratching and scurrying in the corners of the room, the hole in the wall near the floor.”

When she did not answer, he smiled. “They hunt here at night, sometimes in the middle of the day. Whenever hunger strikes.” His eyes bored into her. “Are you hungry, Miss Colborne? Thirsty?”

She refused to give him the satisfaction of answering. It had taken her years to recover from his attack. Though she had been raised to believe in forgiveness and knew it would lift part of the heavy burden she carried, she had not been able to do so.

With her anger bolstering her, her pride back in place, she spat at his highly polished Hessians. His shocked expression and quick step back was a small strike at him for what he was trying to do to her again. He had not changed—he was still a handsome man, rotten to the core. In her heart she knew that he would continue to take, and by taking destroy another gentle heart, another fragile soul.

“There is a place in Hell for the likes of you, Haversham.”

His posture changed in a heartbeat—he squared his shoulders and vibrated with anger as he took a step closer. Raising the lantern above his head, he snarled, “It is Lord Haversham! I demand that you respect me and my title!”

“Only a weak man demands respect. Strong men earn it by their actions and good deeds.”

As soon as the words left her lips, she realized too late that she had pushed him too far. She guessed his intention a heartbeat before his foot connected with her ribs. The pain registered as he kicked her again, harder this time. “Bloody. Filthy. Trollop!”

The third kick to her ribs stole her breath. She felt two of them give way, and heard the deep echoing crack of their breaking in her pounding head.

The light blinded her as Haversham leaned down and growled, “Another day in here, and you’ll be willing to do anything for your freedom.”

The pain in her ribs rolled over her in waves, increasing in intensity. Each breath she struggled to take was torture. The door slammed, and the key turning in the lock echoed around her. Alone she prayed for a miracle…

She prayed for Emmett O’Malley.