Page 43 of The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin (The Ill-Mannered Ladies #2)

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I struggled against his tight hold, but he hooked his forearm around my throat, tightening the choke until I could barely breathe. The woods around me grayed into an air-starved blur as he half carried, half dragged me back to the clearing. I had not run as far from it as I had thought.

He dumped me on the grass in the middle of the circle of men. I gasped for air—hauling it into my aching lungs—then pushed myself upright, blinking to clear my sight, my jaw throbbing at the same rapid beat as my heart.

Two men at my left were holding Weatherly. Blood glistened on his chin, his mouth cut. I met his eyes: no longer calm and shrewd but wide with fury and fight. Did it work? He gave a slight nod. The dagger had been delivered.

Well, that was something. Not much considering the current circumstances, but something.

“No one else around?” Mulholland demanded, glancing around his crew.

One of the men, clearly second-in-command, shook his head. “Only these two.”

Mulholland crouched in front of me, a knife in his hand. I stared at the ruby cabochon set into the silver mount and the elegantly engraved EB . Evan’s dagger.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Mulholland drawled. “Just the thing a grand lady might give her lover.”

Nothing got past him. I glared up at him.

“Seems you both care a great deal. Very sweet.” He shifted his hand upon the dagger into a more businesslike grip.

“Where are your brother and sister, Lady Augusta?”

“They would not come,” I said.

“Can I believe you?”

What would he have me say? No? I stared at him, trying to ignore the pain that dug through my head and the blade so close to my face.

He reached across and grabbed the back of my hair. One brutal wrench and my head was craned back, my scalp a handful of agony. He laid the flat of the blade on my cheek, point aimed at my eye.

“Where are your brother and sister?”

“They would not come,” I repeated, my breath locking into my throat upon the words. All I could see was the point of the dagger.

He released me, my head jolting forward with the force. The blade was gone, but the relief was short-lived. He grabbed my jaw and dug his thumb into the damage already inflicted. For a second, white starbursts of pain blinded me. I gasped and grabbed his wrist, trying to wrest away the excruciation, but his grip was locked upon me and he dug his thumb in deeper.

“One more time, where are your brother and sister?”

“They would not come,” I screamed through the vise of his hand.

He released me, the sudden absence of pain swaying me upon my hands and knees. Dear God, were Julia and Morland close? I tried to focus past the circle of leering men to the tree line. Did I see movement by the oak log? Was it two men struggling? I could not make it out clearly. I looked back to the ground, in case my focus drew attention.

“Your brother and sister are far more prudent than you, Lady Augusta,” Mulholland said. He was back on his feet. “You are a fool for coming here. I told you what would happen.” He looked around at his men. “I’ve always wanted to know if a lady’s quim is any different from a whore’s. Shall we see?”

Low laughter rippled around the circle. I forced back a surge of fear.

“I don’t know, sir,” one voice ventured. “She’s noble. If we hurt her, the quality will come after us and it’ll be the gallows.”

“Didn’t I tell you we’re protected?” Mulholland said. “No one’s going to come for us.”

I tried to gather my focus. Keep him talking. “Who is protecting you? Is it Whitmore? I know he is part of the Exalted Brethren of Rack and Ruin.”

Mulholland gave a low laugh. “You think you know so much. You don’t know the half of it.”

“What do I not know, then?”

“When to shut up.”

He grabbed for me. I scrabbled across the grass, glimpsing Weatherly’s fury as he fought against the two men holding him, but Mulholland was too fast. He caught the hem of my habit and hauled me back, slamming me onto my back, the impact driving all the air from my lungs. I gasped for breath, gathering all my strength to roll over, but a hand struck me in the chest, driving me back against the ground. Hands were hauling up my skirts, dragging them over my head, a stifling, blinding prison of linen and wool. Then a viselike hand grabbed between my legs, fingers jabbing into the knitted gusset of my riding pantaloons.

Fear and revulsion galvanized me—that primal female fury and terror that was made of teeth and claws and scream. I kicked and hit and scratched blindly, connecting in a drag of flesh and hard bone.

“Watch it, she’s a fighter,” a voice called.

“They’ve gone!” The voice was urgent. Not aimed at me. “Belford’s gone.”

“Jesus Christ!”

Mulholland’s crushing weight lifted. I fought my skirts, finding cold air, then sky and moon above me. The sounds of men running. I rolled onto my knees, pushing myself upright in panting, staggering effort. Ahead, two men still held Weatherly.

I lunged forward, all my momentum suddenly and brutally stopped. A body slamming into mine. A choking arm around my throat again. The stink of Mulholland. He dragged me back against his body, the cold silver dagger across my throat.

“Belford,” he bellowed. “Show yourself or she’s dead!”

I dared not breathe, the steel of the blade already biting into my skin. Mulholland’s men had taken up positions around the clearing, all armed, peering into the darkness for Evan and Kent.

An odd silence. All I could hear was Mulholland’s breath in my ear, the heat of his fury exhaled against my cheek.

“Belford!” he bellowed again.

“He’s in there!” one of the men at the far side of the clearing yelled. He fired into the forest. A single explosion and flash of light that flinched across my body.

“Advance!” a voice yelled, and then the clearing was full of men, soldiers, the crack of explosions, and flashes of light and smoke and bodies. The whir of rifle and pistol balls propelled through the air, chunks of bark flying and the screams of men, hit.

“Gus!” Through the smoke, Evan and Mr. Kent were running toward me, both with pistols in hand.

“Get your hands off her, Luddite!” Morland’s voice yelled behind us. “I will shoot.”

Mulholland wrenched me around to face the captain. Morland had a pistol pointed at us. “What?” Mulholland said, lowering the knife from my throat. “No. I’m not a—”

I grabbed his wrist and bit into his flesh as hard as I could manage through the pain in my jaw. I felt the resistance of flesh give way to the metal tang of hot blood. He screamed, the dagger dropping, and wrenched his hand back, a hunk of bloody flesh ripping under my teeth.

He grabbed me around the neck; then another gun exploded. Fired from somewhere behind us, the heavy thud of a ball hitting meat and muscle, driving us both forward a step. I smelled the sharp stink of spent powder, felt a wet spray of red matter, then heard the gargling rise of blood. Mulholland’s hands dropped from my body.

I turned. He had crumpled to the ground, his neck a ragged, bloody mess. The last seconds of life were still in his eyes, and they were locked upon mine. Perhaps he smiled, or perhaps it was the oncoming rictus of death, but I saw something cross his face. A malign moment. And then his focus shifted beyond this realm and into death.