Page 83 of A Figure of Love

“You’ve wrongtaken me, lass. It aen’t ’im we’re waitin’ on.”

Serena could only stare. Who else could he believe would pay for her? She had nothing on her to indicate any relationship to anyone. She only had the little bit of money and—

“Oh no.”

He nodded. “Oh yes. Even such as we ’ave ’eard of Gareth Lock’art. One of the richest men in England.” He paused. “An odd ’ un, by what we could find. But a downy one by any man’s measure.”

“Just because you have found a bank draft from him does not mean he will ransom me. I am his employee.”

That made the old man laugh. “Oh, aye, and a fine one you are.”

Her face burnt in the cool, damp room. “I am not his mistress. I am his landscape gardener and sculptor.”

“Oh, is that what the fancy folk be callin’ it nowadays?” He chuckled in a way that made her wish for her largest mallet and one of her chisels.

Serena waved a hand. “Go ahead and laugh and wait. You will be waiting a long time.”

He pushed himself to his feet, tapped out his pipe and ground it under foot, and left the room, still chortling to himself. The fool.

That was the last time anyone had spoken with her. But not the last time anyone had come into her room. The younger cobbler had come the third day, and he’d not brought food. She would have recognized the light in his eyes even if he hadn’t begun unbuttoning the flap of his breeches as soon as he’d come in the room.

“What do you want?” she’d demanded, stalling for time even as her blood ran cold.

He’d laughed. “I want a taste o’ a rich man’s tart.” His eyes had flickered jerkily as they swept her from her stocking-covered toes to her hair that had not been washed or combed for days. She could only imagine she looked—and smelled—appalling, but the bulge in his breeches convinced her he thought otherwise.

She backed up against the wall, her eyes darting around the room for something to hit, poke, or bash him with. But the only thing was the cot she was lying on and the old barrel chair that was almost too heavy to move.

“I’ll scream,” she threatened, as he came closer, his greasy, stained breeches falling open to reveal drawers even worse.

“Not with your mouth full, you won’t.”

Suddenly, it was 1806 all over again. It was winter, and she’d been hiding in Favel’s house with two other women. They’d been eating what they could scavenge, avoiding any fires so they would not draw the notice of the men dressed as soldiers who’d been robbing and raping their own people.

She was coming back from the woods, where she had found a fat duck in some poacher’s snare. It would be worth risking a fire to have some meat. She’d been rushing, so excited about her treasure that she had not been paying attention when she’d rounded the corner of Favel’s abandoned stables and walked right into a hard chest. Etienne Bardot’s chest, it had turned out. The leader of his small band of rapists and looters.

That had been the beginning of a nightmare that lasted five long months.

The young cobbler, she did not even know his name, came to the edge of the cot and dropped his filthy drawers.

“Be a good girl, now,” he said, thrusting his hips toward her. Just like Etienne had done so many times.

She smiled and then opened her mouth as wide as necessary.

He was crying, his hands over his naked hips, blood leaking through his fingers when the men flung open the door. Serena had found strength from places she’d never even know it existed. Enough to lift the unwieldy chair and trap his body beneath the legs.

The men had lifted her bodily from the chair and put her on the bed. They’d leaned over the weeping, writhing cobbler and pulled away his hands, cursing at what they found.

“You’ll have to take him to old Fletcher,” one of the men said, both wearing the dark woolen face masks they must wear at night out on the water.

“Aye,” said the other, turning to her, his eyes wide in the round openings. “You done him good, lass. But I reckon he earned it.”

Serena was in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, shivering even as sweat stung her eyes. In her mouth she could taste blood and the room around her was same one she’d thought she’d escaped ten years ago.

Chapter Twenty

Gareth wasn’t surprised when he felt the business end of a pistol touch the back of his neck. He’d heard the man coming through the trees, after all. He’d made more noise than a herd of horses.

“Don’t try anything funny-like.”