Taken by the Wicked Rake by Christine Merrill Read Free Book Online

the initials V C, and tied tightly about the waist with red silk rope.
    He looked up at Stephen with alarm. “My God, Hebden. You didn’t…”
    “Touch the girl?” Stephano laughed in response. “Certainly not. She is worth more to me as a virgin hostage, than she is as some temporary plaything.” But the image of the girl sprang to his mind, sprawled upon his bed with her skirts ripped near to the waist to give a tantalizing glimpse of her silk-covered legs. “Since you are so quick to search the package I intended for another, then you had best read the attached note.” He quoted from memory. “Your daughter is safe, for now. If you wish her to return the same, then admit in public what you have done.”
    “But is this–” he poked at the chemise and shuddered in distaste, “–is this necessary? Surely you did not need to be quite so theatrical.”
    “Theatrical?” He laughed again. “I have made both the Carlows and the Wardales shake in their beds for months, each one worrying that they would get a bit of rope in the mail. All because of a curse that would have no hold over them, if they did not secretly believe that they were deserving of punishment. And now, because I have sent you a lady’s undergarment, you think that I am developing a taste for the theatrical?” He could still feel the softness of the garment, as he’d tied it up, and the softness of the girl that had worn it. He felt the pounding in his head begin again, as he thought of the girl, naked in the wagon, waiting for his return. If he truly wanted revenge, it would be so very easy. And so very pleasurable. He laughed louder. But the sound did nothing to stop the lurid thoughts in his head or the agony they brought with them.
    Then, as if one pain would stop another, he grabbed the letter opener from Keddinton’s desk, and dragged the blade of it along his palm until a line of red appeared there. He held his hand out over the shift, watching the drops of crimson fall onto the muslin. He made a fist, and squeezed it shut, until his mind cared about nothing but its own pain and the sharp sting of the open cut.
    Then he looked up at Robert Veryan, as the blood continued to drip from his hand. “This, you snivelling coward, is what a taste for the dramatic looks like. Tell your friend, the murderer Carlow, that for now it is my own blood that was spilled. But if he does not accede to my demands, then the next package will be soaked in his daughter’s blood. Can you manage that, without running away again?” He leaned over the desk and watched the older man shrink away from him. It was as easy as it had ever been to intimidate him into obedience.
    Keddinton gave a shaky nod. “If they agree to your demands, how shall I reach you?”
    Stephano reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to bandage his still-bleeding hand. “You do not reach me, Veryan. I am unreachable. Invisible. Unfindable. As is the girl, until this is over.”
    In fact, she was hidden on Veryan’s own property, less than six miles from his house. If the man had been the expert spy catcher everyone thought him, such a simple deception should have been impossible. But the profound ignorance he displayed over small things was more than a match for the intelligence he displayed in others. “I will return to you in a week’s time, and expect to hear George Carlow’s answer. Should you, through disobedience or incompetence, give me reason to come back here before then, it will go hard for you. Do not run, for I will have no trouble finding you, no matter where you might hide. And I will punish you. Is that under stood?”
    He gave Veryan a moment to remember their first meeting. He had recognized the man as a weak link in the chain that would lead him to his father’s killer. He had broken into Veryan’s private rooms, in the night. And then he had shaken the man once, as a terrier might shake a rat, and left him weeping on the floor. It had not taken a single blow