Her Ladyship's Curse

this. He’ll kill her.” I pounded my fists against his back. “Put me down.”

“He won’t risk beating her now, not when she can use her injuries against him in court. You, however, will not get off so lightly.” Dredmore tossed me in the coach and slammed the door, securing it from the outside. When I tried to dart out the other door, I found it locked. The windows were too small for me to crawl through, so I sat and watched as Dredmore walked back to speak with Nolan Walsh, who had come out of the house after us.

Walsh blustered while Dredmore soothed, and while I couldn’t hear what they said, it was obvious it was about me. Then Walsh did a curious thing; he gestured for the butler, who handed Dredmore a large satchel. Dredmore nodded before he returned to the coach and handed off the satchel to his driver before climbing in with me.

“My turn, is it?” I lunged at him only to be pinned against his body. I maneuvered my arms between us and pushed at his chest. “I can still scream.”

“I can still have you gagged.” He ducked my fist and jerked me closer to pin my arms between us. “And bound, if you like.”

Being an inch from his face brought on all sorts of ugly feelings and ideas, but he grabbed my hair and held me in place.

“If you wish to bite me, Charmian,” he said softly, “there are far better spots than my face.”

“So you like it rough.” I changed tactics and moved a breath closer. “How will it be, Lucien? You tied naked between the posts, me in leathers, snapping a little whip? Is that what it takes to brick your chimney?”

Instead of being offended, the cold bastard smiled at me. “You’ve been spending too much time among strumpets, my sweet.” He wrenched me around so that my back was pressed to his front. “Sit still, or I will show you exactly what I like.”

I sat still. Not because he ordered me to, but to give myself time to think. From what I saw through the coach window, it was obvious that he was taking me out of the city. We left behind the dark streets and alleyways, rode through the pasturelands, and started up the cliff roads. Since Dredmore owned most of the coastal property beyond Rumsen, that meant our destination was his lair.

Castle Travallian, or so it had been before Dredmore had been disowned.

I’d seen it once when I’d gone atop one of the taller buildings downtown and looked over toward the sea. From there the manor had looked like little more than a pile of rubble. It came into view as the coach left the road and started up a long, winding path between two rows of black iron gaslamp poles. The cessation of jolting made me look down at the smooth pavers of obsidian rock, cut and fitted together so perfectly, I barely made out the seams.

“I had the stone shipped in from the islands,” he said. “The masons called it the road to hell.”

Was it to be mine? “I suppose Torian granite wasn’t dark or dramatic enough for you.”

“The islanders worship a fire god who they believe dwells in their volcano,” he said instead of answering. “Every year before planting season they take a young virgin up to the edge of the crater and toss her in. Her sacrifice pleases the god, who then provides a bountiful harvest.”

“For burning a gel to death.” I tried to sit up. “How delightful. How do they celebrate the harvest? By setting little babies on fire?”

“They feast on the fruits of their labors.” He tugged me back, tucking my head against his neck. “It’s not as grim as it sounds. According to legend, courageous virgins are given eternal life as the god’s handmaidens.”

“There’s a bloody fabulous reward for you.” I felt him touching my hair and snapped my head away. “Trapped to serve forever the bastard who killed them. Where do I sign up for the next sacrifice?”

“Perhaps they love their god so much that they don’t mind,” he suggested.

“I wish you’d . . . stop . . .” My voice died and my neck cricked as the coach came to a stop.

The cliffside manor was not a heap of rubble but a magnificent edifice that seemed to be growing out of the very ground. This effect came from the cliff stones, which had originally been an enormous pile of black and white granite boulders hewn and squared at the topmost peaks to form the great house’s foundation. Other, identical stones had been quarried and brought to build atop them, creating a manor that soared some five stories above the cliff’s edge.

Dredmore’s driver opened the door, blocking it when I tried to scramble out.

“I have her, Connell.”

Somehow Dredmore managed to hoist me under his arm as he maneuvered me out of the coach, and he carried me like that across the drive.

“I’m not a sack of turnips. Put me down.” I struggled to get my head up to see where he was taking me. “Dredmore.”

He flipped me over so that he held me like a new husband about to cross the threshold with his bride. “Welcome to Morehaven, Charmian.”

Chapter Twelve

Dredmore carried me into his lair as if it were my new home, and for a moment I wondered if it would be. As solitary and standoffish as Dredmore was, he wouldn’t have brought me here for a nightcap or a friendly chat. No, I had the feeling I was headed straight for some underground torture chamber or filthy cage.

Dredmore had no enemies, it was said, because he disposed of them before they could become known as such. As a licensed deathmage, he had the Crown’s blessing to kill whomever he deemed needed to die, but I’d always thought the threat a better deterrent. Why would anyone cross a man who could legally murder you?

Other than me, naturally.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he carried me over to a dimly lit staircase and began ascending. “The dungeon is downstairs.”

“I have no dungeon.” He turned and went up another flight before stepping into a hall. “I have guest rooms.”

I tried not to gawk at the magnificent paintings we passed, but the place was like a bloody national museum. “You are obliged to kidnap people in order to have gues—My God, is that an original Raphael?”

“I do what I must, and yes, it is.”

I glanced over the railing to see Connell carrying the satchel into one of the rooms downstairs. “What did Walsh put in the bag? Some leftover pheasant? Can I have some? I’m feeling peckish.”

“Of course you are.” He stopped in front of a door, and a valet opened it from the inside.

“Help me,” I told the manservant in my best terrified, helpless tone. “I’ve been brought here against my will.”

“That will be all for tonight, Winslow,” Dredmore said as he carried me into the chamber.

“Yes, milord.” The valet bowed and left.

I listened for the latch of the lock but heard nothing.

“He doesn’t seem too worried about me,” I said as Dredmore halted in front of a roaring fire. “Have you trained your servants to ignore your captives? How do you go about that, by making threats on their lives, or dropping a few more coins in their monthly wage packets?”

Dredmore held on to me. “I’m going to put you down now, Charmian, so that we may talk. Don’t run.”

I sighed. “Really, Lucien, you must stop reading so many romantic novels. I’m very happy that you abducted me. I’ve wanted to see the inside of this place for ages. You should really allow the tour companies to put you on their rounds. They’d pay you heaps to let a few nosy old ladies shuffle through here every week.”

“Morehaven is not a curiosity shop.” He lowered one arm and set me down on my feet. “Don’t run.”

I held on to him until I found my balance, and smiled up at him. “Why would I run from you?”

“You hate me,” he said. “You want me dead. If I walked in front of your carri, you’d run me down in the street.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what you’ve said you’d do,” he reminded me, “along with shoving a spell scroll down my throat, using a rusted blade to relieve me of my manhood, setting my coach alight with me locked in it, and oh, yes, my personal favorite, hiring a thug to toss me over my own cliffs.”