Page 28 of A Kiss Gone Wylde
Her booted feet caught him directly in his midsection. His breath rushed out on a broken “oomph”. Then he staggered back. His heels were too close to the edge of the top stair. Panic twisted his face into an expression that would have been comical had the situation not been so dire and so ugly. His arms pinwheeled for balance, but it eluded him. He tumbled, head over heels to the bottom of the stairs.
It might have been wrong for her to pray for a broken neck, or a broken limb at the very least. But as she scrambled backward and finally rose to standing, Benny could see she had not been so lucky. He was already getting to his feet, a look of cold and bitter fury on his face. One foot on the bottom stair, then another. But then he stopped, not making another move. His features shifted from fury to fear.
They’d attended a ball at the Assembly Rooms in Bath once when an elderly gentleman had danced too enthusiastically and suffered a fatal heart spasm. The expression that poor man had worn was terrifyingly similar to what she could now see on Lord Wainwright’s face.
But it was no heart spasm, nor any other crisis of health that prompted the cessation of his pursuit. He turned slight to one side and Benny could see Payne at the foot of the stairs, a pistol in hand, leveled directly at her abductor. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever beheld. Bloodthirsty a thought as it was, she wanted him to shoot Wainwright on the spot.
“Oh, thank heavens,” she said and immediately sank down to the floor once more, all the fight having simply flooded from her in a wave of relief.
* * *
“Wainwright,” Payne said, not even sparing a glance at Benny. He couldn’t. If he looked at her, his focus would shatter or his temper would get the better of him. “I ought to call you out. But I’ll not jeopardize my wife’s reputation by allowing her name to be publicly associated with yours. But know this… if you come near her again, I will see you dead. Not in duel. Certainly not on a field of honor as you clearly lack the primary requirement to be welcomed there. Touch her again, look at her again…thinkof her again, and I will put a pistol ball directly between your eyes and spare the world the stain of your continued presence.”
Wainwright’s sneering face was smug. “I told her. I warned her you would do nothing. You’re still a coward. You could have called me out years ago… I suppose poor Miss Bardwell wasn’t worthy of your defense. This is where I brought her, you know? Keep a room upstairs just for that purpose. The proprietor, for a bit of coin, will happily look the other way when they scream for help.”
It was an effort to goad, to push him to react rashly. But a decade had given Payne perspective. And the woman sitting at the top of the stairs had given him a reason to be cautious. He would not ruin her. He would not abandon her because he had to flee to the Continent after committing a cold blooded murder with a dozen witnesses. “Anne’s death was a tragedy. What she endured at your hands was criminal. But I’ll not trade our future to avenge the past.”
“I’m under no such compunction.”
It was Gordon. Daring to glance over his shoulder as the viscount approached, Payne noted the hardness of the other man’s gaze. Immediately, he turned his attention back to Wainwright who was looking at Gordon in a perplexed manner.
“What are you doing here?”
Gordon pulled a pistol from his own pocket and pointed it directly at Wainwright. “Davenport, collect your wife and see her home. I will deal with Wainwright after you have gone.”
“Why?” Payne demanded.
Gordon didn’t bother to deny anything. “I will explain it all. You are more than entitled to the truth… Tomorrow. Right now, I want to get him out of here. We cannot trust anyone here, neither patron nor servant. Anyone of them could stab us in the back without a second’s warning.”
Wainwright cackled. “You didn’t know. All this bloody time, and you had no idea! Your precious Miss Bardwell was no virgin when I had her, Davenport. That flower had already been plucked by the viscount. All because of a bet on the book at White’s.”
“Is that true?”
“Partially,” Gordon said. “But twisted to serve the purposes of this blackguard. I brought you to save your wife and you have. That’s earned me the benefit of a doubt, don’t you think?”
That statement cut through to the heart of the matter. There were more pressing matters to deal with than his curiosity. “I will have that explanation, Gordon. Do not make me come looking for it.”
The viscount didn’t bristle, but simply nodded. Then he grabbed Wainwright by the arm and began dragging him from the taproom. The man protested loudly, but it was ignored by Gordon and by the occupants of the room. They might turn a blind eye to the man’s misdeeds, but that was a far cry from being able to claim the loyalty of any person in that taproom.
Payne climbed the steps to where Benny still sat. “Are you hurt?”
Despite appearing impossibly small and fragile, when she looked up at him, even as her chin trembled, there was fire in her eyes. “Who is Anne Bardwell?”
“Was,” he said. “Anne is dead and has been for nearly a decade.”
“I know she is dead. I even know how she died thanks to Wainwright. What I want to know is who she was toyou.Did you love her?”
Payne sighed. “I thought I did. But this is not the place to discuss it. Let us get you home and I will tell you whatever you wish to know… Given Gordon’s presence here, I think perhaps there are parts to the story that I do not even know.”
They didn’t even make it to the door before a shot rang out.
17
Achorus of shouts erupted from the taproom and the occupants began to scatter. Benny was so startled that at first she did not react at all. It wasn’t until Payne grabbed her and pulled her down into a small cubby beneath the stairs that she understood what was happening. Across the room, Wainwright and Gordon were struggling for a pistol. The one that already been discharged lay on the floor, spent and useless.
Where he found the strength, she did not know, because Viscount Gordon was quite young and fit. Regardless, Lord Wainwright managed to shove the other man backwards with enough force that he toppled, falling over a table. His head struck the hearth of the truly massive fireplace that dominated one wall, the sickening thud of it reverberating throughout the room. After, the viscount lay unmoving while Wainwright pulled the hammer back on the pistol.
She felt Payne move, but it did not immediately register what he was doing. Only when she saw him rush forward, gun in hand, did it begin to make sense.
