Page 31 of When Hearts Are Wylde
Her instincts proved right. A man leapt down, his movements purposeful, predatory. Familiar.Baxter.Before Hermione could do more than gasp, his arms closed about Felicity, dragging her bodily toward the waiting carriage.
The world fractured into chaos. Charity hurled herself at him, striking wildly with her reticule, shrieking in rage. Felicity clawed at his hands, and Hermione glimpsed bright streaks of blood where her nails had torn his flesh. Benny and Cordelia rushed toward the driver’s box, attempting to drag him down before the carriage could flee. Hermione, frozen for a heartbeat, found her own voice at last—screaming, shrill and unrelenting, until her throat ached. Her cries brought shopkeepers running, faces pale as they spilled onto the street to witness the melee.
She had seen that temper, that viciousness, and now it was turned fully upon Felicity. Fear curdled into guilt—was this his revenge on all of them? He’d threatened to make Phinneas pay for wronging him, though in truth she was the only one who had.
Before she could act further, he wrenched a pistol from his coat and pressed the barrel hard against Felicity’s head. Hermione’s scream died in her throat.
“Cease your wailing and pathetic attempts to intervene or I will put a pistol ball in her brain where we stand,” he growled. “And I’ve another pistol in my coat, primed and ready. She won’t die alone!”
Silence fell like a pall. None of them dared move. Hermione’s chest heaved, every breath torn with terror.
Felicity’s voice came, low and trembling but steady enough to be heard. “I will go with you. Let everyone else go, and I will go with you.”
Hermione’s heart lurched. Felicity’s courage was awe inspiring, but none of them knew Baxter’s cruelty. Not even she had seen the full limits of it.
He dragged Felicity toward the carriage. Charity made to follow, but his grip tightened cruelly, the pistol digging so harshly against Felicity’s temple that Hermione flinched as though the bruise were on her own flesh.
“No, Charity,” Felicity warned. “You must follow my direction in this. I will go with him and you will remain behind.”
There was some hidden communication that passed between the sisters, twins. They had a closeness that she simply could not imagine. And she saw Charity offer the slightest nod of understanding.
Baxter hauled Felicity inside, tossing her against the worn seat. Through the grime of the back window, Hermione caught sight of Charity scrambling into a hackney, gesturing frantically. Relief warred with dread—at least someone would know where she had been taken.
Her knees felt weak beneath her as she stood amid the stunned crowd, mind racing with terror. That was when sheheard the rhythmic clop of hooves cutting through the quiet. She turned, and her breath broke free.
Phinneas.
Even at a distance, she saw his expression sharpen as he counted the women gathered there. Not all of them. Not Felicity.
As he drew nearer, Hermione felt her throat constrict with equal parts despair and desperate hope. The moment his gaze locked on hers, words tumbled out, shaking. “Oh! Oh, thank heavens you are here. He took her, Phinneas. He had a pistol and pointed it at her head!”
“Which direction?”
“That way,” one of the cousins said, pointing. “He’s in a black carriage with no markings, and Charity is following behind him in a hired hack.”
“Return home immediately,” he commanded, his voice like steel. “All of you. I will get her back.”
Hermione forced herself to speak though terror made her throat tight. “What about Baxter?”
Phinneas’ jaw set hard, his eyes dark with a fury she had never seen. “That all depends on the state I find Felicity in. If he’s harmed her, no power on earth will save him.”
“Go. Go now!” one of the cousins urged. “There’s no time to waste.”
Hermione’s hands trembled as she clutched at her skirts, but she could not look away as Phinneas spurred his horse forward, determination writ in every line of him. Relief, fear, guilt—all tangled within her. She prayed with every beat of her heart that Felicity would be found safe… and that Baxter’s cruelty would at last be brought to an end.
The house had the heavy quiet of a church, everyone listening for footsteps that never came. Hermione sat withFelicity’s cousins—Charity, Cordelia, and Benny—trying to keep her hands still in her lap and failing. The clock on the mantel ticked like a hammer, each strike another reminder that Phinneas and Felicity weren’t here, that no one knew how this would end. She kept thinking of Baxter and the ugly temper he wore like a second skin. She had brought him into their circle. She had let him close. That truth sat like a stone in her stomach.
When wheels finally rattled to a stop outside and the door opened, Hermione was on her feet. Felicity was brought upstairs at once; the doctor was sent for without ceremony. No explanations, no details—just the rush of people and the press of dread. The cousins clustered together again in the drawing room. Hermione stood, then sat, then stood once more. She fetched water, forgot she’d done it, and fetched it again.
Time stretched. The house settled around them into a hush broken only by the creak of the stair and the low murmur of servants passing word along the corridor. Hermione pressed her knuckles to her mouth to keep from asking questions no one could answer. She thought of Felicity’s laugh in the modiste’s that afternoon, the way joy had lit her face over a bolt of deep blue silk. She thought of Phinneas’s quiet way of loving—steady, protective, tender under all that cool control. If anything happened to either of them…
At last the doctor appeared. He spoke to her mother first, then turned to the little group watching him as if he held the world in his hands. His verdict was plain: Lord Randford would recover. It would take time and rest. He would live.
Hermione’s knees went weak. Relief hit so hard it made her dizzy. She sat because she had to, because the room tilted, because her hands were shaking too much to pretend otherwise. Across from her, Felicity’s cousins let out the breaths they’d been holding. Charity swiped at her eyes like she wanted to fight someone for making them water.
Talk of the ball rose and fell in the room. They all knew the answer before anyone said it aloud.
“It cannot proceed as planned. Not after this,” Benny said.
