Page 54 of One Perfect Dance
“I’ll follow them, Charles, to see what help we can offer. Do not worry. I will make sure she is kept safe.”
“I’m coming, sir,” the footman insisted. “I can hang on behind.” Even as he clambered up into the tiger’s perch, he turned his head and called back to the house, “Henry, wake Mr. Wilson, and tell him I have gone with Mr. Ashby to make sure our lady is safe!”
Ash touched the horses into a fast trot, and followed where the hackney had gone, and, thankfully, saw it in the distance again as soon as he turned the same corner.
“Let’s get as close as we can without being seen,” he said to Fullaby.
The foul weather would help. Coming from behind in an unlit curricle, they would have the advantage of invisibility over the hackney. As long as they could get close enough to keep them in sight, he amended, as the hackney rounded another bend and disappeared from view.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Regina took twoquick strides across the room and spun around to face David Deffew. She had not been a complete fool. She had taken a moment when she was up in her room to load powder and a ball into both barrels of the muff pistol Gideon had taught her to use, and to put it, wooden case and all, into her largest reticule.
She hadn’t wanted the trigger to be accidentally knocked, but now she wished she could just put her hand into the reticule and pull it out. Instead, she would need to wait for a moment of inattention.Keep the man talking.
“Why are you doing this, Mr. Deffew? Surely there are other wealthy widows who would be delighted by your attentions?”
Deffew actually snarled. “Youwere delighted until that jumped-up servant came back from overseas. Everyone knew that you were going to marry me at last, as you were meant to. As you would have, if that blackguard Paddimore had not interfered.”
“You will not endear yourself to me by insulting my husband, Mr. Deffew,” Regina said, coldly. “And you delude yourself if you think I have ever shown you anything but common civility.”
Deffew’s face turned puce as he spat out, “You lie! I told everyone we were going to marry, and now they are laughing at me. They’ll laugh no more when we are married. I’ll pay every one of them back. You’ll see.”
He established a façade of calm with eerie speed, wiping the shrillness from his voice and saying, in an even tone that was all the more alarming for the contrast, “I will have you for my wife, Mrs. Paddimore. Regina. Your husband cost me a father, and so you owe me a bride.”
“Your father died attempting—I do not know what he was attempting. He stopped our coach. He told us to get out. When my husband turned to assist me, he shot my husband in the back.”
Deffew nodded, the same calm prevailing. “He went to get you for me. I own you. I have owned you since I kissed you before your father died. You will submit to me, or I will give the word and Paddimore’s brat dies tonight.”
The words on the tip of her tongue were “Over my dead body,” but his last comment made them impossible. She was not going to die tonight. Neither, if she had anything to say about it, was Geoffrey. Therefore, Deffew could not, as he said, give the word.
A thought occurred, and she shifted from foot to foot, jiggling and twisting. “Is there somewhere I could…? I do not wish to… That is, the young man came, and I didn’t think… and it has been raining the whole time, which makes it worse.”
Deffew look bewildered for a minute. She broadened the mime and he chortled. “Say it,” he demanded. “Say it, say it. ‘Please, David, I want to piss.’” He guffawed at his own words and put on a falsetto. “Please, David, I want to piss.” He chanted, “Say it. Say it. Say it and I might let you.”
Good heavens. Has the man never grown past twelve?Regina kept the contempt from her face and her voice, though her indignation caused her voice to quaver. “Please, David, I want to…”
She hesitated on the vulgarity, and her tormenter repeated again. “Say. It. Say. It.”
“Please, David, I want to piss.”
Another lightning change of mood. He straightened and sobered. “I suppose,” he drawled, “that you’ll be unpleasant to roger if you stink of piss. Go on, then. There’s a piss pot behind the screen. While you’re there, take your clothes off.” The glee reentered his voice. “I’ll be waiting on the bed. Remember, if you do as you’re told, I’ll let your father’s little bastard live. For how long, depends on you.” Which confirmed that the Deffew men had known who Geoffrey’s father was all along, and Matthew Deffew’s lie to his son was deliberate malice.
Regina retreated behind the screen, where a washing cabinet stood next to a coat stand. The room’s candles were on Deffew’s side of the screen. She hoped that meant he could not see even her shadow. She took the chamber pot from the cupboard then pulled the gun box from her reticule.
“I don’t hear anything,” Deffew shouted.
Regina picking up the waiting jug and poured a thin stream of water into the chamber pot from a height. She then unbuttoned her redingote and threw it to drape over the top of the screen. She opened the box and took out the gun—which was dry, thank goodness. Then she peered through the spaces between the panels of the screen.
Deffew must have decided he had her sufficiently cowed, for he had removed his boots and all of his upper garments and was just unbuttoning his fall. In a moment he would be naked, and at a serious disadvantage.
“Hurry, hurry, I have something for you,” he crooned, taking a step towards the screen with his hand inside his trousers.
“I am just undressing,” Regina called back.
He stopped, grinning. Regina gave a silent thanks that she’d chosen a gown that buttoned in front. She undid the buttons one handed, not even needing to put down the gun, and let the dress drop so she could step out of it.
That garment, too, went over the screen. “Nearly ready.” She made that sound as sultry as she could.
