Page 125 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
Chapter 25
The woman lifted her head, her whole body jerking with great gasps from her place on the floor, but her eyes riveted on Paulette, like twin bolts under a smith’s hammer.
The fear flooding Paulette’s veins all but paralyzed her. There were no allies here, only predators.
Bink,where are you?Why did you let them take me?
In the stories Jock told her, her mother always escaped. She was always strong and convincing and unafraid.
But the stories had been false. Her gentle mother could never have lived through this.
Yetshemust live. She must survive until Bink came for her. He would come, she had no doubt. He would find her. She must find a way to help him find her.
The letter must serve as her lifeline. “Thereisa letter. The solicitor wasn’t holding it. My mother had it hidden away.”
She eased in another breath. Like Paulette with Bink, her mother had not shared all with her lover, Tellingford.
“I discovered the letter after her death. It was just meaningless news, a husband’s prettied up report of his business, not even true, I’d imagine. I was glad she’d kept it.” She let her real tears brim. “Because it was all I had of him. And then, I was angry. There must have been more, letters she’d destroyed. I had nothing. Nothing of him.”
She squeezed her eyes tight and shook her head. She must play this right. She took a deep breath. “I think, well, if it is the letter you’re searching for, it must be in a code. I can’t imagine how or what.”
“Where is the letter now?” Agruen brushed a spot of blood on his sleeve. He sounded almost bored. “We know it wasn’t among the things Cummings took from you. Did you stash it back at Hackwell’s country estate, hmm? Or did you have it in your reticule?”
“N-no.” She shivered, hoping it would be helpful.
Another chill went through her, a real one. He knew about Cummings, which meant the vile worm was in league with the serpent. And so he’d found his way to Greencastle because she was with Bink, and that’s where Bink was likely to be. And so he’d searched her room at Greencastle, or planned to. Or perhaps his valet had been planning to search there after he’d ravished Jenny.
Agruen drew closer. She lifted her chin. “My husband has it.”
He touched a finger to her cheek. “How sweet. Your husband. Shall we believe her, Fil?” His attention went back to the woman on the floor, and Paulette’s breath caught, dreading the next blow.
But he was done kicking for now. He snapped his fingers, and his weaseley assistant came from somewhere behind Paulette and righted her cousin’s chair with her in it, gasping.
More blood trickled from a cut on Filomena’s head, and she wheezed with a grimace that meant something inside her was broken. “Have Paulette write out a note to that great bull who beat Paul to death,” she said.
Paulette winced and caught the baiting glint in the other woman’s eye, and her blood rose.
That Bink had beat her father almost to death—if he hadn’t admitted it, she wouldn’t have believed it. Never would he have put a hand on an innocent man. She’d seen the misery in his eyes when he’d learned the truth of the man’s identity, and even then denied killing him.
She wouldn’t die without telling him it didn’t matter. It truly was Agruen who had killed her father.
She bit back the accusation.
“So Fil,” Agruen said, “we’ll have her write a note asking for the letter and he’ll just hand it over.”
“If you release me, yes,” Paulette said. “The letter…” What had she said? It was all she had of her father? She mustered some tears. “You may have it. I do not care. The man who wrote it abandoned my mother and me.”
Filomena’s eyes narrowed and she pressed her lips together, but she didn’t speak.
Perhaps she still had atendrefor Papa.
Agruen’s beady eyes took it all in, and he smiled like a Rom reading minds. Or he was enjoying the bloody display of his handiwork.
Heat rose in her. If she could but break these bonds, she would kill him.
“Oh but, Paulette, I don’t want to release you. Such a tender young thing you were in the garden at Cransdall.”
His leer enflamed her more. “After you stole my mother’s ring.”
