Page 53 of Bedding the Marquess
“I hope they return soon…” Caroline felt the sting of tears behind her eyes and pressed her hands to her face.
Emily shushed her softly. “They will. Gideon loves you and he is coming. Oliver will bring him back safely.”
Caroline chose to believe the words rather than interpret them as Emily trying to convince herself of the same thing.
Gideon’s eyes flewopen at the flurry of thunderous footsteps and shouts. They sounded overhead in a growing cacophony of alarm.
The women were safe.
There was no other explanation for why such a ruckus would be raised.
A slow smile spread across his mouth, reopening his split lip so he tasted blood again. His jaw ached and his left eye was swollen nearly shut. Every joint screamed in pain; he could not take a deep breath without feeling as if his ribs were ripping through his flesh, but, despite all of this, he was relieved.
Now, he could stop his complacency and finally have his revenge.
His chair had been righted once more and he’d been left strapped to it in the same awkward position. Fortunately, this gave him access to the blade hidden in the heel of his boot. A flick of his fingers and the weapon was freed into his palm.He was fairly certain he had at least one broken finger, but he refused to let that stop him from quietly sawing away at his bindings with as little movement as possible. He focused all his attention on not dropping the blade. Luckily, the two men who’d had the pleasure of beating him were preoccupied as they traded hissed whispers with another man in the hall.
They had a decision: search for the women and whoever had helped them escape, or let them go and spirit Marcus/Oliver/Gideon away as they had planned. He hoped that whichever men had encountered Oliver had suffered appropriately.
Gideon nearly groaned in pain when his wrists were freed and proper blood flow and sensation began to return. Yes, he most certainly had two broken fingers. His spine popped as it was allowed to return to a more normal position rather than being bent back over the chair. He began sawing at the rope on his ankles next and made quick work of the binding just before the men shut the door and turned back to him. He’d spent hours goading them, taunting them, drawing their focus…he had also been collecting his pain and rage until such a time he’d be able to unleash it.
That time had finally arrived.
He looked between the men with his compromised vision—Thin Moustache and Bovine eyed him back. Bovine was the one who’d laid his hands on Caroline; Gideon had not forgotten that, no matter how many blows he’d taken.
“A problem, gentlemen?” he asked lightly in French.
“Not a problem,” drawled Thin Moustache. “Merely one less problem to deal with.” He pointed from the other man to Gideon. “Release him from the chair. We will take him to the ship now and take the next tide to France.”
Bovine Man crossed the room and Gideon’s pulse began to pound in anticipation, throbbing in his ears with deafening strength.
“Do you remember what you said to me when we first met?” Gideon asked him in a low, dangerous tone. “That you were the one who helped abduct the women?” The man did not so much as grunt in response. Gideon leaned forward…much further than he would have been able to were he still bound. “Well, that was a mistake of unforgivable enormity.”
The man’s round eyes widened when he registered that Gideon was free—which also happened to be the precise moment Gideon launched himself forward.
The small blade from his boot fell from his broken fingers with a clatter, but he was better with his fists anyway. He threw his considerable weight into a vicious uppercut that snapped the man’s head back. White-hot pain ignited in his hand and radiated from his other injuries, but he did not allow it to halt his assault.
Thin Moustache launched himself at Gideon’s side with a bellow and they tumbled to the filthy ground. Grime was ground into the wounds upon his face as they tussled, fists and legs flying. Each landed a few good hits, but Gideon tasted bile and blood in the back of his throat when the other man targeted his broken ribs. Utilizing a practiced maneuver with his legs to gain the upper hand, he flipped the Frenchman to the ground and struck his throat. The man began to choke and gag as he struggled to breathe.
Bovine Man had recovered and charged. This time, Gideon used the oaf’s weight against him by tucking his shoulder down at the last moment to flip the man up and over. His shout of surprise was cut short as the wind was ejected from his lungs on impact. The man’s coat fell open and Gideon recalled how he’d stowed one of Oliver’s knives in his pocket. He wrenched it free and plunged it into Bovine Man’s gut; the room echoed with his scream. Gideon leaned in until his nose was nearly pressed to this oversized one.
“That was for touching her.” He gave it a sharp twist. “And that is for calling her an insulting name.” Dark-red blood pooled around the knife; the man’s hands scrabbled to remove it.
Gideon turned back to Thin Moustache, but he was left at a disadvantage with only one working eye. He never saw the chair flying at his temple, couldn’t brace himself for the impact of the heavy wooden leg as it collided with his skull.
What vision he did have left went entirely black as he collapsed to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Oliver crept intothe eerily silent building from which he’d watched Gideon be taken into a few hours earlier and later, from which he’d evacuated the women. Nearly a dozen men had been prowling the darkened halls, perched atop the roof, and guarding the doors. Now that he’d returned, however, there was no one.
Still, he was cautious as he crept on silent feet from one space to the next. The three men he’d dispatched earlier still lay where they’d dropped, abandoned like rubbish by their cowardly comrades. Room after room was either empty or filled with crates, none of which had been moved recently, given the layer of dust coating them.
Finally, he located something promising.
The room was a perfect square, no larger than a small study. A splintered chair lay near the doorway, and the watery moonlight from the single narrow window set high on the wall cast just enough light to reveal a bulky form lying on the far side of the room.
The body groaned.
