“Your Grace…” Smithson fell back from the blade the duchess extended. Even through her panic, Verity was astonished to see his impassive face crease into repugnance.
“You were happy enough to kill her,” the duchess said derisively, as if she criticized a dandy on the fall of his cravat. “Be a man, for God’s sake.”
Smithson shook his head. “Killing is quick. But to slice a wench’s pretty face open just for spite? No, Your Grace, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“You are dismissed from my service,” she said in a frigid voice that contrasted grotesquely with the elation in her face. Her eyes fixed avidly on the villains who constrained Verity. “This woman is a harlot and a thief. She should be whipped at the cart tail, then hanged. Is anyone man enough to do my bidding?”
Verity waited in strained and panting silence to see if anyone took up the challenge.
Her beauty had always been more of a curse than a blessing, but she abhorred the prospect of becoming an object of pity. And her courage failed as she imagined that glittering little blade piercing her flesh.
She sucked in a ragged breath, fighting hysteria. Rape would follow quickly upon disfigurement. How could she endure what was about to happen?
“A hundred guineas to the man who takes the knife,” the duchess said clearly when no one moved to obey her.
Her irritation with her cohorts was written in austere lines on the face Verity had once thought beautiful. Now all she could see was obsessive hatred and salacious cruelty.
Verity’s dread rose, threatening to suffocate her, as she studied the circle of faces around her. A hundred guineas was a fortune, more money than these men would see in their lifetimes. It made no sense that they’d smash her brother to a pulp, yet turn squeamish at the idea of scarring her for life.
Would they also balk at raping her?
“I’ll do it, Your Grace.” The man on her right released her and stepped forward to take the silver knife from the duchess’s trembling hand. The woman’s unsteadiness didn’t stem from uncertainty, Verity knew, but from excitement.
“Cut her deep.” The duchess’s breath sawed audibly as her monstrous revenge edged closer to fruition.
Ben made an unintelligible protest and lurched to his knees before his guard knocked him down with a blow.
Verity managed to stand proudly until the man with the knife stepped directly in front of her, but as she looked up into his eyes, her nerve failed. She writhed against the merciless hands that held her fast.
“No! No, please. Don’t do this. In the name of heaven, please don’t do this,” she pleaded. She turned away as tears poured down her cheeks.
The man took her chin in a firm hold and made her face him. She braced herself for the knife’s slash, for excruciating pain and rivers of blood.
“Please,” she whispered shakily, searching for some trace of compassion in him.
He was so young. Younger than Ben. How absurd a mere boy could perpetrate this outrage.
“You can’t do this and call yourself a Christian.” She caught a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, and for a moment, she thought she’d won.
“Two hundred guineas!” the duchess urged from behind him.
The youth raised the knife and pressed it to Verity’s cheekbone. There was a brief sting, and warm wetness trickled down her face.
“God damn you forever,” she whispered and closed her eyes again. She waited for pain.
And she waited.
“Good Lord, and they call women the weaker sex!” The duchess’s anger grated across nerves knotted tight to breaking point. “I should have known I’d have to do this myself.”
“Yes, good servants are so hard to get these days, aren’t they?” Verity said faintly. She opened her eyes to watch the duchess snatch the knife from the boy.
Kylemore had told her this woman blanched at nothing. She wouldn’t flinch at the humiliation and degradation of a humble whore. Any reprieve was past.
The man she loved had called her the bravest person he knew. She refused to face her fate like a puling weakling. She’d scream and cry and beg for mercy in time. She knew that. Even the scratch on her cheek hurt like blazes, and worse was to come. But she’d hold on to her pride as long as she could.
Pride wouldn’t save her from what was about to happen, but it was all she had. She drew herself up as if she were the duchess and her lover’s mother the cheap bawd.
Something that might have been admiration flickered in the woman’s glassy eyes, eyes the same deep and beautiful blue as Kylemore’s. “You’re a worthy opponent, I’ll give you that.”