She was past guarding her words. “So if I prostitute myself, the payment is freedom?”
He didn’t even blink at her biting question. “I offer the suggestion merely as incentive.” He stood. He was tall, but not as tall as the marquess. “You have a week. One guarantee I will make is if you fail, next Saturday is your last day on earth. After Monks and Filey have taken their turn at you, of course. They blundered in this scheme, but they’re faithful. As I said, I reward loyalty.”
“You’re a devil.” The words seemed to come from a long way away. She sucked in a gulp of heavy air but her vision remained cloudy. While a suffocating sense of unreality rose to crush her, one memory remained cruelly clear. Filey’s hands mauling her breasts and his foul breath in her face as he promised degradation.
Death she could bear if she must. The prospect of Lord John’s foul henchmen raping her made her want to scream until she had no voice left.
The monster came around the table and gripped her arm in merciless fingers. “Think upon what I’ve said, Mrs. Paget. You’re comely enough to snare my nephew if you try.”
He trailed one white hand down her cheek. She tried to flinch away but subsided into shuddering stillness when he pressed his thumb hard into the base of her throat. She gagged on a strangled whimper.
He continued in the same reflective tone even while his thumb pushed and pushed at her windpipe, choking her. “Don’t imagine lack of cooperation will meet with lenience. Replacing you presents only minor inconvenience.”
He released his bruising hold. She stumbled free. Through an aching throat, she struggled to breathe.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed to rasp, blindly fumbling for the wall to keep herself upright. A little while ago, she’d offered to kneel. Now she couldn’t countenance the idea of collapsing in front of him.
He clicked his tongue in disapproval as though at a naughty child. “You must rise above such fastidiousness, madam. You have a week.”
“I won’t do this,” she said in a low shaking voice.
“Then face the consequences.” He nodded in her direction. “Good day, Mrs. Paget.”
She couldn’t bear to turn and watch him leave. She listened to the even tap of his cane as he crossed the floor, then the gentle click of the closing door. Lord John had done everything carefully and softly. His voice hadn’t risen above a murmur when he promised her destruction.
Grace raised a quivering hand to her lips and stared sightlessly down at the table. Danger crowded upon her from all sides of this darkened, stifling room.
Suddenly, she craved air and light. She lunged across to rattle back the curtains and fling open the windows. Great lungfuls of clear spring air brought her rioting stomach under control. But nothing shifted the leaden weight of hopelessness and fear. She suspected that burden would remain until the day she died.
The day she died might only be a week away.
“Congratulations,” the marquess said from behind her, his tone edged with lacerating contempt. “My uncle must be so pleased with you. He looked even smugger than usual when he left.”
Through her panic, she hadn’t heard him come in. She didn’t shift from the window.
“Did you speak to him?” The words scraped over her sore throat. She didn’t need to look at Lord Sheene to know the bristling animosity was back.
“No. He finds my company uncongenial.” Again that acerbic drawl. “But I’m sure he enjoyed his coze with you, Mrs. Paget. Particularly when you told him how easily you gulled me.”
She barely believed what she heard. Surely he must guess Lord John’s coze had involved only threats and terror.
Slowly, she turned. Lord Sheene leaned indolently against the wall near the door, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was shuttered but she read the anger blazing beneath his sangfroid.
He was her only ally against Lord John’s evil. She needed him to trust her. She needed an hour unshadowed by fear. Futile to list what she needed. The stark reality struck that what she needed above all was survival.
What would survival cost?
“You cannot think I’m in league with your uncle,” she said in a broken voice.
“I cannot think otherwise. You and he shared a long, apparently fruitful conversation and he reeked of self-satisfaction when I saw him step into his coach a few moments ago. Tell me—what’s the next scene in this farce?” He sounded as though he didn’t care but a muscle jerked spasmodically in his lean cheek, eloquent witness to temper.
She felt as though she’d been shaking forever. She was too distraught to dissemble. “I am to cozen you into my bed.”
His haughty expression didn’t alter. “Surely that was your cause from the start. No need to exert yourself with this show of desperation. Your terrified act duped me once before. The repeat performance isn’t nearly so effective. Perhaps eschew the vulnerability and adopt a more seductive manner.”
Grace flinched. He sounded like he hated her. If he truly believed she connived with his uncle, who could blame him? She met the marquess’s burning eyes, frantically searching for some goodwill, some trace of the man who had been almost cordial less than an hour ago. “My lord, I’m in trouble.”
He smiled, a grim twist of his beautiful mouth. “You most certainly are, Mrs. Paget. Especially when my uncle realizes I stand by my vow not to touch you.”