“Take it. H–hurry please. He be w–wanting you to have it before he …” She sucked in air and glanced behind her, as if to make certain he was not coming. “Please!”
“No.” Eliza shrunk away. “No, I won’t—”
“You must.” The woman scooted away a keg and hurried on top of Eliza. She pressed the pills at her mouth and tried to pinch open Eliza’s lips.
She jerked her head and kicked her feet against the wall, the movement sending more kegs toppling over. The woman’s nails dug into her face. One of the pills slipped into her mouth, but she spat it out and rolled—
“Troubles, Miss Reay?”
The woman froze, then scrambled away from Eliza and groped for the spilled pills on the floor. She clutched them to her chest and backed against the wall. “I—I be sorry, Mr. Bowles, but sh–she f–f–fought me and—”
“Give them here.”
The woman surrendered the pills. She waited, eyes closed, lips grim, as if she expected blows.
They never came. He grabbed her arm, headed her in the direction of the door, and told her to see that a carriage was waiting for him by the fall of dark.
The woman hesitated in the doorway. For one second, her gaze fell to Eliza—and a fountain of pity leaked from her stare. Without a word, she fled the room.
The beast turned on Eliza.
God, please.She scooted back, bumped into something, glanced at the half-open door, and tried to determine how far she’d get if she lunged for it.
He grinned. “Stand up.”
She pulled herself to her feet, tried to keep his gaze and force the fear from her stance. She would not give him that. After all these years of being haunted by him, she would not wallow now.
The grin faltered. He stepped forward and waited, one brow lifting.
Then she realized.
Hewantedto see her fear. Why else would he wish her to remember? Why else would he wait like this and chance hiding her when he could have finished her last night?
He wants me to shrink to him.Coldness crawled through her.He wants me to tremble at him.She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Captain wouldn’t have, and Felton wouldn’t have, and the girls in all of Eliza’s stories wouldn’t have.
For once in her life, she would not cower to him. She would die being as brave as she’d always imagined herself to be.
“Open your mouth.” He stepped closer, his fist around the pills, the grin forming again.
She tightened her lips.
His hand struck the side of her face.
She clenched her teeth against the sting but still clung to his gaze. Another blow knocked her backward. She landed on the floor and resisted the urge to stay there, curl into a ball, and wail.
She staggered back up. She took the third blow to the face without falling, though tears pushed through and blurred him.
“Now shall you take them?” Closer. “Because if this is a show of wills to you, Miss Gillingham, rest assured I shall win.” He displayed the pills again in his sweaty palm. “After all, it is not as if this were a fight for your life. I should not think of poisoning you. Just a bit of opium to see that you are, shall we say, morerelaxedwhen I transport you to our other location.” Without warning, his fist punched.
She was on the floor again, his body over hers, his fingers pushing the opium into her bleeding mouth. “Swallow.”
She gagged.
His elbow pressed into her neck, closing off airflow, until pain and darkness groped for her consciousness and—
“Swallow.” He released her throat long enough for the air to rake in and the pills to slide down. He laughed as he climbed off her body. “I dare to say you shall feel much better upon our next encounter.”
Then he was gone. The door slammed and locked, and she covered her face as hard sobs wracked through her hurting body.I am so afraid, God. I am so afraid.
