Page 74 of After the Spy Seduces

They didn’t know or care who she was. Yet they both feared this man named Redcoat who’d hired them, and especially violating his rules of not harming her.

For now, she would use that to her advantage. “I want to speak to Redcoat. Now.”

“He’ll tell ye what ye need to know when ye need to know it.” He snatched up the gag cloth from the floor where she’d ripped it off. “Until then, shut th’ hell up ’fore I’ll make ye.”

“If you lay one finger on me, I’ll tell him what you did,” she threatened. “I’ll tell him that it was you who forced that gag between my teeth, who bruised my face and cut my mouth doing so. Apparently, I’m his prize, and I don’t think he’d like to discover my face all black and blue and swollen because you two couldn’t figure out how to handle a woman without abusing her, do you?” Her voice took on a fierce, burning intensity that pulled both men up straight. “Because I promise you that the only way you’ll be able to put that thing into my mouth again is by force.”

The man clenched his jaw and gripped the cloth in his fist, but he didn’t take a single step toward her.

“Let me go,” she tried again. “I’ll make certain you both get paid well for your trouble, and I’ll not have the chance to tell Redcoat how you mishandled me or to give him the chance to punish you for it.” She reached desperately for whatever tendrils of hope were left to her, talking quickly but in a low, controlled tone, despite the pounding of her heart. As if they were in this together against Redcoat. “We can go back to shore. You’ll be long gone before he realizes what happened, and he’ll never find you.”

The second man laughed. “Ye don’t know th’ man, if’n ye think that!”

“Rather have me life than blunt,” the first man added. “So scream yer demmed head off fer all I care.” He threw the gag onto the floor and spat again. This time the wad of saliva landed on her shoe. She kicked it off with a disgusted gasp, which only drew another laugh. “Redcoat’ll make ye quiet soon ’nough, I wager.”

He slammed the door shut.

She ran forward and threw herself against the door to force it open, but the solid boards didn’t budge. The light clanking of metal against metal reverberated through the panels as the door was fastened from the other side.

A cry of frustration tore from her. She pounded her fists against the door, screaming and beating until her throat became raw and pain shot up from her hands into her forearms.

When she was too exhausted and upset to raise another hand to strike the panel, she turned around and sagged against the door, then slid slowly to the floor. She held her head in her bloodied hands and choked back the self-pitying sobs that would do her no good.

Lifting her head and blinking until her stinging vision cleared, she swept her gaze around the cabin.

Small and cramped, at less than eight feet long, six feet wide, and barely big enough to contain two built-in bunk beds and a small side table…clearly an officer’s berth, but not grand enough to belong to the captain. It was the first mate’s. Or one that was booked by wealthy passengers. She and her family had lived in one almost identical to this on the voyage back from India, located just below the aft deck of the ship and tucked away in the stern. Mostly likely, this one was the same, which meant that there was no way out through the tiny row of windows on the far wall. Even if she had been able to fit through one of them, a twenty-foot drop waited for her on the other side, straight into the cold water below. She’d drown within minutes.

The only way out was through this door.

Patience. She would have to bide her time before she could act. But she hadn’t been blindfolded and tied for long, which meant the ship was still anchored at Bradwell, although the rise and fall of it on the waves told her that they were anchored far out in the bay and close to the choppier water of the Channel. Which meant that she was still near Christopher and Garrett, still near their help…if only she could find a way to shore. Because neither of them knew where she was.

The brutal truth was that no one was coming to save her. She had to find a way to save herself.

Chapter 23

Kit raced down the hallway of the Mermaid toward the room they’d taken yesterday, praying to God that Diana would be there.

Shehadto be here! The moment he’d realized she was gone, he’d frantically searched the wharf for her, calling for her and shouting out at the crowd if anyone had seen a young blonde woman in a blue dress. For Christ’s sake, he’d even crawled down beneath the pier itself, in case she’d fallen out of the rowboat attempting to climb out.

Nothing.She was gone.

He desperately wanted to believe that she’d simply become too upset by their earlier conversation, enough to flee from the docks the first moment she had the chance. That she’d come back here to collect her things, though he’d told her not to. That she was even now in a hired post-chaise and bouncing her way across the countryside toward home, cursing him with every passing mile.

His pounding heart didn’t hold much hope. Yet he had to search first all the most probable places where he might find her. And then…

No. There was nothen.

There was only finding her.

He flung open the door and charged into the room. “Diana!”

He stopped just over the threshold, and his chest sank. She hadn’t returned. Her things were still here. Her dress still hung on the wall hook, her little bag still tucked beneath the chair where he’d put it. The room was exactly the same as when they’d left last night, for nothing more than a stroll through the festival grounds.

“Carlisle.” A man stepped into the room behind him.

Kit lunged. In one smooth movement, he grabbed the man around the throat with one hand and by the right arm with the other. He threw the man back against the wall so hard that his back whacked loudly against the plaster and cracked it, so hard that the air whooshed audibly as it ripped from his lungs.

Kit forced his forearm beneath the man’s chin and against his windpipe, pinning him to the wall. The man gurgled, his eyes wide.