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“Who are you?” Jess whispered, not altogether sure she wanted him to confirm he was the Sayers man Marcus was after.
“I am someone whose instructions you are going to follow. Don’t speak until you are told to; don’t ask questions because I won’t answer them, and don’t do anything foolish. If you behave, you may just live to see the dawn,” Mr Gillespie promised.
“Ladies first.” Mr Ball stepped forward and waved toward the stairs.
Jess swallowed, and did as she instructed. As she descended the stairs, she studied the distance between the bottom step and the door. She wished she had enough strength to at least try to get there. Unfortunately, her knees were shaking too badly and threatened to buckle beneath her as it was. There was no possibility of her attempting to run to try to get out of the house.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. Her throat was too choked for her words to be possibl with any volume, but Gillespie heard.
“He has something we want. Now, we have something he wants. I know all about your willingness to share his bed. He has a vested interest in you now. You will serve your purposes.”
“I am not serving you anything,” Jess snapped.
“I know. You do your best, I suppose, but this house is a joke. When I took a room here, I knew it would be dire, but it served our purposes. You have helped me with my work so effectively; I cannot ever thank you,” Gillespie mused.
“We want our goods back,” Ball snarled.
Jess stared him. “What could Marcus possibly have of yours?”
“Him, and those colleagues of his have been a barnacle in my side for a very long time,” Gillespie explained. “They will, however, be summarily dealt with now that we know who they are, and what they look like. It was a foolish mistake of ours to take lodgings with a relation of one of them, but we can correct that mistake.”
Jess opened her mouth to correct his misunderstanding but then closed it again with a snap. She could see no reason to give the man information about anything, especially Ben and Marcus.
Gillespie waved his gun toward the dining room.
She entered the room and dutifully sat on the chair Ball shoved out for her. No sooner had her bottom touched the hard wood than Jess’ arms were yanked behind her back and secured at the wrist.
“That hurts,” she whined. She winced as the coarse rope dug painfully into the tender flesh of her wrists.
“It isn’t supposed to be pleasant. It is tight enough to make sure you cannot get free,” Ball snapped.
“Be quiet,” Mr Gillespie warned.
To her surprise, Gillespie swung another chair around and sat directly in front of her. Thankfully, he put the gun on the table, but that didn’t help relax her because it was still within arms’ reach.
“Now, tell me everything you know about him. He isn’t your fiancé, is he?”
“He is my fiancé. He comes from a family as impoverished as mine, so if it is a ransom you are after you aren’t going to get it,” Jess declared firmly. “He doesn’t have much in the way of family either to pay a ransom for him, and neither do I.”
She felt proud of herself for having thwarted that particular scheme.
“Thank you for that, my dear. It is a relief to know that if we have to dispense with your services we can do so without fear that your lover will do something rash in the name of revenge.”
Jess gulped. The callousness in Gillespie’s eyes was nothing short of contemptuous. It was something she had never seen directed at herself before. She realised then that there was a very real possibility that she might not live until the morning.
“I am not the liar,” she whispered, “You are. You led me to believe you were a nice man, a reputable human being. You, sir, are nothing but a scoundrel and a wastrel. You should be behind bars.”
“You don’t know who we are,” Ball interrupted.
Gillespie lifted his hand to warn the man to shut up, and threw him a warning look.
“He won’t stay around here, you know,” Gillespie drawled. “I have seen plenty of men like him over the course of time. You are a pretty young woman, desirable even, to a certain kind of man. It is inevitable that a jack-the-lad, man about town like him would find you appealing, and seduce you. You, poor creature that you are, most probably soaked up the compliments and allowed him to bed you thinking he would offer for you. Once he is bored, though, he will move on. Men like him don’t offer marriage; especially to someone like you. He will take advantage of you - all in the name of his work, you understand
? But, he will move on.”
“What happens between my fiancé and me is nothing to do with you,” she replied coldly. “It is clear that you know nothing about who Marcus is to be able to judge him in such a way. You should know how foolish it is to make assumptions based on how anybody looks. I mean look at me. I believed you were a reputable gentleman.”
Gillespie nodded his acknowledgement of his deception as to why he was in Smothey in the first place.
