AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shoved past him, starting down the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Your mother—I need to talk to your mother.” Her feet sped down the corridor.
His hand flew from behind her and grabbed her arm, viciously spinning her back toward him. “You’ll not speak to my mother—never again.”
“But she needs to know what—”
“I’ve already told her everything about you—about how you never went to Hampshire—never delivered that package.” His voice lifted into a brutal yell. “You don’t think she can hear us? Hear me?” His head tilted upward so he could scream up the stairs. “She hears me, but she’s not coming to your defense—not this time.”
“But—”
“But nothing—you’re out—out of our home, out of our lives. Out this very moment.” He gripped her upper arms and shoved her backward.
She fought him, trying to push past him, trying to dig her heels into the floorboards. “No. You cannot.” Five more steps lost to him. This couldn’t be happening. And her belongings—hell, the dress that Strider had bought her hidden away under her bed. She couldn’t leave it.
“No. I have to get my things.” She lunged forward in a desperate attempt to break his hold on her.
It didn’t work and he jerked her upright, lifting her from the floor—more strength than she’d ever guessed he possessed. “You don’t go anywhere—not in this house.”
Pen twisted in his arms. “But my things. I need my things.” She needed to get her dress. The rest of it was nothing. But Strider’s dress—it was everything.
He laughed—a strained bark—as he shook her. “You mean that dress?”
Her eyes flew wide open.
“You don’t think I know about that? I do. I know all about that whore’s dress.” His shaking grew brutal, sending her head to roll about her shoulders. “But it’s not yours anymore. Nothing is yours. Those are not your things upstairs. My family gave you that—all of it—the clothes on your back. Pray I don’t rip this one off of you before I toss you out. You had everything here—everything and you’ve thrown it all away.”
He dropped her, her heels hitting the floor hard. But his grip stayed on her arms.
“But no—Percival, please.”
“Please?” His snarl morphed into a perverse smile. “Now you say please? Well then, I might…might be willing to let you stay. Since you said please. Begged. But things will have to change and there will be consequences.”
“What things…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew exactly what was coming next.
He leaned in, the stench of his breath filling her pores. “I think you know exactly what, Penelope. I know you’ve wanted me for years and years. You will come into my bed and your lies will need to be beaten out of you. And you will beg me to stop. Beg me to take the pain away. Beg me.”
He yanked her into him and his mouth clamped onto her neck, sloppy and wet and grotesque. His right arm slithered around her backside, forcing her to him as his left hand went to her frontside, grabbing, pawing at her dress until he found her breast and squeezed it hard. Pain shot outward from his grip to her head and toes.
It took her a stunned moment to gasp a breath inward and she slammed her knee upward, catching him between the legs.
She ran toward the rear door as he screamed, doubling over, spittle flying everywhere. “Bloody bitch—I’ll send them after you—your neck will be in a noose by month’s end. You—”
His words cut off as she slammed the door closed and ran through gardens and into the mews.
Dark. It was dark now.
She turned to her right, running. Her legs so fast her skirts caught about her calves and she started to trip in her steps. One side street. Two. Three. A street to her left. Another to her right. And another.
A pain in her side exploded—a blade into her belly—and she stopped running, ducking into a skinny alleyway between two buildings.
Collapsing backward against the brick, panting for breath, she slid downward, her knees banging into the brick in front of her. The pain in her side throbbed as she buried her face in her hands.
What the hell had just happened?
She’d just lost everything—the last semblance of normalcy.
