An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) (40 page)

The men that Jason spoke to were obviously stevedores, with their kerchiefs around their huge necks and muscles bulging under their thin shirts. One man grabbed her brother, already weakened by his head injury and his long incarceration, and hauled Thaddeus’s arms behind him; the other one held Charlotte by her forearm.

They took their captives toward the rear of the warehouse, threading their way through crates and coiled ropes. The men stopped at the open door of a small room that smelled strongly of all manner of spices.

Charlotte felt a rough hand in the small of her back before she went flying into the windowless room, her hair spilling out of its knot as her hands and knees hit the hard floor. She felt Thaddeus bounce off of her before the door slammed shut. Here, they were left without even a candle.

Holding on tightly to her brother in the darkness, Charlotte wanted to ask him about all that had happened, but the mention of a ship came into the forefront of her thoughts.

“
If we don’t get out of here soon, Teddy, we’re going to be sailing away from Boston, never to be seen again.”

“
Perhaps that bastard Farnsworth is going to sell us as slaves,” Thaddeus offered, and Charlotte felt him run an unsteady hand through his hair.

She blanched at the thought of ending up in some man’s harem. Then she remembered Jason’s words on the ride over.

“Jason said we would be perishing together. He means to kill us. The ship is a convenient way to get our bodies far out to sea. It wouldn’t do to have your convicted and incarcerated corpse show up in the harbor.”

“
This is all my fault, Charlie,” Thaddeus began.

“
I truly want to hear all about why I’m going to die, little brother,” Charlotte told him, reaching for his face in the darkness and holding his cheeks in both her hands, “but I’d prefer to hear that when we’re safely out of here. Any suggestions?”

She felt him smile under her fingers, maybe at her, but then he shook his head.

“You saw those two guys. On a good day, I might be able to hold my own against them. Well, maybe one of them . . . for a while,” he said.

Charlotte could see that her brother was, indeed, no longer the slender youth who weighed barely more than she did. He certainly towered over her, and she was sure, when he wasn’t exhausted and half-starved, he could defend himself quite well.

“But this isn’t a good day,” she finished for him. And again, she felt his lopsided grin under her fingertips. They couldn’t die now, she told herself. She had Lily and Thomas to think of; they’d already been orphaned once. He squeezed her in another close hug.

“
Charlie, if we get out of this, it will be because we have a cunning plan that has nothing to do with brute force, or . . . because you brought help?” he ended with a question.

She thought of Reed. Even if he had already returned to her aunt’s, how would he know for sure that it had been Jason who had taken her, and how would he ever figure out where she was?

“No, I’m afraid it’s up to us, Teddy, at least for a while, and I think I know where to start.”

“Where?”

“
With Jason, himself.”

“
That ruthless pig,” Thaddeus spat out. “He’d sell his own mother for a profit. What good would it do to talk to him? Do you think he’s just going to see reason and let us go? He already has a policeman answering to him and there’s no doubt someone at that hellhole I was kept in was on the take.”

Charlotte thought about how George Mason had put her off for a couple days, probably needing to check with Jason as to whether she should be allowed to talk to the doctor or not. And she still wondered if Dr. Pridgen had steered her clear of Thaddeus’s cell on purpose.

“I’m wondering if we can try a little blackmail,” Charlotte said. “If he thinks I’ve got something on him and have already told someone else, he might just hesitate until he checks out my story. I’m not totally alone in this rescue, Teddy. I believe I just need to gain us some time.”

Then she remembered how close help could be.
“Not to mention find a telephone!”

She didn’t wait for her brother to offer an alternative plan or to dissuade her from the poor one she already had. She jumped up and banged on the thick wooden door until one of their beefy guards opened it.

“What?” he yelled at her without ceremony and she almost lost her nerve.

“
Tell Mr. Farnsworth that I want to speak with him. Tell him I know about Sergeant Sheffield,” she added, taking an educated guess that the policeman who’d failed to check Thaddeus’s identity was corrupt.

He hesitated but then slammed the door. Charlotte listened to his footsteps and then silence. Thaddeus got to his feet and put his arms around her.
“I know we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, Charlie, but be careful. And I’m not letting you out of my sight, by the way.”

“
Don’t worry. If the situation gets out of control, we’ll just retreat. Then we can die together,” she added, with just a touch of mockery. Oddly, she felt brave, especially with Teddy beside her, and with all the upheaval she’d already weathered in a few short months.

The footsteps returned; the door was wrenched open and one of the men grabbed her by her upper arm and dragged her out.

“She’s a lady,” her brother yelled at him, following closely behind, “don’t be so rough.” He was stoutly punched in the stomach by the other man and shoved back into the store room.

Charlotte had time for one backward glance at her brother, doubled up on the floor, before the door swung shut.
You’ll pay for that, too, Jason
, she vowed silently.

*****

“So, you know about Sheffield,” Jason said, confirming her supposition. “The question is, what else do you know?”

“
No,” she said taking the seat that he offered in a small partitioned section of the warehouse that seemed to serve as an office. Jason sat behind a large desk on the corner of which lay a pistol. One of the men remained blocking the door behind her. “The question is, whom have I told?”

He blinked once, twice, then he laughed in short barks.
“Between mid-day when I told you to stay put and dinnertime? Since you’ve lived here a relatively short time, Charlotte, and since I’ve monopolized nearly all of that time, I can’t think who would believe your half-cocked story about seeing your brother. Except, perhaps, Alicia Randall, and I do plan to deal with her soon.”

The threat to her aunt sent a bolt of white hot fury through her. The arrogance! That Jason should think himself at liberty to harm people as he saw necessary for his own plans. And then the image of Reed, dangerously powerful and sexy but infinitely gentle, came unbidden to her mind.

It occurred to Charlotte then that Reed had taken her at her word about Thaddeus, never questioning whether she had actually seen him. What an extraordinary man who had come into her life. She would be damned if she’d allow Jason to ruin everything now. Her anger gave her the necessary courage. She countered.

“
Yet in my stay here, as you know, I
have
met people, including the
Post
’s editor. It doesn’t take long to pick up a telephone,” she added, noticing that there wasn’t one in the warehouse office.

Jason shot her a narrow look.

“Is it Greene, then? What does he know?”

She didn’t want to endanger Mr. Greene by saying anything more. If she didn’t come through it alive, he would be next on the list after Alicia. Jason took her silence as evidence of not cooperating and he gestured almost offhandedly to one of his men.

Large hands grabbed both her arms from behind and held them behind the chair. Jason was quick then, moving toward her while she was still trying to figure out what there was to be afraid of in this new posture. Then she saw the knife he held in his hand.

Charlotte opened her mouth as he reached toward her.

“Scream and I’ll draw blood.”

She stifled her terror as he slit open the top of her gown where it stretched over her breasts. She struggled to free her arms, but it was like pulling against stone. This, she thought, was when she should retreat to the relative safety of the store room, but she hadn’t accomplished anything yet.

“He will come. He was on his way to my aunt’s house. When he learns I have been abducted, he will put it all together and find me.”

Jason, who plainly thought she was still talking about Charles Greene—the slight, bespectacled editor with an unassuming manner—laughed again. He pulled down her dress on one side and caressed her shoulder. She didn’t flinch but stared him squarely in the eye.

“So this is how Jason Farnsworth has to get a woman,” she sneered, feeling outraged by the liberties he was taking.

He slapped her for that as he had done in the carriage, and her cheek stung with the blow. He was not deterred and cut away the strap of her chemisette. Below that was a corset, but he already had a full view down her décolletage.

“Not the only way, Charlotte, but an undeniably amusing one. And I’m sure you’ll agree that I’m infinitely more appealing than, say, Bertie, here, though that would be interesting entertainment . . . for me, at least.”

The idea of Jason watching and taking pleasure in such an assault revolted her.
“You’re vile,” she said, still struggling between the two men.

Jason bent his face very close to hers.
“You know, I think I will let him have a turn if there’s time when I’m through.”

Charlotte leaned her head as far away as possible, understanding then that she was not dealing with normal sexual desire. He enjoyed something with pain involved.

“You’ve got a mother, a sister,” she started, while watching him gesture over her head and then feeling Bertie begin to tie her hands. “Would you allow them to be treated this way? I am no different from them,” she added.

Jason seemed to ignore her words. He sent Bertie from the room then heaved her from the chair and bent her backward over the desk.

“There is a difference,” he whispered fiercely into her face, as she struggled and kicked at him to no avail. “You are
not
my mother or my sister, and you are getting in the way of my business, which is to make money.”

“
And how will assaulting me help?” Charlotte asked, trying to twist and turn and impede his progress.
How had she ever thought him pleasant?
Good Lord, how did such horridness masquerade in everyday society as normalcy?

It took all her wits not to panic despite her growing fear. She knew her wits might be all that could save her, as the odds that Reed would find her in time seemed slim.

Jason had shredded the entire top of her dress, as well as her chemisette, and was tugging at her corset. His eyes, riveted by the upward curve of her breasts, never met hers as he started to pull up her skirts with one hand while unfastening his trousers with the other. 

“
It will give me great pleasure to know that your body was not wasted before you died. Though it will only be for a few minutes, I will show you what earthly delights you are leaving behind. I hate to think of any beautiful young woman dying a virgin.”

He was grinding his pelvis into her hips, which were pressed painfully against the edge of the desk. She could feel the hardness at his crotch and a wave of revulsion nearly made her faint.

Yet as Jason’s words filtered through her despair, it seemed to Charlotte as though a bell rang in her head. His mouth was now on the swell of her breast, and his hand had clawed its way up under her gown and was touching the lace at the bottom of her pantalets when she said, “But I am not a virgin.”

Every part of him, each assault, by mouth, by hand, and by pelvis, halted, frozen by her words. Then he relaxed.
“You are lying.” And he struck her again, this time, catching her lip on her teeth and immediately, she tasted blood.

“
I will be the only man you’ll ever know, dear Charlotte. But don’t worry, I have taken care of virgins before. Every one of them exceedingly grateful that I—”

“
I’m not lying,” she insisted, though it hurt to speak. She grasped that here was a man so insecure, he could only be sexually intimate with a woman who had never been with anyone else to whom he could be compared—and found wanting.

A textbook example
was the term she’d read in one of the psychiatric case studies at the library. Textbook, indeed. Here in the real world, it was terrifying, but she had to press on.

“
I’ve already had this pleasure with a man whose prowess you could never match. When he took my virginity, it was the most wondrous day of my life. His manhood was huge; his skill at lovemaking was . . . was beyond magnificent.”

She couldn’t believe she was saying these things, but the effect was almost immediate. He withdrew his probing hand from under her skirts. He stood up and looked down at her as if she were filth.

“And who is this man?”