Worth Any Price

Nick's every instinct rebelled at the suggestion. To release his grip, and hang suspended, depending entirely on someone else's strength...

"No choice," Sayer said through clenched teeth. "Let go, damn it, and let me help you.Now ."

Nick made himself release his grip on the timber. He swung free for one terrifying moment. He felt Sayer's grip tighten to a crushing vise and a mighty tug upward as the runner hauled him just far enough to balance his weight on top of the crackling wood. "Move forward," Sayer muttered, retaining his hold on Nick's arm, and together they maneuvered away from the perilous fall. When they had both retreated from the beam and found the safety of some relatively sound planking, they collapsed side by side, gasping violently.

"Damn," Sayer rasped when he had sufficient breath to speak, "you're a heavy bastard, Sydney."

Disoriented, his body racked with pain, Nick tried to make himself comprehend that he was still alive. He drew his sleeve over his sweat-soaked brow and found that his arm was cramping and shaking, the abused muscles going berserk.

Sayer sat up and regarded him with clear anxiety. "It looks like you've strained some muscles. And your hand looks like it's been pushed through a sieve."

But he was alive. It was too miraculous to believe. Nick had gotten a reprieve he didn't deserve, and by all that was holy, he was going to take advantage of it. As he thought of Lottie, he was seized with dark longing.

"Sayer," he managed to say hoarsely, "I've just decided something."

"Oh?"

"From now on, you'll have to find your own fu**ing way around Fleet Ditch."

Sayer grinned suddenly, seeming to understand the reasons behind his vehemence. "I suppose you think you're too good for this place, now that you're a viscount. I knew it was just a matter of time before you started putting on airs."

Lord Radnor was clearly astonished to see Lottie at her family's home. His hard, black gaze moved from her face to Ellie's, comparing the two of them, cataloging the differences. When he looked back at Lottie, his face was taut with a mixture of hatred and longing.

"You have no right to interfere," he said.

"My sister is an innocent young girl who has done nothing to you," Lottie flared. "She doesn't deserve to suffer because of my actions. Leave her alone!"

"I've invested twelve years of my life in you," Radnor said between clenched teeth, taking a step forward. "And I will be repaid for those years one way or another."

Lottie glanced incredulously at her parents. "You can't truly mean to give her to him! How can you have slipped so far beyond decency? My husband said that he would take care of you and assume your debts-"

"Ellie will have a better life this way," her father mumbled. "Lord Radnor will provide well for her-"

"You don't mind the fact that he intends to make her his mistress?" Lottie glared at them all, while Ellie cowered behind her and sobbed against her back. "Well, I won't have it! I'm leaving now, and taking Ellie with me-and if anyone dares to lay a finger on us, he will answer to Lord Sydney."

The mention of Nick seemed to infuriate Lord Radnor. "How dare you? You have cheated, betrayed, and insulted me beyond all bearing, and now you mean to deprive me of the one recompense I ask for."

"You don't want Ellie," Lottie said, staring at him steadily. "You want to strike back at me. To punish me for marrying someone else."

"Yes," Radnor exploded fiercely, seeming to lose all self-control. "Yes, I want to punish you. I raised you up from the mud, and you have brought yourself low again. You have corrupted yourself, and in doing so, you have deprived me of the only thing I have ever desired." He came to her in a few aggressive strides. "Every night I lie abed imagining you with that swine," he shouted into her face. "How could you choose that loathsome animal over me? The filthiest, most debauched man on-"

Lottie drew back her hand and struck him hard, her palm smacking the side of his face with numbing force. "You aren't fit to speak his name!"

Their gazes locked, and Lottie saw the last remnants of sanity disappear from Radnor's eyes. He reached out for her, his hands closing around her like a hawk's talons, and he jerked her off her feet until she fell against him. Behind her, Ellie gave a fearful shriek.

Lottie's parents appeared too stunned to move as Lord Radnor dragged her from the house. Caught fast in his grip, Lottie stumbled and tripped down the front steps. Radnor shouted something to his footmen, while she fought and twisted in Radnor's arms, until he cuffed the side of her head, landing a painful blow on her ear. Lottie reared and shook her head to clear a shower of brilliant sparks. Her gaze found Daniel, who had been beset by Radnor's footmen. Despite Daniel's size, he was no match for two of them.

"My lady," Daniel cried, and reeled backward as a heavy fist smashed into his face.

Radnor sank his hand into Lottie's hair and tangled his fingers tightly in the pinned-up locks. Locking his other arm around her neck, he forced her to go with him to his carriage.

"See here, Radnor-" came her father's anxious voice. "We've said you can have Ellie. Release Lottie, and we'll-"

"Thisis what I want," Lord Radnor raged, dragging Lottie with his forearm clamped around her throat, making her choke and gag as she was deprived of air. "No more bargains. No substitutes. I will have Charlotte and be damned to all of you!"

Lottie clawed frantically at the crushing vise of his arm, her lungs feeling as if they would burst. She couldn't breathe...she needed air...black and red streaks blurred her vision, and she felt herself go limp in Radnor's punishing embrace.

CHAPTER 15

Lottie did not fully regain her senses until she felt herself being half-dragged, half-carried into Lord Radnor's London home. Her head pounded viciously, and her throat ached as she struggled against his unrelenting grasp. Somewhere beneath her fear and fury, she was aware of a deep relief that Ellie had been spared. Her sister was safe, and now everything had boiled down to the confrontation that Lottie had always known would happen, between her and the man who had dominated most of her life.

Although Lottie was aware of a few exclamations from nearby servants, none of them dared to interfere. They were all fearful of Radnor, and they would not lift a finger to prevent him from doing as he wished. She wondered what his purpose was in bringing her here. His London residence was the first place that would be investigated when it was discovered that she was missing. She would have expected him to take her to a remote place where they could not easily be found.

Radnor hauled her to the library, locked the door shut, and shoved Lottie into a chair. Holding one hand to her bruised throat, she crumpled into the seat. A few moments later, she felt something hard and cold prod against her temple, while one of his hands pulled her head to the back of the chair.

Lottie's heart stopped beating as she understood the reason that Lord Radnor had brought her here. Since he could not have her, he intended to destroy her.

"I loved you," Radnor said quietly, sounding perfectly sane, even as the end of the pistol barrel trembled against her head. "I would have given you everything."

Strangely, Lottie found that she was able to answer in just as rational a tone, as though they were having an ordinary conversation and her life was not about to end with the pull of his finger on the trigger. "You never loved me." It hurt her throat to speak, but she forced herself to continue. "You don't know the meaning of the word."

The pistol shook harder. "How can you say that after all that I have sacrificed for you? Are you really so ignorant?"

"In all the years that we've known each other, you've demonstrated domination, obsession, and desire...but those things aren't love."

"Then tell me what love is." His voice was thick with scorn.

"Respect. Acceptance. Selflessness. All the things my husband has shown me in just a few short weeks. My flaws don't matter to him. He loves me without conditions. And I love him the same way."

"You owe your love tome," he said harshly.

"Perhaps I could have felt something for you had you ever tried to be kind." Lottie paused, closing her eyes as she felt the pistol nudge harder into her temple. "Strange, but I've never thought it mattered to you, whether I cared for you or not."

"It does," Radnor said furiously. "I deserve that much from you, at least!"

"How ironic." A humorless smile tugged at her dry lips. "You demanded perfection from me-something I could never attain. And yet the one thing I might have given you-affection-you never seemed to want."

"I want it now," Radnor stunned Lottie by saying. Keeping the pistol pressed to her head, he moved in front of her and knelt until their faces were level. His face was ruddy with color that burned not on the surface of his skin but from deep underneath. His eyes were black with rage, or perhaps despair, and his thin mouth was contorted by some powerful emotion. Lottie had never seen him like this. She did not understand what moved him, why he should seem so ravaged by loss, when she knew to the bottom of her soul that he was not capable of love.

His clawlike hand took hers, brought her resisting fingers to his perspiring cheek. She realized with amazement that he was trying to make her caress him...here, like this, with a gun held to her head. "Touch me," he muttered feverishly. "Tell me that you love me."

Lottie kept her fingers still and lifeless in his. "I love my husband."

Radnor flushed with baffled anger. "You cannot!"

She almost pitied him as she stared into his uncomprehending eyes. "I'm sorry for you," she said. "You can't conceive of loving anyone who is less than perfect. What a lonely fate that must be."

"Idid love you," he shouted, his voice striated with rage. "I did, damn your cheating soul!"

"Then you loved someone who never existed. You loved an impossible ideal. Not me." She licked at the beads of sweat on her upper lip. "You don't know anything about me, my lord."

"I know you better than anyone," he said vehemently. "You would be nothing without me.You belong to me ."

"No. I am Lord Sydney's wife." She hesitated before giving voice to the thought that had occurred to her more than once in the past few days. "And I am fairly certain that by now I am carrying his child."

Lord Radnor's eyes became two wells of utter darkness in a face that was skull white. She perceived that she had shocked him deeply, that the thought of her being pregnant with another man's child had never even occurred to him.

Delicately Radnor's fingers withdrew from hers, and he stood. The cold barrel of the gun never left Lottie's temple as he moved behind her once more. She felt the perspiring flat of his palm catch slightly on her hair as he caressed it. "You've ruined everything," he said in a curiously flat tone. The pistol cocked, the heavy click reverberating against her skin. "There's nothing left for me. You'll never be what I wanted."

"No," Lottie agreed softly. "It was always futile." Cold sweat trickled down her face as she waited for him to pull the trigger. In the face of such absolute defeat, Radnor would surely kill her. But she was not going to spend the last moments of her life cowering in fear. She closed her eyes and thought of Nick...his kisses, his smiles, the warmth of his arms around her. Tears of regret and gladness prickled behind her lids. If only she could have had a little more time with him...if only she could have made him understand what he meant to her. A slow sigh escaped her, and she waited almost peacefully for Radnor to act.

At the sound of her exhalation, the barrel of the pistol lifted from her head. In the weighty silence that followed, Lottie opened her eyes, perplexed by the absolute stillness. Had she not heard the faint rasp of Radnor's breathing, she would have thought that he had left the room. As she began to turn, she was suddenly assaulted with an explosive sound that made her ears ring. She fell backward, her backside hitting the floor, while a curious hot splatter landed on her skirts and arms.

Dazed, she tried to catch her breath, and wiped numbly at the red droplets on her arms until they made long, wine-colored smears. Blood, she thought in amazement, and looked at Radnor's crumpled form. He was lying on the floor a few feet away from her, his body spasming in the throes of death.

Agreeing reluctantly that they would have to report to Morgan, Nick and Sayer went to Bow Street. Nick was in considerable pain, the strained muscles on his side burning, his broken fingers swelling beneath the handkerchief he had bound them with. He was tired and aching, and he could hardly wait to go home to Lottie.

As soon as they entered the comfortably shabby building on Bow Street, they headed straight for Sir Grant's office in the hopes that he had returned from the afternoon court session. The court clerk, Vickery, jumped up from his desk as Nick and Sayer approached. His bespectacled face registered astonishment at their filthy appearance. "Mr. Sayer, and Mr.... er, Lord Sydney..."

"We had a bit of an altercation near Fleet Ditch," Sayer said. "Is Morgan available to see us, Vickery?"

For some reason, the clerk gave Nick an odd stare. "He is questioning someone at the moment," he replied.

"How long will that take?" Nick asked with annoyance.

"I have no idea, Lord Sydney. The matter appears to be one of some urgency. Actually the visitor is your footman, my lord."

Nick shook his head as if he hadn't heard correctly. "What?"

"Mr. Daniel Finchley," Vickery clarified.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Instantly concerned, Nick went to Morgan's office and opened the door without knocking.

Morgan's face was grim as he glanced at Nick. "Come in, Sydney. Your arrival is well timed. What happened to your hand?"

"Never mind about that," Nick said impatiently. He saw that the visitor was indeed Daniel, his face bruised and one eye blackened, his livery torn. "Who did that to you?" he asked with a frown of concern. "Why are you here, Daniel?"

"I couldn't find you at home, my lord," the footman replied in agitation. "I didn't know what to do, so I came to tell Sir Grant. Something has happened to Lady Sydney."

A jolt of alarm went through Nick, and he felt his face turn white. "What?"

"Lady Sydney went to visit her family this morning, to fetch her sister. She bade me accompany her, and warned me that there might be some kind of struggle, as the Howards would not want to relinquish the girl." He fumbled in his pocket and produced a crumpled note, handing it to Nick. "Lady Sydney left this in the carriage."