If He's Sinful. Hannah Howell

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СКАЧАТЬ she would be ill. The warmth of her own blood seeping into the neckline of her bodice only added to the fear. It took several moments before she could grasp any shred of calm or courage. The realization that her blood was flowing too slowly for her throat to have been cut helped her push aside her burgeoning panic.

      “Ye sure we ain’t allowed to have us a taste of this, Jud?” asked the largest and most hirsute of her captor’s assistants.

      “Orders is orders,” replied Jud as he steadied his knife against her skin. “A toss with this one will cost ye more’n she be worth.”

      “None of us’d be telling and the wench ain’t going to be able to tell, neither.”

      “I ain’t letting ye risk it. Wench like this’d be fighting ye and that leaves bruises. They’ll tell the tale and that bitch Mrs. Cratchitt will tell. She would think it a right fine thing if we lost our pay for this night’s work.”

      “Aye, that old bawd would be thinking she could gain something from it right enough. Still, it be a sad shame I can’t be having me a taste afore it be sold off to anyone with a coin or two.”

      “Get your coin first and then go buy a little if’n ye want it so bad.”

      “Won’t be so clean and new, will it?”

      “This one won’t be neither if’n that old besom uses her as she uses them others, not by the time ye could afford a toss with her.”

      She was being taken to a brothel, Penelope realized. Yet again she had to struggle fiercely against becoming blinded by her own fears. She was still alive, she told herself repeatedly, and it looked as if she would stay that way for a while. Penelope fought to find her strength in that knowledge. It did no good to think too much on the horrors she might be forced to endure before she could escape or be found. She needed to concentrate on one thing and one thing only—getting free.

      It was not easy but Penelope forced herself to keep a close eye on the route they traveled. Darkness and all the twists and turns her captors took made it nearly impossible to make note of any and every possible sign to mark the way out of this dangerous warren she was being taken into. She had to force herself to hold fast to the hope that she could ever truly escape, and the need to get back to her boys, who had no one else to care for them.

      She was carried into the kitchen of a house. Two women and a man were there, but they spared her only the briefest of glances before returning all of their attention to their work. It was not encouraging that they seemed so accustomed to such a sight, so unmoved and uninterested.

      As her captor carried her up a dark, narrow stairway, Penelope became aware of the voices and music coming from below, from the front of the building, which appeared to be as great a warren as the alleys leading to it. When they reached the hallway and started to walk down it, she could hear the murmur of voices coming from behind all the closed doors. Other sounds drifted out from behind those doors but she tried very hard not to think about what might be causing them.

      “There it be. Room twenty-two,” muttered Jud. “Open the door, Tom.”

      The large, hirsute man opened the door and Jud carried Penelope into the room. She had just enough time to notice how small the room was before Jud tossed her down onto the bed in the middle of the room. It was a surprisingly clean and comfortable bed. Penelope suspected that, despite its seedy location, she had probably been brought to one of the better bordellos, one that catered to gentlemen of refinement and wealth. She knew, however, that that did not mean she could count on any help.

      “Get that old bawd in here, Tom,” said Jud. “I wants to be done with this night’s work.” The moment Tom left, Jud scowled down at Penelope. “Don’t suspect you’d be aknowing why that high-and-mighty lady be wanting ye outta the way, would ye?”

      Penelope slowly shook her head as a cold suspicion settled in her stomach.

      “Don’t make no sense to me. Can’t be jealousy or the like. Can’t be that she thinks you be taking her man or the like, can it. Ye ain’t got her fine looks, ain’t dressed so fine, neither, and ye ain’t got her fine curves. Scrawny, brown mite like ye should be no threat at all to such a fulsome wench. So, why does she want ye gone so bad, eh?”

      Scrawny brown mite? Penelope thought, deeply insulted even as she shrugged in reply.

      “Why you frettin’ o’er it, Jud?” asked the tall, extremely muscular man by his side.

      Jud shrugged. “Curious, Mac. Just curious, is all. This don’t make no sense to me.”

      “Don’t need to. Money be good. All that matters.”

      “Aye, mayhap. As I said, just curious. Don’t like puzzles.”

      “Didn’t know that.”

      “Well, it be true. Don’t want to be part of something I don’t understand. Could mean trouble.”

      If she had not been gagged, Penelope suspected she would have been gaping at her captor. He had kidnapped the daughter of a marquis, brought her bound and gagged to a brothel, and was going to leave her to the untender care of a madam, a woman he plainly did not trust or like. Exactly what did the idiot think trouble was? If he were caught, he would be tried, convicted, and hanged in a heartbeat. And that would be merciful compared to what her relatives would do to the fool if they found out. How much more trouble could he be in?

      A hoarse gasp escaped her when he removed her gag. “Water,” she whispered, desperate to wash away the foul taste of the rag.

      What the man gave her was a tankard of weak ale, but Penelope decided it was probably for the best. If there was any water in this place, it was undoubtedly dangerous to drink. She tried not to breathe too deeply as he held her upright and helped her to take a drink. Penelope drank the ale as quickly as she could, however, for she wanted the man to move away from her. Anyone as foul-smelling as he was surely had a vast horde of creatures sharing his filth that she would just as soon did not come to visit her.

      When the tankard was empty, he let her fall back down onto the bed and said, “Now, don’t ye go thinking of making no noise, screaming for help or the like. No one here will be heeding it.”

      Penelope opened her mouth to give him a tart reply and then frowned. The bed might be clean and comfortable but it was not new. A familiar chill swept over her. Even as she thought it a very poor time for her gift to display itself, her mind was briefly filled with violent memories that were not her own.

      “Someone died in this bed,” she said, her voice a little unsteady from the effect of those chilling glimpses into the past.

      “What the bleeding hell are ye babbling about?” snapped Jud.

      “Someone died in this bed and she did not do so peacefully.” Penelope got some small satisfaction from how uneasy her words made her burley captors.

      “You be talking nonsense, woman.”

      “No. I have a gift, you see.”

      “You can see spirits?” asked Mac, glancing nervously around the room.

      “Sometimes. When they wish to reveal themselves to me. This time it was just the memories of what happened here,” she lied.

      Both men were staring at her СКАЧАТЬ