The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ picked up the unconscious woman and laid her on the bed beside her brother, then snapped a shackle around one wrist of each. ‘Now, where are the keys, I wonder?’

      ‘Here.’ Joanna, who had been carefully checking the room for anything that might give the Thoroughgoods assistance, picked up the key from the bare washstand. She bent over Lucille, pulling the hair pins from her head and the reticule from her waist. ‘They might pick the lock,’ she said tersely. ‘What has he got?’

      Giles raised his eyebrows at this ruthless practicality, but if it was helping Joanna he was not going to try and distract her. He removed Thaddeus’s tiepin and patted his pockets, coming up with a roll of bank-notes, a leather wallet and a pretty guinea purse.

      ‘That is mine!’ Joanna reached across and took it, clutching it tight in her fist. ‘He stole in on the stage.’

      ‘I know,’ Giles said, keeping his voice low and calm, sensing that it would take very little to tip her over the edge. ‘Come downstairs now, they are quite secure.’

      ‘Lock and bolt the door.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ He reached up and pulled across the topmost bolt, allowing her to turn the key and shoot the lower bolt. Let her be certain her nightmare was safely shut away.

      ‘Now, come downstairs and I will see if there is anything for you to eat or drink in the kitchen.’ Joanna let him guide her down the stairs, her arm quivering under his hand. All at once she stiffened.

      ‘Miss Thoroughgood! Miss Thoroughgood, ma’am!’ A thin voice was calling from the back of the house, coming closer, accompanied by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

      Giles pushed Joanna firmly behind him and called, ‘Who is there?’

      ‘Just me, Mrs Penny, Mr Thoroughgood… Oh! Who are you, sir?’

      It was a woman, perhaps in her fifties, perhaps older, skinny in a shabby hand-me-down dress covered by a large sacking apron, her straggling grey hair pulled back into a bun. She stood wringing her hands in front of her, obviously completely unable to cope with the unexpected sight of two strangers in the hallway. Giles noticed with a pang how red and sore her hands looked.

      ‘Do you work for Miss Thoroughgood?’

      ‘Yes, sir. I comes in three times a week and does the rough cleaning.’

      ‘Does she have any other servants?’

      ‘No sir, just me.’ She did not seem able to ask what they were doing there, just stood and stared at them.

      ‘Well, Mrs Penny, I am sorry to tell you that Mr and Miss Thoroughgood are a pair of rogues of the worst kind and are going to be handed over to the Justices and will come to a very bad end.’

      ‘Gawd, sir!’ Her eyes widened. Giles could not believe for a moment that she had any idea what had been going on in the house.

      ‘I am Colonel Gregory, and this young lady is my…my sister. Now, Mrs Penny, where is the sitting room?’

      ‘In the front, sir…Colonel, sir.’ She threw open a door on to the most comfortable and well-kept room they had seen so far. Giles steered Joanna firmly towards the sofa. She moved when he pushed her, but made no effort to sit.

      ‘Can you make the young lady a cup of tea, Mrs Penny?’ The woman nodded, but he saw the anxiety in her eyes and how her hands were twisting in the apron again. ‘Now, you are not to worry. No one will think you have had anything to do with this. What are you paid?’

      ‘Sixpence a week, sir.’

      ‘And when were you last paid?’

      Her brow wrinkled with the effort to remember. ‘Three weeks ago, sir.’

      Giles fished in his pocket. ‘Here,’ he handed over a coin which made her gasp. ‘That will pay your back wages and is some extra for your trouble today. Now, the tea?’

      ‘That was kind,’ Joanna observed faintly as he pushed her gently onto the sofa.

      Giles sat down beside her, but did not try to touch her. He was puzzled that she showed no surprise at seeing him: perhaps the shock was just so all-encompassing that she would not have questioned any familiar face.

      ‘Joanna, did he touch you?’ he asked, and this time he saw she understood him.

      ‘Oh, no. There was no danger of that.’ Her voice was calm and, although faint, quite clear. ‘He wanted a virgin, you understand. He made it very plain what for, and that was where my value lay.’

      Giles had suspected that as soon as he realised that there was a woman in the scheme. Thoroughgood was not a solitary pervert, kidnapping girls for his own gratification. No, he was a trader in a very specialised commodity. But he had hoped that Joanna had not realised and that nothing had been said to shatter that innocence. He wanted to take her in his arms; even without touching her he could see the fine tremor running through her entire body. Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent and her eyes appeared unfocussed. But how would she react to being touched by a man now?

      She did not respond when Mrs Penny came in with the tea. Giles nodded thanks to the woman and told her to get on with the tasks she normally carried out but not to venture upstairs, whatever she heard.

      He pressed a cup into Joanna’s hand, but she could not hold it steady so he put it down again to let it cool. After a moment she turned and looked at him, although he could not tell whether she really understood who she was talking to.

      ‘He said that they would get a very good price from the man who…from the man—’ She broke off, biting her lip. ‘And money from those who would pay to watch. They said a man called Milo Thomas would come and collect me in a coach. I think there will be other girls in it.’

      ‘How can that be?’ Joanna asked him, her face reflecting her desperate need to understand. ‘I know men go to brothels, have mistresses. Of course I do. And I am not so foolish as to believe that women would not turn to such a way of life if they had better alternatives. But surely men want someone who knows how to make love? Is that not more pleasant? Yet there must be many men like those he was talking about, otherwise how could the brothel keepers and people like the Thoroughgoods make money from them? How could it be worth the risks?’

      Giles wished vehemently that he was not the one having to answer her questions. In fact, he would rather have found himself surrounded by French cavalry at that moment. If he got this wrong…

      ‘The vast majority of men are perfectly decent and normal,’ he said, keeping his voice as steady and quiet as he could. ‘Just as you imagine, they want to enjoy themselves, and they want the woman they are with to enjoy herself as well, whether it is within marriage, or outside it. Normal men,’ he added, with a hint of a smile, ‘would feel it a slur on their manhood if the lady did not find pleasure in their attentions.

      ‘But there are some who like cruelty, like to inflict pain. I think it must be about feeling powerful, that men who do not feel assured of themselves like to dominate someone weaker. Some stick at bullying their families and servants, others maltreat their horses. Some, just a few, go further. It is not many, Joanna, you must not assume that half the men you meet and know socially are like this, hiding a wolf’s teeth under a human smile. But the ones who СКАЧАТЬ