Page 24 of Charlotte's Reckoning
Relief washed over her. She wouldn’t have to endure being put on display and sold to a stranger. It was short-lived, however, when the madam revealed her new plan.
“One of my most valued out-of-town customers is here tonight. He has particular tastes but pays top dollar to get what he wants.”She picked up a lock of her henna and indigo-dyed hair and wrapped it around her finger. “I think he will enjoy a feisty brunette.”
Afraid to ask, she forced herself to. “What kind of particular tastes?”
Heloise’s lips twisted into a grimace. If she found them repulsive, they must be truly awful.
“You won’t like him. None of ’em do, but we’re here to please, and you have to be punished for being a right royal pain in my ass. Noah!”
Her sudden, high-pitched shriek made Rowie jump nearly out of her skin.
The big man appeared in the doorway so quickly, he had to have been waiting in the hall. “Yes, mistress?”
“Find Monsieur Augustine and let him know I have arranged his entertainment for the evening. Then have someone prepare his special room.”
Noah jerked in surprise. “Your pardon, mistress. But she’s not ready for that. Not even Marta could withstand—”
Heloise whirled on him. “Don’t question me!”she shouted shrilly. “Just do it.”
The guard’s pitying gaze landed on her, but only briefly before he complied.
The madam stepped into the hallway. At an even greater volume, she bellowed, “Roger! Nate! Get up here now!”
The woman had slapped her for making the slightest noise and risking disturbing her patrons but had an atrociously bad habit of shouting her demands whenever she liked.
Moments later, two strapping young guards came clomping noisily down the hall.
“You sound like a herd of stampeding cattle. How many times do I have to tell you to be quiet when we’re open for business?”
The irony of taking them to task after she’d just done worse, caterwauling loud enough towake the dead, was utterly lost on her.
“Take her to the attic room,”Heloise ordered. “Her gentleman caller will be there shortly. Do not leave her until he has the situation well in hand.”
While nowhere as big as Noah, they were still twice her size. She didn’t stand a chance against one of them, let alone both at once, but when they approached, Rowie still resisted. When the first one reached for her, she ducked and punched him squarely in the groin. He bent double and dropped to his knees, his moan of pain most satisfying. But she didn’t celebrate her small victory with the second one to deal with.
He made a grab for her, ready to block a similar maneuver, but she twisted out of the way and brought the heel of her hand up hard into his nose. He staggered back with blood spurting between his fingers.
With Heloise’s henchmen temporarily incapacitated, Rowie ran for the door. The only thing remaining between her and freedom—from her bedroom prison, at least—was the madam herself. The rest she’d figure out when she got into the hall.
“Stop her, you ham-handed oafs,”Heloise shrieked yet again. “Are you going to let a mere slip of a girl best you?” The brothel owner was bigger, but Rowie had youth and determination on her side and planned to go through her if necessary. Lowering one shoulder, she plowed into the madam who, with an oomph, staggered backward, allowing her to sail out the door.
As she turned toward the back stairs by her room, she smelled the sweet scent of freedom, but a yank on her waist-length hair brought her to an abrupt halt. Her scalp burned as one of Heloise’s henchmen reeled her in like a fish on a hook.
The madam, who had shown glimmers of concern, even compassion, exhibited none of that now. Her cruel laughter bordered on deranged. It grew louder as Rowie kicked and clawed to get free but eventually wore herself out.
When she hung limply between the two much larger, stronger men, Heloise walked toward her. She grabbed a fistful of her hair at the back of her head and wrenched it back sharply. Rowie couldn’t keep from crying out in pain. What had once been an asset, what her papa had called her crowning glory, they had used repeatedly against her.
“You fool,”Heloise hissed, leaning closer with a vicious grin. “You’ll have no strength left for your appointment with Augustine. That would be a shame, since he enjoys breaking the fight in a quarrelsome girl.”From the wild look in her eyes and how she was practically salivating, Rowie concluded she had passed the border of deranged and was full-on mad. “Have you figured out from my clues his particular taste, dear Jade? Or are you too simple?”
“That’s not my name!”she cried. “And you won’t bait me into playing your crazed little guessing game, which is obviously your intent.”
“It’s a game, all right. One of cat and mouse; guess which one you are?”She didn’t wait for an answer. “I told you the price of disobediencewould be steep. How fortunate that we have a master of punishment in our midst tonight. You’ve heard of the Marquis de Sade?”She made a little moue with her crimson lips then shook her head. “No. On a farm in Virginia, I don’t suppose you would have. Like Monsieur Augustine, he, too, was French. He was also an author and a philosopher who enjoyed testing his theories.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To prepare you,”she replied with a malevolent grin. “Our monsieur has a long-held fascination with de Sade, who had a predilection for pain—of a sexual nature.”
“No,”Rowie whispered. “You can’t mean to give me to him.”
