Page 53 of One Night of Scandal
Viola felt something poking into her stomach. It didn’t necessarily feel like a pistol, but how could she know? She couldn’t see a thing, and it wasn’t as if she’d ever had a gun shoved into her gut before.
“Tie something over his mouth,” the man above her said.
A moment later, fingers felt over the sack covering her face. When he found her mouth, she considered trying to bite him, but didn’t think she’d do much damage through the cloth. Furthermore, there was probably a pistol trained on her midsection.
The man behind her tied something around her mouth, forcing the sack between her lips. She tasted dust and grime, and nausea swirled in her belly.
They pulled her up the rest of the stairs and into a room. She heard the door close, and then she was thrown into a chair. One of the men pulled her arms behind her and tied her wrists together.
Viola, whose heart was already threatening to beat clear out of her chest, tensed. She wanted to ask what they wanted, but she couldn’t talk. When she tried, all that came out were muffled sounds.
Fingers slid beneath the gag tied around her face as they separated it from the sack, which they then pushed up past her nose, but left covering her eyes. She shuddered from revulsion at having the man touch her so intimately. Then he pulled at her whiskers, peeling them away from her skin.
“The sideburns are fake,” the man said.
“Bloody hell, he is a woman,” the man with the pistol swore. Both of them sounded somewhat familiar, but Viola couldn’t quite place them.
“Now what do we do?” the first man asked.
“Depends on who she is,” pistol-man responded.
Viola tried to yell that she was the Duke of Eastleigh’s sister.
“Can’t tell without revealing her face, and then she’ll be able to see us.”
“And we can’t have that.” The man shoved the pistol in her side, making her gasp. “Tavistock, you’ve caused far more trouble than you’re worth. Now we have to decide what to do about it.”
Fear curled in Viola’s gut, and she feared she was going to be sick. She never should have come today. She’d thought her plan was sound, and she’d been about to return to the hack since Jack wasn’t here.
Jack.
She could only pray he would arrive before… She wasn’t sure what, and she was afraid to find out.
Near the end of his second long meeting of the afternoon, Jack received a note. He would have set it aside, but he recognized Viola’s handwriting. Smiling to himself, as he’d been doing all day because he couldn’t stop thinking of the night before, he opened it. The smile turned to a frown by the time he finished.
Standing, he apologized to his colleagues and left in haste. He caught a hack and told the driver to hurry to Villiers Street. He arrived outside The Black Hare and looked around for Viola—rather, Tavistock.
Not seeing her, he went inside the tavern and asked if anyone had seen the young man. When no one had, his concern flared into full alarm. Dashing back outside, he scanned both sides of the street more closely. This time, he caught sight of a hack positioned just a short way down the street.
He ran to the hack and called up to the driver, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a young man? Shorter than average, rather skinny.” Skinny didn’t remotely describe Viola’s curves, but for a man, she was slight at best.
The driver’s brow furrowed beneath his hat. “I have. He paid me to wait for a few minutes. I was about to leave, and then I saw a couple of gents drag him into that alley.”
Jack gaped at him. “And you just sat there and watched?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” the driver said. “I’ve been sitting here the past few minutes trying to decide what to do. I’m just one man, and not even a full one.” He knocked on his boot, and the hollow sound told Jack he had a wooden leg.
Swearing, Jack pointed toward the alley next to the tavern. “They took him through there?”
The driver nodded. “Maybe ten minutes ago.”
“Two men, you say?” Jack confirmed.
At the driver’s nod, Jack strode back to the tavern, passing the alley and ignoring the sharp pain of distress in his chest and gut. It wouldn’t do to go storming into the alley and try to find them. He hoped they were somewhere in the tavern.
Inside, he approached the barkeep. “Do you have a back room where a couple of gentlemen might be? I have a meeting.” He slid a bank note across the bar to the man.
“There’s a room upstairs. Couple of fellows are using it today. Go on through the back there. Door on the right leads to the stairs.”
