Page 45 of A Dash of Disguise

What other choice did she have? There was no place to hide on the ship, and it might take days for Dash to find her. Days that Roddy didn’t have.

She dashed to the ladder as Roddy climbed onto the deck. He was deathly pale, his eyes sunken in his skull, and his body trembling. He had used his last reserves of energy. It fell on her to get them off their prison.

She took his arm. She was a tall, strong woman who could possibly carry Roddy on her back, but it would leave them unprotected. She had to be able to react if confronted.

She took his arm and started the next part of their journey, pulling him into the open space. The exposure raised the hairs on the back of her neck; foreboding hovered as a silent specter. She had to shake off the surge of anxiety. She had to control her emotions. Hadn’t Alfie taught her how to keep her focus?

The eerie silence broken only by the shuffle of Roddy’s boots on the wood caused her heart to race and her muscles to clench in preparation.

They had made it more than halfway when men’s voices echoed from the plank. Roddy, exhausted, didn’t protest when she hauled him behind her. Yanking the hammer from her back, she gripped it tight. She readied for the next fight, blocking everything from her mind but protecting them. She had to win. She stepped forward to face her opponents.

“Dita, you’re so damn brave,” Roddy murmured.

She recognized both men who boarded the ship. It was Haversham and the heavy man she had seen when she was disguised as a servant. And behind them was a guard with a pistol leveled at her.

“My, my. What do we have here?” Haversham’s partner moved in a slow, predatory manner, his eyes raking over her and stopping to stare at her most private areas. She pulled the scraps of material to hide herself.

He and Haversham laughed. The cruel sound enraged and terrorized her. Their black souls made her skin crawl. The triumph in their voices incensed her. She wanted to attack and wipe their smug, condescending grins off their faces for what they had done to Roddy.

“Haversham, this little lady has put your men to shame by her appearance with her brother on the deck. Lady Perdita, I assume.” He bowed his head as if meeting in society.

She didn’t answer, trying to think of an escape. She could hurt the fat one but likely would get shot in the process. Except they didn’t want her dead since they needed Roddy’s cooperation. She rolled onto her toes to at least cause damage when she heard Roddy’s voice. “Don’t, Dita. They’ll only hurt you more.”

“Perdita.”

She quickly looked for the source of the illusion that sounded like Dash. With her entire focus on the men, she had missed other men boarding the ship. Dash, pistol in hand, flew toward her. He was followed by an armed Lord Rathbourne. A stream of soldiers with rifles rushed behind Lord Rathbourne as another group scrambled aboard from the waterside.

She had never seen the ferocious and feral look on Dash’s face as he neared. He seemed to grow bigger as his vehemence fueled his body.

“My God, what have they done to you?” The agony in his voice was overwhelming. “Did they… ravish you?”

She was paralyzed in shock. Dash had come. Astonished that he had found her, she stared, trying to make sense of the rapid shift in their position.

“I’m going to rip you bastards apart. You’ll beg like little boys to stop the agony.” He roared and rushed Haversham. The violence in his voice chilled her.

A panicked Haversham reached to grab her arm, but she dodged him and was about to kick him when Dash inserted himself between them. He pulled her against him with his free hand. “No need, darling. I will destroy them.”

In the seconds of the scuffle, Lord Rathbourne now stood behind Haversham with a pistol at his head. And at least twenty men pointed rifles at the three villains. The fat lecher had a gun at his temple too. The reality that she and Roddy were safe was beginning to sink in.

“Rathbourne, do not shoot Haversham. And Jones, don’t you dare kill Weber. I have a hell planned for them for touching Perdita.”

“Dash.” She turned in his arms, needing to see his face, to look directly into his eyes. The heat of his rage blasted through her. “They didn’t touch me in the way you mean. I did this to my skirts as a ruse to draw the guards close enough to strike them.”

“They didn’t?” His voice was hoarse, his eyes searching hers for reassurance.

“I’m fine. But it is Roddy who needs help.”

Dash stiffened and inhaled before he twisted to see Roddy, who was now being helped onto a stretcher.

Still reeling from the fact that they had been rescued and by the presence of Dash, she hadn’t noticed the help Roddy was receiving.

Seeing Roddy’s miserable condition, Dash snarled, and then in a quick move, he smashed his giant fist into Haversham’s face and then into Weber’s. The men’s hands were bound behind their backs, unable to defend themselves. There was a loud crunching sound when Dash’s fist connected with the bones in their faces. Haversham staggered but the corpulent man, not trained like one of Haversham’s boxing friends to take blows, fell flat on his back.

“How does it feel to be on the receiving end and not able to fight back?”

“Are you done, Beldon?” Rathbourne sounded bored.

“I’ll never be done but I’ll wait.” Dash shook his fist and then lifted her into his arms. “I’m never letting you out of my sight.”

---