Dredmore stepped between us. “That is enough, Charmian.”
“Who in this household would do such nonsense?” Walsh bellowed over Dredmore’s shoulder, his face mottling dark red. “No one, I say. No one but this whore, my wife.”
“It will be someone who has theatrical or military experience,” I said tightly. “Probably military, as it’s a soldier’s trick. The assailant wishes you to believe that your wife is greedy and promiscuous. Someone who wants to drive her out of her wits with terror and give you just cause to divorce her.” As Diana sagged with my words, I led her over to an armchair. “I’d say it’s working, wouldn’t you?”
Dredmore stared at me. “What do you mean, soldier’s trick?”
“They’ve been using wound paste on her,” I told him. “When it dries it looks like the real thing, and if you try to remove it, it tears the skin, like a fresh scab.”
“I’ll not listen to another moment of this!” Nolan said, sweeping his arm toward the mage. “Do your work now, Dredmore.”
“I can do nothing with Miss Kittredge present,” Dredmore replied. “She must be removed from the house.”
Diana suddenly revived and latched on to my arm. “You can’t leave, Kit. Not before you make him understand what’s been done to me. Please, I beg you.”
“We’ve arrived at a stalemate, milords,” I told the men. I pried Diana’s fingers away and went to Lord Walsh. “Dredmore will not perform for you in front of me because he knows I will expose him for the fraud he is. Your lady wife desires me to stay and prove her innocence.”
The red patches on Lord Walsh’s face turned purple. “You dare challenge my authority, in my own house?”
“My only wish is to investigate the matter further, milord,” I pushed on. “Allow me to speak with your servants; one of them has surely witnessed something to lead us to the—”
I didn’t expect him to backhand me, but once I was on the floor, my face throbbing, I saw Walsh draw back his boot and suddenly understood Diana’s bruises and why Dredmore had wanted me to go. I brought up my arms to protect my face and waited for the next blow, which never came.
“Allow me, my lord.”
The kick never landed; instead two strong arms snatched me from the floor and carried me away. By the time I dropped my hands from my face, Dredmore had me through the front entry and halfway to his coach.
“No.” I twisted and nearly freed myself before he shifted me up and over his shoulder. “I can’t leave her like this. He’ll kill her.” I pounded my fists against his back. “Put me down.”
“He won’t risk beating her now, not when she can use her injuries against him in court. You, however, will not get off so lightly.” Dredmore tossed me in the coach and slammed the door, securing it from the outside. When I tried to dart out the other door, I found it locked. The windows were too small for me to crawl through, so I sat and watched as Dredmore walked back to speak with Nolan Walsh, who had come out of the house after us.
Walsh blustered while Dredmore soothed, and while I couldn’t hear what they said, it was obvious it was about me. Then Walsh did a curious thing; he gestured for the butler, who handed Dredmore a large satchel. Dredmore nodded before he returned to the coach and handed off the satchel to his driver before climbing in with me.
“My turn, is it?” I lunged at him only to be pinned against his body. I maneuvered my arms between us and pushed at his chest. “I can still scream.”
“I can still have you gagged.” He ducked my fist and jerked me closer to pin my arms between us. “And bound, if you like.”
Being an inch from his face brought on all sorts of ugly feelings and ideas, but he grabbed my hair and held me in place.
“If you wish to bite me, Charmian,” he said softly, “there are far better spots than my face.”
“So you like it rough.” I changed tactics and moved a breath closer. “How will it be, Lucien? You tied naked between the posts, me in leathers, snapping a little whip? Is that what it takes to brick your chimney?”
Instead of being offended, the cold bastard smiled at me. “You’ve been spending too much time among strumpets, my sweet.” He wrenched me around so that my back was pressed to his front. “Sit still, or I will show you exactly what I like.”
I sat still. Not because he ordered me to, but to give myself time to think. From what I saw through the coach window, it was obvious that he was taking me out of the city. We left behind the dark streets and alleyways, rode through the pasturelands, and started up the cliff roads. Since Dredmore owned most of the coastal property beyond Rumsen, that meant our destination was his lair.
Castle Travallian, or so it had been before Dredmore had been disowned.
I’d seen it once when I’d gone atop one of the taller buildings downtown and looked over toward the sea. From there the manor had looked like little more than a pile of rubble. It came into view as the coach left the road and started up a long, winding path between two rows of black iron gaslamp poles. The cessation of jolting made me look down at the smooth pavers of obsidian rock, cut and fitted together so perfectly, I barely made out the seams.
“I had the stone shipped in from the islands,” he said. “The masons called it the road to hell.”
Was it to be mine? “I suppose Torian granite wasn’t dark or dramatic enough for you.”
“The islanders worship a fire god who they believe dwells in their volcano,” he said instead of answering. “Every year before planting season they take a young virgin up to the edge of the crater and toss her in. Her sacrifice pleases the god, who then provides a bountiful harvest.”
“For burning a gel to death.” I tried to sit up. “How delightful. How do they celebrate the harvest? By setting little babies on fire?”
“They feast on the fruits of their labors.” He tugged me back, tucking my head against his neck. “It’s not as grim as it sounds. According to legend, courageous virgins are given eternal life as the god’s handmaidens.”
“There’s a bloody fabulous reward for you.” I felt him touching my hair and snapped my head away. “Trapped to serve forever the bastard who killed them. Where do I sign up for the next sacrifice?”
“Perhaps they love their god so much that they don’t mind,” he suggested.
“I wish you’d . . . stop . . .” My voice died and my neck cricked as the coach came to a stop.
The cliffside manor was not a heap of rubble but a magnificent edifice that seemed to be growing out of the very ground. This effect came from the cliff stones, which had originally been an enormous pile of black and white granite boulders hewn and squared at the topmost peaks to form the great house’s foundation. Other, identical stones had been quarried and brought to build atop them, creating a manor that soared some five stories above the cliff’s edge.
Dredmore’s driver opened the door, blocking it when I tried to scramble out.
“I have her, Connell.”
Somehow Dredmore managed to hoist me under his arm as he maneuvered me out of the coach, and he carried me like that across the drive.
“I’m not a sack of turnips. Put me down.” I struggled to get my head up to see where he was taking me. “Dredmore.”
He flipped me over so that he held me like a new husband about to cross the threshold with his bride. “Welcome to Morehaven, Charmian.”
Chapter Twelve
Dredmore carried me into his lair as if it were my new home, and for a moment I wondered if it would be. As solitary and standoffish as Dredmore was, he wouldn’t have brought me here for a nightcap or a friendly chat. No, I had the feeling I was headed straight for some underground torture chamber or filthy cage.