The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen
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saw Lucille, a poker clenched in her fist, her arm upraised to strike. ‘Behind you!’
Naturally Joanna had never seen a fight, let alone men boxing, but even she could appreciate the economy and power of the single blow that Giles delivered as he swung round. It took Lucille perfectly on the point of the chin and she went down with a thud, quite still.
‘Damn it!’ Giles knelt beside the recumbent form. ‘I’ve never hit a woman before.’
‘I hope you have broken her neck,’ Joanna said vehemently, startling him. He had expected tears, fainting, but not such fierceness. She must have been terrified: he recollected the feeling of her quivering body as she hugged him so fiercely. ‘Where is her brother?’
‘Unconscious on the hall floor. Joanna, never mind them, are you—’
‘Yes, I am fine, thanks to you,’ she said, regarding Lucille with a wary eye. She did not appear to understand what he was really asking, and he did not persist. Time enough for that. ‘Giles, we must not risk these two escaping before we can get the magistrate. I cannot begin to tell you how evil they are.’
Giles had formed a very good suspicion of exactly what he was dealing with as soon as he heard the landlady’s tale of the kind clergyman and the string of unfortunate young ladies who all had their pockets picked on the stage. The last few miles, springing the already tired horses, had been a battle between his imagination and years of disciplined calm under extreme pressure. Now he simply nodded, accepting what she said without questioning her. ‘Is there a room where we can lock them up?’
Joanna put her head around the adjacent door. ‘This one, the window is not broken. Oh—’ She broke off, turning to him, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Oh, look.’ The room had manacles bolted to the wall at the bed head.
She had gone so white that Giles thought she was about to faint. He put an arm around her and she looked up into his eyes, her own dark with, he realised with a jolt, burning anger. ‘Put them in here,’ she said fiercely. ‘Shackle them to the bed.’
Before he could respond she was running downstairs, the poker in her hand. ‘Joanna, stop!’ For a horrible moment he thought she was going to strike the unconscious man who sprawled on the dingy tiled floor, but she was only standing over him, watchful for any sign of returning consciousness.
Giles crouched, hauled Thaddeus over his shoulder and stood up in one clean movement, only a slight grunt of expelled breath revealing the effort it took. Joanna ran upstairs after him, and, when he turned from dropping Thoroughgood on to the bed, she was already dragging his sister into the room by both arms.
He 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