"Why are you offering to help me? What's in it for you? How do you really know Verity?"
"Nothing to alarm yourself with, boy," Butch said. "Jaime interferes in my business. Call it a conflict of interest. You understand?"
"And Verity?"
Butch smirked and Mathew wanted to slap it off his face. "I didn't know she was already taken when I offered her my hand. She's a good woman—very talented. And Jaime really, really hates her."
"That's it?"
"Righty so." Mathew wasn't convinced, but it was enough for now.
"Let's go then. We don't have time to waste."
The bandits and Sam mounted in a hurry with Mathew riding shotgun on Sam's horse. They rushed through town with hooves thrumming against the frozen dirt. Ice picked at Mathew's face and his body was just as cold while he fought his brain from imagining what Verity's already injured body was enduring at this moment. He failed to keep her safe.
***
BEN POOL AND FINGERS had deposited Verity at the front door of her worst nightmare. Dusk fell early in the winter, and warm lights glowed through wide open curtains—the inviting coziness a Venus flytrap. Verity didn't bother to scream. She saved her energy for when she needed it. With the shake of hands for business well concluded, Fingers had departed back down the narrow road. Ben grasped her upper arm and led her inside.
Verity wondered if anything happened to Millie for releasing her last time. With a quick flash of dread, she wondered what would happen to her for escaping again.
The foyer was expansive with a curving staircase leading to the second floor. Doors studded the foyer on both sides. A Persian rug centered the room and budgies chirped their happy tweets in an adjacent room. Grignon had expensive taste, and it would make a beautiful home if it weren't for the miscreants currently occupying it. Verity noticed mud on the floors, dust on the furniture, and detritus collecting at the corners of the foyer. Something had happened to Millie. The housekeeper would never let the place become filthy.
Thundering boots collected from above, and a handful of men descended the stairs. They formed a half moon in front of her and Ben. A lightheadedness threatened to drop her to the floor. She inhaled deep and tilted her chin up. A single set of boots came from a side room, and the curtain of men parted for him to step forward, revealing Jaime Perez with a sneer on his face. Verity trembled.
"Good work, Ben. Here's a token of my appreciation and please show yourself out." Jaime extended an arm with a pair of coins. Ben Pool's features pinched into anger.
"You promised me a dance. I don' want your coins. I's want time wit her." Ben flung a hand toward Verity and she flinched.
Jaime didn't dignify Ben's response with an answer. He waved his hand in dismissal, and a pair of his men captured Ben's upper arms and dragged him outside.
"You promised me! Jaime, this ain't how business's done! Jaime!" The door shut behind them and a blast of cold slithered across her skin. She shivered from the wintry air and from what fate awaited Ben.
"Now we can finally finish this," Jaime said, pacing in front of her while three of his men stood back. None of which were Joe Pool. They all were taller than Jaime, built like locomotives, and armed like soldiers. She wanted to spill into a puddle and sob for pity and mercy, but that would affect nothing in him besides annoyance, and she needed him to stay as pleasant as possible.
"I don't…" Jaime paused and laughed. "I don't know what to do with you first. I never expected this luck. I expected you to catch a ride out of here and never return. I'm glad you didn't. Carl, Frank, take her to my room."
Verity gasped and her eyes darted to the two named soldiers marching toward her.
"Not the solitary room, boss?" one of the men asked.
"Did I say the solitary room?"
"Right, boss."
As their thick crunching fists squeezed her upper arms, the door behind her opened wide with another gust of wind. A glimmer of hope threaded through her. Mathew would rescue her just on time. The door slammed shut and she craned her neck over her shoulder. Jaime's two other men returned, and Ben was not with them. Tears welled in her eyes, and she tried to blink them back but failed. The looming end was crushing her spirit.
The men forced her up the stairs to the room at the end of the hall. When they opened the door, they shoved her painfully inside, and Verity crashed to her knees on the hardwood. The door slammed shut behind her, and the lock clicked into place.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim firelight. Jaime had claimed the master bedroom with a four-poster bed, canopy, fluffy rug, and mahogany wood furnishings. The fireplace crackled softly. A sob escaped feminine lips, and Verity realized it wasn't hers.
"Hello?" she asked into the expansive but darkened room.
The sob became full crying, a girl's crying, and Verity pulled her feet under her and sought the source. In the far corner a small girl sat on a pile of blankets on the floor. Verity cautiously approached, not wanting to scare her.
"Hi there. What's your name?"
The girl's face tilted up. Her brown eyes were sunken in and her cheeks hollowed. Tears streaked dirt down her face. Verity thought she was a teenager, but the fear and weakness made her appear much younger. The girl rubbed her eyes, and with a movement of her feet, chains rattled.
"Audrey," the girl replied through quivering voice. The scullery maid. Millie had mentioned her. The poor thing was now a prisoner instead of a servant. Verity would do everything in her power to free the girl as well.
"That's a pretty name. How old are you?"
Audrey wore a stained and torn plain servant's dress, her bonnet was missing, and her long blonde hair was snarled and knotted in a nest around her head. Verity didn't like what she thought was happening here.
"Fifteen."
Verity exhaled a deep breath. "Do you have any parents around?"
She shook her head.
"Grandparents?"
Audrey tipped her head down into her hands and sobbed, shoulders shaking.
"Grandma Millie is gone."
Millie? The housekeeper was her grandmother? Verity knelt by the girl and inspected the chains. They were thicker than her finger, and the bands were too tight around her delicate ankles. There was no hope of slipping them off, even if Verity found soap. The chains were fastened to a loop in the hardwood floor. Verity could not free the girl.
"Are there keys around?"
Audrey nodded. "He's unlocked me a few times to bring me to his bed, but the keys were always in his pocket."
Verity snapped her fingers in frustration. "I'll get you out of here. I promise."
Audrey's weak smile crushed Verity. She could see herself in the girl. A prisoner of her familiar world. Mistreated by men and left to wilt away. Verity would never leave her behind.
The lock in the bedroom door clicked. Verity spun to protect the girl and waited as the door swung open.
***
THE HORSES SPREAD into a two-by-two formation to fit up the narrow dirt path leading to the estate. Darkness descended upon them, and the once cheery house now loomed overhead with glowing yellow windows like a scowling jack-o'-lantern. Mathew was storming a mansion filled with unknown numbers of Jaime's outlaws, and his only help was a group of five bandits whose loyalty he didn't have, and his brother-in-law, whom he felt guilty was walking into the same death trap.