“Maybe South America,” he started before clamping his mouth shut and glaring at her, as if she’d forced him into admitting something he shouldn’t have. “Never you mind about that,” he growled, the intensity of his viciousness increasing.
“Please, just let me go,” she breathed, trying desperately to hold herself together. “Perhaps I could arrange to pay you something for your trouble.”
Bart grinned at her, not a single ounce of compassion in his eyes. “You’re pretty when you’re desperate. I wonder what I can do to make you even prettier.”
Lenore swallowed. That was it, then. She wasn’t dealing with a rational man, she was dealing with someone who thrived on others’ pain. That didn’t bode well at all for what he’d do to her if he got his way.
She simply had to discover what had happened back home that motivated him now, even if it meant she had to do something insane to figure it out. The steps of their waltz turned her so that she faced Phin across the room. Phin looked ready to murder Bart with his bare hands. He also looked like a distinguished gentleman with a fine education in a fashionable suit. She loved him more than she thought it would ever be possible for her to love a man, but compared to Bart’s muscular toughness, there was no question who would win in a fight.
Which was why it would take something other than brawn to save her from the bed she’d made for herself.
“I’m ready to go with you,” she sighed, feigning defeat—although she didn’t feel particularly confident with the plan she’d come up with to discover the truth and save herself, her family, and her friends. “I’ve packed my things, and I’ll go back to Wyoming or to South America with you, if that’s what you want.”
A toothy smile split Bart’s face. A moment later, it shifted to an odd, hunted look. That look quickly changed to something Lenore could only describe as worry before flashing back to a grin of victory. The storm of emotions was the last response she expected from Bart, and it left her feeling even more off-balance than ever.
“I’m glad you see things that way, pumpkin,” he said, spinning her through a dizzying turn.
“We can leave tomorrow morning,” Lenore went on. “My things are already packed and—”
“We’re leaving now,” Bart told her. He shifted the way he held her to grab her wrist again and headed across the dance floor, shoving couples aside, so fast that Lenore had to scramble not to fall flat on her face.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Phin demanded, trying to step into Bart’s path as the guests parted to let them walk on toward the doorway.
“I’m taking my wife home,” Bart growled.
“You will do no such thing.” Freddy joined Phin in blocking their path.
“You’ll get out of my way if you know what’s good for you, Nancy,” Bart told Freddy with a threatening glare.
“You’ll have to get through me as well.” Reese joined the barricade attempting to save Lenore.
“Will you all please step back,” Lenore said, at her wits’ end. “I…I have the situation under control.” She glanced to Phin, hoping he, at least, would be clever enough and trust her enough to know that she wouldn’t simply let Bart whisk her away, like a lamb to the slaughter—which was far closer to the truth of things than she wanted to think about—without a plan. Now, if she could just think of a way to put all the pieces together and then escape with her life intact.
None of the men moved. None of the dozens of spectators moved or breathed either. Heaven only knew what they thought they were about to witness. Lenore wondered if they would intervene if Bart drew a gun and threatened her or if they would consider the whole thing to be a dramatic performance.
That thought was exactly what she needed to turn her fear into anger and to light a fire under her. “Oh, will you all please move already,” she shouted, frustrated. “I just want this whole thing to be over.”
She stomped forward, pushing Phin aside, but staring hard into his eyes to let him know just how afraid she really was, in spite of her show. It was enough for her and Bart to break through Freddy and Reese’s barricade. Once they had passed the two of them, no one even tried to stop them as they left the ballroom and rushed down the hall.
“I knew you’d see sense eventually,” Bart told her in a gruff and smarmy voice as they gathered their coats and made their way out to the line of waiting carriages. “You’re feisty, but you’re smart. That’s what makes you so dangerous.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Bart, I’d rather not talk about me,” Lenore snapped once she’d climbed into the cab Bart had signaled to. “I want to know what’s happening back in Wyoming.”
Bart’s face went stony as he into the carriage beside her. “We don’t need to talk about anything, not with what I have in mind for the evening.”
A chill shot down Lenore’s spine. Perhaps leaving with Bart wasn’t the best idea after all. She did her best to appear put out and done with the whole situation as the carriage pulled away from Lady O’Shea’s house and made its way to wherever Bart was staying. She knew time was of the essence, that she would have only minutes to get Bart to confess and then make some sort of move to save herself once they reached their destination. There was an equal chance that Bart would kill her as there was that he would force her into bed once they got to where he was staying. But she’d run out on him and successfully hidden for over a year before, and she was certain she could do it again, if she played her cards right.
She would have felt far more confident about her incomplete plan if they hadn’t journeyed into a part of London she wasn’t familiar with. As far as she could tell, they’d skirted around Hyde Park and crossed Oxford Street heading north. Which meant that either Bart had no idea which parts of London were suitable for a man of his family’s fortune or that he didn’t have the money he claimed he had. The latter would have been interesting to contemplate, if Lenore hadn’t been so certain her life was in danger.
At last, the carriage stopped in front of a modest, but clean and respectable, hotel. The driver opened the door and helped her down, giving her a chance to scan the area before Bart alighted. If she wasn’t mistaken, they were near Paddington Station. If worst came to worst, she could make a dash for the train and get out of London. If she made a break for it right then and there, perhaps someone would be willing to help her.
“Come on, sweetie.” Bart marched up behind her, gripping her wrist like a vise and dragging her toward the hotel, dashing her hopes as he did.
There was very little activity in the hotel’s tiny lobby. It wasn’t like the Savoy or any of the other, newer hotels in a more fashionable part of town. There was no restaurant, and no one was loitering in the lobby as though waiting for London’s nightlife to whisk them away into some sort of adventure. The sleepy concierge nodded to Bart as he crossed the lobby and tugged Lenore up the stairs. He didn’t even look at Lenore, and so didn’t see her silently begging for help.
The sense of danger and dread in Lenore’s gut only grew as they continued up not just one flight of stairs, but three. Bart’s room was on the hotel’s top floor, which would make escaping from him even less likely than it could have been. All the same, Lenore took in everything around her, her heart pounding in her throat, searching for something, anything, that would allow her to escape. Absolutely nothing looked like it would be able to help her.