“Why don’t you want to go back to Wyoming?” she asked the moment they were alone in the hotel suite. “Does this have something to do with the ranch conflicts?”
Bart rounded on her, murder in his eyes. “It’s time you and me got a few things straight.”
Lenore gulped, unable to draw breath. She’d made a horrible miscalculation. He wasn’t going to tell her a damn thing. She scanned the room in search of escape. The suite was made up of an outer room and a bedroom. It had another door that might have led to a water closet, though it was closed. There were two windows on the wall opposite the door, but they were both closed. Through the closest window, she could just make out the dark shadows of buildings against the London sky. Her pulse pounded, and she thought she might be sick.
“I don’t want anything to do with you, Bart,” she said, her voice rough and frightened.
“It’s a little too late for that,” Bart laughed, taking a few steps closer to her.
“Nobody in England cares about the range wars in Wyoming,” she rushed on, hating how terrified she sounded. She was terrified, though. Beyond anything she’d ever felt before. “Let me go. Please.”
“I’ll let you go, all right,” he said, stalking toward her with lascivious intent in his eyes.
Lenore backed away from him, cursing her foolishness to high heaven. Bart kept moving toward her. “No one will know a thing. I won’t say a thing.” She backed all the way to the wall between one of the windows and a small table.
“You won’t.” Bart agreed, moving in to wedge her against the wall.
She was going to faint. Lenore was certain of it. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and when Bart bent toward her, lowering his face to the scoop of her bodice, she whimpered and burst into tears. Bart shifted slightly to the side, reaching toward the table.
“Just let me go,” she wept.
“It’s your choice.” Bart straightened. As he did, Lenore heard the distinct click of a revolver being cocked. A second later, the cold shock of the gun barrel touching her forehead made the edges of her vision go black. “Either you do your duty as a wife should and get yourself into that bedroom or I let you go…all the way to heaven.”
Lenore sagged against the wall, wondering if she truly would rather die than give Bart what he wanted. Chances were that he would kill her anyhow after he raped her. But if there was even a ghost of a chance that she could stay alive and make it through the night, she had to take it.
“All right,” she wheezed, tears streaming down her face. “Wife it is.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Bart rocked back, uncocking the revolver, but keeping it in his hand. He used it to gesture toward the bedroom. “Get in there and get undressed. As soon as I’m done pissing, we’re going to make this official between us.”
Lenore’s mouth dropped open, but not for any reason Bart might have thought. He’d just given her thirty seconds to save her life. She feigned utter defeat, slinking into the bedroom as he stepped the other way, toward the closed door. She watched long enough to confirm her suspicions that it was a water closet before darting the rest of the way to the bedroom.
As soon as she was in the room, she closed the door and locked it, thanking God the door actually had a lock. Bart would expect her to try to lock him out, which would buy her another fifteen seconds, if she was lucky. As soon as the lock clicked, she whirled to face the room. She was already crying, but those tears were relief as she thanked God once again that the room had a window. She wasn’t dead yet.
She bolted to the window, throwing it open and sticking her head out into the windy night. She was four stories up, but that hardly mattered when certain death was just a few seconds behind her. Heedless of anything else but her desperation to get away, she threw her leg over the window ledge and climbed out into the night. The drop below her was sickening, but the edge of the roof was only a few feet above her. If she could climb onto the roof, there might be another way down.
It was the only shot she had, so she climbed. The exterior of the building was made of brick, which provided her with tiny ledges and irregularities that she clung to with everything she had. She didn’t have time to second-guess herself or to hesitate, only to climb. The edge of the roof was easy enough to reach, but it took all of her strength and cunning to pull herself up, finding whatever foothold she could wherever she could. Her ball gown tore, her fingers went numb with cold and fear, and tears streamed down her face, but she pushed on. If she lost her grip and plummeted to the street below, so be it. At least she wouldn’t die by Bart’s hand.
She was barely holding on and losing her strength fast when she heard a commotion from the suite. Bart must have discovered the locked bedroom door. She could hear shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. Not that Bart’s anger mattered in the long run. Not that there was a long run. She could feel her grip slipping, and she wasn’t secure on the roof. She was going to fall. She was going to die.
“I’ve got you.” A warm arm clamped around her, yanking her up onto the roof. It took a moment, in her panicked and dizzy state, to realize that the arm around her was Phin’s. “Hold on,” he ordered her, crawling up the gently slanted roof until they reached a flat part. “I’ve got you.”
The commotion in the room continued. Lenore realized there were two voices arguing, not just Bart shouting. She expected to hear a gunshot at any moment, but it never came.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a weak and shaking voice.
“You didn’t think we would just let the bastard carry you away, did you?” Phin asked, his voice laced with the sort of wild humor that came with life or death situations. “We were on your tail before Swan even flagged down a cab.”
“We?”
They reached the flat part of the roof, and Phin paused to hold her tight. The light of a lantern shone through an open doorway, revealing how Phin had made it onto the roof.
“Freddy and Reese,” Phin said. “Reese is fetching the police. Freddy came with me. He’s waiting down in the hall while the concierge checks Swan’s room. I wasn’t so patient. I’d hoped to find a way into the room from the outside, since the idiot concierge was fool enough to lead us right to Swan’s room, but this will do in a pinch.”
Lenore could only make a wordless sound of surprise in reply. It was utterly mad, but at least luck was on her side.
“Come on,” Phin continued as he pulled her to her feet and led her toward the door. “I don’t know what’s going on downstairs, but we need to get you to safety as fast as possible.”
“Where are we going?” she managed to ask as Phin whisked her down the stairs.
“My house first,” he said. “Then wherever we need to go where Swan won’t find us.”
Chapter 19
From the moment he and Freddy had leapt out of the carriage they’d commandeered at Lady O’Shea’s house to follow Lenore and Bart, Phin hadn’t been able to catch his breath or slow his heart. He’d nearly lost his patience entirely and beat the poor, sleepy concierge at the hotel’s desk who refused to let either him or Freddy go up to Bart’s room to confront him. The best they’d been able to do was convince the dolt to take them up to the fourth floor where they were told to wait in the hall while the idiot went into the room to tell Bart he had guests. Phin had spotted the stairs to the roof instantly and taken matters into his own hand.