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  And damnation again! She looked around desperately, and by squinting, could make out the receding form of the brown horse. I’ll have to speak to Charles about his horse-training methods! How far away? A half a mile? More? Less? No matter. In her present state, she'd have been lucky to catch the beast at twenty yards. There would be no ride for her.

  And with no ride, the cottage was out of the question. The brief unconsciousness she’d suffered after the fall was no substitute for the sleep she desperately needed. She had to find safety that was close enough to walk to.

  Home was out of the question, of course. Could she make it to the church? And if she did, would she be safe there? Was there anyone there who might protect her if...?

  A protector. Of course. She got to her feet, turned, and looked past her manor house, to the more modest dwelling that stood at the foot of the road.

  Major Cathcart. If there were any man in England, save Charles, that she would trust with her life, it was the dear old soldier. In his care, she'd find safety. Summoning the last of her strength, the weary girl set off.

  **********

  Miss Elizabeth Cathcart shook her head once again at the state of her brother’s housekeeping. Honestly, she sighed to herself, you’d think the man was trying to cultivate dust in here. Since the Major’s modest pension made a full house staff impractical, Miss Cathcart had taken to puttering about here and there on those occasions when the parlor maid was not in evidence.

  As she was running a hand along the windowsill, a noise from outside caught her attention. Lifting the curtain aside, she beheld a fine black brougham going past, with a very impressive team. Were these friends of her brother’s? She wished they might be—he seemed to have so little interest in the sort of exciting society to which she wished to be introduced. Visiting here, perhaps? She wondered if she ought to ask her brother about it… then shrugged, and returned to her dusting. If they’re on their way here, I’ll find out soon enough.

  **********

  Five minutes’ walk seemed to have hardly moved Catherine an inch closer to her goal, but it had moved her to the brink of collapse. Only the thought of how Charles would worry should anything happen to her kept her going.

  She was finding it harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other. Weary and worn, she was beginning to feel feverish, and wanted nothing more than to lie down right here in the road.

  No. Almost there.

  She was already picturing the Major's welcome, his sister buzzing with a thousand questions, the hot bath they would draw for her...

  And by the time the sound of horses' hooves and clattering wheels entered her daydream, they were already upon her.

  "Wha—?" Catherine hadn't even finished the question when the huge black brougham pulled up beside her, its door flying open, disgorging the lean figure of Colonel Lefanu!

  "My dear Lady Catherine," he sneered, taking her by the arm in a fierce grip. "You look tired. Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my coach."

  "No— no, let me g—uummpph!" In a blur of movement, Lefanu had spun her around and wrapped an arm like an iron bar about her waist. His other hand pressed tightly over her lips, muffling her cries, as he lifted her off her feet and forced her up through the door of the brougham. In an instant, he had leapt up alongside her, reaching to close the door behind him in one smooth motion, then rapping on the roof. The driver set off at a rapid pace as Lefanu turned to survey his prize.

  Catherine had landed face-first on the floor of the coach, and was trying to scramble to her feet, but the nightdress she still wore hampered her movements, and her long hair obscured her vision. She used a hand to rake the disordered tresses back from her face...and found herself staring up into the reddened eyes and face of her husband!

  "Catherine." Philip's voice was slurred, and he appeared to be as drunk as Catherine had ever seen him—astonishing, given how little time had passed. He seemed to regard her with vaguely bleary-eyed interest, and the girl realized that she'd been correct: he was broken. He’d probably started on the bottle before Charles had even galloped off. Had the two of them been alone, she'd have had nothing to fear from this husk of what had been her husband.

  But, of course, they were not alone. From behind, Catherine felt wiry fingers clamp painfully onto her shoulder, and she was thrown across the bench of the coach, face down over her husband's lap.

  "Hold her." Lefanu's voice was icy and calm. She felt Philip take a fistful of her hair with one hand, while his other pressed down on her back. Hampered by her gown and the small space, Catherine was unable to escape his grasp as she felt Lefanu take her wrists, and twist them painfully.

  "Aaaahhh!" she gasped in pain. "Help! Help! AAagghghhh!" The pain seemed to treble as Lefanu yanked her arms up behind her.

  "Keep your mouth shut, woman, or I'll stuff it full of your hair until you choke." Catherine sobbed, and she felt Lefanu force her arms to lie across each other, at a right angle; he then wrenched them further, so that her arms were bent double, her hands nearly meeting between her shoulderblades as Lefanu fastened them together with some sort of thin twine that bit savagely into her flesh. More of the twine anchored them in that unnatural position, sending waves of pain all the way down her arms, through her torso.

  “Oh, god, please!” Catherine pleaded for mercy, the pain moving beyond excruciating.

  Lefanu whipped a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to Philip.

  "Shut her up."

  Catherine felt a twisting pain in her hair as Philip raised her head from his lap. She looked up at him, with pleading eyes, offering every prayer she knew for this man to once more take pity on her.

  "Philip, please... uggghh!"

  With less concern than he'd have shown for one of his hunting dogs, Philip forced her head cruelly back, and began to stuff the silk ‘kerchief into her mouth. Catherine tried to fight him, but she was simply too exhausted, her body too racked with pain. She made a feeble attempt to bite him, but the strain in her scalp and neck prevented her from even properly closing her mouth.

  With the handkerchief wedged into his wife's mouth, Philip slipped the green silk cravat from about his throat, tightened it into a band, and forced that between Catherine's teeth, driving the packing deeper into her mouth, so she felt sure she must choke. He yanked the band tight, and Catherine felt it slice brutally into the corners of her mouth as Philip used it to bind her gag in place. Careless of Catherine's mass of disordered tresses, Philip wound the cravat tightly about her head, and made it secure with a knot that cruelly pulled at her hair, and pinched the soft flesh at the nape of her neck.

  Satisfied that his wife was well secured and silenced, Philip settled back in the seat, watching as Lefanu inspected the knots.

  "There." The Frenchman regarded Catherine as a hungry man might a banquet. "That should keep you in place until we are ready to... deal with you."

  "Yes," Philip slurred. "We have questions for you, haven't we, Colonel? And we'll have answers, by god!"

  "Yes..." Lefanu's response seemed to trail off strangely. "Yes, we shall have answers, by all means."

  Catherine sobbed into her gag: she sobbed Charles’ name. It came out as nothing more than a muffled grunt. Struggling wasn’t an option—it was barely a fantasy, bound as she was, in the clutches of the two men. Her exhausted mind had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to move, or that there had ever been a moment without pain. Captivity was her fate. Bound and gagged captivity. And as impossible as it seemed, there was certainly worse to come.

  **********

  Elizabeth Cathcart took another glance through the curtains-- there went the strange black brougham. Well, not friends of her brother's, then. A pity, she thought. Would have made for a nice change of pace.

  Chapter Six

  The arrival of the coach at the manor was a ghastly parody of a homecoming. Catherine knew she was being delivered, not to any safety, but to a fate as cruel as if the front walk we
re the steps to the gallows.

  As she felt the horse slow, Catherine sagged against the floor of the coach, defeated. Though her legs were unbound, the savage bite of the cord that trapped her wrists, and twisted her arms up behind her back, ensured that she’d never be able to get to her feet unaided. She had tried to surreptitiously rub Philip’s cravat from where it was tied in her mouth, but Lefanu had prodded her ribs sharply with the toe of his boot, and she had sunk back into her agonized captivity. Now, the two men briskly prepared to dismount the cab, as though having a bound and gagged prisoner in tow was an everyday practice.

  Philip reached for his bound wife, but Lefanu smoothly interposed his hand, and seized Catherine's upper arm in a savagely painful grasp.

  “I think, Philip, it would be best if I took charge of Lady Catherine at this point.” Philip blinked bleary eyes, then shrugged elaborately and stepped from the coach. Behind him, Lefanu forced Catherine to stand on legs weak with terror, then dragged her forward.

  Impelled by Lefanu's steel grip on her upper arm, Catherine staggered up the walk. She was vaguely aware that there was the possibility of their being seen, but in her state of utter defeat, she couldn't even muster the strength to look around, or to attempt to attract attention to her fate; her ribs still bore painful witness to what an attempt to defeat the gag would bring her.

  Instead, she allowed herself to be herded up to the large door, which swung open before Philip even had to knock.

  “Ah, Mrs. Williams,” Philip greeted the housekeeper brightly. Mrs. Williams stood in the doorway, grinning broadly at Catherine's distress: her onetime rival for Philip’s affections, now a bedraggled, bound and gagged prisoner. “My wife and I are not to be disturbed this afternoon: we are going to be rehearsing a little —ah—holiday pageant—for the village children.” Catherine tried to make some sense of this, as he went on. “It is possible that you might hear some noises— perhaps what might even be taken for cries of pain.” Lefanu gave a sharp tug at Catherine's bonds to punctuate this. “The servants are to pay no notice. It will be just myself, my wife... and the Colonel.”

  “Very good, sir,” the woman responded with mock formality, and left to inform the rest of the staff, as Lefanu and Philip dragged their prisoner to the parlor, closing the door behind them.

  Catherine was thoroughly in despair now—in agony from the bonds, stifled by the mouth-filling gag, her nightdress in such a state as to leave her feeling half-naked… and in the power of two men who, she realized, would not hesitate to kill her if she didn't betray her beloved Charles to them. In fact, she had the sinking feeling that Lefanu was prepared to kill her anyway, once he’d had his full measure of pleasure from her pain.

  “Have a seat, my dear,” Philip snickered as he pushed Catherine down, so that she fell heavily on her bound arms into a chair. She found some reserve of strength to attempt a glare of defiance at her captors, but she knew they could read the futility in her eyes.

  Philip had gone to the sideboard to pour himself another drink; doubtless, Catherine thought, to further fortify himself for the vile work ahead. He came back towards her, his gait not terribly steady, and addressed the Colonel.

  “Her gag, Lefanu—should we remove it?” For all her loathing of her husband, Catherine hoped desperately that his partner might accede to this request; her mouth felt miserably thick and sodden, and she didn’t know how much longer she could hold back the tears that she knew would make it even harder to breathe through the stifling gag.

  “Showing tender spirit now, Philip?” Lefanu looked thoughtfully at the half-drunken Lord of the Manor.

  “Well, no... I just thought it would be harder for her to answer our questions if she can't speak.” Philip giggled at a point he must have thought so obvious as to be a joke.

  “Ah, yes… questions.” Lefanu gave Catherine an odd look, then once more regarded Philip. An odd silence hung in the air between the two men; then, shrugging, Philip addressed his wife.

  “I should tell you, my dear, that Colonel Lefanu is rather expert at inflicting pain-- it's a sort of specialty of his.”

  She didn’t doubt that for a second, and the thin cord that bit painfully into Catherine's wrists was a clear reminder. She had already endured more pain than she'd have thought she could bear, but in the depths of her soul, she knew that Lefanu had barely begun to exercise his outrages upon her.

  At Philip's drunken encomium, the Frenchman favored Catherine with a thin smile, then turned to address Philip. “Perhaps, first, you might answer a question for me, my friend.”

  “Well, certainly, if I can,” Philip looked as puzzled as Catherine felt, but she was glad for anything that took the Frenchman's attentions away from her.

  Lefanu regarded Philip, and raised an eyebrow.

  “What, precisely, was your brother looking for when he came here?” The Frenchman's manner was casual, but Catherine could sense something simmering underneath it.

  “Oh, well,” Philip chuckled. “You know Charles, he's always—”

  “It was a small leather book, as I understand it.” Lefanu responded flatly.

  “Well, it might have—”

  “In fact,” Lefanu continued, his voice now level and hard, “your servants described what sounded rather like a ledger of accounts.” His voice was the low sibilation of a jungle predator. “Would the accounts recorded in that book have had anything to do with me?”

  Philip's mouth just hung stupidly open, and with his failure to respond, Lefanu's voice changed from a purr to a whipcrack as he took a step toward Philip.

  “You kept that wretched book to blackmail me.” Lefanu's voice was icier than any Catherine had ever heard; glad though she was for the delay in her own interrogation, she wished Philip were sober enough to read the menace in Lefanu’s face.

  “Oh, just a bit of insurance, surely.” Philip did his best to make his laugh a casual one. “And you've been paid for your efforts.”

  “Yes... yes, I have,” Lefanu regarded him strangely. “I received my thirty pieces of silver, while you...” and he nodded around the room at the sumptuous furnishings before returning his piercing gaze to Catherine's bound form, her lush figure only enhanced by her dishabille... “you received the kingdom of heaven.”

  “What the devil do you mean by that?” Philip spluttered

  For answer, Lefanu drew a small pistol from his pocket, and without a word fired a shot into Philip's breast.

  Catherine gasped, then shrieked into her gag as her husband blinked once in astonishment, then simply fell to the floor like an old bag of rags.

  Catherine wanted to leap to her feet from the chair; to bolt, escape—but Lefanu casually stepped over Philip's body as if it were no more than a fold in the rug, set down the pistol, and stood looking down in the chair at the terrified captive.

  “Such a shame... widowed so young.” The smarmy smile on Lefanu's face would have been enough to sicken Catherine, even without the cold-blooded murder she had just witnessed. She tried to turn away from him, but the Frenchman threaded powerful fingers into her luxuriant mane, and forced her face up to his.

  “I fear, though, Lady Catherine, that your next marriage will be of even shorter duration.”

  Next marriage? It took several seconds for the full horror of that to sink in. She tried to shake her head “No!”, but his grasp on her disordered tresses was firm. He smiled into her face, and spoke softly, as though confiding a secret to her.

  “Yes, my dear.” His free hand stroked fingers obscenely along the angry red mark that the gag made in her cheek. “It requires but the execution of a few forged documents, which may be purchased at a small cost... the use of a co-operative clergyman willing to look the other way for a nice ‘contribution’... and I shall be married to one of the wealthiest women in the district.” His eyes seemed to devour her trussed form, making her feel wholly unclean. Her captor leaned closer, his nose drinking in her scent.

  Catherine trembled, numb, tears filli
ng her eyes. “And, of course,” he went on, his voice laying horror upon horror with cool amusement “... I will grieve at her all-too-sudden funeral.”

  He released her hair, and Catherine, her gorge rising against the foul gag, flailed her legs, her body at last trying the desperate escape she should have attempted before she was dragged into the room. Lefanu barely moved to stop her, delivering a savage backhand to her cheek. Catherine whimpered into her gag as her wobbly legs gave way, and she sprawled on the carpet, tumbling tresses obscuring her vision. She made one attempt to rise to her knees, but felt the sole of Lefanu’s boot on her buttocks, slamming her face-down into the carpet.

  “No, my dear, you can stay there for the time being.” He put his toe under her sobbing form, and forced her to roll over, lying on her back, bound arms now dead numb beneath her. His face was a smiling death’s head.