Sure enough, the stocky figure of Mayne’s stablemaster, Billy, pushed open the door to Gigue’s stall. “Good evening,” she said, as quietly as possible, so as not to startle the man. But he jumped anyway. “I must look a sight,” she said, trying a little smile.
“Aye, and you do, miss,” the man said, blinking at her. “What in the love of God happened to ye, then?”
Josie bit her lip before it could start trembling again. “I should like you to find me a hackney,” she said, “if you please. And then bring me to it. I must go home.”
His eyes skittered up and down, from her face to her gown, to the brown burlap clutched over her shoulders.
“I know I look awful. Please help me get home. I shall be glad to pay handsomely for your aid.”
“I won’t need any payment. Sit down, miss. You look as if you’re about to fall down. I’ll fetch you a carriage, but it will take a moment, as there’s a mite of traffic.”
Josie looked down at the straw around her feet. Of course, she could sit down. She was terribly tired. “Don’t you think someone might see my knees from the aisle? I cannot be seen.”
“Not a bit of it. I’ll just fetch a few more burlaps from next door, and throw them over your knees and there’s naught a thing to see.”
Gratefully, Josie slid down until she was sitting in the corner, and a second later Billy piled a few more burlaps about her. They smelled like grain. She opened her eyes a little blearily. “You didn’t feed the horses with this grain, did you? It smells green.”
He stared at her with an odd frown. “You’re right about that, miss. We had three sacks that were tossed for being too green.”
Josie closed her eyes again.
By the time Mayne appeared at the door, she was fast asleep. He stood for a second, looking down at her and feeling a swell of rage in his throat such as he had never experienced before. Billy was right. Even from here he could tell that Josie had been violated. Her face was dead white and all streaked with tears. Her hair was falling around her shoulders, and her gown was splattered with brown mud, as if she’d been pushed down and tried to fight back. For a second he couldn’t breathe.
Billy stood at his shoulder. “You’ve got to get her home,” he said.That made his limbs move.
He pushed open the gate and entered the stalls, crouching down before her. All her beautiful brandy-colored hair was falling to the side. Her dress had been torn off; he could see a bit of creamy white shoulder through the fabric. And her gown was covered with brown splotches of mud. She must have been thrown onto the ground. He pulled his cloak off his shoulders and draped it over her so she couldn’t be recognized when he carried her out, and then in one swift movement he scooped her up and stood.
One moment he was holding her, and the next she had slugged him so hard in the eye that he dropped her unceremoniously.
“It’s his lordship,” he heard Billy say.
But with the one eye that was still open, Mayne was staring at Josie’s dress, which was literally ripped from her back. He almost retched. “How did this happen to you?” he said hoarsely, his voice coming out with the growl of a dog. “Who?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You put that cloak over my eyes and I thought—”
“Who?”
“I—I—” Her eyes filled with tears. Billy pulled the cloak back over her shoulders and pushed her gently to the side of the stall at the sound of footsteps.
“Better to talk later,” he said to Mayne.
But Mayne didn’t think he could talk. He’d just realized that there was blood on Josie’s skirts. Not much, but enough. The world literally blackened in front of him, and he swayed for a moment. He didn’t think he could do anything. Then he wrenched his eyes away and forced his stomach to calm.
“Mayne?” Josie said rather uncertainly. “Could you please take me home? Is Sylvie waiting for you?”
He swung around. “Put the cloak over your head,” he ordered. She pulled it up obediently.
“There’s no one in the corridor,” Billy reported.
Mayne didn’t breathe until she was in his carriage. Even there, he couldn’t find words, other than one: “Who?”
Josie was huddled in the corner, looking like a girl of fourteen. Mayne felt his gorge rising again. She showed no signs of answering him.
“Oh God,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t—Josie, was there more than one?”
She shook her head, and now he saw a tear sliding down her cheek.
He came to his knees beside her and took her hands. They were wet with tears and felt tiny and cold. “Just tell me his name, Josie. I’ll take care of you.” And him, he added to himself silently.
She shook her head again. “I will not marry him.”
“Of course you won’t!” The words choked from his throat. He almost said that whoever the man was, he wouldn’t be alive for a wedding, but caught it back.
“If I say who it was, I’ll have to marry him,” Josie whispered, pulling one of her hands free so that she could scrub the tears from her cheeks. “I can’t.”
“I’ll kill him first.”
An odd little smile trembled on her lips. “And eat his heart in the marketplace?”
Mayne got off his knees and sat on the seat, pulling her into his lap. It was all improper, but she was ravished, and she was quoting Shakespeare, and she was so much Josie that his heart was full. “Beatrice wished that she were a man; I am that man,” he said into her hair. “I’ll kill him first, and we’ll worry about the disposal of his organs after.”
She leaned against him. But: “I’d rather no one knew about it, not even you, Mayne.”
Mayne stopped himself from shaking her. She’d been through an ordeal. “You must tell me his name.”
“Killing is a stiff penalty,” she said. “I shall have to think about it.” And that was the most she would say, except that halfway through his tirade she began to cry, and so he shut his mouth and thought about death by hot oil.
When they reached Tess’s house, he carried her in. The butler took a look at his rapidly swelling eye and opened his mouth to say something, but Mayne pushed by him. A second later he put Josie down, and she ran to her sister. The cloak fell off and he met Felton’s eyes over the embracing women. Josie was crying again, and Tess was saying frantic, incoherent things and tracing Josie’s back with unsteady hands.
Felton was beside him in one stride, his eyes as cold as a viper’s. “Who,” he stated.
Mayne shook his head. “She wouldn’t tell me. There wasn’t”—he said it with difficulty—“more than one. I found her in the stables.”
Felton looked over his shoulder. Tess had drawn Josie onto the settee and was talking fast, in a low voice. “How did she become separated from you?”
“I don’t know. Griselda felt faint and left the grounds. Josie was just behind me, and then she wasn’t. We searched everywhere; Sylvie and I even went to the stables.”
Josie was shaking her head.
“She will never tell,” Mayne said. “She’s afraid we’ll make her marry him.” Lucius Felton moved suddenly, and Mayne read the movement. “She doesn’t understand that.” Their eyes met with the truth of murder between them.