The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies) by Michaels, Maddison (short books to read TXT) 📕

Charlotte nodded, and a slow smile spread across her face, seemingly taking a measure of strength from Livie’s calmness. “Are they going to hurt us?” The girl’s gray eyes seemed determined to accept the truth no matter what that might be, as she stared steadily at Livie with her chin raised high.

“I don’t know.” The girl deserved the truth, no matter how difficult it might be. “I’m not exactly certain what they want, but I am going to try to get them to release you.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “They don’t know who you are, and you must not let them know, do you understand? They cannot know, Charlotte, that is imperative.”

“Cannot know what?” A calm and cultured voice spoke from the darkened hallway behind the cell gate.

Both girls gasped and spun around toward the front of the cell.

There was a man standing in the shadows beyond the cell door, his face hidden, though his voice vaguely familiar. All Livie could see were suit pants and black leather shoes.

“And who might you be?” she asked him, not bothering to conceal the suspicion in her glare.

“My identity is not important, though you can call me Orestes,” the man answered.

“Like Orestes, the son of Agamemnon?”

“You know your Greek mythology. Good.” He sounded pleased. “I am terribly sorry for the state of your accommodations.” His hands waved across the barren cell before returning to his side. “I would have preferred to have visited with you under much more pleasant circumstances, but, alas, I have a job to do, though I wonder if doing so will be a tad premature. Indeed, I am beginning to think it might be. The Bastard seems very taken with you. Perhaps I should use it more to my advantage. What do you think, my lady?”

“Honestly, I don’t really know what you are talking about,” Livie replied. Was the man a touch mad? He was talking in riddles. “If your reference is to the Bastard of Baker Street and him being taken with me, well you don’t know him at all then. Sebastian Colver cares nothing for anything other than his business enterprises.” Livie had once believed that, but now she knew she spoke a lie. Though perhaps she might be able to convince this man of it.

“You are quite mistaken, I’m afraid.” His words were strangely without emotion. “A man doesn’t have three of his men protect a woman if he isn’t taken with her. Not even if she is now a business partner of his.”

“You seem to know a great deal of his business dealings, whoever you are.”

“It’s my life’s mission to know everything about him.”

“Well, it shall not be a very long life anymore, now will it?”

He paused, and she saw him straighten, but still he stayed in the shadows. “What do you mean by that?”

“If what you say is true, then you’re a dead man walking. Once Sebastian Colver finds you, he will send you to Hell.”

For a moment as his legs stiffened, it looked as if her words may have angered him, but then he chuckled. “I expected you to be interesting and possibly even brave, especially considering you had the nerve to confront the Bastard of Baker Street in his very own domain, but I didn’t realize you’d be quite so charming, too. What a pleasure talking to you is going to be.”

Good Lord, the man must be insane if he thought such a reply made her charming. “You’ll have to forgive me, but why do you wish to talk with me? And commit the crime of kidnapping to do so? It seems a bit extreme in the circumstances, wouldn’t you agree? Especially considering the gravity of such an offense, in light of who my family is.”

“Extreme, perhaps.” He shrugged. “Though to exact revenge, my dear lady, one must take extreme measures. I have to admit, you were not the only one I wanted a word with.” He twisted slightly, his body now facing Charlotte, who had been standing next to Livie watching their exchange. “My, my. It is rather uncanny isn’t it…your eyes are identical to his! But apart from that, you’d never know you were related to such devil spawn.”

Livie felt her heart drop. He knew.

He knew Charlotte was Sebastian’s sister, and yet he still had had them kidnapped? While knowing full well it would start a war with Sebastian. The fact that he was willing to do so showed how mad the man really was. And if she didn’t find a way for them to escape, and soon, blood was going to be shed.

Of that she had no doubt.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Seb eyed the forty odd men gathered on the dock, some of his most loyal men, a rough-and-ready gang who would do what he told them, without question. Anticipation stirred in his blood. This Lads gang, or whatever they called themselves, had become a thorn in his side, one he normally would have quashed earlier, but Seb had been trying to legitimize all his businesses of late and put an end to the impression that he was simply a thug dressed in a suit.

But they had gone too far in murdering the poor maid, Mary, and had to be stopped.

And though the killing hadn’t been in his area, he’d put the word out about wanting to speak with the girl, so the fact that she was killed could not go unpunished.

Not to mention that Seb found those who perpetrated violence against women to be abhorrent bottom dwellers, and he simply would not stand for such a thing. And everyone in his area knew what happened to those Seb discovered had either beaten, raped, or killed a female.

Edward Flintock’s poor excuse of a life was a prime example of what the Bastard of Baker Street did to a person guilty of hurting a woman. Though he was perhaps an extreme measure of Seb’s particular