Truly Yours Read Online Free PDF Page B

mort sent funds for a private cell.”
    “That bleeding heart lady is my mother, by Zeus, and she would have sent enough blunt for better treatment.”
    The guard shrugged. “Resistin’, she was.”
    Rex looked at the brawny warder, then at the small scrap of a woman asleep or unconscious on the floor. Her gown hung in torn and bloodied shreds, her feet were bare, and her hair was so filthy he could not tell the color. Someone had lopped off the rest, likely to sell to the wig makers. “She must have put up quite a fight.”
    The guard counted his keys, not coming into the rancid-smelling cell.
    Rex had to. “Miss Carville?”
    “She don’t talk. Don’t do nothin’. That’s resistin’.”
    Rex knelt, grimacing in disgust, at the guard’s reasoning, his stiff leg, and the dirt that would get on the fresh uniform that Murchison insisted he wear. He touched the girl’s gaunt shoulder to awaken her. By light of the guard’s candle he could see cuts and bruises, discolorations and swellings. Even through his gloves he could feel the heat of her fevered body. She did not stir. “Bloody hell,” he swore again.
    As a boy, he had once come upon a wounded deer, trembling, yet too weak to run away. He’d dispatched the poor creature and never hunted again, but the image had stayed with him. Miss Amanda Carville was like an injured helpless fawn. Something about her stirred protective instincts he never knew he had. There was no way in Hades he could leave her here to die in this filth. Only an ogre, he told himself, could look at her and not feel pity. Rex looked at her and felt rage. He turned and had the guard by the neck before the bigger man could call out for help. In a flash, out of nowhere, Rex’s knife was pressed against the man’s jugular vein. “Was she raped, besides? Tell me now, and tell me the truth, for, by Heaven, I will know if you lie.”
    The guard looked into Rex’s eyes and knew he was inches away from death for the wrong answer. Captain Lord Rexford’s reputation had preceded him. “N-no. Not yet. Tonight . . .”
    Rex slipped the knife back up his sleeve. “Tonight the lady will be out of here. See to it.” He tossed the man a leather pouch filled with coins.
    “But there ain’t no bail for capital offenses,” the guard complained, tucking the purse under his filthy shirt anyway.
    Rex was already unbuttoning his coat to wrap around the woman. “Then see that she is released for medical reasons. And you’d better pray she recovers or I’ll have your hide, and every other warder here. The woman is a lady, by Jupiter.”
    “She be a murderess, Cap’n.”
    “She is not convicted yet—only charged. With Lord Royce as her legal counsel, she will be free before the case comes to trial.”
    His father’s name still held sway in the prison, but the guard scratched his head. “I don’t know ’bout releasin’ her, not even to your custody, pardon, milord. Sir Nigel won’t be happy none.”
    “Sir Nigel . . . ?”
    “Aye, the chief prosecutor for the Crown. Sir Nigel Turlowe. He wanted to see the mort hang particular-like, her shootin’ a titled swell and all.”
    Nigel Turlowe, before he was knighted, was the man who had orchestrated Rex’s father’s downfall and disgrace. That made getting Miss Carville out of prison sweet, besides necessary. “You can tell Sir Nigel for me that the charges must be dropped for insufficient evidence.”
    The man’s jaw gaped open. “But there was witnesses, and the gun.”
    “The witnesses lied.” They always did. “Tell him. And tell him we will bring suit for the mistreatment of the prisoner. We shall start with him, name the warden and the matrons and every blasted guard in this benighted place. If the suit does not work, I will see what my superiors at Whitehall can do. Have you ever heard of a gentleman called the Aide?”
    He could tell by the guard’s suddenly shaking hands that the Aide’s reputation was worse than his own. “If