The Duke’s Man-At-Arms (TDG Bk 11)
©C.H. Admirand August 2024
Excerpt from the Prologue
The angel of the streets slowly opened her eyes and blinked, but her vision did not clear, and for a moment she feared she was still inside that musty-smelling rug. The insistent, painful throb at the back of her head made itself known now that she regained consciousness. She tried to raise her hand to touch the back of her head, to see if it were bleeding, and couldn’t. She could not move. The urge to cry for help was stifled by the foul-tasting gag covering her mouth.
Digging deep for strength, she tried to recall what happened, but for the life of her she could not. Where was she? Who had hit her? Her belly roiled and sweat broke out on the back of her neck and behind her knees. The telltale signs, and her body’s warning, that she was about to vomit! Desperate to take back control from whomever had wrested it from her, she knew she had to hang on. She couldn’t cast up her accounts now… Not when she was bound and gagged, she choke to death!
Tears welled up as she felt her will slipping. Concentrate! Her mind screamed. She needed to think of something… Anything! She had to calm down. Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out through her nose three times. Reaching for calm, her mind called up the image of a giant of a man with broad shoulders, a heavily muscled physique, and intense emerald eyes, carrying two little girls who clung to him as if he were their lifeline. The sudden thought filled her that he could be hers, too, if only she would let him. Her stomach finally settled and the nausea disappeared.
How could she have been so careless after nearly a decade living a double life. She was the quiet daughter of one of the ton’s favorite widowed physicians during the day, but she moved in and around the edges of the stews of London when dusk fell, helping those who thought they were beyond it. Giving aid to women whose families had tossed them out. It had been her mission in life since that night… She blocked off the memory, shoving it back to the back of her mind with the rest of that nightmare. She had been cautious when necessary, enlisting the aid of one or two men she trusted with her secret—and her life—when she could see no other way to protect the young women she had rescued.
Now the angel of the streets realized, she had not only been self-righteous, but to her shame…arrogant. So sure of her cause, positive no one but her could do what she did, had led her to believe herself to be invincible. Determined not to let the men who used women, and tossed them aside, ruin the lives of those they violated, she gave herself fully to her cause. These women still had value. They mattered… She mattered. What had been stolen from them could never be replaced, but she had helped heal the scars on their bodies so that they could begin the healing process for the ones on their hearts, by helping them find employment and a chance to regain their self-respect. If only she could finally find a way to heal her own.
The pain in her head increased with each beat of her heart, as the reality of her situation hit home. No one would be coming for her. It had always been essential that no one know who she was, or her location. Whenever she felt the prickle of awareness and fear on the back of her neck, it was time to move. Time to find new rooms in a different building. No one knew of her new location except her current guard, Greenwood. Had he survived the attack? It had to have been intentional. Surely no footpad would be plying his trade at that hour of the day! She had heard him fighting to protect her as pain exploded in the back of her head. Because she had never been attacked before, it wasn’t until that moment that she felt the net slowly closing around her.
Someone had discovered her secret. Someone without a conscience, heart…or soul.
She was strong, and she would survive whatever her captor had planned for her. She had survived that long ago night in the garden, determined that it would not define her future. Michaela had kept her secret for years, until recently when a wounded kindred soul needed to hear that she was not the only one who had been taken against her will. Aimee had been so brave insisting that Garahan and O’Malley go back and rescue the others, with little thought to her own safety. Those two little poppets came to mind again, clinging to the handsome Irishman who had sparked what she thought had died inside of her. Hope. Hope that she, too, deserved a chance at a life where she would eventually be able to forgive herself for being too weak to fight off the despicable man who had stolen not only her virtue, but her dignity, and her dreams.
Those women did not deserve what happened to them and neither did she. She shoved that long ago memory aside and whispered O’Malley’s name in her head. He was a healer like herself, but also a warrior, a protector of innocents…as well as those who had their innocence stripped from them. Her belly calmed, and her tears dried. She opened her eyes, and wriggled her jaw from side to side. Open and closed, until she loosened the gag.
The pain in her head increased, but she ignored it by bringing up the memory of the helpless look in O’Malley’s eyes when he tried to extract himself from the two little mites he and his cousin had rescued along with the others. At last she worked the gag off her mouth, and took in great gulps of air. It wasn’t fresh, and smelled oddly of the Thames, but at least the disgusting taste of the gag was gone.
She shifted one shoulder forward and then the other, pulling against the ropes binding her wrists together, fighting to loosen them. When she felt the trickle of warmth on her hands, she realized all she managed to do was rub her wrists raw. Whoever tied the rope did not intend for her to escape. Unable to simply give up and give in, Michaela twisted, tugged, wriggled, and pulled, but to no avail. She may have managed to remove her gag, and calm her roiling belly, but she hadn’t been able to loosen her bonds.
Exhaustion crept up from her the soles of her feet, threatening to claim her. But she needed to stay awake. The throb in her head, blurred vision, and nausea that rose up when she grew anxious again, were signs that she could be concussed. Studying at her father’s side, assisting him with his patients had taught her that and more, enabled her to save those whom society deemed unfit. Had anyone discovered what had happened to her that night, not only her reputation would have been in shreds, but her father’s as well. The ton would have refused to allow a physician, with a pariah for a daughter, to tend to them. What if her father had demanded satisfaction and challenged Lord Haversham to meet him over the field of honor? She could never have let him do that. So she kept silent and lived with the shame that threatened to eat her alive until she realized she was not the only young woman to suffer such a fate. Her life had a new mission, she no longer hoped to study to become a physician and work alongside her father—a dream unheard of at the time—she would be the hand that lifted others who suffered such treatment out of the gutter. Heal them, clothe them, find employment for them as they learned what she had…to forge a new path for her life.
Michaela bit the inside of her cheek when she felt her eyes closing again. Botheration! She could not do this alone! She rarely asked for help because it could be dangerous to those she gave aid to. Even lying on the floor in the dark, unable to free herself, she knew she needed the one man who could rescue her and tend to her head injury. Michaela needed Emmett O’Malley, the Duke’s Man-at-Arms. Though it wasn’t clear, she vaguely recalled her guard fighting to protect her. She had been grabbed not two steps from the door to the new building she’d procured rooms in, to continue her work, when struck on the back of her head.
Unless something horrible happened to her guard, he would send word to Garahan and O’Malley. She bit her lip trying to decide who would be able to reach her first. Garahan was recovering, nay given the rate he was healing, he was adjusting to the injury he received after rescuing Aimee, his new wife. Mayhap O’Malley would be the one to find her. Lost between the pain in her head and her thoughts, she heard the echo of footsteps coming toward her. Would she meet the person responsible for this travesty, or would it be one of his henchmen? Trepidation filled her as the footsteps drew near and stopped. The key scraped in the lock, and the hinges squeaked as the door opened. A tall man held a lantern at his side, but it was too dark to see his face. The shadowed hallway hid it from her. She felt his gaze on her, and the wild hope that mayhap this was all a mistake filled her. Had they grabbed the wrong woman? Was he here to set her free?
“So the rumors in the stews of the city are true. There is an angel who sweeps in to rescue fallen women… A fallen woman herself.”
Her heart began to pound. It was voice from her nightmare. How in God’s name had he found her?
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