Page 55 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
“What do you say you and me find a nice quiet corner somewhere to have a bit of fun?” Penny purred at him.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the guard demanded, leaping to his feet.
Greer was far enough to the side of the stairs that he couldn’t see either Penny’s or the guard’s expressions, but neither of them could have been good. He was able to see the guard reach out and grasp a fistful of Penny’s shirt.
“Intruder,” the guard said, shaking Penny and turning him toward the stairs. “You’re not allowed to be here.”
Panic flooded Greer. Penny had been caught. Whatever he’d been trying to do had failed.
Hard on the heels of those emotions, instinct took over. As the guard started down the stairs with Penny firmly in his grasp, Greer darted into the dark space behind the stairs, just like Penny had told him to. He held his breath and pressed himself against the wall as the guard forced Penny down the stairs, roughing him up as he went.
“Who are you and how did you get in here?” the guard demanded as he shoved Penny on to the other staircase.
Every instinct within Greer told him to run after them and fight to save the man he loved. The thought of what might happen to Penny now that he was caught nearly buckled Greer’s knees.
But he had a job ahead of him and another man who needed saving.
He dashed out from behind the stairs as soon as Penny and the guard were gone and raced up to the door leading to Lord Fabian’s room. With shaking hands, he fit the key in the lock and turned.
Blessedly, he’d picked the right key of the two on the ring on his first try. The lock clicked open, and Greer pushed the door open, bursting into the room.
The sight that met him knocked the air from his lungs. The room was modest but well-appointed. A fire crackled in the grate, and a lantern was lit on a table beside a bed. Overall, it was a pleasant room with a window that looked out over the sea and let the crisp sea breeze into the room.
It was the young man that lay on the rumpled bedsheets that caused the air to flee Greer’s lungs. He was beautiful, or would have been if he wasn’t as thin as a rail, naked, and marked with bruises from head to toe. Worse than the bruises were the numerous, tiny scars on the insides of his arms. Greer had seen opium addicts before and knew what he was looking at.
“Lord Fabian?” he asked quietly, already conscious of voices arguing on the floors below. “I’ve come to rescue you,” he said, approaching the bed.
The beautiful young man moved slowly, as if his limbs were encircled by seaweed as he tried to swim. He looked up at Greer with bleary eyes. When he moved his feet slightly, Greer noticed the wide shackle around his ankle and the painful wounds under it.
“Charlie?” Lord Fabian asked groggily, then burst into tears.
Greer hissed under his breath and raced to the man’s bedside. He cupped Lord Fabian’s face and turned it up to the light to get a better look. As he did, Greer’s throat squeezed.
It wasn’t just that the young man had been abused. That was tragic in and of itself and threatened to break through the dam of Greer’s own wounds. What moved Greer to the point of nearinaction due to horror was how far gone the young man was with opium. He had been dosed with it, or something with a similar effect, recently, perhaps in an effort to make him sleep.
“Please,” Lord Fabian moaned, clutching at Greer. “I don’t want it anymore. Please make it stop. I want to go home.” The poor man burst into tears.
“It’s alright,” Greer said, remembering how good it had felt when Penny had said those same things to him. “I’m here to rescue you. We’re going to take you to safety.”
Lord Fabian burst into hysterical tears.
It was the least convenient thing he could have done.
“I swear, I was just looking for a bit of fun!” Penny’s shout rose up above the voices arguing below. Greer wasn’t certain, but he believed they’d come out of whatever room they’d been in. They might be on their way to the tower to check on Lord Fabian.
“Shit,” he swore, moving to the end of the bed to examine Lord Fabian’s shackle. He still had the keys from the door in one hand. It made logical sense that one of them could open the lock on the shackle.
Since he didn’t have any better ideas, he tried the second key in the padlock holding the shackle closed.
Miraculously, the key turned and the lock popped open.
Greer barked out a laugh, then hurried to pull the padlock from its loop and to open the shackle. A burst of putrid smell made him screw up his face, and anger boiled in him at the state of the wound around Lord Fabian’s ankle. It could have been worse, though.
“Come on,” he said, looping an arm around Lord Fabian’s shoulders and pulling him to sit on the bed. “We have to hurry. We need to leave before they come to check on you.”
“Please,” Lord Fabian wept, swaying like a rag doll on the bed. “Help me.”
“I’m trying to help you,” Greer explained. “You have to stand and walk so we can leave.”
