Elizabeth Thornton by Whisper His Name

could hardly breathe. He was going to kill her! She was suffocating! She tried to scream, but no sound came. And as suddenly as she’d plunged into sleep, she awakened to a nightmare.
    The pressure on her aching mouth eased a little. “That’s better,” whispered the man who was kneeling over her. “I’m going to let you go, but one sound out of you, and I’ll slit your throat. Do you understand?”
    She nodded vigorously. A moment later, the hand was removed from her mouth, but she could feel the sharp point of the knife pricking her throat. There was no candle lit, but impressions were assaulting all her senses. Her assailant was a big man, and his hands were cold. Though he spoke in the cultured accents of an English gentleman, he had calluses on the tips of his fingers. She could tell that he had entered her room by the window because the cold night air ruffled the muslin drapes and the pages of the book she kept on the table by her bed.
    Her heart was pounding so hard that she could hear each terrified beat. “I keep my money in the clothes press,” she choked out.
    “Shut your mouth and listen,” he snarled. “I want the book Colette passed to you in Paris. Where is it?”
    “Colette?” Her thoughts spun off in every direction. “Who is Colette?”
    He slapped her so hard that her teeth jarred into her lip. Tears of pain and terror welled in her eyes.
    “Don’t make this hard on yourself, Miss Vayle,” saidthat hateful voice. “I know you have the book. I know you want to sell it to the highest bidder. So here’s my offer. Your brother’s life for the book Colette gave you.”
    She was horribly afraid of what he would do to her if she denied knowing Colette again. There was a cold brutality about him that warned her he enjoyed inflicting pain. She swallowed the blood in her mouth as her mind groped frantically to make sense of what was happening.
    She didn’t know any Colette, but she’d been in Paris with George and Olivia. And she had bought books, a whole trunk of books, for the little business she had set up. But those books were not in Bath. They were locked up at the customs house in Dover.
    She felt rather than saw the movement as he raised his hand to strike her again, and she blurted out, “The book isn’t here. If you kill me, you’ll never find it.” Then the full horror of his words cut through her panic. “What have you done to my brother?” she cried out.
    His hand instantly covered her mouth, mashing her lips against her teeth. “Keep your voice down!” His lips were so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath fan across her cheek, and her stomach heaved. “I won’t hesitate to kill your companion if she comes to investigate. Do you understand?”
    She nodded and once again found herself released.
    “Your brother is safe, and as soon as you hand over the book, he’ll be free to go.”
    Though she was mortally afraid, her mind was working like quicksilver, adding things up, making connections. One thing stood out clearly. The truth would not save her or George. They would be safe only as long as her assailant thought she had Colette’s book to trade.
    “A book for your brother’s life,” he whispered. “Mostpeople would think that was a bargain. Where is the book, Miss Vayle?”
    Where was the book? Tears clogged her throat and squeezed past her lashes as she braced for the blow that would finish her off. “I … I don’t … in a safe place.”
    “Where?”
    Where would she keep a book that was valuable? Not in the customs house. Think! Think! Think!
    When his fingers tightened around her throat, she gagged then blurted out, “It’s … it’s in my bank vault in London.”
    There was an interval of silence. “Where only you can get it?”
    Was that good or bad? “Y-yes.”
    “How very clever.”
    She knew by his tone of voice that it was a mistake to be clever, and she began to think wildly of how she could save herself. There was a pistol for