"No," Elise whispered. "Ramsey did not send me."
"Liar," the woman hissed. She jabbed a finger at Elise and Elise scrambled to her feet. The woman began weeping. "Never," she repeated. "My flux will never pass. I won't spread my legs for him again." She fell into a fit of loud wails.
Elise backed up. The poor soul was mad. Tears streamed down Elise's face. Ramsey. She couldn't remember his face—Price had drugged her before bringing her to the sanitarium—but she could imagine all too easily what he was like. How many other women had he abused? She turned and fled the room.
Ignoring the feel of the stiff, filthy fabric, she ran toward the stairs. Her stomach roiled. Still she ran. A noise sounded behind her. She jerked her head around to glance over her shoulder but saw nothing. Another inmate of the many rooms? She faced forward again, slamming into what, at first, felt like a stone wall. She recognized the fingers of steel that gripped her shoulders even before she looked up into the face of Ramsey.
Chapter Twenty-One
"Release me!" Elise shouted.
She thrashed wildly and Ramsey's grip on her shoulders turned painful.
"Well, now," he said, his Irish brogue sharpened with raucous laughter, "what have we here?"
"Let me go!" She struggled harder, despite the pain of his beefy fingers digging still deeper into her skin. "My husband—" she began, but he cut her off with more foul laughter.
"Your husband committed you, my bonnie girl. So don't bother threatening revenge."
"Price Ardsley is not my husband."
"Don't know the man's name. Don't care. He put you here and plainly doesn't plan on you ever seeing the light of day." Ramsey yanked her to him and, with one hand, stroked her hair. "That leaves you and I to sport, eh?"
Elise raised a foot and stomped on the top of his boot. He yelped and leapt back. She whirled and lunged forward.
"Bloody fool wench!"
He seized her from behind and flung her against the wall. Ramsey crashed into her back, knocking the breath from her. He snaked a hand around her waist. Elise wedged her hands between herself and the wall and clawed at his fingers.
"Damn—" he hissed, pulling his hand free.
He grabbed her arms and yanked them back. Her arms felt as though they would tear from their sockets as he crushed her to the wall.
"You're a plucky one," he wheezed in her ear. "Most wenches here are too daft to even know their names. Takes all the fun out of the play."
He pinned her arms between their bodies with one hand, then rammed the fingers of his free hand into her hair. Elise jerked her head aside, but he mashed her cheek against the wall.
"You haven't had a bath since coming here, but Sara kept you cleaned up where it counts." He thrust his hips against her.
Elise's stomach churned, more at the knowledge of the shared intimacy when Sara had tended to her than the feel of his erection digging into the cleft of her buttocks.
"Not a pretty sight," he went on. "Until she cleaned you up, that is. Then," he roughly ground himself against her, "I knew you and I would be spending time together. I was waiting for the right time." He laughed again. "You decided you wanted me now, eh?"
She shoved hard against the wall in an attempt to thrust his body away from hers, but he slammed back all the more brutally, groaning when their bodies jammed together. His fingers tightened in her hair and she cried out in pain.
"Aye, my girl," he rasped. "Scream. In this place, no one will care, and I like it."
He released her hair and forced his hand into the small of her back where his belt had been digging into her flesh. His belt jingled and, for the first time, Elise felt loathing and fear vie in earnest with outrage. Her body trembled and her knees weakened. She twisted, but he yanked back on her arms, and she felt her arms begin to separate from their sockets.
His belt and trousers hit the floor with the buckle landing with a dull clank. He grabbed her skirts and yanked them up. Elise kicked backwards with the heel of her foot, hitting the hard bone of his shin. He grunted, but only spread his legs and thrust his hips into her.
"I will not be another of your victims!" she shouted.
She grit her teeth and jerked her head backwards. The back of her head struck Ramsey's hard skull. He shrieked, yanking hard on her arms as he fell back a pace. Pain reverberated through her head. Elise bit her lip to halt the pain as he unexpectedly leapt back from her. Iron fingers seized her arm and she barely registered the difference in this and Ramsey's hold as she was spun her around.
Elise gasped.
Price Ardsley stared down at her.