A Dangerous Courtship (10 page)

Nettie shrieked. She jumped to her feet, upending her chair, then plastered her body back against the far wall, where she stayed, shivering in complete and utter terror at the man's ungentlemanly entrance... and then, by degrees, she relaxed her stance as she got a good view of his rugged, handsome face and his deep darkling eyes.

Veronica, too, would have liked to jump back and away from the man, but instinctively knew he would not allow any such thing. By the savage look in his black gaze, Julian had come to see her head on a platter.

And by the looks of his battered face, he'd met with trouble after she'd left him at Fountains.

"You've been hurt," Veronica whispered at the sight of him. A thousand questions tumbled through her brain.

Shelton came charging in after Julian. "I tell you again, man,
get out!
Lest you want the innkeep and constable alerted and ordered to drag you gone by your ears you will leave
now!
Do you hear?"

"Aye. I hear you," muttered Julian, who had eyes only for Veronica.

She paled. His right eye was swollen and grotesque, his lip split. What had transpired at the abbey after she'd gone?

"Tell your man and your maid to leave us," Julian said, so softly that Veronica had to strain to hear him. "You and I have much to discuss, my lady." He made a slight movement with his right hand.

Veronica dropped her gaze, her eyes widening at sight of a small bundle of sheepskin bound with twine that he held in his fist. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod of her head, then looked first at Nettie and then to Shelton. "I would have a word with this man. Alone. Please leave us."

Nettie's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "You
know
him, m'lady?"

"Nettie,
"Veronica said, a warning tone in her voice.

The maid, clearly at an inner crossroads, decided finally she'd best bite her tongue and leave her lady to her business.

She left her place at the wall, grabbed up one of the remaining teacakes from a plate near the parkin on the deal table, then scurried out of the room—but not before casting one last lingering glance at the tall, bearded fellow who'd invaded the chamber and who seemed mighty interested in having a private audience with her lady.

Shelton proved not so easy to dismiss.

"'Tis out of the question," he proclaimed loudly. He cast Julian a withering glance. "I'll not be leaving you to such a vagabond as this, my lady," he declared. "The earl would not be pleased. He would—"

"Leave us, Shelton,
" Veronica cut in, her tone brooking no argument. It took every ounce of her daring to stand up to her father's most trusted servant, but she did so unwaveringly. The bundle in Julian's hands, and the bruises to his face, were enough of an incentive. And, too, a small voice in her soul whispered, this is what she'd wanted, after all, when he'd left her, slipping into the dark mouth of that earthen cave. She'd known then, as she knew now, that she very much wanted to be alone with this man again.

Shelton muttered something unintelligible, and then, with a baleful glare at Julian, finally relented. "Aye, my lady. As you deem," he muttered, scowling. "I shall plant myself on the other side of this door. And do know I'll not be allowing this private audience to go on too long."

With that, Shelton let himself out, reluctantly shutting the door behind him.

"Moody, ugly brute of a fellow, isn't he?" Julian commented.

Veronica clicked her tongue, her gaze taking in Julian's bruised and battered face as she got to her feet. "And what did you expect? You look like the wrath of God. Indeed, it appears as though someone made a boxing bag of your face."

"How perceptive of you. Someone, in fact, did just that, my lady. And the rest of my body, to boot."

Veronica winced, both at his intended sarcasm and at the thought of the pain he must have been in, at the very thought of him being beaten.

"Please, have a seat," she insisted.

"Afraid I might swoon at your feet?"

"What I am afraid of is that you might bleed a river if you don't soon sit down and let your heart still to a normal beat," Veronica said pragmatically. "Gracious, what happened? Your lip looks as though it was split open by a hammer—and your
eye...
it is swelling and turning purple even as we speak."

Julian, not a little incensed, forcefully placed the bundle he held down atop the deal table. "What happened," he said darkly, "is
this."

Veronica swallowed past the sudden lump of dread in her throat as she looked down at the sheepskin-wrapped bundled.
"My package?"

"Aye."

Veronica returned her gaze to his. "Julian, you—you were beaten because of this? But why... why would anyone do such a thing?"

"You
tell
me,
" he said. "I was nearly beaten to a pulp because I held that thing in my hand."

Veronica felt pure fear flutter in her breast. For the first time since beginning her Venus Mission she was truly frightened at what she might have gotten herself into—and Julian, as well—by intercepting Lord Rathbone's delivery.

She stared at Julian, at his cut and bruised face. "Are—are you saying that whoever left this at Fountains did this to you?"

He shook his head, and a small wave of relief washed through Veronica. It was quickly swept away, however, when he said, "It was but a lad who left the package, my lady. He tucked it into a crevice of the stones and then ran. It was the two hulking brutes who'd followed him that did the deed."

There had been someone following the messenger? Oh, dear. She and Pamela had never considered such a possibility when they'd hatched their wild scheme. Come to think of it, they had not considered much of anything other than getting Veronica to Fountains to look for a package to be placed there at the height of Midsummer's Eve. All in all, their Venus Mission lacked a great deal of forethought, Veronica decided miserably.

And now this.

Veronica looked again at Julian. A miserable feeling spread through the pit of her stomach at the sight of his battered features. She watched as he swayed once—a clue that he was not bearing up as well to his punishing beating as he'd like to think he was.

Veronica instantly moved into action. "I must insist that you sit down, sir. In another moment, I fear you're going to topple like a fallen tree." She turned her chair about and indicated for him to sit.

"The deuce I will," he muttered, glowering at her. "I want some answers, Lady Veronica. I want them now."

"Yes, yes, of course you do. As do I," she said, trying her best to soothe his ire. "And we shall muddle through all the facts that we have, sir, in just a moment. But first you must sit down and tend to your cuts."

"The devil I must! What I
will do
is—"

He stopped his spate of words as Veronica, both hands against his shoulders, bodily forced him down atop the chair.
"Sit down, Julian."

He went down with a solid thud, the wood of the hard chair creaking beneath his weight.

"I am not one of your hired hands to be ordered about," he muttered, glaring at her with his uninjured eye.

"Of course you are not, sir," Veronica said. "And by the bye, I do not order my servants about."
If anything,
she thought to herself,
it is surely the other way around.

She'd already turned to the deal table. She picked up a napkin, then opened the pot of hot water that the waiter had brought earlier with the tea tray. The steam had long since gone, but the water had been boiled and so would be suitable to clean Julian's cuts. Having dipped the linen napkin into the pot, she turned back toward him.

"May I?" she asked.

He was still glaring at her with his uninjured eye, but some of the fight, it seemed, had drained out of him now that he'd sat down.

"I've come to the conclusion, my lady, that you do as you please. Always."

Veronica ignored the rub. She dabbed gingerly at his cut lip. He jerked a bit, no doubt from the sting. "I hear there is a doctor from Edinburgh on the premises," she said quietly.

"Not interested," he muttered around the square of moistened linen.

Veronica went on doggedly. "I received a bottle of antiseptic from him for my injury."

He lifted one brow, the light in his good eye softening. "How is your wound?"

"Not nearly as bad as yours and pray, sir, do not try and change the subject."

"I'm not."

"I can send someone to find this doctor, Julian," Veronica went on. "He could tend to you, could have a look at these cuts and—"

"No."

She could tell by the tone of his voice there was little sense in arguing the point. Still, however, Veronica decided she'd try one last tactic.

"And what about your hearing?" she demanded, not pausing in her ministrations, not even when she felt his lean, whipcord body stiffen. "'Tis obvious you've suffered several blows to your head, Julian. Are you so foolish as to believe they might not have affected your sense of hearing?"

He reached up with his right arm, capturing her finely-shaped hand in his large, roughened one. "What
about
my hearing?" he demanded. "Just exactly what do you know, my lady?"

Veronica tamped down a gasp at his manhandling of her. She
would not
react to him with fear, she told herself sternly, for clearly that was his ploy: to startle and subdue her by his sheer strength.

"Relax, sir. The truth of the matter is, I know very little." Letting out a breath, Veronica jerked her hand from his, turned the napkin about. Then she placed a clean edge of it into the teakettle and began again to clear the blood from his lip. "The man who led my coachman to the abbey told me a bit about you—or rather, the legend of you."

"Legend? What the deuce does that mean?"

"You've become known as 'The Riverkeep,' sir. It... it appears you have frightened all of the locals, and they've decided you are something betwixt a demon and a specter, what with your lurking about that ruinous abbey and coming out only in the depths of night. It is also claimed you are deaf—if indeed a demon or a specter can be such a thing." She dabbed at the last of the blood on his mouth, then straightened. "I believe only in the part about your deafness, if you must know."

He was silent as he gazed up at her.

Veronica forced herself to continue, to say what was on her mind. "You couldn't hear a thing when you first met me at Fountains, could you, Julian? It was only when you thrust us over that ledge, and hit your head during our fall, that your hearing was restored. That's why, when you first opened your eyes, there were tears in them—and that is why you whispered to me that I was your 'hope and need answered,' isn't it?"

He obviously did not like the train of her words, but Veronica refused to stop.

"Tell me, Julian," she said, "have you lived at Fountains for these past many months because you felt as ruined as her walls, as empty and as void as her once-rich lands?"

He sucked in a harsh breath, frowning. "Please. Don't ask me these things."

"Why not? What are you hiding, Julian? Or should I ask from
whom
are you hiding?"

It was the wrong question. Like a bolt of lightning, Julian shot up from the chair, took her gently by her upper arms, his battered face just inches from her own.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who seems to have her own secrets to keep hidden, my lady." His face twisting with anger, he nodded to the package still on the table—one Veronica hadn't even bothered to open. "Care to explain to me why you haven't unwrapped that bundle, the one you were so bloody intent on finding?"

Veronica, tears of fear smarting behind her eyes, reacted to his brutality in the only way she knew how: with anger. In fact, a lifetime of being verbally and sometimes physically abused by her father came rushing to the forefront, overwhelming her with such a heated frenzy that she pushed the man away. "No, I'll
not
be telling you," she spat, "because it is not your affair, and I'll not be bullied by the likes of you, sir!"

To Veronica's amazement, he did not reach for her again. Instead, he stared at her hard, his good eye full of dark portent and his ravaged eye looking twice as menacing.

"By the likes of me?" he repeated. "Does that mean you find me beneath you,
my lady
—beneath even the coachman and maid you order about with such little feeling?"

"Blast you," Veronica replied. She was surprised at the rancor of her voice, at the pure fury now beating in her breast. "You know nothing about me. Nothing about my life, sir!"

"No, I don't, but I can guess. For the most part, you're a pampered belle, living a queen's existence, and you obviously think the world should bow at your feet, allowing you your every wish and whim."

How very wrong he was! Veronica would have liked to give him a scathing set down—indeed, she'd have reveled in slapping him soundly for such crude words.

But Veronica had had enough of physical violence to last a lifetime, thanks to her father. And in truth, she could never, ever raise her hand to another human being—and certainly not to this man.