A Dangerous Man (16 page)

“No.”

He frowned, thwarted. The gentle stroking along her jaw stopped. His fingers brushed down over her throat. With one hand he spanned its breadth, encircling her neck with strong fingers. He exerted no pressure, none at all. His touch was a horrifying travesty of gentleness. His gaze was nearly tranquil. It was far worse than if he had choked her. The potential for violence was itself a violence. And he knew it.

“Yes. Yes and yes,” she whispered—whimpered. “Yes, I’m afraid of you, is that what you want to hear? But I need you. There’s no one else. You can find Will.” The words tumbled from her. “He’s in London somewhere. You can make center of the city in an hour. One of his last notes mentioned
a place called the Peacock’s Tail. You know where to look. The places these people frequent.”

“Do I?” Was that a hint of bitterness buried nearly indiscernibly among all that lethal threat? His hand dropped.

“At the least you can find out. I wouldn’t stand a chance. You
have
to.”

She touched him then. She reached out and spread her hand on his naked chest and filled him with a thousand unvoiced longings and all the while her gaze held his imploringly, beseechingly, without any trace of desire. He stared at her hand, greedy for the sight of her smooth fingers on him. She had no concept of what she did to him. She was unconscious of anything but her need to convince him.

“One week,” she said. “That’s all I ask. One week, until he writes to tell me where to send the money.”

“Just wait for his next note.” Somehow he made his voice impersonal.

“A week from now, who knows how much more deeply he’ll be involved in whatever trouble he’s found? What if he’s wrong and these people, whoever they are, whatever they want, will not wait a week? What if they demand the money in three days, or four?”

“They aren’t going to kill him, Mercy. You never kill a man who owes you money. I should know.”

“They might
hurt
him.”

“Probably.”

His word dragged an involuntary moan from her, and she swayed where she stood. “Dear God, I can’t stand by and let him be hurt, not if I can stop it. Don’t you see? You would do the same for your sisters.”

His silence answered her.

She bit down hard on her lower lip. If she drew blood, he was lost. He’d sell his sisters’ future, he realized with self-disgust, just to keep her from slicing her own lip. She met his gaze, hauling her slender shoulders back.

“It doesn’t matter if you do,” she said. “You’ll go. I’ll pay you. I said I would and I will. And if you don’t look for him, I’ll drop a word to Acton and his mother about your past. Maybe your own sisters … Do they know how you earned the family fortune? I didn’t think so. You’ll go. You’ll start tomorrow night.”

He drew away from her, as though she were abhorrent to him. He stalked to the door and flung it open. “Oh, yes. I’ll go.” With a small sob she moved past him into the hallway’s gloom. “And you will most assuredly pay.”

Chapter 13

H
e’d been fool enough to think she had meant to keep her word. Worse than naive: gullible. How long had she honored her promise? A bloody twenty-four hours. He lounged against the morning-room wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

His gaze continued to stalk Mercy as it had all morning, all afternoon, all day. He ignored the curious looks of the other guests who were waiting for the next round of charades to begin. The corners of his mouth turned up in a sardonic smile as she shot another anxious glance in his direction. Of course it was Hillard who finally took her arm and escorted her from the room. Too bad, Hart thought bitterly, the game had lost a consummate player.

Restless now that she’d left, robbing him of the juvenile yet ungovernable pleasure of making her flinch, Hart looked out the window. A pleasant evening she’d picked for him to go searching for her worthless sibling.

Overnight the weather had turned blustery. The sky spat cold rain against the windowpanes, ripped the scarlet foliage from the trees, and pummeled the ground with an angry staccato. It was a fine mirror of his mood. All day he’d fought his attraction to the American extortionist. All day he’d reminded himself that she was using him. All day it hadn’t mattered.

He’d still been incapable of ignoring his response to her, both the hardening of his loins as he watched her mouth move or the hardening of his heart when he thought of her lie. He, who’d honed self-control to a razor-edged exactitude, couldn’t control the hunger inspired by one lovely, lying American chit.

He swung around, motioning for a servant to bring him a glass of sherry. He had every intention of finding Will Coltrane, and when he did he had every intention of dragging him here by the scruff of his neck and throwing him at Mercy’s feet. If there were a just force at work, she might then see what she had abdicated her honor for: a greedy kid with an appetite he could not afford.

He drained his glass and was about to leave when the sound of masculine voices issued from the billiard room. He paused. Acton and his intimates had been sequestered in there for hours. Hours during which Hart had seen Annabelle, a solemn cast to her exquisite features, dogging the steps of the Dowager Duchess.

He’d thought to approach his youngest sister, but he’d been distracted by this … 
situation
with
Mercy. Acton’s voice, booming from the other room, recalled him to his intention. He considered finding Annabelle and asking her what the hell was going on with Acton, but the years of distance and age between them might well make such an overture embarrassing for her. After all, what did he truly know about Annabelle?

He looked around for a member of his family who could shed some light on the stagnating courtship. Richard and Fanny had retired to their rooms during lunch, Fanny’s complexion having gone green on seeing the cold collation of jellied eel and stuffed trout. And earlier, Beryl had whisked several leading political hostesses to some private bower. That left Henley. He was across the room, sipping tea as he listened to one of Baron Coffey’s monologues.

Hart caught his brother-in-law’s eye and motioned him over. With a sullen tensing of his narrow face Henley made his apologies to the Baron and joined him.

As he approached, Hart studied him. It had been a year since Hart had been in England. That year had not been kind to Henley. There was a petulant twist that sat too familiarly on his long mouth. His gaze shifted about the room, and his smile was too quick for spontaneity: It bespoke anticipation.

“Hart, I haven’t had the opportunity to thank you for all you’ve done,” Henley began, “both for Beryl and myself and my career. I am fully cognizant
of the debt I owe you. I know that my way in the House has been smoothed—”

“My pleasure,” Hart cut in, waving away Henley’s gratitude. The other man flushed.

“I want to know what the blazes is going on here,” Hart said. Henley’s gaze shot to meet his. The russet flush that had mounted his cheeks drained away, leaving him colorless. He wet his lips. At least this time his dark eyes did not waver from Hart’s.

“What do you mean?” he asked, placing his teacup on a nearby table.

“Annabelle. What the deuce is going on between Acton and her?”

Henley released a barely audible sigh. “Oh. Annabelle.”

There was an odd hint of disappointment in his tone, as well as relief. What the deuce was going on with the man? “Yes, Annabelle,” Hart said. “Beryl led me to believe that Acton was pressing his suit, that an engagement was all but announced, and then I arrive to find nothing of the sort. Acton gives no appearance of being on the cusp of offering for her, and Annabelle, rather than putting herself out to be gracious, has adopted the most extraordinary demeanor.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Can you explain the situation to me? I certainly wouldn’t like to think that I have returned to England just to attend a country house party.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Henley asked with a touch of
asperity. But his eyes dropped before Hart could properly read the emotion in them. “No,” he muttered. “Of course you wouldn’t. And we wouldn’t have asked you. We know what you want and what we owe you.”

“Owe me?” Hart repeated. That was twice Henley had used that term. He acted like a servant, for God’s sake. Indeed, his attitude was that of a man who was about to seek a reference. Hart was in no mood for such nonsense. “A damned peculiar thing to say, Henley. You owe me nothing … except to keep me informed as to my youngest sister’s suitors. And even that is more Beryl’s obligation than yours. I simply want to know how matters stand.”

Henley nodded, his combative posture dropping away. “I don’t know,” he said. “We, all of us, thought Acton was on the point of declaring. And Annabelle seemed extremely happy about it. But since we’ve arrived Annabelle has become even more subdued than usual, and Acton has been not so much aloof as ambivalent. It is as though something—or someone—has seeded his intent with doubt.”

“Someone?” Hart asked.

Henley took a deep breath. “He is obviously quite smitten with Miss Coltrane.”

Acton, Hillard, Major Sotbey … himself. “Damn it to hell.”

Henley shifted uncomfortably. “Well, she is an arresting woman.”

“Isn’t she?” Hart returned dryly. First she had
blackmailed him and now she was sabotaging Annabelle’s future as the Duchess of Acton. What had she done to ensnare Acton’s attention? Had she visited his bedchambers in the middle of the night too?

Hard on the heels of the bright, searing jealousy came a subtler pain. She could not possibly dream that someone with Acton’s antecedents would ever offer for her. To pursue such a fantasy could only bring her unhappiness.

“What has she done?” he asked.

Henley looked up, surprised. “Done? Nothing that I can see. She’s simply so dissimilar from Annabelle. Or any of our English ladies, for that matter. I think Acton finds her … refreshing.”

“Refreshing,” Hart said. “You mean novel.”

“Yes.”

“And she is being courted because of her
novelty
. God, Acton sounds like a dim-witted boy,” Hart said in disgust. He turned from Henley and stared out the rain-lashed window. “Has he not learned that novelty is merely a function of inexperience?” he murmured. “What happens when Mercy becomes familiar? He acts as though she were a toy. Not a human being.”

“If you have such a contempt for novelty, why do you always seek it?” Henley asked. “Why would you travel so much, if not to experience the new?”

For a moment Hart had forgotten Henley was there. His brother-in-law was watching him curiously and Hart was reminded of how perceptive
he’d once thought Henley—though the man had given scant evidence of it since his arrival here. Nevertheless, he did not want to awaken Henley’s sympathies by telling him just how very tired he was of all his much-vaunted travels. “It’s not the same thing at all. One can abandon a vista without causing it harm, either emotionally or socially.”

“I see.”

“Well,” Hart said, displeased he’d given voice to such private musings, “we can only hope Acton comes to his senses.”

“Yes,” Henley said.

“And when he does, we shall see if Annabelle is still interested in him. You must ask Beryl to discover her feelings on the matter.”

“I will.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me …?” He nodded curtly and left his brother-in-law studying him from above the rim of his teacup.

Chapter 14

T
hroughout dinner Hart watched Mercy divide her attention between Hillard and Baron Coffey’s youngest pup. He was too far away to hear what she said. As the Earl of Perth he had been seated near the head of the table while Mercy, untitled and unclassifiable, had been positioned near the far end.

He should have been pleased. Down there Mercy could not compete with Annabelle for Acton’s attention. Though, Hart noted, more than once the Duke’s gaze slipped in her direction. Not that he could blame him.

Dressed in shimmery midnight-blue velvet that draped elegantly and closely about her bosom and hips, she was riveting. Wide, marigold-colored bands edged the narrow sleeves and gathered back the heavy train, revealing a richly brocaded garnet underskirt. As intricate as the dress was, it was nearly severe in comparison with the other ladies’
countless tiers of pastel ruching, myriad nosegays, and layers of glass beads encrusting their bodices.