A Perfect Hero (5 page)

Julianna felt as if she’d been hit in the chest by a tremendous weight. By Jove, he was right. Peggy would surely think that she had already ar
rived in Bath. The servants in Bath did not know to expect her arrival. If either of her brothers called on her, or inquired as to her whereabouts, they would be told she was in Bath.

No one knew where she was.
No one
.

“What is your name?”

Her mouth opened. Her first instinct was to haughtily inform him her brother was the Mar
quess of Thurston; it was hastily revised. If he
knew her real name, he might easily demand a ransom—it was altogether possible he could have her killed while collecting it!

Her mind was racing, yet she was amazingly calm, even brave, as she answered evenly. “I am Miss Julianna Clare.” It was true; the omission of her surname was deliberate. Holding her breath, she forced her eyes to his. She was no fool. If she looked away, he would take it as a sign she was lying.

“And yours, sir? What is your name?”

Her response was much more swift than his. He had yet to release her hand, but rather gave a little bow over it. Manners from the Magpie! She wasn’t sure if she was outraged or impressed.

“You may call me Dane.”

Neither one of them fooled the other. Julianna was very certain the lack of
his
surname was just as calculated.

He straightened to his full height. Another cal
culated move, she suspected. Despite her determi
nation not to be cowed, there was a sudden sharpness in his regard that gave her pause. There was something unrefined and unrestrained about this man, something that suddenly made her mouth go dry and her heart go all a-tumble.

She looked up—forever it seemed—until she felt as if her neck would surely crack! A man as big as her brothers was a rare man indeed. To struggle would prove futile. He was a large man,
a strong man, a
bold
man. At such close range, he was even more imposing than he had appeared last night, wearing a mask and holding his pis
tols. His features were sharply arresting, his jaw squarely defined, his nose carved in perfect bal
ance between the sculpted planes of his cheek
bones. He was too masculine to be considered truly handsome—an artist would have tried to soften those uncompromising features. But some
how his hard face was the perfect setting for those lavish eyes, their clear gold brilliance en
hanced by thick black lashes.

Her reaction to him was intense.
He
was in
tense. But suddenly his eyes were like thick fog, dark and impenetrable. They made her shiver in
side.

She considered him with renewed caution, as well she should. He was, after all, a dangerous highwayman. A demon. For all she knew, a de
spoiler of women.

Even worse, as if he knew precisely the vein of her thoughts, he smiled slowly.

“What are your plans for me?” she asked stiffly.

A dark brow quirked high. “An excellent ques
tion,” he appeared to muse. “I’m not, you see, in the habit of taking hostages.”

Julianna couldn’t help it. Though she’d told herself she would not shirk, she would not cower, she felt herself pale.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I see you’ve grasped the crux of the situation. What
am
I to do with you? I can hardly let you go, now can I?” He shook his head. “Yet I dislike the word
hostage
.”

Julianna held her spine stiff. “Would you pre
fer
prisoner
? Both are the same, are they not?”

“I suppose that’s true.” He stroked his jaw, as if to give the subject great thought. “Let us con
sider you...my guest. Yes, my guest.”

“If I were your
guest
,” Julianna observed coldly, “I could leave when I wish. And I cannot, can I?”

Something flickered across his features, some
thing she couldn’t decipher. Surely not guilt.

“No,” he said after a moment. He spoke the word almost regretfully, yet there was the merest hint of a smile on his lips.

Oh! Was he feeling smug? Exactly what came over her then, Julianna could never say. She was suddenly fighting mad, angrier than she’d ever been in her life that he dared to trifle with her so.

Without hesitation she stepped around him, taking a direct path toward the door.

His smile was wiped clean. “Where the devil do you think you’re going?” He reached for her. Julianna eluded him, swooping under his arm and darting for the portal. Quick as she was, he was quicker, grabbing her from behind and whirling her from her feet.

But Julianna was incensed. She fought for all she was worth, swinging her arms wildly. There was a
thunk!
as her elbow connected with some
thing solid. Sensation zinged down her arm, but she paid no heed. The vile oath resounding above her head only made her all the more determined to land another blow.

It was impossible. The next thing she knew she was toppled back, the mattress beneath her. She gasped as a long, hard body followed hers down, and he was atop her. Sweet mercy!

Subdued but hardly beaten, held in place by the weight of his body and strong fingers curled around her wrists, she toyed with the notion of spitting in his face—a tactic never before em
ployed in her life!

Above her the highwayman—Dane—gritted his teeth. “Do not dare!” he warned.

“You wretched beast!” she hissed, launching into a tirade the likes of which she hadn’t even known she was capable. “You won’t get away with this! You’ll be caught and hung. Drawn and quar
tered. The authorities will take your body and—”

“Are you quite finished?” he demanded.

She regarded the cut just above his eye with a considerable amount of satisfaction. No doubt he wasn’t feeling so smug, she decided. “I am not—”

“Oh, but you are. My God, you are a harridan. A shrew.”

“How dare you!”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Lord, but you’re a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you? And to think when I first saw you I deemed you a lady of remarkable gentility! But now I begin to see why you have no husband!”

“Must you insult me?”

Cool golden eyes stared directly into hers. “It is no insult but fact. And now that I have your undivided attention, I feel it only fair to inform you, my little kitten—”

“Don’t call me that!”

He shook his head. “It’s never wise to under
estimate one’s enemies,
kitten
, and I do believe you should heed my warning. I’ve more experi
ence than you at this kind of thing.”

“Meaning?”

He smiled, not a particularly nice smile. “I’m a thief. A brigand. A man wanted by the Crown. You can hardly predict what I might do now, can you?”

Julianna took a deep breath. Her blood was be
ginning to run cold. “You won’t hurt me.”

“What makes you so certain? You’ve seen my face, remember.”

Julianna did not appreciate the reminder. “You wouldn’t have brought me here,” she said with far more certainty than she felt. “You’d have left me in the coach. And though I wish I could say
otherwise, I’ve nothing of value with me, save the necklace I wear. No other jewelry, no—”

“Perhaps I brought you here for another pur
pose.”

“What purpose?” Too late, she realized the foolishness of such a question. Stupidly, she re
alized she hadn’t considered the possibility, not really.

But apparently he had. Or at least he
was
.

His gaze slid down her neck, unabashedly ir
reverent. Julianna drew a sharp breath, only to realize his attention was not riveted on the lace edge of her bodice. Glancing down, she was shocked to confront soft, pink flesh—the weight of his body had thrust up her breasts so that they were nearly half-exposed. She tried to wrench her arms down, but his fingers tightened ever so slightly.

“Perhaps I brought you here for my own”— there was a telling pause, a wicked arch of brow—“amusement. After all, we’re alone in this cottage, kitten, just the two of us.”

Julianna’s throat closed off. She couldn’t breathe. For the space of a heartbeat, she literally could not find a scrap of air in her lungs. She blanched, locking her lips to keep them from trembling.

What a fool she was! Had she really wished for a little adventure? Now she wished for all the
world that she could take back her earlier words.

But if he expected her to cower, she wouldn’t. Pride alone forbade it. She swallowed painfully. “Then do what you will. I won’t fight you.” It was a statement made with quiet dignity. “But you may as well know I’ll find no pleasure in it.”

Something flickered across his face. “Bravely spoken. But you may set your mind at ease. I will not force upon you a fate worse than death. Your virtue is safe ...at least for the moment. An
other time, perhaps. For now, I’ve other things to do.”

He mocked her. He wounded her. But he let her go, and as he did, an icy tremor shot through her. The instant she was free, Julianna scrambled up against the wall, as far away from him as she could get.

He pulled a shirt over his head, then moved to retrieve a dark cloak from a hook on the wall, along with a black silk mask—his costume from the previous night, she realized. Folding them neatly, he put them into a small pouch and tugged the drawstring tight.

“You’re leaving?” she asked. Drawing her knees against her chest, she regarded him.

“Oh, you need not fret,” he said smoothly. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

“What? More coaches to rob? More women to kidnap?”

“I think not. The bed would be rather crowded
with three of us, don’t you think? Though per
haps the idea does hold merit.”

Did her tormentor see her blush? She had the disconcerting sensation he did, and that he de
lighted in it. “You’re quite despicable.” Her tone conveyed her disgust.

“So you’ve told me.”

“And I have no intention of sleeping with you in this bed.”

His smile was naught but a charade. “You slept with me last night, kitten.” The silken undertone in his voice was decidedly seductive.

“And I won’t be doing so again!” she told him heatedly.

He laughed, the rogue, he laughed! “What righteous indignation! Why, if your behavior is any indication, I could almost believe you’ve never shared a bed with a man before.”

Julianna had no intention of dignifying such a comment. But she sucked in a breath when he ap
proached again. It was all she could do not to launch herself from the bed. Miraculously, she held her ground.

Did he smile? Did he smirk? Still wearing that infuriating whatever-it-was expression, he leaned close. “You may as well know right now, we are in the middle of the forest, far from the nearest village. And no, I have no intention of telling you precisely
where
we are. So you can scream all you want, though it won’t do any good. There’s no
one to hear, you see.” He ran a finger down her nose. “And now,
adieu
, my little kitten.”

She slapped his hand away. “Stop calling me that!”

With a swagger he started toward the door. Ah, but somehow she’d known he would swag
ger, the arrogant oaf! Julianna was not yet fin
ished. “Don’t be surprised if I’m not here when you return!” she spouted.

That stopped him dead in his tracks. Slowly he turned, arching a brow in almost lazy amuse
ment. “Perhaps the blow to your head has af
fected your hearing. So I will say again, there’s no way you can escape. And I would hate to have to bind your hands and feet, though I will if that’s what it takes to convince you. I fear it would be most unpleasant, however.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Julianna said with all the haughtiness she could muster.

His smile vanished, as quickly as if it had never been. “Wouldn’t I? You won’t be leaving here, kitten, and I will take whatever means I must to assure that you don’t. The sooner you resign yourself to that fact, the better off you’ll be. For you see, there is a limit to a man’s patience—to
my
patience—so if you are wise, you will not tempt me. You will not test me, for you may well regret it.”

His speech was delivered with matter-of-fact ease, yet his countenance was no less than forbid
ding, the bite in his tone unmistakable. Turning his back on her, he opened the door and disap
peared outside, yanking the door tightly behind him. The next thing she heard was a key scraping in the lock.

Julianna gaped, sinking back against the wall, her spine like mush. Had she been standing, she would have surely collapsed, for her knees were still shaking! Unfamiliar though it was, she tasted fear in her mouth, and acrid and bitter it was!

Did he intend some darker purpose? Rape? Murder? Merciful Lord, had he just threatened her life?