Argent (Hundred Days Series Book 3) (22 page)

              She snorted. What a load of hogswallow. Still, she could use his position to her advantage. She would risk a quick glance into the hall to see what could be seen. Creeping to the doorway, she braced.

Fingers twisted the fabric of her bodice and dragged her through the doorway with a force that snapped her from the room.

              She drew back a fist, prepared to jab again, and Spencer held up his hand, grinning. “I wouldn't.” He grasped harder at her neckline; a button popped from the back of her dress. “
You
are in enough trouble already.”

              She shivered at his threat, then followed through anyhow and swung. He seized her wrist, stopping the blow and plowing into her with unstoppable force. It drove her into the shadowed dining room and tumbled her against the table.

              Spencer rucked up her skirts. Cold air kissed her legs, and the rough tabletop bit the backs of her knees. He brought his lips to hers with violence, pinching the flesh of her bottom lip between their teeth.

              Alix held her breath, anticipated the hard pressure against her leg. Instead he dropped low, and moments later his lips brushed her knee. He bit the inside of her thigh, digging until she cried out and clutched his hair. It was a feeling more than pain, beyond pleasure; it was pure sensation. He traced the band of her stocking with his nose, panting hot against her skin.

His hand pressed into her belly and urged her back. Alexandra fell against the table and dug nails into its underside. “Please,” she whispered, prompted by a throbbing between her legs. “Spencer, please.”

              His laugh was the deep sound of pure male satisfaction. It vibrated through her thigh, redoubling the ache above. “Beg, Alexandra. Plead with me.” Hands ran under her skirts, gripping her backside and forcing her knees apart.

              “No.” She pressed harder against the table, sucking breath after breath through her nose. “I won't beg.”

              Spencer's tongue dragged a wet trail from her hip along the crease of her thigh. His shoulders opened her further. Alix realized what he was about, began to protest, then bit her tongue. The idea was illicit, and wonderful; why should she stop him? Pressure from his mouth between her legs tore a moan from her chest, raised her back from the tabletop. “I won't beg,” she rasped again, feeling the hollowness in her own words.

He made another slow pass and pressed until she squirmed to get away, all the while digging her heels into his back to keep him close.

              Then he laughed. “You will.”

*              *              *

              Spencer had no notion of time when the sound woke him. It was dark, and no fire burned in the grate. A rumble separated itself from the thunder that had bellowed off shore all night, something more immediate, more dangerous than the weather. Muscles taut and heart pumping, he sat up, Alexandra following suit.

              “Someone is in the house,” she whispered.

              He nodded, not certain she could see him in the dark. “Can you manage a pistol?”

              “Give it to me.”

              He had never stayed at the cottage unarmed. Leaning down beneath the bed, he claimed a brace of pistols from its underside. They were not in London, or even inside the relatively safe borders of Haywood. A lone house, one or two occupants: the equation equaled ripe pickings for a thief or highwayman. He passed one pistol to Alexandra. “In the wardrobe.”

              “What!” she yelled in a whisper.

              “Inside. And stay there until I come for you.”

              “I am not hiding in a cabinet.”

              “Until I come for you. Not for any other reason.” He sat up and fastened his breeches, planting feet on the cold wood floor. He eased forward a bit at a time, transferring his weight from the bed to keep the boards from creaking. His ears strained all the while.

              Whoever it was, they were downstairs. In the front room, by his guess. He listened carefully, catching the familiar off-balance creak of the rocker's treads. Someone bumped a chair, scooting it into the wall. Judging by the sounds he was hearing, there were at least two of them below. He swung the door just far enough to pass through and heard Alix slide from the bed behind him. A candle blazed to life somewhere near the fireplace; he caught its flicker and glow up the stairway. He made out whispers, but not words.

              He crept down a tread at a time until he could peer into the front room through the banister. Empty. Whoever was there, they had moved deeper into the house. Spencer drew a breath, then another, forcing his chest to take them in and let them out slowly and quietly.

              Two steps from the hall, back to the door, he heard it: the click-click of a pistol lock behind his head. “Stay right there and go no further.”

              Spencer lowered his arm and turned slowly.

             
London
, he thought, by the way the soldier dropped his r's, an educated polish to his words erasing a Cockney heritage. These were not local men.

              “In here, captain!” Ruddiness in his cheeks spread farther over a bony face, making the private's already red-tipped nose glow cherry in the candle light.

              At least three pairs of boots rushed the hall, and Spencer dared to turn and face their approach.

              “Captain Dudley,” he drawled, recognizing wild gray sideburns before he could clearly see the man's face.

              Dudley stopped ahead of his men, crossing his arms. “And just who the devil are …” He squinted in the dim light, taking in Spencer’s features. His eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, my apologies, Major-General!” he said, beckoning for the soldier with the gun to aim it somewhere other than at Spencer’s head.

              “Accepted. Now explain what you are doing in my house.”

              Dudley's beady raccoon eyes widened. “We didn't know it was your house, as such. Come to fetch a lady. Family's put in a report she's missing. Abducted, in fact. Hackney driver claims the scoundrel brought her 'ere.”

              Spencer planted hands on his hips, looking to each soldier in turn. “Horse shite.”

              “All the same, lordship, witnesses’ statements are in agreement. We're to have a look about.” Dudley’s low voice was apologetic, trembling with a thread of fear, dreading his superior's answer.

              Alexandra saved him the trouble. “You've had your look, Captain Dudley. Here I am, and of my own free will.”

              She presided over them from the top of the stairs, clutching a sheet closed at her breasts with one hand, pistol still grasped in the other. Rebellious waves tumbled to her shoulders, sweeping her brow. For a moment, he forgot that they were not alone and stared.

              Dudley's staccato throat clearing snapped Spencer back to the here and now. What was she thinking, standing in front of six bawdy, loose-lipped soldiers? Had he been anything but clear in his instructions for her to stay hidden? The soldier behind him pushed eagerly, pressing him out of the way to get further inside the front room. A sick knot weighted in Spencer's gut.

              Captain Dudley shuffled a few paces closer, leaning in to be heard and staring at Alix all the while. “Brother's wife says she ain't well, sir. Tells stories about bein' married or not. I can't follow it.”

              Spencer's lanky captor had shuffled a half-step at a time, nonchalant, while his officer had been talking. Rolling stiff shoulders, Spencer put himself deliberately between the man and the staircase, and drew back on his pistol's hammer for emphasis. Movement stopped, but the private continued stealing hungry looks at Alexandra. There was no one around for miles; if Dudley's men chose to turn on them, it would go poorly.

              “A bit touched, accordin' to Mister Paton's wife,” finished Dudley.

              Spencer tensed, not at the accusations, but at Paulina's having calculated them so well. “Some bad blood,” he offered to Dudley. “Fluff. Don't trouble yourself over it.”

              Dudley nodded, looking lost now that his purpose had been dashed.

“My steward will be here any time now, if you’d like to question him as well. He was expected in the evening; I imagine the storm has slowed his progress from Haywood.” He spoke loudly, for the benefit of Dudley’s men. Information that a visitor was expected, could arrive at any moment had the desired effect. Two soldiers drew back; shoulders and muskets alike drooped in resignation.

              Relief bowed his knees and then something occurred to Spencer, who turned his full attention back to Dudley. “What set you looking for the lady in the first place?”

              Eyes drooping, Dudley pressed his cap to his chest. “There's been a mishap.”

              “What mishap?” Alexandra's voice was raw, small beneath a wind howling outside.

              “Mister Paton. Suffered an injury touring Bath. Head wound.”

              Alix stared, lips working, but no words came out. Spencer asked the question for her.

              “Does he live?” he prodded. “What is his condition?”

              “They thought he was dead at first. Looked as though he'd fallen into the water. But a ledge caught him, spared him goin' in the drink. Nasty gash, but Lord Hastings' physician thinks he'll fare all right. Lady Hastings thought Mrs. Rowan'd like to be with her brother.”

              “Did Lady Hastings raise the fuss that sent you here?” Kidnapping, hysteria. None of that sounded like Laurel.

              “Mrs. Paton was the first to mention it, by the constable's account of things.”

              Without another word, Spencer took down a wooden box from the bookshelf, a case meant to hold letters. He scooped a handful of coins from the bottom and pressed them into Dudley's palm. “You all have come a long way, expended a great deal of effort under –” He hesitated to say
false
, not wanting any confrontation between the soldiers and Paulina until he was back in London. “–
mistaken
information. You’ve been put to no small inconvenience. See to your men's comfort on the way home. Your own as well, captain.”

              Dudley took the coins, cradling them and staring at his hands. A struggle played out on the man's face as he tried to make the money anything but a bribe. “And what is my report, upon my return?”

              “The truth, of course. That you found Mrs. Rowan hale and whole, and very much
not
abducted. That you saw her with your own eyes, and delivered your grave news. That is
sufficient
.”

              Dudley's frame slackened, and he nodded slowly and saluted. “Sorry to have caused a commotion for you both.” He turned his body but not his eyes toward Alexandra. “Mrs. Rowan.”

              “Captain,” she murmured, eyes far away as the company filed out.

              He moved to bar the door behind them, watching to be certain that all six men were leaving, then heaved the door with his shoulder against a screaming gale.

              When he turned back to the stairs, Alix was gone, but their business was entirely unfinished.

*              *              *

              Alexandra must have brought the candle from his study. She was placing it atop a trestle-legged night stand and just shaking out a match when he entered.

              He stood a moment watching her and trying to master his anger. “What are you doing?”

              “Gathering my things, packing. Going to London.”

              Spencer put himself between her and the wardrobe. “You're doing no such thing. Not until we've spoken. Running out in the middle of the night isn’t going to help matters, anyhow.”

She bent down, claimed a few stray hairpins from the floor, and snatched a lost stocking from beneath the bed.

              “Alexandra, please help me grasp what in bloody hell you were thinking tonight.”

              She didn’t look up. “About what!”

              “Coming out there in front of those men, like
this
,” he growled, waving a hand at the paper thin sheet eaten through by candlelight, “when I fully, expressly told you to stay put.”

              “I seem to recall my interference helping you. Bailing you out of that 'abducted lady' mess.”
              “I did not ask for, nor require your help. You might have been hurt, savaged.”

              She snorted. “They were soldiers.”

              The last red strand of his temper snapped. “Raped, Alexandra!”

              She raised fists. “They were
soldiers
, Spencer!”

              “Because they are soldiers doesn't mean they meant well. Not every man came back from the Continent a bloody hero!” He raked fingers through his hair, desperate to make her understand.