Drake's Lair (5 page)

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

Four

Melly stirred in her bed. What was that noise outside… on the roof? She was just too tired to investigate. It was probably just a dream. The Terrills were on her mind when she drifted off to sleep. She was worried about them with no roof over their head and a flaw coming. But why was the air too thick to breathe all of a sudden? She began to cough, and opened her eyes. Why couldn’t she see? It was dark, yes, but not the usual sort of darkness, with little glints of reflected light living in the shadows picking out familiar objects. It was dense and black and smothering. Everything around her was in motion—thick, swirling, suffocating motion.

Fire
!

All at once the cottage door caved in, and strong arms lifted her. They carried her out of the swirling blackness into another, cooler darkness. She gulped the damp night air, as the wind sucked the smoke from her nostrils.

Roaring flames crowned the cottage roof. Bits of fiery thatch danced off on the wind. In seconds the whole cottage had become engulfed. It was a holocaust.

This was no dream. The phantom set her down on a mossy patch beside the hedgerow. He was squatting on his haunches beside her. His face was streaked with soot and ash, and the silk ribbon that wrapped his queue was trailing smoke.

“You’re all right,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

“My wares!” she shrilled, scrabbling to her feet. “Everything I own is in that cottage!”

“No!” he thundered, springing up in pursuit. Quick hands restrained her. “Are you mad? You can’t go back in there.”

At that, the roof collapsed, filling the flaming cottage shell with a fireball that shot sparks skyward into the night. She groaned. Her life as she knew it had literally gone up in smoke before her very eyes, and she sagged in the arms that supported her.

The breast beneath her face was heaving, his rapid heartbeat thudding against her wildly out of rhythm. She didn’t cry, couldn’t cry—absolutely
wouldn’t
cry. She was no watering pot. But a groan was allowed, and her breath left her, siphoned off on the wind in the shape of one.

Her world had collapsed before and it hadn’t defeated her. She would survive again… but how, with nowhere to live? She had no clothes except for the thin batiste nightgown on her back, no wares to sell, and no place to gather the herbs to make more, thanks to the phantom who had just appeared again out of nowhere and saved her.

His hands soothed her gently, though she strained against them. His tanned skin smelled of musk salted with sweat, and sweetened with brandy drunk recently. It was a pleasant odor, very male, that went to her head and made her giddy. But surely not—that was from the shock.

She gave a start. All that lay between her nakedness and the well-muscled body that had suddenly gone rigid against her was the thin nightgown. Her heart leapt, and her tiny fists defended against whatever the turgid pressure of him was doing to her private regions.

“Let go of me, you great lout!” she shrilled, battering him severely. “I’m quite able to stand on my own.”

His hands fell away, and she swayed. Her hopelessly trembling knees betrayed her. It was as though they had turned to jelly, but she was determined, and when he shot his arm out offering support again, she took a step back out of his reach.

He didn’t pursue her. Instead, he froze staring, his hooded eyes raking her from head to toe. It was several moments before she glanced down toward what he was staring at so intently. Backlit by the fire, her nightgown had become transparent. He could see
everything
. Her breath caught in a strangled gasp, and she threw her arms across her body in a vain attempt to hide all her charms at once.

“Avert your eyes, my lord!” she demanded. “Are you just going to stand there and gawk, then? Aren’t you going to try and put it out?” She knew the minute the words left her lips how ridiculous they were. Of course he couldn’t put it out. It was beyond putting out—what a ninnyhammer.

“The flaw will do that, my lady,” he replied. He held out his hand, palm upward. “It’s already begun.”

All at once the heavens opened and the rain sluiced down, soaking them in seconds. Her eyes flashed toward the cottage, still ablaze despite it, and she groaned again. Great belching plumes of smoke and ash billowed upward into the night sky, lit now with a fiery glow that brought a vision of hell itself to mind.

“How could this be?” she said, low-voiced, speaking to herself. “I had no fire burning—no lamps or candles. What could have started…
this
?”

“It was deliberately set,” he volunteered. “I saw the culprit running off as I approached.”

“But, who?
Why
?” she stammered.

“It was too dark to tell,” he said, “and getting you out of there was paramount to running the blighter to ground. I thought perhaps you might be able to tell me. You evidently have an enemy, my lady.”

A rush of hot blood shot up from Melly’s toes and starred her vision at that. Was he still speaking? She staggered forward, moaned, and spiraled unconscious into his waiting arms.

*

Drake stared down at her, spellbound. What the fire hadn’t revealed, the rain now showed him—every contour of her slender body, the shape of her breasts, the dark, pronounced nipples visible through the gauzy fabric plastered wet to her skin, the curve of her hips, and the delicate shadow between her thighs, which he imagined to be the same golden-brown color of her hair. Her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder exposing a creamy expanse of skin that he couldn’t help but touch as he covered it.

“
Zeus
!” he muttered. And wriggling out of his blue morning coat one arm at a time, he wrapped it close around her and hoisted her over his horse’s saddle, meanwhile soothing the frightened Andalusianer to a standstill where he’d tethered him alongside the stacked stone wall. Then mounting, he took her in his arms and rode off toward Drake’s Lair cradling her close against him.

Galloping along on horseback fully aroused was not a comfortable thing, but the soft pressure of her body bouncing against him soon made an end to his discomfort. There was no way to prevent it. Overexertion had had its way with him—that and the damnable witch’s spell, and he groaned as the climax siphoned off tensions that had built inside him since Spain.

That this had happened while they both were fully clothed, and only to him, wasn’t much comfort afterward. The episode had an alarming, bestial quality about it, and he hadn’t experienced the likes of that since his Corinthian days. What would it be like to really make love to this cheeky little toffee-haired, amber-eyed sorceress, to hold what his eyes had seen in his arms, skin to skin?
Stubble it
.
Or the problem is going to arise all over again
.

Thinking of James Ellery then, cooled the throbbing fire that still threatened his loins. He took a deep, tremulous breath. No harm had been done after all. She was never going to know how she had affected him. Besides, she was taken. She was just one more opportunity that his steward had grasped. But that thought was uncharitable, regretted instantly. Ellery had seen the gel first, after all, damn the man’s eyes.

That no one else came to her rescue didn’t surprise him. Calliope Dane’s cottage in the vale was somewhat isolated, and it was late. He’d stayed on visiting with the doctor for some time before starting back—even inquired about the provocative Demelza Ahern—but the doctor hadn’t added anything to Mrs. Laity’s account. Now with the flaw howling over the coast, the fire would probably be out by the time anyone knew it had even occurred. Who could have done such a thing? Why would anyone want to harm her—to
kill
her? That’s what it amounted to really. Could it have been someone among the Tinkers, perhaps—or another jealous lover? She didn’t seem to know. But who could trust a woman? Not him—not Tristan Hannaford, Earl of Shelldrake. Not anymore. Not after five years ago—never again. Least of all, this defiant little witch who’d proven at the outset that she couldn’t be trusted.

She had groaned awake by the time they reached Drake’s Lair. Bellowing to the stable master, Drake slid off the Andalusian’s back and lifted her into his arms. Fry poked his head out of a stall close by, where he’d been rubbing down Ellery’s mare, and Drake gave a grunt. All must be well at the Terrills at least, since the steward had gotten back before him.

“Leave that and see to Gideon here,” he charged. “This piece of horseflesh is worth more than ten nags the like of that swayback you’re coddling.”

Why was he mad at Ellery’s horse, for God’s sake—or
Ellery
, for that matter?

“Y-yes, m’lord,” the gravel-voiced stabler replied, rushing to obey.

“Put me down!” his captive demanded meanwhile, hammering at his head and shoulders with her tiny fists. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Stop that!” he thundered. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help. Put me down!”

“Don’t you?” he said, setting her on her feet. “There. You’re down. Now what, my lady?”

“Take me home! I want to go… home,” she moaned.

“You have no home, remember? It just went up in flames. You have no clothes, and no shoes. If you want to cut your feet to shreds on Welsh bluestone, be my guest,” he said, with a dramatic bow from the waist, and a wide sweep of his arm.

She turned her attention to the sculptured circular drive behind, and stood first on one foot, then the other.

“I thought not,” he said smugly. “Now then, if you will allow, I shall carry you to the house, where Mrs. Laity can look after you until I can sort this coil out. You’ll stay here tonight. She will prepare you a suite of rooms, see to your bath, and find you something to wear. Then in the morning, we shall decide what’s to be done with you.”

She made no reply, and he scooped her up without ceremony and carried her into the manor.

*

“You’ve scorched your queue,” said Griggs, examining it as Drake sank into a tub of steaming hot water in his dressing room. “The ribbon’s badly burnt clean through.”

“Cut it off then.”

“The ribbon, my lord?”

“No, the queue.”

“A-are you sure, my lord? You’ve had it ever since—”

“I’m sure. Just to here, though,” he directed, gesturing toward his earlobes. “Don’t make me look like a fop, with it all swept forward in front. I’m no bloody
pink of the ton
.”

“Yes, my lord. I’ll just get the shears.”

Drake shrugged. It was time for a change anyway.

After a moment, the valet shuffled back from the chiffonier with the scissors and a hand mirror, and the queue fell in one snip. Reaching back, palm upward, Drake motioned Griggs to give it to him, and while the valet continued trimming his hair, he scrutinized the burnt braid, still trailing what was left of the black silk ribbon that had wrapped it.

“It’s almost like losing one’s virginity,” he observed, “—or being raped.”

Hadn’t
that
just happened, bigod?

“My lord?” said the valet.

“Nothing, Griggs,” he replied through a sigh. “I’m just feeling a bit philosophical at the moment.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Is Mr. Ellery still awake, do you know?”

“No, my lord, he’s retired for the evening.”

“I don’t want to share you with him any longer,” he said flatly, scowling. “It’s not convenient. See that Prowse engages him a valet of his own first thing in the morning, or let him choose his own. I’ll be needing you full time from now on.”

“As you wish, my lord. Will this do, then?” Griggs inquired, passing Drake the hand mirror.

Zeus
, but he did look like a fire-breathing dragon. The hair was a shock, but acceptable—not too long, or too short. He’d forgotten how it waved and curled naturally when short, without the weight of the queue to straighten it.

“Very nicely,” he replied. “I see you’ve left it all one length. What? In training, in case I want to cultivate another?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Ummmm,” Drake grunted. “Think you know me do you? Well, maybe so, maybe not. I refuse to be all that predictable.”

“Yes, my lord. I’ve laid out your things. Will there be anything else, my lord?”

“No, Griggs. I won’t need you further. I think I’ll just lie here awhile and soak. I know it’s June, but a summer flaw can get into the bones with the best of them on this coast, and mine are weary to the marrow.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Remember what I said—you’re not to attend Jim Ellery again. Some things are still mine in this house, I’ll be bound.”

“Begging your pardon, my lord, but about Mr. Ellery… you were away, and—”

“I know, old boy, but I am come home now, and it
is
my home. It would do everyone under this roof well to remember that.”

Five

Drake instructed Mrs. Laity to take a breakfast tray to the suite of rooms on the third floor that he had assigned to his houseguest. He wanted to speak with his steward alone, and Demelza Ahern was simply too much of a distraction.

Downstairs in the dining hall, a cloth had been laid over one end of the banquet table, since only Drake and Ellery would be eating. Even without the leaves, the carved mahogany table was daunting. Fully extended, it would seat fifty comfortably.

Drake heaped his plate with coddled eggs, sausages, and cheddar bread from the serving dishes laid out on the sideboard, and was already seated when James Ellery entered looking like one of the storm clouds racing before the flaw outside. Drake studied the body language he knew all too well, as the steward served himself with little regard for the silver tureens and china then took his seat at the table while the footman poured the coffee.

“Something amiss?” he queried.

“You know very well something’s amiss,” Ellery responded. “You relieve me of Griggs without so much as a by your leave? You might at least consent to share him until I can engage a replacement. He has been my man for five years you know.”

“And mine until five years ago. He was Father’s before that. He passed him to me for my sixteenth birthday, just before he abandoned me for his mistress and went off to the Continent to reclaim his misspent youth. Let’s see… I’m thirty-three now, that means I’ve had him all of seventeen years, minus five, of course, in view of my hiatus, giving me seniority, which is a moot point, considering that this is
my
earldom, after all, and I can do as I bloody well please. I don’t choose to share him, because I know you, Jim. If I consent to that, content with the status quo, you will dig in your heels, procrastinate, and he will simply never be replaced.”