How a Lady Weds a Rogue (10 page)

“You may not shoot him,” she said hastily.

“Thank you, Miss Lucas. But if you could now—”

A female shriek cut the air, followed by a cracking noise, a massive thud, and a series of yips then a man’s shout: “Oh,
God
!”

Then everything seemed to happen at once. Ramses came flying around the corner, barking wildly. Mr. Yale snapped the pistol across Mr. Eads’s wrist. The Scot cried out, dropped his weapon, and swung a huge fist at Mr. Yale’s jaw. It went wide of the mark while the butt of Mr. Yale’s pistol instead found its home upon Mr. Eads’s brow. Ramses clamped on the Highlander’s boot, snarling. Mr. Eads’s hand flew to his head, a string of foreign words flowing from his mouth, and the little dog left off his ankle and retreated warily.

“Don’t try it again.” Mr. Yale plucked the weapon from the ground. “Are you otherwise armed?”

“O’ course A am.” The other man scowled, pressing his fingers to a small gash on his forehead. “A won’t use them. A only hit ye because ye hit me.”

“You should have dropped your weapon when I told you to.”

The moaning from the yard beyond took up epic proportions. Mrs. Polley’s scolds rang over it. Diantha moved toward the sounds then glanced back. Her breath jerked. Her traveling companion was holding his pistol barrel against Mr. Eads’s brow.

“I will have your word on that, Duncan.”

Duncan?

The Highlander’s massive shoulders heaved. “God damn, Yale.” He glared. “Ye have it.”

Mr. Yale lowered the pistol. “And I’ll know why you’ve given it too, after I have seen to the trouble that lies beyond.” He tossed the other man’s weapon onto the ground at his feet again, as though it were nothing at all. “Leave now or assist, as you wish. But do not go far, or your fate will prove much worse than in Calcutta.”

Diantha stared. He came to her side and she finally thought to snap her gaping mouth shut.

“You are
giving him
back
the pistol? You
know
him? His
Christian
name
?”

“And his birthday, as well as his mother’s favorite marmalade. Now, Miss Lucas, if you would finally oblige me by following my instructions, I pray you make yourself a shadow behind me and come along. Your lady’s companion, it seems, has attacked a man.”

She did as he bid, mostly because it seemed foolish to defy a man who had bested a person of Mr. Eads’s size with such little to-do, but also because she was rather shaky and following him felt safe. He made her feel safe, despite the hulking Highlander retrieving his pistol behind her and the moaning man in the yard ahead. Yet at the same time it was quite apparent to her that he was the cause of her shaking.

“This may all be somewhat unusual to me,” she whispered. “Naturally.”

“I imagine so, but it is over now.” He paused and looked down at her. “Thank you for your assistance.” It was not what he wished to say. She could see this clearly in his silver eyes that seemed to seek within her where she trembled with emotion at once both terrible and wonderful. His gaze only made the trembling worse.

“And?”

His brow drew down. “And you needn’t worry again.”

“Mr. Eads will not threaten me again, or he will not threaten you?”

“Even were he to, I suspect you could hold your own.” It seemed for an instant as though he wished to smile, but now his eyes held no light.

“Why did you pretend to be inebriated?”

“You mistake it. I did not pretend.” He turned and followed the wall around the corner.

Mrs. Polley stood over a prone man, little bits of white cheese and crockery spread all about the place like snow. The man’s face was contorted with pain. He glanced at Mr. Yale and groaned anew.

“See here, sir,” Mrs. Polley directed at Mr. Yale, “if this is that man you’re so worried about following us, he’s a bag of cowardice.”

“Perhaps his courage is merely not as hearty as yours, ma’am.” Mr. Yale crouched at the man’s shoulder. “It seems your pursuit of me, sir, has landed you in an unhappy place today.”

“Who is that harpy?” He gritted his teeth. His left leg was thrust beneath his other at an angle that made Diantha’s stomach queasy again.

“Come now, sir. That is no way to speak of a member of the fair sex.”

“She—” The man gritted his teeth. “She said you would be a clever son of a—”

“Ladies present, my friend.” Mr. Yale clucked his tongue. “Do mind your manners. Now, tell me, who are you and who is ‘she’?”

The man closed his eyes, his lips a zigzag.

Mr. Yale nodded. “I see. You are probably wise. I would not tell me who I am and what my purpose is in following me if I were you either.”

“What will you do with him?” Diantha asked. “He is in terrible pain.”

“From the bump on his head as well as the broken leg, no doubt.” He looked at Mrs. Polley. “You have outdone yourself, madam.”

“A man’s never snuck up on me without suffering for it,” she said indignantly, brandishing a crockery handle bereft of crock.

“Have you many men sneaking up on you, then?”

“In my younger days I wasn’t a dog to look at. Some of those so-called gentlemen in my lady’s house didn’t know where their hands shouldn’t be.” She slanted him a knowing look then turned her orbs meaningfully to Diantha.

Diantha ignored it. “What will you do with him?”

Mr. Yale looked down the road. “I shan’t have to do much, in fact. Would you be so kind as to retrieve that bottle of spirits from the carriage and give it to him?”

The man’s eyes popped open. “You wouldn’t kill me.”

Mr. Yale’s brows went up. “Of course I wouldn’t. What sort of person do you imagine you are pursuing?”

But he had threatened Mr. Eads moments ago with murder. Hadn’t he? Diantha’s heart would not cease racing. It was quite clear that he was not what he seemed on the surface, but she did not understand which was real and which was not. Within moments her journey had gone from reckless to truly dangerous.

“The miller who is now returning to work after his dinner will set your leg,” he said. “You will want to have gin in you before that, I daresay.” He glanced at her. “The bottle?”

She went, casting a glance over her shoulder to see him walking toward the miller, an aged man, short, dark and wiry with age, followed by two younger men, all in rough garments. Mr. Eads was nowhere to be seen.

She returned to the prone man as Mr. Yale and the others approached from the road. The miller and Mr. Yale were in quiet conversation but she understood nothing of it. The language met her ears peculiarly, lilting yet at once rough with strange rolls and crunches.

Mr. Yale stopped before the man in brown and crouched again, scratching his fingers through the shaggy fur between Ramses’ ears as the dog pressed against his thigh. The muscle was clearly defined by his breeches now. Diantha became warmly aware that she had never stared at a man’s thigh before. It was a day, it seemed, for disconcerting realizations.

“This is Mr. Argall,” he said to the man in brown, gesturing toward the miller whose wrinkled face was grim. “He and his sons here will set your leg then convey you to their home, where Mrs. Argall will care for you until you are able to be taken in a cart to the nearest public house. You needn’t concern yourself with compensating your hosts; I have arranged for that. No—” He raised a palm, though the man’s tight lips showed no sign of speech. “You needn’t thank me. Only, be a considerate guest, if you will. The Welsh are infinitely generous with their hospitality, but they do not take kindly to ingratitude.” He paused and lowered his voice. “As I do not take kindly to being followed. Pray, sir, bear this in mind when you are once again on your feet.”

He stood, spoke again with Mr. Argall, then shook the miller’s hand and came to her.

“Miss Lucas,” he said quietly, grasping her elbow and drawing her away from the scene of broken bones and crockery toward Galahad. “Would you be so kind as to busy Mrs. Polley in preparing for our departure while I converse with our friend for a moment in private? He has gone down the path to avoid notice, which is undoubtedly for the best.”

“I will, as long as you do not shoot him and he does not shoot you.”

“I shan’t. He shan’t. Not on this occasion. I promise it.” He released her and mounted his horse. “I won’t be but a minute and then we will be on our way again.”

She stroked Galahad’s satin neck. “The miller looked at you as though he knew you.
Do
you know him?”

“The Welsh are a curious folk, Miss Lucas. One must never mind their peculiarities.”

“How do you know the language? Have you lived here?”

“For the first eighteen years of my life.”

He was Welsh. She didn’t know why it should surprise her, except that she had never imagined him living anywhere but London. He had always seemed so elegant, so gentlemanlike and refined in speech and manner. But now she had seen him unshaven, his eyes glittering with anger. And when he had kissed her, she hadn’t felt like a lady being kissed by a gentleman. She’d felt like a woman being wanted by a man.

She needed to know more about him. She needed it in some place deep inside her she did not quite understand. “Are you familiar with this region, then? Is your family here?”

“My father’s home is considerably north and west, on the coast of Gwynedd.”

“Why are we in Wales now, Mr. Yale?”

“Because that is the direction in which the road went, Miss Lucas.” He pulled Galahad away and along the path that ran abreast of the wood.

He was not telling the entire truth. Given circumstances, she should not trust him. But the bleak flatness of his gray eyes now pressed all such worries aside. He was not the man she had met thrice at Savege Park, nor even the man in the Mail Coach two days ago. Something was terribly amiss.

Chapter 11

“Y
er drunk, Wyn.”

“That I am, Duncan.” He drew Galahad to a halt in shadows beneath the pine boughs and dismounted. The muscular roan tethered to a branch nearby lifted its head. Wyn turned to the Scot sitting with his broad back against a tree trunk. The evergreen looked small in comparison. Pistol or no, Eads could kill a man with his bare hands. But they’d fought hand-to-hand before. Wyn knew Duncan’s weaknesses.
Very few
. And he was indeed far drunker than he had intended.

He hadn’t intended to be drunk at all. Only to pretend. Allow Eads to come close enough to frighten her but not close enough for danger. But Eads threatened her in truth. History repeating itself. Pride. Arrogance. A bottle. A girl in danger.

“A could take ye nou.” Eads’s posture was relaxed, his eyes alert. “A’m nae so quick as ye. But yer reflexes must be slower when yer drunk.”

“Myles is no doubt paying you a fortune to bring back my heart. Still beating, I suspect.”

The hulk’s eyes narrowed.

“I did not intend to cross him, you know. I merely needed to retrieve a girl.” A girl Myles had borrowed from her family without leave. A girl that the anonymous director of the Falcon Club had assigned him to retrieve. The director hadn’t known, of course, that he had once worked for Myles too. For Myles . . . and others.

“Yer lying.”

“You’ve no idea how often.” He stared at the spot on Galahad’s neck where a girl with lapis eyes had laid her hand minutes earlier while her wide gaze sought more answers than he could give. His vision fogged into the black.

Eads climbed to his feet. He stood only an inch or two taller than Wyn, but his mass gave him impressive size. “A’m short-tempered with liars.”

“Ah, but you have given your word.” He tipped his brow against the horse’s neck. The gin had rendered his body somewhat numb. “And my reflexes are—” He snapped back the cock on the pistol beneath his arm, the barrel pointing dead on the Scot’s chest. “—fine.”

Eads whistled through his teeth. “How do ye move with such haste, man? What sort of demon are ye?”

“Take care, Duncan. The superstitions of your ancestors are surfacing.”

“And yer the man who has no ancestors, aren’t ye? Or so ye claim.”

“Why did you relinquish your weapon after she told her story?” He tilted the pistol’s mouth aside.

“Yer unpredictable with drink in ye. Ye’d never harm me sober, but ye woudna hesitate ta nou if A drew on ye. Or if A’d truly threatened her. She means something ta ye, A think.”

“Don’t bother thinking, Duncan, old chap. You know how it wearies me.”

“Yer a conceited ass, Wyn.”

“Possibly.” He closed his eyes. The scenery and man before him were crossing, as they had by the mill—when he’d drawn on the assassin pointing a pistol at a lady with the heart of a hero—when every vein and artery in his body had shook with fear. “Tell me why, or I will in fact shoot you now. I will shoot you in the kneecap and you will spend a month in Mr. Argall’s barn whiling away the hours with that chap with the soft skull.” He leaned back into his horse, the beast’s steadiness the only solid thing in existence. “Poor fellow.”

“Who is he?”

Wyn opened his eyes, the lids heavy. His throat and tongue were dry. He needed water, but he wanted brandy. “Haven’t the foggiest. Do you?”

“A won’t let him have ye. Yer mine, Yale.”

“Yes, I am flattered. And so you see I find it remarkably interesting that you promised the lady you would not harm me. Now, do put my rampant curiosity to rest and tell me why you are granting me such a boon.” A boon. He was beginning to talk like her. Before long he would be singing songs of knights and maidens cavorting in the glade. Or not.

“ ’Twas for ma sister.”

“Which sister?” He brought the Highlander’s face into focus for an instant. “Ah. A sister who lost her way, much as the lady’s mother has lost her way, I am to guess.”

The Scot’s jaw worked. Within Wyn, so deep he almost did not feel it, some memory of compassion stirred.

“I see.” He uncocked the pistol and slid it into his traveling pack. “I wish her to believe that you remain a threat to me.”

“A do remain a threat ta ye.”

“A threat to me while she is in my company. And a threat to her.”

Eads glared. “Yer playing a deep game with this girl, Wyn.”

“Unfortunately not as deep as your depraved imagination has taken you, Duncan. But you have given your word and I anticipate your assistance.”

“A’ll be there at the end.”

“I expect you to. Once I have delivered her safely into the hands of her family, you may do with me what you will. But . . .” He turned his head to the man that he had tracked halfway across Bengal, searching for a Highland rebel only to discover a man beaten by grief and angry as a cobra to have been found. “If you would first allow me to take care of an errand, I would be much obliged.”

“A don’t owe ye anything.”

Wyn set his foot in the stirrup. “I haven’t the least idea why you are still working for Myles when you have an estate—good Lord, a
title
—to retrieve in Scotland.” He hauled himself into the saddle, recognizing even in his muddled state the hypocrisy of these words. “But if you truly cannot wait to kill me, then I ask only one thing.”

The Scot’s eyes narrowed.

Wyn swallowed over the desert of his throat. “If you must kill me, Duncan,” he said slowly so as to get the words just right, “don’t make it easy on me. Draw the thing out, will you?” He turned away, pressed his knees into Galahad’s sides and guided him out from beneath the trees into the slanting afternoon sunlight, toward the mill in which as a lad more than a decade ago he had worked a harvest season.

Mr. Argall did not in fact recognize him. He no longer resembled that boy who had loaded grain and hauled sacks of flour hour after hour, week after week, gaining strength in his arms, hot meals, and a few coins for his labors. That boy had been angry. Running away. But he’d not yet killed in cold blood.

Diantha had saved them both. Instead of cowering in fear and begging him to return her home, she met danger with passionate sincerity. In baring her heart to the man pointing a pistol at her, she had been braver than he’d ever been. Begging Eads to spare his life so she could save another’s. Believing he would help her.

He pinned his gaze between his horse’s ears, dead ahead to the carriage waiting on the road. Chestnut curls spilling out of her bonnet caught the light filtering through high clouds and glistened.

Once before a girl had trusted him. Chloe Martin, the Duke of Yarmouth’s terrified ward, had told him her horrifying story and he promised to help her. Just like today, he had trusted in his extraordinary abilities—his intelligence and reflexes. And, in a tragic accident, instead of saving Chloe he had killed her.

He would not help Diantha Lucas. She had put her faith in the wrong man.

A
nother ten miles along the narrow southerly road skirting hills that for centuries the English had called Shropshire and the Welsh theirs, the modest town of Knighton rose along a steep main street. Wyn installed the ladies in a tidy inn, arranged for their dinner to be served in a small private parlor, and saw the horses bedded in stalls with dry straw. When the ladies bid him good-night—the maiden with creased brow, the matron with suspicious eyes—and ascended to their bedchamber, he went to the taproom.

D
iantha knew she oughtn’t to be standing where she was standing or contemplating what she was contemplating.

In theory, while lying restlessly in bed beside a snoring Mrs. Polley, it had seemed a reasonable enough program: knock on his door, demand that he answer her questions about Mr. Eads and the man in brown, then return to bed and finally sleep. It was not a plan in the truest sense, but it seemed the only solution to calming her nerves. She must understand better what had passed. She must understand
him
better. With knowledge, a woman could plan.

She lifted her fist toward the door panel and took a deep breath. Then a deeper one. Then she closed her eyes and—

“Impressive, Miss Lucas.”

She whirled around. He stood across the short corridor, at the top of the stair. A sconce in the stairwell lit him from below, casting shadows into his eyes and carving dark hollows in his cheeks. His arms were crossed loosely over his chest, one black-clad shoulder propped against the wall.

Her lungs released a little whorl of air. “Oh, there you are.”

“I wondered how long you would stand there before you mustered the courage to knock. Or the wisdom to return to your own bedchamber without knocking.” His voice sounded unfamiliar, slow.
Emotionless
. Without any feeling at all, like his eyes at the mill. “Not as long as I had imagined.”

She should walk over to him and make this conversation unremarkable by behaving as she always did. She could not. His unnerving stillness glued her feet to the floorboards.

“I wish to speak with you about what happened today.”

“And you could not wait until breakfast to do so, I gather?” No warmth either—the warmth that was always there beneath the teasing.

“Mrs. Polley will be with us at breakfast. I understood that you wished her to remain ignorant of our encounter with Mr. Eads today. Did I understand you incorrectly?”

He moved toward her, his steps very deliberate. A shiver of fear passed up her spine. Why she should fear him, she hadn’t any idea, unless it was the lusterless steel of his eyes in the dark corridor or the scent of cigar smoke and whiskey that accompanied him. But she was accustomed enough to the latter from parties during her visits to Savege Park. Her fear must come from the incident with the pistols earlier that day.

No. It was not the pistols. It was his eyes, the absence of any light in them. It made her at once cold and unnervingly hot—cold with that unexpected fear, and hot with . . . she knew not what.

“You understood me well enough. In that matter.” He halted close. Unbidden, her foot inched back, her heel tapping the door panel, and he watched her. “But it seems, Miss Lucas, that you understand me very poorly in another.” His gaze flickered down her face to her mouth, black lashes obscuring the gray of his darkened eyes. For a moment he seemed to study her lips. Then it dipped to her breasts. “Very poorly indeed.” He reached forward and placed a palm against the wall beside her head.

“I—” She pulled in a tight breath, but it made her breasts jerk upward. He was still looking at them.
Him
. Mr. Yale. Her gentlemanlike hero. Her hero who’d had his tongue in her mouth that morning. “I . . .” Her own tongue seemed to forget its purpose, lost in the memory of his caressing it.

He leaned toward her, bending his head, and the scents of strong liquor and tall, very dark man tumbled over her.

“You should go to your bedchamber now.” His voice was husky.

“I want you to kiss me again.” She nearly choked on the words as they tumbled out. “Or rather
more
, actually.” She had not meant to say this. She had not planned it. But she did want it. She’d wanted it since he walked out of the Bates’s stable that morning, yet he had told her she mustn’t ask again. But now she might take advantage of the fact that he had been drinking spirits. A great quantity of spirits, it seemed. His gaze returned to hers, but it did not really look at her, rather, it focused elsewhere even as he stared directly at her from only inches away.

His fingers clamped about her wrist before she even saw him move. She gasped. His grip dug into her flesh.

“Do you? Now why doesn’t that come as a surprise to me, I wonder?”

“Mr. Yale,” she managed in a whisper, her breaths fast in the close space between them. “You are hurting me.”

“With every pleasure there is also pain, Miss Lucas.” His eyes were dull and distant. “Has no one ever told you that?” He tilted his head down. Half of her wished to flee, the other half to rise onto her toes and press her lips to his hovering so close.

“Just how intoxicated
are
you?”

His gaze traveled over her face, and for an instant she saw a spark of light. “Entirely.”

His mouth covered hers.

It was not like the kisses he had given her that morning in the stable. It did not begin gently or slowly. It was complete, his mouth seizing hers thoroughly and demanding of hers reciprocal treatment. And she could not deny that she wanted him to kiss her like this. Her lips would not deny it. They sought his as eagerly as his sought hers. Feeling him made her more eager yet, and hungry for even more with each meeting. His flavor, whiskey and tobacco, was another world, a world of men and pistols and honor and danger, and she was weak with her entrance into that world.
His
world. He was kissing her and she knew he did not wish to but he was doing so anyway.
Because he was foxed?

She didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was standing by a man’s bedchamber door in the corridor of an inn, letting herself be kissed like no lady should. She
wanted
this.

His hand came around her face, scraping through the hair at her temple and holding her tight, then his other as well. He drew her to him, capturing her mouth again and again in a succession of kisses that grew more intense. The tip of his tongue strafed her lips, slipping along the edges, stalling her breaths in her throat. Then he dipped inside her and she melted.

It was like dying and coming alive at once, so perfect, sublime, and she felt it
everywhere
—in her mouth, in her breasts and belly and in the deliciously hot place between her legs. A sound came from her throat she did not intend, a sigh slipping from her lips to his. “
Oh
,
yes
.”

He broke away.

One powerful hand went to his face. His breaths came hard, like hers, his fingers pressed into his eyes at the bridge of his nose. He shook his head once.

“No,” he uttered. “God, no.” He turned and moved to the stair with lurching steps.

She touched her lips, hot and damp now. Her heart raced. “Why did you stop?”