Jo Goodman (4 page)

Reaching for his boots by the door, Colin removed a knife from a leather sheath in the right one. He held it lightly in his palm, hefting it once to familiarize himself with the feel and weight of the weapon. He opened the door a crack.

The figure on the other side of the door was rain-soaked. The hooded cape dripped water onto the wooden floor. The person inside the woolen garment was shivering uncontrollably.

"What do you want?" Colin asked tersely. It was too dark in the hallway to make out the features of the stranded traveler.

"The innkeeper said I would find Captain Thorne here." The voice was husky and interspersed with the click of chattering teeth, but the timbre was unmistakably feminine.

Colin opened the door wider and let his visitor see the dagger in his hand. When she visibly started, he was satisfied that she was not a threat. He let her cross the threshold. To Molly he said, "Perhaps you'd better see to that warm water now."

"So I'm dismissed, am I?" she snapped. "And ye already with a replacement in me bed. Heat yer own bleedin' water."

The stranger interjected, "I don't require anything."

Colin managed to grab the door before Molly slammed it on her way out. "I wasn't asking for you," he said. "I've been trying to get a hot bath since I arrived." He saw his visitor shift her head toward the bed and imagined she was able to draw all the correct conclusions. "Yes, well, you're not my first interruption this evening."

Colin thought there might be a reply, better still, the beginnings of an explanation. It seemed his visitor was mesmerized by the tangle of sheets and blankets on his unmade bed. Colin placed the flat of his knife under her chin, let her feel the cool metal, and slowly drew her attention back to him. "That's better," he said.

The tip of his weapon vibrated slightly as she continued to shake with cold. His dark eyes narrowed. Her sodden hood fell too far forward for him to make out her features. "Take off your cape."

The command shook her out of her stupor. "I'll leave it on, thank you."

"It wasn't a suggestion."

She raised her hands as far as the fastener at her throat but there they froze again.

Colin neatly sliced the satin closure. The hood fell back and the cape opened. "Do what I say when I say it," he said, giving no quarter, "and you and your clothes will leave in one piece."

She nodded once and averted her gaze, uncomfortable with the way he was examining her. She didn't blush. Even if she could, it wasn't that kind of stare. His interest was more remote, almost clinical. She might well have been inanimate, a preserved specimen prepared for scientific study.

Colin lowered his knife. With a quick snap of his wrist he sent it spinning end over end until it stuck in the headboard. The sudden movement made her flinch but she didn't cower. That in itself was intriguing. "Take off the cape."

She responded this time, slipping it off her shoulders. It was heavy now that she had to hold it, but the weight was preferable to giving it up. She clutched it in front of her.

Colin walked over to the chair and pulled his shirt off the back. He shrugged into it and tucked the tails in his trousers. He noticed her eyes were still averted.

"I take it you're not one of Molly's sisters," he said.

"Who?" Then she understood. "No. Oh no. I've never seen her before."

Colin pitched the remainder of clothing on the chair toward the bed. He sat down and stretched his legs in front of him. As though uncertain if she were coming or going, the stranger hadn't turned yet in his direction. He studied her slender silhouette while she made up her mind. Beneath the cape which covered her forearms and hands he could make out the spasmodic clenching and unclenching of her fists. There was tension in the line of her shoulders and a lift to her chin that suggested she was not yet resigned to whatever fate or purpose had brought her this far.

Her teeth stopped chattering and her profile became still and smooth. He couldn't be sure, but he thought she might be worrying her lower lip. The full line of it was drawn in slightly.

He gave her time. He wasn't tired. In the best circumstances sleep often eluded him and at this moment he would wager that even if Aubrey Jones was now enjoying the pleasures of Molly's sister
and
Molly, this little diversion was bound to be more entertaining.

Colin watched his uninvited guest take a breath and let it out slowly. She hung her cape on the peg by the door and smoothed it out, squeezing water from the hem. Apparently she was staying.

"I'll heat that water for you," she said softly.

He was going to tell her the water could wait but she was already bending to the task, scooping water from the tub into the kettle on the hearth. She knelt on the brick apron of the fireplace and laid down kindling. After a few clumsy failures with the flint and striker she was able to start the fire.

He followed her movements with interest. She was small and rather delicate, with slender arms and shoulders and a high, narrow waist. Her hair was the color of bittersweet chocolate. Until he saw it in the firelight he thought it was merely black. Now he could see shades of sienna and russet and coffee gave it its deep, rich shading. She wore it pulled away from her face in a loose plait that hung down the middle of her back. The style was more for service than fashion. Colin knew women who plaited their hair at night, in preparation for bed and after giving it the requisite hundred strokes. He liked the ritual, liked lying in bed waiting for the women who did it, counting the strokes and watching the hair dance and swirl as the brush was pulled through.

Her hair shone in the firelight. Strands of dark umber whispered across her smooth cheek. Had she brushed her hair this evening? Had she done it while someone waited in bed for her?

She rose to her feet slowly, brushing her hands on her gown, and looked uncertainly at Colin. He was still watching her with that distant, narrowed glance of his. She cleared her throat.

"I imagine you're wondering who I am," she said.

"No," he said casually. "I think I've figured that out, Miss Leyden." Her widening eyes were confirmation. Were they blue or gray? In the light it was difficult to tell. "I suppose I even know why you're here. What I don't know is what you're prepared to offer in exchange for his miserable life."

Resigned now, Mercedes Leyden let her hands fall to her sides. "How did you know?"

"Weybourne Park isn't far from here. I know because that's where I'm going in the morning. One could manage the distance on foot; even at night it wouldn't be difficult. And you arrived on foot. I glimpsed your entrance into the inn. I'm aware the earl has two daughters and two sons. I make it a point to find out something about a man who's called me out. Since you're most definitely not one of the sons and your clothes are too fine to belong to one of his servants, it occurs to me that you must be one of the daughters."

"Actually I'm his niece."

Colin considered that. "Aaah," he said slowly. "I remember now. The poor relation."

She winced at the description but she didn't deny it or object to it. Mercedes had heard it before, though never so boldly pointed out. "The polite way to introduce it into conversation is to wait until my back is turned. In that manner you can console yourself with the pretense that I haven't really heard the remark. Although I understand that with Americans proper form counts for little."

One of Colin's brows raised in appreciation and approval. The corner of his mouth edged upward ever so slightly. "At least with this American," he said. "And you should be relieved. If I were an Englishman, proper form would forbid me from entertaining you in my room. Then where would you be?"

"In the hallway?" she rejoined. Mercedes noticed that her comment did not broaden the glimmer of a smile on his lips. He was not a man given to easy laughter or sudden, careless grins. She imagined the lines at the corners of his eyes were beaten into his face by sun and salt spray. His youth was captured in the sun-drenched color of his hair. It covered his head like a helmet of light and shimmered at his nape. In startling and unsettling contrast were his eyes, so deep brown they could have been black, so polished and penetrating they reflected an image while shuttering private thoughts.

Colin stood. "Why don't you sit here, Miss Leyden? I'll see to my own water. Unless you're comfortable by the fire."

She would not feel comfortable until she was out of his room, and perhaps not even then. She shivered when he brushed past her.

"Take a blanket from the bed and wrap it around you."

Mercedes recognized it as an order. She glanced at the dagger in the headboard. It wouldn't take much effort on his part to use it on her again. She picked up a blanket and did as she was told.

Colin poked at the fire. Although the rain had stopped, there was still a breeze eddying about the room. Flames flickered and danced. Shadows leaped on the bare walls. Colin dropped the poker against the fireplace and shut and latched the window. The curtains lay still again. Crossing his arms in front of him, he leaned back against the glass. "Did Weybourne send you here?" he asked.

She had to turn slightly in the chair to see him. It was natural for her to draw her feet up under her. Her leather shoes and socks were damp and the heat of her own body felt good against them.

"Oh, for God's sake," Colin muttered. He pushed away from the window and dropped to his knees in front of her. "Give me your feet." When surprise made her too slow to respond, Colin reached under her gown and pulled on her ankles. He removed both shoes, then the stockings, then rubbed her bare feet briskly between his hands. "Did Weybourne send you here?" he asked again.

Mortification. It was the word that came to Mercedes's mind. But she was asking herself why she wasn't experiencing it. In all of her twenty-four years no one had ever touched her so intimately, man or woman, and yet she wasn't at all embarrassed by it. Quite the opposite. The sensations filled her with exquisite relief. It was only when he paused that Mercedes realized he was waiting for an answer to his question.

Drawing her feet away and pushing her gown back to modestly cover her legs, Mercedes found time to recover her voice. "My uncle doesn't know I'm here."

Colin wondered if he could believe her. The Earl of Weybourne was a nasty piece of work. "Really?" he asked skeptically. "Then I confess I'm curious as to what prompted your trek to the inn and why you sought me out."

Mercedes watched him rise easily to his feet and walk to the fireplace again. There was an unmistakable edge to this man, whether it was his smile or the aggressive line of his nose. He did not merely stand; he took a position. The eyes were guarded, the stare fixed. He had a well-defined, clean-shaven jaw and he held his head at an angle that suggested he was not merely listening, but alert, even wary.

"I know you plan to meet my uncle tomorrow morning."

Without consulting his pocket watch, Colin knew she was wrong about the time. "It's after midnight," he said. "I think you mean this morning."

Her hands folded in her lap. Her fingers ached with the effort it took to keep them still. "Yes, you're right, of course. This morning. Near the pond at Weybourne Park. I believe you chose pistols."

"That was..." He paused, searching for the phrase.
"...proper form,
I believe. It was your uncle who called me out."

"He was in his cups."

"I'm sorry," Colin said, his tone indicating sarcasm, not regret. "But I don't recall seeing you in London at the club Tuesday a week past."

"You know I wasn't there. They don't allow women."

"Well, yes, I do seem to recall that. I wondered if you did." He dipped his fingers in the kettle. The water was only tepid. "What makes you think he was drunk?"

"He told me."

"And you believed him," Colin said flatly. "Why, I wonder?"

Why wouldn't she, Mercedes thought. He drank a great deal. Wallace Leyden, the sixth Earl of Weybourne, was frequently three sheets to the wind before he left his bedchamber. It was inconceivable to her that he would spend an evening at his club without a decanter of brandy at his side. "I have my reasons," she said.

"Oh, I don't doubt he's a sot most days of the week and most hours of the day, but last Tuesday he was sober. Do you require proof?"

"No." Mercedes shook her head. She believed him. It was natural that she would take the word of a stranger, even an American stranger, over her uncle. The point was simply that she knew the Earl of Weybourne, knew him as well as his own children, perhaps better. She would count lying as one of his smaller sins. "He may have been sober," she said. "But he wasn't thinking clearly."

"I'll concede that point. I believe a number of people, including several who call themselves his friends, tried to dissuade him from the action he took. He was set on the matter."

"He had everything to lose," she implored.

"He had material things to lose," Colin said. "Until he called me out, his life wasn't one of those things."

Mercedes's face paled. The strain of this past week showed in her clear gray eyes. The cobalt ring at the edge of her irises darkened and she drew in her lower lip again, worrying it. After a moment she said softly, wearily, "So it's true, then. You intend to kill him." She watched him carefully, wondering if he would deny it, and if he did, if she could believe him this time. She needn't have bothered. There was no denial.