My Lady Rival (21 page)

A full half hour passed before Willa found the courage to continue, her breath hitching at every small noise emanating from the depths of the house. Only one other servant—the butler—passed by during that time.

If she were going to go, then it must be now. Otherwise she should turn around and leave the house as she’d come in. She’d run up the stairs at the count of three.

One. Two. Three.

She didn’t move.

Perhaps after ten.

No. Now.

Blood beat at her ears as she rushed from her hiding place and surged up the stairs. She tripped on the last step, tumbling face forward on the landing. Her elbows caught the brunt of her weight.

She heard voices, then footsteps.

Oh, God.

Pushing herself to her hands and knees, Willa scrambled up, then ran down the hallway and inside the first room she found. She shut the door and slammed herself against the wall behind it, her lungs bellowing and her entire body pulsing with terror.

Dear God. Could she possibly be a worse criminal?

A lthough more shadows hugged the room she’d entered, there were shapes strewn throughout the long rectangular room she could identify. A pianoforte. A harp. A viola on its stand.

A music room.

Shouts echoed outside the door, and Willa’s gaze darted to the window on the opposite side of the room. Of course she couldn’t jump from the window. It was at least fifteen feet to the ground, if not more. She would break bones; she might die.

die.

The floor beneath her feet shook. Willa tensed. Someone ran past the music room. Seconds later, a thunder of noise—more people running—past the music room. These were the voices she’d heard.

“Stop, thief!”

“Get him!”

Him? Someone else had snuck into the house?

A hysterical giggle caught at the back of her throat, but Willa swallowed it. She mustn’t make a sound.

She heard a door slam far in the distance, then another. A nd another. Closer this time.

They were searching the rooms!

She should hide, quickly. Beneath the pianoforte. No, they would see her.

Behind the harp. No, not there, either.

Her breath came faster and faster as she glanced about the room, from corner to corner, from chair to instrument, from instrument to chair. There was nowhere to go.

Then the door opened, and she forgot to breathe at all.

A man’s form appeared—another shadow in the darkness—and he quickly turned, shutting the door quietly.

The other intruder!

She watched, frozen, as he, too, scanned the music room for a place to hide.

They’d called him a thief. A true criminal. Did he carry a weapon? A knife, perhaps? If he discovered her there inside the room with him, would he think her a threat and stab her?

A silent scream built low, starting all the way from her toes. It coursed up her legs, through her stomach, into her chest.

Voices. The next room—the door slammed there. They were coming!

The man’s head jerked toward the corridor; then he lunged behind the music room door and against her.

Willa’s head bounced against the wall. Making claws of her hands, she attacked everywhere she could reach. His neck, his shoulders, his jaw. The scream reached the back of her throat, and she opened her mouth.

“What the bloody—” He pushed his body into hers, clapping a hand over her mouth as he pinned hers arms to her chest with his weight.

She sank her teeth into his palm.

He gave another low curse, then shoved his mouth against her ear. “Stop, Willa.

It’s me. A lex.”

“A lex?” she mumbled against his hand. “You—”

The door to the music room opened.

Willa watched it swing toward them, stilling an inch away from A lex’s back. A flicker of light shone on the wall to her left. Through the crack between the door and its frame she could see three male servants enter the music room. The last one paused at the door, his sleeve still in her vision.

one paused at the door, his sleeve still in her vision.

She swallowed the scream. She scarcely dared to breathe, lest the stirring of air from her nostrils or the movement of her chest against A lex’s alert the servants to their presence. A lex must have thought to do the same, because his warm breath at her ear came slowly, softly—almost a caress.

The light reflected on the left wall dimmed.

“Look behind the curtains.”

A snap of cloth, as if the servant had been prepared to catch the intruder with an “A ha!”

“He’s not here.”

“Could he have gone out one of the windows?”

“No, I’ve been checking them in all the rooms.”

“C’mon!” The man by the door spoke. “He must’ve gone down the other way when we weren’t looking. Sam, you go upstairs. Tim, you go downstairs. I’ll search the other rooms again.”

They filed out, taking the light and slamming the music room door behind them.

Thirty seconds might have passed, at least no more than a minute. A ll at once sensation returned to her body, and right along behind it, awareness of the man who still stood against her, pinning her to the wall with his strong, hard, heavy body. His nose pressing into her hair, his mouth at the top of her ear.

Neither of them spoke and neither moved for several minutes.

Finally A lex sniffed. “Your hair. That’s where the cinnamon comes from.”

“Please move.”

“I think we should stay like this. They might come back at any moment.”

“A lex . . .” She paused. It was a tempting suggestion.

“I suppose you want to know what I’m doing here. I followed you.”

“Obviously. But why?”

“It’s what I would have done in your circumstances.”

“Wonderful. You might have been stealthier in the following. Now we’ll both get caught.”

Down the hall in the opposite direction, they heard another door close.

They froze, not saying anything until minutes later when the echo of yet another door, farther away, slammed.

“Please move,” she whispered. “I—I don’t want you near me.” A ny longer and she feared the places her hands would travel, the hollows her mouth would seek.

He lurched backward. Moonlight streamed in from the curtains the servant had left opened, framing his silhouette. She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the frown in his voice when he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I was only thinking— Of course . . .”

Running footsteps overhead. Sam was very enthusiastic and probably thorough in his search. The whole house was probably crawling with servants. They would be back this way. They would probably search the music room again.

Willa stepped to the left and tried to edge around A lex toward the window. It Willa stepped to the left and tried to edge around A lex toward the window. It was the only way.

He caught her wrist and pulled her toward him. “No, the next room. There’s a tree.”

Loosening his grip, he slid his fingers down to hold her hand, then led her toward the door. “Follow me,” he whispered.

He opened the door and Willa blinked against the light. The servants had set all the wall sconces blazing. Turning his head in both directions, A lex said, “We’ll wait until he comes out and goes into another room. When I say go, we go.

Understand?”

Voices shouted nearby, a brighter light flickering against the wall. More servants coming up the staircase.

A lex cursed. “We don’t have time. Go!”

He ran out the door, then ran back and grabbed her hand. “I said go!”

“I know, I know,” she said, gratitude and pleasure flooding her that he’d come back for her. She’d stood frozen, her feet unable to move—not because she didn’t want to follow him on principle, but because of fear.

They ran into the next room, a salon, and to the window nearest the fireplace, where the sturdy branches of a large tree stretched toward the house.

A lex threw open the window. “I’ll go first,” he said, swinging his legs over the sill. “Then I’ll pull you with me.”

Willa considered the branch nearest the window—quite medium-sized, it was—

then looked past A lex to the ground below. “A ll right.” She might break an arm and a leg tonight, after all.

A lex placed one foot on the branch, bouncing a little to test his weight. He grinned back at her. “God loves us, Willa.” He climbed out onto the branch, then turned around to face her, straddling the branch as he held out his hands.

The door crashed open behind her.

“There he is!”

“There are two of them!”

Willa glanced over her shoulder. “Now!” A lex shouted. With the scream finally tearing loose from her throat, she hurried onto the sill and took his hands.

Someone caught the back of her coat. They tugged.

She screamed again, unbalanced. Her gaze flew from A lex’s face and his dark wide eyes to the branch now wobbling with his weight, to the ground far below.

His hands tightened around hers. “Jump! I’ll catch you, I promise.” She didn’t question him. Jerking forward to escape the fingers clutching her coat, she fell against his chest. Her legs dangled in air. “A lex,” she gasped.

“Don’t worry. I have you.”

The faces of Byrne’s servants crowded the window.

“Tim, go get under that tree. Quickly! Sam, go find the magistrate.” A lex pulled her against his chest. She swung her leg over the branch. He took her chin and forced her gaze to his. “We have to go now.”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

He turned and crawled toward the tree’s trunk, then lowered himself to the next branch. She followed and slid down. He caught her around the waist. They did the same for the next branch, then the next. She never hesitated. Probably she should have. But she didn’t. She trusted him to help them escape.

A t one point she caught a glimpse of his face as he turned away for the next branch. He looked back, grinning, then winked at her. “One would think you’re enjoying this,” she said.

“I am. A ren’t you?”

“No.” But she was. Now that they were closer to the ground, now that the servants were far above them. Every time he put his hands on her, her heart beat a little faster, and it was already racing so quickly she thought it might stop from exhaustion at any moment.

“I believe I deserve a kiss,” he said as he lowered her to the last branch.

The servant Tim came running around from the back of the house, his lamp swinging.

They jumped together, and A lex pulled her up from the ground when she landed on her hands and knees. “Hurry,” he said.

They ran to the front of the house, Tim fast behind them.

A carriage slowed to a stop on the street, the crest of the marquess on its side.

The family had returned. A groom climbed down from the top and unfolded the steps.

“We can’t make it,” she panted. Her side ached; her lungs burned.

“Have a little faith, Willa.” The bloody man didn’t even sound like he was sprinting beside her. “To the right.”

The groom opened the carriage door and held out his hand.

Behind them, Tim shouted, “Paul! Catch them!”

The groom Paul looked at them just as they hit the sidewalk and turned right.

“Please tell me your carriage is somewhere nearby,” she said between gasps for breath.

“No, followed you on foot.”

Then he took her hand, ducked into the shadows clinging to the next town house, and pulled her with him up into another tree.

“Don’t breathe.”

His arms wrapped around her as he leaned against the trunk, standing and holding her back tightly to his front.

Tim, Paul, and two others appeared through the branches, running along the street.

“They’ll come back.”

“How do you know?”

“Shh.”

A nd there were Tim and another servant again, holding up the lamp and peering toward them. Willa held absolutely still. She could feel A lex’s chest rise and fall against her back. One strong arm wrapped around her waist, the other and fall against her back. One strong arm wrapped around her waist, the other beneath her breasts. This time his breath shuddered behind her ear. She closed her eyes.

She couldn’t hear anything but A lex’s breathing and the hard, rapid beat of her own pulse in her ears.

“They’re gone.”

Her spine collapsed and she sank against him, opening her eyes again.

He pressed a quick kiss to her ear. “We’ll wait a little while,” he said in a hushed voice. “Not too long. I’m sure they’ll try to search again. Just a few minutes.” She nodded, afraid to speak lest they somehow hear her.

His arms relaxed around her. “I still believe I deserve a kiss for that.” Tilting her head up, she turned her neck toward him. He kissed her before she could speak her refusal, a short, warm brush over her lips that liquefied the muscles in her thighs.

“One more minute,” he said.

Willa lowered her head. She could feel his heartbeat at her back, nearly as fast as her own.

T he next evening, Willa spied Alex immediately after entering the Byrne box with Richard. It would have been difficult to miss him since he was sitting in the first row of seats in the box, beside Lady Marianna, who presently laughed at something he said.

“A re you all right, Willa?” Richard whispered near her ear. “You look rather pale all of a sudden. Shall I take you back to the hotel?”

Willa smiled brightly up at the earl. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness, but I feel perfectly fine.”

Richard inclined his head and met her eyes—something lurked there, something deep and meaningful and altogether terrifying. Still smiling, Willa turned and gestured toward the empty seats. “Where shall we sit, my lord?”

“A nywhere you wish, Miss Stratton.”

Willa swallowed at the note of disappointment she heard in his voice—

presumably at her continued formality. Once he escorted her to two seats behind A lex and Lady Marianna, she said, “Did you receive my note for the flowers? They are beautiful.”

Richard chuckled. “Yes, but you don’t need to send a note every day. I want you to take time to enjoy them, not feel obligated that you have to write me your thanks every time you receive more.”

A lex looked over his shoulder. “Flowers make her ill,” he said, then returned to his conversation with Lady Marianna.