Never Entice an Earl (8 page)

With a curse, he tore off his coat and held the weighty garment out as an offering.
“You don’t belong in that place. I understand that. I won’t hurt you. Let me see you
home safely.”

She did not move. She only shivered.

“Do you have a home?” he demanded.

Did she have a lover? A protector? A husband? Those were the questions he wanted to
ask, but he did not. If she did have someone, the bastard wasn’t good enough for her,
wasn’t worthy. She ought not to be out on this mean street, unprotected. Ought never
to have stepped foot inside the Blue Swan.

“Of course I have a home,” she retorted, her pronunciations polished, not those of
a woman of the street.

“Then let us go,” he ordered, glaring at her now, for being so obstinate when they
ought to be off and away. Rain pattered down around them. “I’ve a carriage waiting
not far from here.”

She stepped closer, her face stark and beautiful, peering into his eyes as if she
could gauge his true intentions within them. At last, she appeared to come to some
decision.

“Very well. Thank you.” She nodded curtly. “But don’t you dare touch me, do you understand?”

She snatched the coat from his hand, but the rainwater made the wool unwieldy. Reclaiming
it, he shook the garment out, intending to drape it over her shoulders, but a sudden
blast of male voices echoed down the alley. The light of lanterns bobbed, signaling
the approach of what could only be the constables, searching side streets.

“Oh, no,” she gasped, eyes wide. “I can’t be arrested.”

Every protective instinct within him roared to life. There was no way to escape the
alley without being seen. Forgetting the coat, he seized her by the wrist and urged
her into the archway of a crumbling stoop.

She went rigid, her lips parted on a complaint—

“Just cooperate,” he ordered, his hands going to her waist to guide her more urgently
into the corner.

They were face-to-face. Her hands came against his chest, pressed flat against his
wet shirt, and her breasts rose and fell with her ragged intake of breath. He caged
her within the deepest of shadows, shielding her body with his. It wasn’t that he
feared discovery. He felt quite capable of handling himself on the street or in the
gaol, but the idea of the angel spending even one night in a filthy cell with the
dregs of London offended him beyond bearing.

“They are coming—” she whispered, curling her hands in the front of his shirt.

“Quiet,” he hissed near her cheek, savoring the feel of her forehead against his jaw,
the softness of her body pressed so intimately against his.

The light of a lantern swept over the bricks above their heads. Footsteps splashed
on the wet cobblestones, coming nearer, just behind his back.

“This fellow’s beat all t’ bloody hell.”

“Ay, but ’e’s alive. Let’s get ’im on ’is feet.”

Cormack did not breathe. The girl trembled against him, her breasts pressed soft and
full against his chest, something no man alive would fail to notice. He pulled her
closer and she cleaved even more tightly to him, her hands clenching his arms. The
threat of discovery only heightened the unintended sensuality of the moment. Shuffling,
wet sounds, and groans from the injured man, and then silence, at last indicated their
departure.

“Come. Hurry.” Vacating the stoop, he quickly settled his coat onto her shoulders
and led her in the opposite direction. Together they distanced themselves from the
Blue Swan, their feet splashing on the cobblestones. The girl kept pace with him without
complaint. The rain subsided, but a frigid chill remained. Two streets more, and Cormack
found Jackson waiting exactly where they’d arranged to meet, sitting atop the carriage.
True to form, the young man was smiling down at three girls gathered beside his perch,
his mouth slanted with roguish mischief. Here, streetlamps illuminated the night.
Wagons and conveyances crowded the street. “We’ll cross here.”

Yet the young woman held back, reaching down to rub her foot, her expression one of
pain and desperation. “A moment, please.”

Only then did he realize the slippers she’d been wearing had disintegrated into little
more than ribbons.

“I’ve got you.”

This time she did not protest, and he lifted her in his arms as if she were a child.
She pressed her face to his neck, twisting her hand in his collar and shunning the
curious gazes of passersby. The animal in his chest growled with satisfaction that
she should cling to him so trustingly. Seeing their approach, Jackson waved his admirers
away and leapt down to open the door, his gaze keenly fixed on the figure in his employer’s
arms. Inside, enveloped by shadows, Cormack deposited the girl on the bench. Bloody
hell, it was good to be back in his own domain, if only just his carriage.

He lowered himself beside her, the opposite bench being presently removed for repair.
His two black devils, Hugin and Munin, had gleefully ripped the upholstery to pieces
as he spent his night in an inn that had refused them entrance. Needless to say, the
following day he had found new lodgings, one amenable to canine traveling companions.

Only now…returned to safety, the magnitude of his failure reverberated through him.
Who knew how long it would be before the Blue Swan opened again elsewhere, or before
the Invisibilis congregated in such a fashion again? Weeks? Months? Perhaps bloody
never, depending on who appeared on the pillory in the coming days. They had slipped
through his grasp. He had no other leads to follow. Unless, by chance, the girl could
offer some helpful bit of information.

“Instructions?” Jackson inquired, peering inside.

Crowded into the corner, the girl appeared to assess all avenues of possible escape,
color gathering high on her cheeks, more distressed at being alone in a carriage with
him than she had been on a bawdy-house stage.

He didn’t want to frighten her, so sought to ease her fears. “Miss, you may call me
Cormack, and this is Jackson. Jackson, please make the acquaintance of Miss—” Ah,
her name. At last he would have it.

She blinked, and her pretty mouth opened. For a moment there was only silence, then
she whispered, “Ah…Kate. My name is…Kate.”

Did she tell the truth? Probably not. He supposed it did not matter.

“Mademoiselle Kate, you may tell Jackson your address or wherever else it pleases
you to go.”

She did so, leaning forward to murmur instructions to the young man, holding his coat
closed over her breasts.

Jackson nodded, and under raised eyebrows threw Cormack a dazed look, silently professing
his bewitchment. “Yes, Miss Kate.”

With that, she withdrew into the deeper shadows of the corner, shivering. Cormack’s
gaze fell on her bare calves, and her ankles, visible beneath the hem of his coat.
She was slender without being thin, with luscious curves and creamy skin. Deep in
his chest, the primitive male animal inside him growled in pleasure. His carriage.
His coat.
His woman.
Yet with a twitch of her hand, she concealed her legs, drawing them up beneath her
on the seat, and watched him warily.

“Jackson, stop on Houndsditch if you will, near the clothing stalls. Kate needs a
dress and some shoes.”

“Of course.” Jackson then secured the door, throwing the cab into darkness.

She exhaled loudly. “I don’t need clothes. I just want to—to—”

“To escape me, as soon as possible?” He grinned. “Now you’re hurting my feelings.
After everything we’ve been through together tonight?”

She stared at him in silence, her eyes not frightened, but flashing and accusatory.

He feared he’d offended her with his teasing, when all he wanted to do was earn her
trust. Perhaps she could help him find the proprietor of the Blue Swan.

He softened his voice. “Wherever you’re going, you can’t make an entrance in that
insufficient costume or wearing a strange man’s coat.”

After a long moment, in which a thousand emotions played across her face, to include
a flash of impatience, she nodded. “I suppose that’s right.”

“We’ll stop for only a moment and then be on our way again.”

“Very well,” she whispered. Shadows painted the hollows beneath her cheekbones.

Lord, she was pretty.

“So,” he said, his gaze descending slowly along the column of her lovely throat, down
to the upper swell of her breast, barely visible within the shadow of his coat. “Home
is Hamilton Place, the exclusive domain of the
ton
’s rich and powerful. I knew you didn’t belong on that stage. Care to tell me who
you really are?”

I
…I work as a maid at a private residence there,” Daphne lied, nearly breathless to
find herself in the company of the man she’d connected with so powerfully from the
stage, a man who had very nearly beaten someone else to death in order to save her.
The violence he’d exacted both horrified…and pleased her.

A sudden chill rippled through her. The night was cold, and she wanted nothing more
than to be warm. Her savior—Cormack—relaxed not a foot away from her, as soaked through
as she, yet he didn’t appear the least bit chilled. Robust and ruddy cheeked, he might
as well have been dressed in flannel and slippers, and sipping brandy beside a roaring
fire.

Only he wasn’t. Blood stained the cuffs of his sleeves and, she realized, likely the
coat she wore as well, though she could not perceive its presence for the dark wool
and shadows.

“You’ve gainful employment, then.” His gaze moved over her with such heated interest
she shivered from it, more so than from the cold. “So why were you at the Blue Swan?”

As the carriage proceeded along the road, intermittent flashes of light from the streetlamps
illuminated the interior. Other carriages crowded close at times, and the loud voices
of nighttime revelers could be heard.

He raised his hands—fine hands, with long, square-knuckled fingers—to his cravat and
deftly worked the knot. Her attention fell to where his linen shirt clung damply to
his skin, revealing with his every flex of muscle the indentations that defined his
chest and abdomen, and her mouth went dry. With a lift of his chin he removed the
cloth from his neck and abandoned the sodden linen to the bench beside him.

She did not answer him. She only stared at the place where his shirt had parted to
reveal his throat, and wondered what it might be like to kiss a man there. Not any
man, but Cormack.

“Kate, why were you there tonight?” he pressed, his voice quiet and assured.

“I’d rather not say,” she responded abruptly. The less he knew about her, the better.

“Oh?” His brow went up. He dragged his fingertip across his lips—and a faint smile
that after a moment, broadened a degree more.

Amused. She amused him—which vexed her, of course, because if she were honest with
herself, she would prefer that a mysterious and intriguing man like Cormack find
her
mysterious and intriguing, not entertaining, like some precocious child.

“So that’s it. Because you helped me I’m now obligated to confide in you my most private
matters, despite your being a complete stranger?”

His smile faded. “No, of course not, Kate. It’s just obvious that you didn’t belong
at the Blue Swan. I can’t help but be curious over how you came to be on that stage.”

Daphne stared into his eyes, mesmerized by the blaze of heat she saw in them, heat
apparently inspired by her. Instinct told her she could trust him. He had saved her
virtue and very likely her life.

“If you must know—” she began.

He raised a hand, and shook his head. “Please, you don’t have to—”

“Your carriage smells like dog.”

He smiled. “That’s because I have two very stinky dogs.”

“I like dogs. But not smelly ones.”

“I suppose I should endeavor to have them bathed.” He chuckled.

Oh, dear. She liked Cormack very much. It seemed only seemed proper that she offer
him some explanation, even if the details weren’t precisely true.

“I am paying off a debt.”

“A debt, you say.” He glanced away, lifting the curtain to look out the window.

The movement provided her with an unexpected thrill, his face in profile, and the
muscle that corded the length of his neck. She was quite the expert on noses, having
enjoyed sketching faces in her youth, and his was distinctly Roman, prominent and
regal, but it was his lips that made her think of—

She closed her mind to the thought.

Only she didn’t. Not successfully, anyway.

His lips made her think of
kissing
, rather desperately, even though of course, she didn’t want to kiss him. Not a stranger.
Because that would be wrong. And impetuous! And not just a little unseemly.

“To whom do you owe money?” he asked. “The owner of the Blue Swan, I presume?”

“Yes, but it’s not me. It is my father’s debt.”

Her conscience complained about speaking the words. Untruths! It was Kate’s story
to tell, not hers. Yet still the well-intentioned lies spilled from her lips, because
she knew not what else to say.

His eyes narrowed. “Your father could not repay the debt himself because he is…?”

She whispered, “Unable to do so immediately, under the terms imposed. He doesn’t know,
you see, that I have made alternate arrangements to satisfy the balance. He would
never allow it, but something had to be done, else my family would find themselves
on the streets…”

Her voice trailed away.

“I see.” He frowned, clearly disliking her answer. “How much remains to be paid?”

More questions! Without a doubt, she regretted having taken this path. She ought not
to have said anything at all. But his eyes commanded her to speak.

Daphne bit into her lower lip. “Too much.”

“So you’ll have to return to the stage, once there’s a stage to return to?”

“I don’t know what will happen now.”

“It won’t be long until you find out. People like that don’t just forgive debts when
things become inconvenient.”

“No, I suppose they don’t.”

The heat in his gaze intensified. He leaned toward her, his handsome face commanding
her full attention. “So tell me, Kate, in addition to being a dancer to pay off this
debt, and not a very talented one at that, did you also entertain patrons?”

“Entertain?” She blinked, flustered by his proximity, and his overwhelming maleness.
Had he truly said she was not a good dancer? And wait…he had said
patrons
. She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

Certainly he did not believe…well, she supposed he
might
, given the sordid circumstances in which he’d found her.

One dark eyebrow lifted. “The Blue Swan
is
a brothel.”

“Never,” she blurted, heat rising to scald her cheeks. “This was my first night ever
to go to that place, and it was not at all what I’d expected.” She spoke the truth
now. Not all her words were lies. “All I had was the address on a scrap of paper,
and instructions that I would be a model in the
tableaux
.”

A sudden fear came over her, a dreadful worry that in her naïveté she’d misjudged
the stranger beside her, that he wasn’t a gentleman but instead just like the others
who had crowded against the stage, mindless with lust. He could easily overpower her
and satisfy whatever male urges he wished.

But he did not. He instead eased back into the seat until shadows obscured his countenance,
all but his sensual lips, which pursed and frowned. She sighed with relief.

“Good.” He nodded. Below his breath, he muttered, “Yes, good…I suppose.”

He conveyed a mixed message, one of approval but also disappointment. What if she’d
answered yes? Would he have sought to make use of her services? All the wicked things
Sophia had described came to her in a vivid rush. Her mind entertained a fleeting
fantasy, one of tangled sheets, muscled limbs, and bare skin.

The very idea of being intimate with a stranger, with
this
stranger—

She exhaled, bemused.

—was not as appalling as it ought to be.

Perhaps it was the graveness in his eyes, above lips that she suspected always carried
some semblance of a smile, that made her heart contract and her blood run hot.

He really was nonpareil. No man in her social circle compared, but that was because
he obviously wasn’t a nobleman. No nobleman would travel about London in a shabby,
half-destroyed carriage nor converse on such familiar terms with his driver.

“Who are you, Cormack?” she asked.

“Just…a man.”

“Are you a newspaperman? A store owner, or a sea captain? Please tell me—I want to
know.”

“I’m…er, a merchant, actually. Saltpeter.”

That answered her question. After tonight, she most certainly would never see him
again. A merchant would never be allowed into the ballrooms of the
haute ton
. Even if he was deliriously rich, which he obviously wasn’t, given the condition
of his equipage, the upper echelon of the beau monde, to which she had been born,
simply did not intermingle with men of trade.

Her adventurous nature awakened. No, she didn’t intend to ever marry, but…what would
be wrong with kissing a handsome, intriguing stranger she’d never see again?

Everything inside her soared and spiraled and exploded into sparkly stars at wondering.
Again, her gaze settled on his mouth, which slowly, as if it read her mind, turned
up at the corners, making her catch her breath.

At that moment, the carriage executed a sudden turn and tilted steeply, as if on two
wheels. Daphne toppled, the whole of her weight crushing into Cormack. His arms came
round her, seizing her and holding her in place against his chest. The carriage bounced
down again and continued on, to the sound of Jackson cursing at another driver, but
Cormack didn’t release her. How she wished she wasn’t wearing the coat, which smelled
of damp wool. He, on the other hand, smelled delicious, like rainwater and soap.

“How unexpected,” he murmured, his mouth so close his breath feathered across her
lips. “But not unwelcome.”

“No,” she whispered. “Not…unwelcome.”

Just then the carriage jerked to a stop and a hard rap sounded against the roof.

A low growl emitted from Cormack’s throat. “What a pity.”

Gently, he released her to push aside the window curtain.

“I’ll be just a moment.” He slid from the bench, a vision of crouched male splendor
and shining boots. With a turn of the handle, he disappeared onto the street.

Unwilling to release him from her sight, Daphne scrambled across the bench and lifted
the curtain. Just a few feet away, Cormack stood like a giant in the midst of a street
stall crowded with clothing, hats, and shoes. He gestured to the shop owner, clearly
attempting to describe her. Apparently she had breasts. Daphne covered her mouth,
smothering a smile. Very nice breasts, based upon Cormack’s raised eyebrows and sideways
grin. The shop owner chuckled and set about searching his collection.

Within moments, Cormack returned.

“I hope it all fits.” He thrust toward her a gray flannel gown, a chemise and a petticoat,
and a pair of shoes. She clasped them to her breast, bewildered.

He had purchased several items for himself as well. Once the carriage was again in
motion, he tugged his shirttails from his breeches.
Oh, no.
Daphne bit into her lower lip, fixated, as he wrenched his shirt over his head. Shadows
and light played on his damp skin. Daphne inhaled sharply, shocked, her mouth gone
instantly dry. But she didn’t look away.

She’d never seen anything like him, nothing
real
and in the flesh. He could have served as a model for the Achilles statue she’d seen
last week in the vestibule of the British Gallery. The only items missing were a helmet,
battle ax, and sword. Oh, and he was still wearing those breeches.

Not for long apparently. Dropping the sodden shirt to the floor, he unfastened the
placket at his crotch. Fascinated, she glimpsed a dark spiral of hair on his lower
abdomen that disappeared beneath the buff wool of his garment. He hooked his thumbs
inside at the hips and—

She must have emitted some sound, because he looked up suddenly.

He flashed a grin, one that made her heart turn over inside her chest.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Put the clothes on. They aren’t perfectly dry, being
that I bought them off the street, but they are far drier and warmer than what you’ve
got on. But first, mind giving my boot a tug?”

He presented her with the flat of his foot.

After a moment’s hesitation, she grasped the leather by the heel, and tugged it free.
She’d never assisted a man with such a familiar task, and her mind buzzed with unexpected
exhilaration of doing something so forbidden. If her mother knew—Lord,
anything
about tonight—she’d never recover. It was just another secret of this night that
she would forever be forced to keep from everyone, including Kate.

After doing the same with the second boot, she averted her gaze while he changed his
breeches for a pair of loose trousers, catching only the flash of bare skin out of
the corner of her eye. And perhaps one stolen glance of a well-muscled hip and chiseled
torso.

Daphne closed her eyes tight, knowing she would never forget this terrifying and thrilling
night. That while she regretted placing herself in such danger, and had never before
been so frightened in her life…she would forever hold these moments close. And when
she was an old maid, living a life filled with nieces and nephews and quiet evenings
in her room alone, she would fashion fantasies from these memories.

“Kate?”

She started, realizing he spoke to her, and opened her eyes to find him studying her
with amusement.

“You won’t put on those clothes as long as I’m in this carriage, will you?”

“Of course not.”

Again, he smiled, and everything inside her melted because she knew he would do the
right thing. Indeed, he rapped a fist against the roof. Immediately, the carriage
swayed, changing directions and decreasing speed. Cormack perched at the edge of the
bench, as if prepared to exit. But then—

He moved toward her, a shadow in the night, until he half-crouched, half-knelt with
his hands planted on either side of her legs. Her heart raced, and she breathed him
in, savoring his scent and his heat. Gray eyes stared straight into hers.

Her pulse jumped wildly, taken over by a dark and pleasurable desire for a stranger.
Against all good sense she liked him this close, with his attention fixed so intently
on her.