Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) (21 page)

She gave a tremulous smile and pulled her dress back up over her shoulder with shaking hands. “Please.”

The soldier’s eyes were swiveling as if he were at a shuttlecock match. Ian pulled him nose to nose. “What do ye have to say tae the lady, lad?”

“He’ll kill me,” the soldier whined.

“So will I,” Ian assured him. “I’ll just do it sooner. And slower. And not bein’ raised a gentleman, I’ll make it far worse. Now then, let’s begin again. What name should I put on your tombstone?”

If it was possible, the weasel-faced soldier paled even more. “Briggs. Mort Briggs. Corporal.”

Ian shook his head. “Not anymore, I’d say. Was this ye’re idea, or were ye even a greater coward and let some other bastard talk you into it?”

“Clarke . . .” His eyes swiveled to Sarah, and he crumpled. “Him what hired us. He asked me to…to scare her a bit. That was all.”

Ian growled. “That was nae all and you know it, you whore’s son.” He was just about to start squeezing again, when a fact made it through the red haze. “Clarke?” Quickly he turned to a still-ashen Sarah. “That high-nosed skint who was threatening you the other day? Your husband’s cousin?”

She gave a shaky nod. “I’ve suffered a series of losses. I had a notion who was behind them, but I couldn’t prove it.” She motioned to the soldier, who was still hanging from Ian’s grip. “He will.”

Ian shook with the effort to not strangle the little
cac.
“Are ye tellin’ me I canna wring his worthless neck?”

This time he earned a pallid smile. “You cannot kill my proof, Ian.”

He looked down at her earnest face. He looked at the ashen soldier. “Well, hell.” He sighed. “I can break a few more things, though, can’t I? He can still testify.”

The soldier sobbed. “T-testify?”

Ian set him on his feet without letting go. “You can testify and go to Botany Bay, once-Corporal Mort Briggs, or ye can stay silent and suffer far worse from me. Now, laddie, ’til you make up my mind, I think we need to truss you up as a gift to the law.”

Just then they heard a voice from the direction of the house. “Miss Sarah?” Turning to Ian, Sarah blanched. “Peg. Oh, I have to tell her something.” Limping over to the trees, she stood in the deeper shadows. “I’m here, Peg. I’m just going to bury the fox!”

The answer sounded like a grumble. A moment later, a door shut and quiet fell.

Sarah didn’t move, but stayed staring at the distant house. Ian marveled at her composure. Considering what had almost happened, she should have been hysterical.

That was when he noticed that she was rubbing at her forehead. “We can’t,” she said, turning back to him.

“Can’t what?”

“Turn him in.” She waved a trembling hand at the soldier. “If I take him to the authorities, he’ll give you away.”

The soldier shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

Ian shook him like a rat. “O’ course ye will. Shut up now while I think, laddie.”

In the end, they dragged the soldier back to the cellar with them. Sarah recovered her shotgun from the henhouse while Ian splinted the soldier’s arm and tied him up with cords he stole from George’s cache.

“Can you watch him here?” Sarah asked, setting the gun against the cave wall. “Just until you can safely get away.”

“Longer,” Ian corrected, binding the man’s ankles. “’Til I prove my innocence, or they’ll know you hid me. He could be down here weeks.”

“I’ll be missed,” the soldier protested.

“No ye won’t. Shut up.”

“Maybe George would watch him for us.” She sighed. “I’ll contact him tomorrow. Right now, I need to get back to the house.”

Ian knew he should tell her what he and George had already concocted. One look at her washed-out features dissuaded him. They had time to worry about his escape later.

She was picking at the ruined dress and making impatient little noises, which made Ian want to gather her to him and just hold her. Just shut out the sight of her struggle. She began to tidy herself, trembling hands reassembling her hair and plucking at the hang of her dress as she gave voice to various stories about battling a fox she could give Peg to explain her condition.

As she did, Ian finished trussing up the soldier so he couldn’t so much as scratch his ass. He was just finishing tying the last knot when he heard a curious sound behind him, like chattering. He turned around to see Sarah suddenly white-faced and shaking like an ague victim. Shoving the soldier over onto the floor, he grabbed Sarah just as her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Oh, lass,” he said, catching her in his arms. “You are not all right.” Gathering her gently into his arms, he carried her to the cot. “Ye’re cold as midnight on the moors.”

Pulling a blanket up, he wrapped it around her and sat with her on his lap. It was her teeth he’d heard. They were clicking madly.

Her eyes fluttered open. “I’m…fine…really.” She made a dismal attempt at a smile.

“O’ course ye are.” He tucked her tightly into his arms, desperate to give her some heat. Some comfort. He could feel her heart thrumming like a sparrow; the violence of her fear burned right through him.

“It’s just…he . . .” She gasped, her voice wobbly. “He killed my chicken. He didn’t have to do that, did he?”

Ian almost grinned. God, he could love this stalwart girl. “I’ll break his other arm for ya, lass. Then I’ll buy you a new chicken.”

He heard another funny little sob. “Her name was…Rachel.”

He nodded against her hair, suddenly full with wanting to give her anything to make her feel better, this girl who mourned a lost hen. When he felt another tear splash on his wrist, he thought his heart would shatter.

“I’m that sorry, ma’am,” the soldier spoke up, his voice high and reedy.

“Shut up,” Ian snapped. “If she didn’t need you alive to protect her estate, I’d snap your neck without blinkin’ an eye. I may yet.”

“How did you know?” she asked him, her voice small, which tormented him.

“That something was wrong?” He smiled into her hair. “I’d know the sound of those hens anywhere.”

Her chuckle was a bit strangled. Closing his eyes, Ian just held her. He couldn’t think of a thing in his life that had ever felt more right. He could smell the clean rain scent of her hair. He felt the staccato of her pulse against his fingers and the silk of her skin against his cheek. She suddenly seemed so fragile. So vulnerable. He couldn’t bear it. He wanted her here in his arms, where she could be safe. He wanted, for the first time in his life, to stay. He wanted, unforgivably, to stay with
her,
no matter what it cost him.

He knew better even as he thought it. Because he wouldn’t be the one to suffer. She would.

Ian dreamed of her that night. The few minutes he’d held her in his arms hadn’t been nearly enough. But he had no right to ask for more from a woman waiting for her husband to return. He had nothing to offer, a man whose own fiancée also waited.

He ached for the comfort he could give her, if it were only his right. The strong arms she needed, the laughter. The joy. She deserved a man to warm her bed. She deserved passion. And Ian was human enough to want to share it with her. He was enchanted enough that he wanted to offer it to her as a gift.

He knew her shape. He’d cushioned it in his arms, framed it with his hands. He knew her taste and her laugh and the calluses on her palms. He knew that her hair was soft as thistledown where it escaped from that horrible bun. He knew how her smile stole a man’s strength, and he knew what the plump bounty of her breasts felt like pressed against his chest.

He knew this from the short moments she’d lost her way and shared that kiss, that embrace, that sharing of pain and loneliness and comfort. He knew all this, but when he dreamed, he dreamed more.

In his dream she was naked and smiling, welcoming him to her soft bed, her skin milky and sleek, her nipples dark pink and pebbled, her sunstreaked hair cast across the pillows like a gleaming river. He imagined winnowing his fingers through that hair, tormenting himself with the weight of it, the sleek satin of it. He saw himself set his hand to her soft skin, seeking out every crest and slope, tracing the line of every rib and dipping into the hollow of her belly. He imagined tracing his tongue along her throat, sweeping along to her shoulder and following the sure track of her collarbone. He swore he could taste the tang of her skin and hear her throaty chuckle as he crested the swell of those sweet, full breasts she camouflaged so well beneath her dreary clothing.

He would linger there, savoring their delicious ripeness, memorizing every curve and shiver, catching their weight in his hands and nibbling every delicious inch, top to bottom, side to side. And finally, after tormenting her with his hesitation, he would close his hand around one nipple, teasing it to a peak with finger and callused thumb, and close his mouth around the other. He could just hear the moans he would pull from her as he nipped at the tender skin, soothing it with his tongue, suckling hard enough to light that fire between her legs, there where she hid such treasure beneath a nest of dark gold curls.

He would lay his head on her belly and watch as he let his hand seek out that fire, his fingers dipping below those tawny curls to come away dripping with her want for him. He would return, finger, palm, and thumb, relentlessly stroking, circling, sweeping, until she could no longer hold still, until the shivers built up in her skin ahead of the pleasure that raced through her, and her body arched to his touch. Until she moaned, whimpered, begged. He would take her to the very edge, to the perfect moment just before she lost herself, and then, with one smooth movement, he would lift himself over her, he would spread her legs beneath him, never taking his eyes from hers, from those soft, earth-rich eyes that expressed so much if you knew how to look, and he would plunge home.

Home.

Ian bolted upright on the cot, the dream fragmented and fading. He still shook with need, his body rock hard and hurting. His heart thundered, and he couldn’t seem to draw in a good breath. His chest felt as if it were collapsing.

Home? What was he thinking? Sarah wasn’t his home. She couldn’t be. Even in his dreams.
Especially
in his dreams.

Throwing his legs over the side of the cot, he laid his head in his hands. He had to get out. He had to breathe, and suddenly he couldn’t do it in this cellar. He swore he could still smell Sarah on the air in here. He knew he could still hear the echoes of her climax, a climax he’d only dreamed.

Maybe he should just go now. Walk out of the cave and keep on going, without waiting for Drake or George or even daylight. If he left, he could avoid seeing Sarah again. And right now, with his body still taut as a bowstring, and the memory of her in his arms still far too clear, he thought that might be a good thing.

But he couldn’t go. At least not until he spoke to Old George again. Otherwise, who would protect Sarah from her cousin after he’d gone?

Giving the soldier a quick look to make sure he was still asleep over by the stacked crates, Ian climbed to his feet. It was coming onto sunrise. He needed to see the sky and cool off. Grabbing his blanket, he stalked out the cellar entrance.

The chilly wind was a shock. The sky, still only a faint blush toward dawn, was star-scattered and deep, the moon lost beyond the horizon. Below the sea churned and chuckled in its peculiar way, and early morning birds had begun to chatter.

Ian had never been much of a one for the sea. But the little arbor was a convenient place to think. And right now he needed that more than anything. Pulling his blanket around his shoulders, he turned to climb out of the hollow.

He stopped after no more than three steps. He swore he heard snuffling nearby.

A bhidse,
he thought, ducking down.
Now what?

He went very still. After what had happened the night before, he was expecting another of Clarke’s soldiers to be lurking nearby, maybe that
cac
Clarke himself. Slowly, silently, Ian lifted his head just over the lip of the hollow.

He was right. There was a shadow up in the arbor. Ian could just see it, bent over the roses. Dropping the blanket, he crept closer. Abruptly the snuffling stopped.

Ian froze. The shadow grunted and returned to the roses. Ian laughed and stood up. He had steeled himself to meet a vandal. He’d gotten a pig. There, his nose back to the ground snuffling away like he was on the trail of a new love, was Willoughby.

“Och, now, laddie,” Ian greeted him, stepping up. “I’m no’ at all in the mood to be hauling you back home. I dinna suppose ye’d like to wander back to your pen on yer own. I hear there’s a mighty fetching blanket waiting for you.”

Willoughby looked up and snorted, and Ian smiled. “No. I suppose not. Freedom is much more enticing.”

He approached, thinking to share the bench with the pig. The pig didn’t even seem to notice him. He was pawing at something in the ground, shoving at it with his snout. If Ian wasn’t mistaken, Sarah was about to have her rosebushes uprooted.

“Here now,” he protested, shoving the pig with his knee. “Is that any way to pay the lass back for feeding ya? Come awa’, pig.”

The pig didn’t budge. The rosebush shuddered from the assault, and Ian began to worry. He hoped Sarah wasn’t attached to the damn thing. Because if the pig got it up, it wouldn’t do any good for Ian to replant it. Back at barracks, he had been called the black thumb. Even mold had died in his care.