Samantha James (3 page)

He seemed to sense something was wrong. An awkward silence prevailed as she struggled with the bottle-stopper; uppermost in her mind was awareness that the earl still watched and had yet to say a word. Nervousness made her fingers clumsy. She plucked almost frantically at the stopper.

It was then that the earl finally spoke, a hint of barely restrained impatience in his voice. “Allow me.” Cassie’s eyes flew to his. Her lips parted. What she intended to say or do, she would never
know. Strong fingers had already curled around the neck of the bottle. For the space of a heartbeat, the back of his knuckles lay cradled against the curve of her breast. It was all Cassie could do not to cry out, not from shock, but from the reaction his touch evoked. Like fire it was, clear through to the core of her body.

The stopper popped free. To Cassie, the loud
pop
! was like the blast of a gun.

She flushed as he proceeded to fill the two goblets. “Thank you, sir.” The urge to flee was upon her again, but she’d caught a glimpse of Black Jack across the floor. He was looking her way, his expression as frigid as a sea wind in winter. Badly shaken and praying it did not show, she bobbed a curtsy, eyes downcast. “Will you be needing anything else, sirs?”

She had no desire to look at the earl, yet he drew her gaze with a force too powerful to resist. His eyes were cool and assessing. They wandered at will, over her neckline before settling, she was certain, with calculated deliberation on the swell of her flesh visible above the frayed lace trim of her bodice.

“Not at the present,” he drawled at last.

Both angry and anxious at his brazenly thorough study, she gave a nod. “I’ll just clear the table for you, then.” Eager to be quit of the pair, no matter how pleasant his companion might be, she reached across the table for the tankards they’d set aside. But in her haste to replace them on her tray, she withdrew her elbow just a little too quickly.

The bottle of brandy tipped over with a crash. The dark red liquid inside pursued a straight and
unerring path across the table and over the side. Both men leaped to their feet. By some miracle both emerged unscathed.

“By God, wench, I do believe you’ve no experience as a barmaid.” The earl glared at her, his voice stripped free of any indulgence.

Cassie had already begun swiping at the sodden mess. She paused long enough to return his glare in full measure. “’Tis hardly my first night—indeed I’ve been here nearly as long as Nell!”

“I wonder, then,” came his grim response, “that Black Jack has any wine left in his cellars.”

It was too much! Who was he to call her inept? She straightened indignantly. “And who are you to criticize me?” she cried. “Perhaps if you’d ever done an honest day’s work in your life, you’d not be so quick to judge others who are but trying their best!”

Cassie did not see Black Jack approach. She gasped as her arm was suddenly seized in a grip she knew from experience would cause bruises. “How dare ye talk to ’is lordship that way! Tell ’im ye’re sorry!”

Cassie’s face was scarlet. A simmering resentment fired within her. It was bad enough to be chastised in front of the entire taproom, let alone knowing that
he
stood witness to her shame. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for him staring at her, she wouldn’t have been so careless in the first place.

Beefy fingers bit fiercely into her arm. “Tell ’im, missy!”

To Cassie’s horror, her throat closed with the scalding threat of tears. She hated the earl for bringing her to this wretched point, almost as much
as she hated herself for her lack of pride. The only thing that brought her chin up was the certainty that Black Jack would take immense pleasure in seeing her humbled.

“I am sorry.” Her lips barely moved as she spoke.

Black Jack leveled a scowl at her and dropped her arm. He turned toward the other two men. “I’ll see ye’re brought another bottle,” he began.

Christopher Marley held up a hand. “Not for me, thank you. I’ve had quite enough for the night.” He turned and gave Cassie’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “No harm done, lass. Do not worry your pretty head about it another minute.”

“No, indeed,” the earl echoed coldly. “We cannot have that, can we?”

The earl was forgotten as Black Jack began to drag her toward the kitchens. They were no sooner through the doors than he loosed the full force of his ire. “You’ve gone too far, girl! I’ve always held that a girl need not take to her bed a man she does not want, but no more will I put up with your airs and your unwillingness. Ye’ll get away with it no longer, do ye hear? Aye, I’ve often thought if ye once had a man ye’d not be so damned skittish. Well, I think it’s time we found out!”

The world around her seemed to spin and swirl. She shuddered. Dear God, surely he was not suggesting…She looked on numbly as he whirled and loaded another goblet and bottle of brandy onto a tray.

He turned to her and snarled, “Ye’ll be making amends to ’is lordship—and to me, girl.” He jammed his head toward the tray. “Take that up to
the rose chamber. The earl is sleeping there. If a man pays more to spend a night here, by Gawd, he’ll get more, and don’t pretend ye don’t know what I mean! If ye please him, ye please me. I’d keep that in mind if I were you. For if ye don’t, I swear I’ll see ye turned out in the streets by morning!”

Cassie’s head jerked up. As awful as it was here, the streets were even worse. Only yesterday a young woman had been found in an alley, half-naked, her throat slit.

She waited no longer. His words were like a burr beneath her feet. She snatched up the tray and fled as if the hounds of hell snapped at her heels.

The rose chamber was the best in the inn. Black Jack always put the well-to-do guests there. A wide four-poster with a delicate, rose-embroidered coverlet dominated the large, spacious room. Matching brocade draperies trimmed the window.

When her mother had first started working for Black Jack, Cassie had often crept inside and let her fantasies take flight. She pretended she was a fine lady and mistress of a huge house with a dozen chambers such as this. She was never hungry and never cold.

Now her only thought was to escape—this horrid inn, the toil, the endless drudgery.

She deposited the tray on the pedestal table near the window. She pressed her cool hands against the fiery heat of her cheeks. Her heart cried out in weary despair. Was it wrong to want more? She didn’t want much, just better than what little she had. A one-room cottage that was truly her own,
where she need not worry she might end up on the streets. Enough coin to buy another dress, and maybe a new bonnet.

Dear God, she didn’t want to die like Bess, in that stinking attic room that smelled of death and dust.

If only there was a way out. If only…

Gathering herself in hand, she straightened, wiping the dampness from her cheeks. Did Black Jack truly expect her to lay with the earl? Horror clutched her insides. How could she wait here, like a lamb on its way to the slaughterhouse?

She spun around. Her eyes lit on the chest of drawers just inside the doorway. Heaped in a small mound was a handful of silver. Oh, it was scarce a fortune, to be sure. But it was far more than she had seen in all her years.

She had only to reach out a hand, and it would be hers…

“A tempting sum, is it not? Ah, but if you want it, Yank, I’m afraid you’ll have to earn it.”

I
t was him.

For a timeless moment it was as if she were without courage or wits—she could not move. A part of her longed to flee, like a tempest racing across the sea. But her feet seemed suddenly weighted with lead. Through some miracle she finally managed to turn and face him.

He was tall, she noted in some far distant corner of her mind, far taller than he had appeared downstairs. Oh, but no dandy, this one! His shoulders stretched the velvet of his jacket so taut there was nary a pucker or a wrinkle. Dark-colored breeches revealed every hard curve of bulging thighs, so tight they were almost like a second skin. He was all grace, all elegance as he approached.

A flurry of panic assailed her. If she tried to run, he could easily catch her. To her shock, he strode past her to the tray. He poured a generous portion of port into the goblet, then offered it to her. “Will you join me, Yank?”

Cassie blanched. Sharing a glass with him—placing her lips where his had been—was an intimacy she would take with no man, let alone this one!

She shook her head. “I’ve no taste for spirits,” she managed to say.

“No? Well, then. To…Yankees.” He tipped his glass to her and drank, his crystalline gaze never straying from hers.

She was scarcely as composed as she might have wished. “If you please, sir, I must return—”

“But it does not please me. I much prefer you remain here.”

Cassie laced her hands together before her. She could not stay here for—Lord, she could not complete the thought, even to herself! Even Black Jack’s threats could not make her do…that! Her mind churned frantically.

She had no recourse but to appeal to the earl’s reason and hope he was an honorable man.

There was an unfamiliar dryness in her throat. “Sir, ’tis plain you have no liking for me. Indeed, I think you would not be here now were it not for Black Jack—”

“On the contrary, I am precisely where I wish to be. And more importantly, with
whom
I wish to be.”

He toyed with her. Cassie sensed it with all that she possessed. Oh, but he was cruel to torment her so!

She gave a curt, jerky gesture with her hands. “Sir,” she began. “I am sorry for my clumsiness. You cannot know how much. But I see no reason why I should be punished—”

“Punished! Why, you wound me sorely. ’Tis not punishment I have in mind, but pleasure.”

Pleasure? Cassie shuddered. If there was pleasure to be had, it would not be hers, but his.

He smiled, as if he were privy to her very thoughts. “What!” he exclaimed. “Never tell me those oafs belowstairs do not know how to take care of a gem like you!”

Cassie’s cheeks burned painfully. She surveyed him warily as he pulled something from his pocket—a watch, for she caught the glint of a fine gold chain as he dropped it next to the pile of silver.

He stepped forward.

Cassie inched back.

His laugh was both hearty—and heartless. “Come, Yank! Do I frighten you?”

Not in the way that he suggested, she thought with a shiver, but in a way that was utterly foreign to her.

“You dislike me, don’t you, Yank?”

Yank
. Cassie’s spine stiffened. “I’ve a name, sir, and I’ll thank you to use it.”

“I think not. No, I do believe Christopher was wrong. ‘Yank’ suits much better, for you Yanks are often rowdy and unruly. Aye, ‘Yank’ it shall be. But back to my question. Why do you dislike me?”

“Indeed, milord, I believe ’tis you who dislikes me. Why else would you stare at me as you did?”

So she had noticed that, had she? Gabriel smiled dryly. She was shabbily dressed, her clothing little more than rags, and still it hid nothing of her beauty. He wondered vaguely if she had any idea how lovely she was. Her coloring was unusual, but striking nonetheless—hair like amber fire and eyes like clear topaz. And though she was young, she was years out of childhood. True, she was thinner
than he would have liked, but the swell at breast and hip promised a bounty he suspected would scarcely disappoint him.

He frowned, rather irritated with himself. It wasn’t like him to display such interest in a servant. Indeed, he preferred his women with far more sophistication than this uncivilized young lass. Still, the girl was scarcely untried. Indeed, he decided with more than a touch of cynicism, her experience might well equal his own.

And there was no denying she stirred his blood.

“Come, Yank. I’ve spent weeks at sea, without the company of women such as yourself. Can you not find it in your heart to be generous? Will you not cater to a weary soul who is in dire need of a soft, feminine body, a warm, soothing hand?”

A warm, soothing hand? Oh, but that was rich! Her hands were lobster-red, as rough as the scrub brush which rendered them so.

Her temper began to unravel. “Sir,” she stated quietly, “I do believe you’ve not wanted for a single thing in your entire life.”

On that score, she was right. Gabriel had not. He’d had everything…but a father’s love.

His gaze flickered to the pile of silver. “That is a considerable amount of coin, Yank. If you are to earn it, I would expect much of you. You would have to stay with me…oh, not an hour, not even two—the night through, I think. And in the morning, why perhaps we might even share the bath together.”

An icy jolt tore through her. Cassie had thought nothing could shock her, but…sweet heaven,
bathe with a man? Surely people did not do such things!

He unnerved her, she realized, though he had yet to lay a hand on her. She was not ignorant. She knew what he wanted. Not long ago Bess had told her, “If a man’s sweet and gentle, it’s not so bad. But sometimes they’re rough and quick and hard.” Bess had turned her face aside. “Then it’s awful,” she’d said in a voice that sounded all tight and strangled.

Cassie knew whenever that happened. Bess would come to bed quietly weeping. Sometimes there were marks on her arms the next day, even on her breasts. Cassie remembered the last time. Not long after Bess had discovered she was with child—the child she’d died birthing. Cassie shuddered. She knew why Bess had done such things—for the money it brought. Indeed, it was that money which had saved Cassie from the same fate.

But Cassie was not yet ready to trade her virtue for a handful of silver.

Gabriel did not glimpse her distress. He saw only distaste.

Would she have been as reluctant if she were here with Christopher? The idea rankled. Gabriel recalled how sweetly she had smiled at his friend, while she would not even deign to look at him. A dark anger swept through him.

“Aye,” he said softly. “A bath would prove quite delightful, I think.”

Cassie’s eyes flashed. “Black Jack pays me but a meager pittance to scrub floors and serve ale. Not for this!”

“Ah, but I’m not sure he sees it that way.” His tone was slick as oil.

Her fingers curled against her palm. “I know your kind, sir. You take what you want, with no thought of anyone save yourself.”

“Why, Yank, I do believe some man has wronged you! Loved you and left you, perhaps?”

Her chin came up. “I am merely angry, sir, that I have no say in the matter!”

He shrugged and glanced at the pile of coin. “I do believe you’ve already set your price.”

“You do not understand, sir. What you want, I’ll not give for any price!” Not to him or to any man.

It struck him then…he was goading her, and quite unmercifully. He’d not have done so, were it not for the defiance on her face. She looked at him as if she were his better…as if he was nothing.

And that was the one thing Gabriel could not tolerate.

Slowly he circled her. He sensed her nervous tension, just as he sensed her struggle not to reveal it. Her head was held regally high, the slender lines of her back as rigid as a soldier’s. Gabriel was both amused and piqued by her resistance. It seemed the wench possessed not only beauty, but an abundance of pride, an odd combination for one of her station.

At length he halted before her, so close they stood but a breath apart. “I find this situation very much a novelty, Yank. You see, ’tis rare that a woman refuses me…therefore I must make certain I understand. ’Tis not I who spurn you, but you who spurn me.”

Oh, but the conceit of the man! If she said yes, she risked not only his anger, but Black Jack’s as well. Yet how could she disagree, for then he would assume she meant to lay with him!

Cassie battled a mounting panic. His nearness was disconcerting; a prickle of warning trickled up her nape.

It took every ounce of courage she had to meet the steely probe of his gaze, yet somehow she managed. “I cannot stop you if you choose to do this.” Her tone was very low. “It would be foolish to pit my strength against yours, for I would be the loser. But I would have you know, sir, you have neither my consent, nor my willingness. Therefore, I ask that you let me leave.”

In truth, it was not her plea, but the bitterness that lay biting in her tone which brought Gabriel up short.

Her gaze slid away, but not before he glimpsed the suspiciously bright sheen that glazed the breathtaking gold of her eyes. Tears? He scoffed. He was not one to let a woman’s tears sway him. He’d discovered they were naught but a tool women used to get what they wanted.

“And if I let you leave, what then? There is no need for pretense between us, Yank. We both know why Black Jack sent you here. Most likely he does not expect you to leave this chamber until the night is well spent.”

Cassie was certain her face was the color of fire. Her attention was confined to the intricate folds of his impeccable white cravat. “If you were to tell him that I…I pleased you,” she whispered, “he need never know.”

“But if we are to bargain, I should expect some kind of reward—at the very least, a trade.”

“A trade!” Stung, Cassie bit back a dry, strangled sob. “Sir, would you take the very clothes upon my back? I have nothing to give.”

“Save that which you
refuse
to give.”

Her eyes squeezed shut. Oh, but she should have known better than to expect mercy from him! A wrenching despair rode heavy on her heart. Was this how it would be? Her virginity surrendered to one who cared only that his own pleasures of the flesh be satisfied?

Gabriel had already made up his mind he would not force her. Desirable though she was, there were too many other willing women in the world to trouble himself with one who wanted no part of him. But by God, the wench was a maddening little piece, and he would have none of it.

“A kiss,” he said suddenly. “A kiss and you may go.”

Her eyes flew open; his were hard as coal, glittering with a strange heat. Cassie went hot inside, then icy cold. His mouth, beautifully shaped though it was, was set in a thin, cruel line. There was no softness in him, none at all.

Strong hands shackled her about the wrists. Even now they drew her closer. Ever closer…

Her breath came fast, then slow. It was but a kiss. Was that so much to yield? She shivered. Far better that than the other…

His mouth met hers. A tiny little jolt went through her, but she kept her mouth tightly pinched together, her body instinctively resisting what she was certain would be another sloppy,
slathering kiss like so many others pressed upon her unwilling lips.

Gabriel’s head lifted. The grip upon her wrists tightened by a hair.

“Come, Yank, you must do better than that. I’ve no desire to kiss a wizened prune.”

The bite in his words was sharp enough to wound. Cassie glared. “Sir,” she began, “I would remind you—”

His arm was like an iron brace around her. Their bodies twisted together. A peculiar sensation of weightlessness assailed her. She felt the softness of the mattress at her back, the unexpected heaviness of the earl’s chest atop her own.

His mouth closed over hers. The fleeting thought chased through her mind that this kiss was like none other, and then her mind seemed not her own. His lips were warm and compelling, starkly primitive yet oddly persuasive, draining her of strength and will. Cassie was dazed by the strange inner trembling that seized her. She felt absurdly lightheaded.

It took a moment to realize he had raised his head.

“Will you not change your mind, Yank?” A blunted fingertip traced the graceful arch of her throat. “I promise you a night you’ll not soon forget.”

She stared at him, shaky and confused. Sweet heaven, she was lying on the bed, and he was lying on
her
! Sanity returned with a galvanizing rush. She thumped his shoulders with her fists. “I’d just as soon forget
you
!”

Her blows might well have fallen on a pillar of stone. He studied her, turning his head first this way, then that. Finally a devilish brow rose high.

“This will not do—’twill not do at all, Yank. You lack the look of a woman well bedded…Indeed, if Black Jack is not to guess the truth…”

Cassie gasped as he proceeded to tug the pins from her hair; the silken strands tumbled over his hands, wild and dishevelled.

His head dipped again, but his target was not her lips. Cassie gave a small, stricken cry as his mouth settled on the side of her neck, nipping the tender skin with his teeth, gently sucking, then soothing the hurt with his tongue. Her fingers tangled in his hair. She tugged hard but he paid no heed. His mouth fastened greedily on its tender prey. Then all at once his mouth was on hers again, only this time demanding and ruthless, so raw and plundering that she could scarcely breathe.

Something exploded in her mind. Somehow she managed to tear her mouth free.

Small fists pummeled his shoulders. “You blue-blooded bastard! Let me go!”

Gabriel released her. Nell was right, he decided with vast amusement. The chit did put on airs.

“My dear, if you knew who my father was, you would hardly question my legitimacy.”

Cassie scrambled to her feet. Her mouth felt swollen and bruised. The delicate skin around her lips still burned. “I don’t care who your father is!” she cried. “That doesn’t give you the right to touch me so!”

Gabriel shrugged. “My dear, I touched far less than those fellows belowstairs.”

“What do you expect me to do?” She defended herself heatedly. “Black Jack watches my every move!”