Scandalous (8 page)

He smiled at her. The smile was slow, self-satisfied, with a definite mocking quality. To keep herself from kicking him— and it was a near run thing; his shins were right in front of her feet— she reminded herself that, with her soft slippers, what that would primarily achieve would be hurt to her own toes. It would certainly not win her release.

In an effort to avoid succumbing to temptation, she forced herself to concentrate for a moment or so on the purely physical. The heat from the fire felt uncomfortably warm now; probably because she was already overheated from her battle with him. The high neck and long sleeves of her kerseymere gown did not improve matters, and the tickling of her nose by a wayward strand of her hair added a final element of discomfort. She shook her head in a vain attempt to shift the errant lock; it fell right back to where it had been before.

Of course. Such was always her fate.

She wrinkled up her nose in silent protest, and glared at him. His gaze, she noted with some dismay, was fixed on her forcibly parted lips. Her breathing faltered as it occurred to her that, perhaps, murder was not all she had to fear….

"If you try to scream, I'll put it back," he warned. Then, to her considerable relief, he fished the gag from her mouth. She coughed and shuddered as it was withdrawn, then drew a deep, lung-filling breath.

The gag, she saw as she worked her dry jaw and lips, trying to restore them to a semblance of normal feeling, consisted of one of his leather driving gloves, now wet from her mouth. He glanced at it with obvious distaste before tossing it onto a nearby table. His attention then returned to her. He was so close that she could see the faint vertical crease between his thick black eyebrows, the lines at the corners of his eyes, the individual whiskers that made up the shadow darkening his cheeks and jaw. The firelight added dancing orange lights to his cropped black hair, and was reflected in the indigo of his eyes.

"Do you now intend to strangle me at your leisure?" The question was pure bravado, uttered despite her swollen-feeling tongue.

He laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant sound.

"Don't tempt me, my dear. You are mighty inconvenient, you know. Now, I am going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer me. Truthfully, mind."

He gave her wrists an admonitory shake. Gabby's eyes narrowed at him. She could smell the odor of strong spirits that clung to him, as well as the fainter underlying scent of tobacco. It occurred to her, upon identifying the first smell and getting a closer look at the restless glitter in his eyes, that her captor might be just a trifle well to live. Not inebriated, precisely, but definitely feeling the effects of too-liberal imbibing. She knew the look of a man in his cups from bitter experience, and recognized it before her now.

Her lip curled with contempt.

"Although it may be hard to believe given your own obvious proclivities, some of us do make a habit of telling the truth," she said. Her lips and tongue now worked almost normally.

He smiled sardonically at her.

"I hope you are not meaning to imply that
you
tell the truth."

She bristled. "Of course I— what do you mean?"

"It is obvious to anyone of the meanest intelligence that you are running a rig here."

Gabby's eyes widened in astonishment.
"I
am running a rig? That's rich. Especially coming from someone who is
pretending
to be my poor dead brother."

"Ah." His smile broadened. "But that presents us with an interesting question: if you knew that Wickham was dead, then what, pray, were you doing journeying to London, sending your servants to open Wickham House, and planning to launch your sister into the
ton,
when you should more properly be in Yorkshire in deep mourning? I confess, that piques my interest."

She shot him a fulminating look. Scoundrel or not, he was abominably quick, she had to qive him that.

"I hardly knew my brother. It is not to be wondered at that I do not feel the need to go into mourning for him—" she sounded defensive, realized it, and lifted her chin haughtily "—and in any case I see no need to justify my actions to you."

"Now, there's where you're wrong. You see, to all intents and purposes
I
am now Wickham. And you— and your servant, of course— are, I apprehend, the only ones who know otherwise. A very ticklish position for you to be in,
sister."

Gabby said nothing for a moment as she considered her situation. He was still crouched in front of her, a hand encircling each of her wrists now. Though he held her loosely, his fingers curled around her wrists like the lightest of shackles, she knew that there was no possibility of breaking free. Given her relative lack of strength, his hands might as well have been iron shackles in truth. His body blocked any possible means of escaping from the chair, much less the room, still less him.

Her gaze met his; he was no longer smiling. His eyes were narrowed and intent, gleaming black in the flickering firelight. His mouth was a hard, straight line.

He looked totally ruthless, she thought, and capable of anything, up to and including her murder. The full extent of her own vulnerability assailed her, rendering her, for a single, hideous instant, most horribly afraid. An inward shiver shook her; goose bumps prickled to life on her flesh. The only other time she could remember feeling so helpless was…

No. She wouldn't remember. She
would not.
She was no longer the same person she had been on that day.

When she had vowed never, never in her life, to allow herself to be afraid of any man again.

Sitting up a little straighter, disregarding the strong hands imprisoning her wrists and the big body blocking hers and the mortal danger she might very well be in, she looked him dead in the eye.

"If you leave this house, right now, and give up your pretense, you have my word that I will not set the Runners on you, nor tell anyone else of your deception."

For a moment their eyes deadlocked. Then he made a derisive sound that was as much a snort as a laugh, and abruptly stood up. As quickly as that her hands were free. Before she could do more than register the fact— much good would it do her anyway, she thought bitterly, as any blow she could deliver would have about as much impact on him as a mosquito bite— he was bending over her, his hands wrapping around her throat. He did not squeeze, but let her feel the strength in his hands while slowly, easily tipping her chin up with his thumbs.

His hands were large, long fingered, and warm. Wrapped around her neck like a wide, tensile collar, they intimidated without a word. Gabby's eyes widened. Her heart began to pound. She could feel the color leaching from her face. Clutching the arms of the chair to keep from grabbing his wrists— that, she thought, was just what he expected her to do, and therefore she would not do it— she took a deep, steadying breath. If he meant to strangle her, she had not the physical strength to prevent him. Her only hope lay in her wits.

"Let us have one thing very clear between us: you are—
totally—
at my mercy." His smile was detestable.

He bent over her, his hands almost caressing on her throat, his gaze holding hers. As she stared back into his eyes, trying to present a fearless mien while she searched desperately for a way out,
any
way out, she could feel the skirt of his voluminous greatcoat puddling on her legs. Something hard brushed her knee.

His pistol, she realized with a fierce rush of excitement. If she could only get her hands on his pistol he would sing a very different tune….

"A man who would threaten a woman—" she said with calm precision, sliding her hand stealthily inside his greatcoat pocket as she spoke. The pocket was warm, silk lined, and capacious. To her searching fingers, the pistol felt hard and smooth and, when she hefted it, heavy, and as welcome as a blessing. "—is beneath contempt."

"Nevertheless…" he began, only to break off as, with the pistol still inside his pocket but now held securely in her hand, she eased the hammer back. The sound of the pistol being cocked was sharp and apparently, to his ears at least, unmistakable. The look of surprised comprehension on his face was almost comical. Gabby permitted herself a savage smile as she pulled the pistol free of his pocket and shoved it hard against his ribs.

Their eyes met. For an instant, no longer, neither of them moved, or spoke.

"You will now unhand me." Gabby's voice was very cold, and very positive.

He glanced down then, as if to assure himself that the object threatening him was indeed a pistol. Then, eyes glittering, mouth tight, he slowly and with obvious reluctance lifted his hands away from her throat.

"That's very good. Now step back. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them."

He did as she ordered, straightening and taking first one, then a second, then a third step backward. His movements were cautious. His gaze, after that first glance at the pistol, never left hers. Still bothered by the errant strand of hair, Gabby risked removing one hand from the pistol to shove it behind her ear.

"I should perhaps warn you that that particular pistol is possessed of a hair trigger." The statement was casually conversational in tone.

Gabby smiled grimly. "Then you had best make certain that I have no cause to flex my finger, hadn't you? A little farther back, if you please. Just there."

She scooted forward until she sat on the edge of the slippery leather chair, planting her feet firmly on the carpet, the pistol gripped in both hands and pointed unwaveringly at his midsection. He stood watching her from perhaps three feet away, his hands, palms out, lifted to shoulder height in front of him, his mouth hard. The front of his greatcoat hung open, revealing his immaculate linen, his black breeches and the muted silver of his waistcoat. His jaw was set; his eyes glinted unpleasantly. In fact, he looked very much like a man bested by a woman, and one, moreover, who greatly disliked the fact. Gabby couldn't help herself: she smiled.

"Now, what's to be done with a villain such as yourself?" she pondered aloud, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of having turned the tables on him. "Should I shoot you out of hand, or merely hand you over to the authorities as soon as may be?"

"You must do as you please, of course, but while you consider your options you might also consider this: if you reveal to the world that I am not Wickham, I shall be forced to thrust a spoke in your wheel by confessing that Wickham has, in fact, met his end."

Gabby's eyes narrowed at this— a more telling threat than he knew— and her voice grew waspish. "You can reveal nothing if you are dead, sirrah."

"Very true, but I cannot think that you really wish to figure as a murderess. They hang, you know."

"To shoot a man who has held a gun on and threatened to strangle one certainly cannot be considered murder," she protested indignantly.

He shrugged. "Do you mind if I lower my arms? My hands are beginning to tingle…." He did so without waiting for her reply, shaking his hands as though to restore circulation to them, then crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her quizzically. "Murder is a question for the courts to decide, of course, but by the time the decision is made, whether or not you are eventually found innocent will scarcely matter: only think of the scandal. I am sure you cannot wish to bring so much notoriety down upon your family."

Gabby's lips compressed. To admit that he had a point, even to herself, was a struggle. But what he said was, she feared, horribly, hideously true. If she wished to find a top-of-the-trees husband for Claire, they could afford no hint of scandal.

She smiled grimly. "Your warning has a great deal of merit, I must admit. If I shoot you, I shall take care to conceal the fact."

His brows lifted. "Thus placing yourself in the dilemma you earlier pointed out to me: disposing of the— er— bloody corpse. You won't be able to shift me yourself, you know. I outweigh you by, at a rough guess, a good six stone." His gaze flicked beyond her, and his expression brightened. "Excellent timing, Barnet. You must…"

Whatever else he said was lost as Gabby instinctively cast a glance over her shoulder. Barnet was nowhere in sight; the door to the library remained closed. Even as she registered those facts— it took no more than a split second— and realized that she had been played for a fool, a flurry of sound and movement snapped her attention forward again. It was too late: having leaped toward her in that moment of her inattentiveness, he grabbed her wrist in a brutal grip that hurt, turning the pistol to the side even as he attempted to wrest it from her grasp….

Whether she truly meant to pull the trigger she was never afterward sure. In any case, the pistol went off with a kick like a mule's and a terrible explosion of sound.

He gave a sharp cry and staggered back, a hand clapped to his side. Their gazes, hers horrified, his shocked, met and held for an instant in which time seemed to stop.

"By God, you've shot me," he said.

7

She was staring at him as if she expected him to keel over dead at any moment. Her horrified expression brought a wry smile to his lips even as he clapped his hand hard over the place where the bullet had gone in. However much she might wish it, he knew from the location of the wound that he would not die. There were no vital organs that he was aware of located just above the hipbone.

He was, however, bleeding. Profusely. He could feel the warm welling of blood against his palm. Strangely enough, it did not hurt. Not yet, at any rate, although he was sure that, when the first shock had worn off, it would.

His "sister" had surprised him. That rarely happened anymore. He had survived for so long in this dangerous game because he was, at heart, a cautious man. But who would have guessed that a scrawny old maid of an English lady would have the gumption to challenge him, much less turn his own pistol on him and pull the trigger?

Not he.

The amusing thing about it was that, after leaving the theatre and seeing Belinda home, he had declined an offer to stay and keep her company for the dangerous but necessary exercise of trolling the city's likeliest gaming hells in hopes of presenting such a tempting target that his quarry would be lured into the open. That was the kind of work where he could expect to be shot, and he had, most correctly, been on his guard the whole damned night. How ironic was it that, no sooner had he entered a house where he could reasonably expect to be safe, than he had encountered a creature who had proved to be more dangerous than any of the thugs who skulked through London's meanest streets?