Sins of a Virgin (17 page)

Yet she shifted under him, an unaccustomed uncertainty stealing over her. “You don’t sound pleased by that.”

“I’m not. I don’t want to want you. I have more important things to do than wonder how your lips would taste. How your breasts would feel in my palm. How you would react when I slipped my hand under your skirts.”

Her body throbbed as if he’d done the things he said.

He continued. “I don’t approve of this auction. You give advice to whores about opening brothels. You manipulate those around you without batting an eye.” He exhaled, his breath shuddering through him. “So why, in heaven’s name, can’t I dislike you?”

She despised the burning in the back of her throat as much as she despised her inability to push him away. “I never asked you to like me. I make no apologies for who I am.” Why would she? Apologies wouldn’t bring her absolution.

“I know.”

Drawing on the wellspring of her pride, she placed both hands on his chest and shoved. “Good. Then you’d also best remember that I don’t want you to like me. You don’t have the wealth to make it worthwhile.”

For a moment her attempt to move him proved ineffectual, but then he drew away, his jaw tense, his lips tight. “Madeline—”

Glass shattered as something crashed through the window.

Madeline’s gasp was smothered as Gabriel’s weight landed on top of her. He swore, then rolled off, tearing off his jacket as he moved.

Ignoring the pain searing her side, Madeline sat up. Flames licked the carpet under the window, sending tendrils of black smoke crowding against the ceiling.

Madeline leaped up. Two yanks removed the counterpane from the bed. The smoke scratched in her lungs, and she blinked through watering eyes so she could see.

Gabriel was already beating at the fire with his coat. His coat landed with rapid cracks against the floor. She joined him, throwing the heavy blanket over the remaining flames threatening the curtains.

An orange glow flickered in the room.

Where had they missed? She could find no more flames.

Sunset. She closed her eyes. The orange glow came from the setting sun outside her window. Her exhale ended in a choking cough. Pain exploded through her side as her hip connected with the floor. She opened her eyes in surprise. Had she really just fallen? How utterly inexcusable.

Strong arms lifted her into the air. “What the devil were you thinking?”

“That my house was on fire.” The flames had only intensified her unsettled emotions. Proximity to the hard, mesmerizing line of Gabriel’s jaw didn’t help, either.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“Did the glass cut your feet? Can you stand?”

“I can stand.” She wouldn’t let his grudging concern soothe her.

“Good.” He moved away from the glass and set her on her feet, then crouched behind her. His fingers brushed over her backside.

“What—”

“You sat in the glass.”

She stepped away. “I’ll just take the blasted thing off. I don’t want you cutting yourself.”

Gabriel turned away before she shed the garment. His boots crunched on the glass as he returned to the charred portion of the room.

Her night rail fluttered to the floor and she limped into her dressing room. She sighed as she donned a red satin dressing gown. It clung to her breasts and hips, barely closing in the front. Not that she had much choice, her others were worse.

Leaning against the dressing table, she gathered her strength and a witty retort if Gabriel dared to think she’d dressed this way for him.

“I told your butler to ready another room for you.” Gabriel appeared in the doorway. Inky streaks of soot marked his cheeks, settling darker in the creases by his eyes. He scowled as he saw her, but held out the neck of a broken bottle. “It appears to have been a brandy bottle filled with lamp oil. The attacker stuffed a rag in the top and lit it on fire.”

She shrugged. “Not the most efficient way to kill someone.” A shiver raced down her spine. Yet it wasn’t the least efficient, either. If she had been asleep or more severely injured, the fire might have raged out of control before she could contain it.

“This makes the second attempt on your life in less than twenty-four hours. This cannot be allowed to continue.” He strode forward, stopping a mere inch from her. He reached out and wiped his thumb over her cheek. Then he drew back, his finger tinged with soot. “You cannot remain here with only your eccentric butler. I’ll see to it you’re protected.”

Madeline held herself still, refusing to give in to the need to clean the smudges from his face. There were a dozen reasons why she couldn’t allow him to stay with her. Thirteen, if she counted the heat pooling between her legs fed by the desire in his eyes. It would be like setting the wolf to guard the sheep.

Make that fourteen reasons. She wasn’t a sheep—what a disgusting metaphor. She was capable of taking care of herself. She’d fended off assassins in the past. Real assassins, not fools who threw bottles through windows.

Besides, he couldn’t investigate her bidders if he was protecting her constantly, and that was the real reason she’d hired him.

So, no matter how tempted she was to allow him to—

“I’ll assign another Runner to watch the house,” he said.

“I cannot allow— Pardon?”

“There are several men I trust. I’ll assign one of them here. He’ll pose as your footman.”

Madeline attempted to step back, but the movement only pressed the rounded edge of the table harder against her thighs. How had she misread his intentions so entirely? “I—” Now she was stammering. She covered the humiliation with another cough. “I cannot afford a footman, let alone another Runner.”

“You don’t need to. You have been stabbed and your house set on fire. This is an official Bow Street investigation now.” Cool aloofness ruled his gaze as he lifted her into his arms again.

The thin material of her dressing gown provided an insufficient barrier to the warmth of his chest. She held her body stiffly as he carried her to the bed in the next room, but every inhalation brought the scent of sandalwood, bay, smoke, and him deeper into her lungs until it flowed in her veins.

Gabriel adjusted his grip, bringing her flush against him. “I don’t want to drop you.”

“Or you don’t want to want to drop me?” Of all the dunderheaded things to say. Yet Madeline kept a smile on her face.

Gabriel stopped walking, his hands tightened on her, but his voice was weary. “Tell me you don’t desire me. Tell me that ten minutes ago you weren’t trying to pull me down to kiss you.”

Madeline kept her smile in place. “Of course I tried to kiss you, I’m a whore. It’s my nature.”

Gabriel laid her down on the bed, but his arm remained behind her head. “Yet it wasn’t the coquette who tried to kiss me, but the woman. A woman who even now strains toward me.”

Heat invaded Madeline’s cheeks. She relaxed her neck and shoulders, settling more firmly into the pillow.

“There is something between us that cannot be explained away. And neither you nor I wish for it. Unless I am wrong.” He slid his hand through the opening of her robe, engulfing her breast in his hand. His thumb teased her nipple to a hard peak. “And you do wish for it. In which case, all you have to do is ask.” His lips dropped to her neck.

Her breath hissed through clenched teeth.
Yes, please, yes!
But her logic refused to cede dominance to the new, reckless desire of her body. “You make it sound extraordinary. Lust lies between us, nothing more.”

Easing the satin of her robe out of the path of his mouth, Gabriel’s lips skimmed the line of her collarbone to her shoulder. “And what do you want to come of this lust?”

How could she answer when breathing seemed a horrible distraction from the silken touch of his lips? For all her fine words, she’d never felt lust like this. A molten crucible of desire that burned away all else, until nothing remained but the surety that she would give up everything for another kiss.

The realization terrified her.

And terror was familiar territory. She’d dealt with it every day for the past ten years. “Nothing will come of it”—she drew her sleeve back up her shoulder—“unless you’re so weak you cannot control yourself. I assure you I have no such problem.”

Gabriel straightened, the lines of his face hard and unreadable. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.”

G
abriel studied the maid. She shifted nervously, clutching her skirts in her fists. When a carriage clattered by, she pressed herself more closely against the wall.

“You are sure Haines didn’t leave at all this evening?”

Her head bobbed and her pale face disappeared into the shadows. “His mother is entertaining. He was at dinner, then they retired to the parlor for one of Her Ladyship’s fortifying reads.”

“There was no chance for him to have slipped out?”

“No. His mother has him paired with Miss Eustace and she’s been clinging to him all evening.”

Gabriel sighed and handed the maid a guinea. She tucked it in her skirt and ducked back into the Haineses’ house.

It wasn’t Timothy Haines, the would-be poet, who’d thrown the bottle tonight, and Madeline’s overzealous admirer hadn’t been at the theater yesterday. Gabriel kept to the far left of the sidewalk to avoid the water splashed by the coach wheels. Haines wasn’t the person trying to kill Madeline.

Gabriel flipped up the collar of his greatcoat to keep the cold drizzle from his neck. She had put herself in the public eye. It was inevitable that she would attract some negative attention along with the notoriety. But this was more than an impulsive attack.

He should be the one protecting her. Not Kent. Kent was a good man, sharp, and totally devoted to his wife and baby. Only the knowledge that Gabriel was to meet with his murder witness kept him moving in the right direction. Away from Madeline’s house.

Assigning Kent to watch her had been the right thing to do. They had made their boundaries clear tonight, and the less time they spent together the better.

When an empty hackney approached, Gabriel motioned to the driver and climbed in. It was only a short walk to the tavern but with his concentration wavering, he didn’t want a knife in his ribs because he wasn’t paying attention. She did this to him. Madeline tangled his thoughts. He didn’t like not being in control of himself. He’d been honest when he told her that earlier. He needed focus right now and the very thought of her disarrayed his mind. He didn’t trust himself and he sure as hell didn’t trust her.

The coach drew to a halt in front of the tavern and Gabriel climbed out. He’d already questioned the drunken coachman, Bourne, once, but he hoped the man might have remembered some more details. He stared for a moment at the school across the street. This was why he needed focus. Another woman was dead. He wouldn’t allow any more.

“Huntford?”

Gabriel turned at the familiar voice. Danbury strode toward him, a smooth black cane in his hand.

“I had no idea this was such a popular bit of London. I just passed Billingsgate a few moments ago. What brings
you
to this part of town, Huntford?”

If Billingsgate was lingering around the scene of the crime, that made him all the more suspicious. “Bow Street business. And you?”

Danbury pocked his cane down the street toward the docks. “My father was expecting a ship he’d invested heavily in to arrive.”

“Any luck?”

Danbury grimaced. “Do you think I’d be wandering home like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs if it had? It’s over a month overdue and no one has heard anything about it.”

“Can he take the loss?” Gabriel asked.

Danbury snorted. “The loss of the ship is nothing more than a pebble on the mountain of his fortune, but money is money. And he won’t be happy to lose it.”

Gabriel had met Danbury’s father once when he and Danbury were down from Oxford. The man had refused to acknowledge Gabriel even though he’d been standing next to his son. Gabriel was too lowly to even warrant a tip of the hat. Even though Gabriel had laughed it off, it had pierced his youthful arrogance.

A few days later Susan had tried to tell him that a fine gentleman fancied her. Remembering the sting of humiliation, Gabriel had refused to listen to her and mocked her naïveté.

Danbury eyed the tavern. “Do they have decent ale here? I’m not in a hurry to make my report to my father.”

“The ale might burn a hole in your gut but it will get you drunk enough. I’ll join you for a glass after I finish talking to someone.” Gabriel rarely drank but he found the idea quite appealing tonight.

Laughter and bawdy songs spilled through the door as they entered. A comfortable fire glowed in the hearth, and with a few tallow candles sputtering on tabletops, the place almost managed to look inviting.

“Who are you here to see?” Danbury removed his hat. Droplets of water dripped to the rough wooden floor.

“A witness in one of my cases.”

“What’s the case?”

Gabriel had never believed in discussing his work. The cases weren’t entertaining stories; they were the pain of real people. “I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

Danbury shrugged. “I’ll get us a table.”

Gabriel nodded, then turned to where Bourne normally lounged.

The chair was empty.

Gabriel pulled his watch from his pocket. He was precisely on time. As the barmaid, Loretta, shuffled by, Gabriel stopped her.

She blew a lock of rusty red hair from her flushed face. “I already told you I didn’t see anything that night. I don’t have time for any more of your questions. I’ve got customers.”

“Have you seen Bourne tonight?” he asked.

She shifted her tray of glasses to her other hip and glanced over her shoulder. “He’s over—” Her brow furrowed. “Well, he was. He’s still got half a pint of ale over there. I can’t think he went far. Maybe into the alley to take a piss?”

A group of millworkers called for her and she hurried away.

Gabriel sat at Bourne’s customary table by the window and waited. After several minutes, the coachman still hadn’t returned. Gabriel went out to the alley, but other than the odor of human waste and a few rats, the alley was empty.