Tempted By the Night (23 page)

“Might know where I’d hied myself off to?”

“Yes.”

Of course Mary would know. How many times had she come up here herself and fetched him down? Hell, he’d brought her up when they were just children, having sneaked them both away from their governesses and landed themselves in a vast amount of trouble. But he’d never forgotten the light in Mary’s eyes as they’d gazed over the city. His domain, he’d boasted to her. And she’d smiled up at him, in that unassuming way of hers, and nodded happily, quite content and willing to let him have it.

He might not have shown this chit the way, but she had followed him as innocently as Mary had all those long years ago. Trusting that he would keep her safe, even despite her fears.

“She said to tell you,” his little Shadow was saying, “that she would have come herself had she known…” She paused for a moment, then spoke with a catch in her voice. “…about Rowan, that is. She’s bereft. Everyone is.”

“Everyone?”

“Of course.” She pulled her arms free of his grasp and laid her hands on his chest, and then tucked her head
into the corner of his shoulder. The warmth from her touch caught him off guard, and he shivered. She sighed and nestled closer to him. “Your staff is beside themselves with worry. It is all they speak of. And your Aunt Routledge—she’s about to summon Bow Street. She’s called three times a day, if not more. She’s quite bedeviled Stogdon, for she thinks he knows something of your whereabouts and isn’t being forthright with her.”

“Then perhaps it is better I’ve been up here,” he said. “I’m safe from her meddling.”

“No, I daresay she has more sense than to make such a climb. Even for you.”

He laughed as well, though he felt no humor. “How do you know about my aunt, about my staff?”

She didn’t answer, but she needn’t have, for it occurred to him readily enough. He stepped out of the warmth she offered and held her at arm’s length. “You’ve been prying around my house at night!”

“Well, I would hardly call it prying…like your aunt, I’ve been worried sick over your disappearance.” She huffed a sigh and moved right back up against his chest. As if she had every right to be there. “Poor Stogdon looks as if he has aged ten years in the past few days,” she chastened, as if she had the right to do that as well.

If the warmth of her body touched him, her concern and meddling did so in other ways. “Stogdon’s haggard appearance is probably due to the repeated visits of my aunt.”

“You cannot make light of this, Rockhurst. Your staff loves you. And they are just as hurt and grief-stricken as you are.”

This time she cut him to the quick.

He shook his head and looked up into the cloud-filled sky. He didn’t want to hear about their grief. His own was crushing enough.

Still, she pressed on with her case, like the badgering little solicitor he’d come to know so well. “Your cook, bless her heart, was in the kitchen in tears for she couldn’t bring herself to put the entire order of bones that came from the butcher in the soup pot, because it included the extra ones she always ordered for the ‘dear wee hound.’”

The gruff and sturdy Mrs. Grant? Buying extra cuts of meat on the sly for Rowan? He didn’t know what to think, especially after all the years of listening to her complain about Rowan tracking mud into her kitchen and stealing scraps.

His Shadow sniffed and swiped at her face.

Then he realized her tears weren’t the only ones falling.

“And two of the house maids took up a collection from the other servants and bought flowers to make a wreath. It’s quite lovely and is hanging in the garden.”

He closed his eyes and could see it. Hanging on the wall over the spot where he had…His chest tightened until he thought it would crush him.

“You need to go home,” she pleaded. “You need to help them grieve.”

As they will help you.

“I can’t,” he told her, forcing the words out. “Not yet.”

“Then when?” she persisted, pushing away from him. “How many more must die before you come to your senses?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cappon has been sending notes every night for you.”

“What did the notes say?”

“How would I—”

“Shadow—”

“Well, I might have looked at one of them, but it wasn’t meddling, since you weren’t there to do anything about it.”

“What did they say?” he ground out.

“There have been more killings in the Dials. And the Rookeries as well.”

How dare they?
his black Paratus heart clamored, as the darkness started to blur his vision.
With the ring you could end this…

He shook that black fury away. “I care not what happens there. It is no longer my concern.” He turned his back to her and leaned against the stone railing.

“Not your concern?” She caught hold of his sleeve and spun him around. “Rowan’s death should never have happened. But it did. Now you must continue on. There are people who depend upon you.” She paused. “People who love you.”

“They shouldn’t,” he said with steely cold.

“But I do,” she whispered. “Oh, Rockhurst, please come down from this place. Come with me.”

For she has the ring. If you were but to take it…

“No,” he said, more to the insidious voice inside his head, than to her. “I will not.”

“Is this because they killed Rowan?”

How could she ask such a thing? Wasn’t the answer obvious?

He turned his back to her again, his gaze flicking
over the city that sprawled out from St. Paul’s in all its majesty and glory. In all its sins and failings.

When he didn’t answer, she continued, “Oh, Rockhurst. I’ll never understand why they had to kill Rowan. Why Rowan?”

Why Rowan? What sort of idiotic question was that? Was this still some sort of madcap game to her? A masquerade meant to entertain? He spun around on her. “They killed Rowan because I couldn’t protect him. Because I failed.”

He stopped short of the rest of his confession.
Just as one day I would fail you.

She sucked in a deep breath and stepped back from the fury in his words, the chilled space between them growing wider than the Atlantic.

Good.
Why ever had she come here in the first place? Couldn’t she see the danger she was in, the little fool? The danger he put her in?

Well, if she couldn’t, perhaps he’d make it perfectly clear. He drew out his knife and held it before her. “I killed him as if I’d put this blade to his heart.”

“No-o-o,” she gasped. “No it wasn’t that way. I was there. You hadn’t a chance
—”

And neither do you. Kill her. Kill her now, and take the ring. The power it holds will change everything. Could save you…

“But that’s the point,” he bellowed. “I hadn’t a chance. Not then. Not now. Not as long as that hole is open for those devils to come scurrying through like plague-infested rats.” He groaned, raking his hand through his wet hair, his knees sagging beneath him.

She caught hold of him and steadied him. “Then close it,” she said, as matter-of-factly as one might decide between one invitation or the next.

“Can’t you see? I am only one man. And to stop them, I must…I’ll have to—”

“Become the Paratus?” she whispered. “As you did when Rowan died.”

So she had seen.

A tiny spark of hope blossomed in his chest.
Yet, still she is here. She believes in you.

But she shouldn’t. It was nothing short of suicide. Hadn’t she witnessed what they’d done to Rowan?

And what he’d done in return?

What he might do to gain the ring if this dark voice inside his head triumphed?

“Get out of here,” he told her, pointing at the door. “Get out of here and go back home. Go back to your
maman
and stay there.”

“I will not,” she argued, standing her ground. “I’ll not be ordered around like Tunstall or Cricks or any of your other loyal subjects. I am not under your rule.”

Not under his rule, was she? The darkness crept into his chest, twined around his heart. “Everyone one in this city is subject to my rule, whether they know it or not.”

“Jiminy, Rockhurst! I think your aunt is right. You’ve finally gone mad. If you think I’ll—”

Mad? He’d show her exactly how mad he’d been driven.

He caught hold of her, for he seemed to have developed a sense of where she was. One hand curled around an arm, the other her waist. He tugged her into his chest and held her fast, ignoring the surprised “
o-o-ooh
” that escaped
her lips as she slammed into him. “Mad, am I? And what of you? What were you thinking, coming here?”

Demmed little fool. A debutante tempted by the secrets of the night.

“I was only thinking of you,” she managed to gasp.

His heart contracted, but only momentarily. For he tamped down the warmth her confession brought with it, embraced the cold chill that now seeped into his bones.

To be warmed by her would leave him as distracted and weak as he’d been the other night.

This foolish, irresponsible, distracting Mayfair miss needed to be taught a lesson, and he knew how, letting a bit of that darkness creep back into his soul.

“Let go of me,” she said, squirming against his tightening grasp. “Rockhurst, unhand me.”

Her struggles only fed the black ether, the dangerous threads now cutting off every bit of reason he possessed.

His lips crashed down on hers, and he kissed her with a burning, brutal need. He forced her lips apart and ravished her mouth, devouring her sweet temptation.

Inside his head, the dark raw power howled, seeking this gratification like a blood-lust. He wanted to touch her, all of her. He wanted to taste her, everywhere.

And mostly, he wanted to forget himself between her thighs.

He caught hold of her gown and pulled it up, his hand catching hold of her round buttocks and hauling her right up against his already hard manhood.

She managed a gasp, before she said, “What the devil are you thinking, Rockhurst?”

“I think I am going to fuck you, right here and now.”

There was another gasp, this one a little more outraged than the last. “You are mad. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

He kissed her again, stifling her protests, kissing her until she gasped for air.

“You came up here,” he told her. “I told you to leave. I warned you.”

He tugged off her pelisse and threw it over the rail. Then opened her gown by cutting her bodice in two, her breasts spilling out. He tossed his knife aside and caught hold of her, leaning down to take the ripe flesh into his mouth, sucking hard on a nipple. His other hand went farther down, until it came to her sex, stroking her until she moaned in submission.

He kissed her anew, nibbling at her ears, her throat, where her pulse beat wildly beneath his lips.

“I am the Paratus,” he told her, barely recognizing his own lust-filled voice. “And you will do as I say.”

Part of Hermione wanted to rebel, to argue against his arrogant and overbearing presumption. That she was his, his to order and use at his discretion.

But that was the very heart of it.
She was his.

From the moment she’d put on the ring and wished to know all his secrets, she’d been bound to him like no woman had ever been bound to a man.

So as he tried to bully her, frighten her, use her body, she’d discovered that she possessed a strength of her own.

One well matched to that of the Paratus. For her body sang with passion and desire as he plundered her lips,
tore her gown from her body. For he only left her exposed to his rough and heated exploration, left her trembling with ragged desire.

She was no more Lady Hermione Marlowe tonight than he was the Earl of Rockhurst.

“So then fuck me, my lord Paratus,” his Shadow told him, her body arching up to meet his ravaging desires. “Take me if you dare.”

Her challenge sent his blood coursing in a roar of fire through his veins. His shaft throbbed, ached to find release. She wanted him? She could have him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took her to the tiles, cold and wet from the chilling rain.

She reached up and caught hold of his breeches, pulling them open and freeing him. She caught hold of him and stroked him, her hips rising, her thighs opening, offering him the solace he was seeking.

And he took it. Took her. Plunging himself into her, all the way in one hard, angry movement. It was wrong, and he knew it, but the madness, his grief were devouring him, and he couldn’t stop.

Yet there was still some part of him that knew he couldn’t do this to her. Not to this woman, and how he did it, he didn’t know, but he found the wherewithal to stop, pausing before he plunged into her again.

And then he saw them. Her eyes. They were bright and full of passion. He could almost see her face, a hint of freckles, a full mouth, lush and swollen from his kiss.

But it was her eyes that saved him—for they were full of passion, and desire, and something else.

Something he couldn’t name. Something he feared more than death.

Her love.

And when he blinked, and looked again, they were gone, like a trick of light on a hot summer’s day. But he could feel her. Her hips rising to meet him. Hear her, as a hungry moan slipped from her lips. Her hands clung to him, wound into his coat and tugging him closer, deeper into her.

He kissed his way up her neck, where her pulse raced with a wild, tremulous beat, up her throat, and to her mouth.

Her tongue tangled with his, stroking him. Reminding him of what she’d dared him to do.
To take her.
His fury came roaring back to life, and he thrust himself into her, hard and fast. She writhed beneath him, encouraging him, calling his name, tugging at him to go deeper, harder.

With each thrust, the darkness became louder, a roar in his head, a dangerous abyss of passion that he wondered how he would ever free himself of.

“Oh, yes, oh, yes, Thomas,” she gasped. “Please, please…oh, please,” she cried out, as her climax crashed over her, the ripples of her body, the wild cadence of her hips, pulling his release from him.