Tempted By the Night (7 page)

The word swung through his thoughts like a noose, and he glanced over his shoulder again.

Yet nothing but shadows greeted him.

Perhaps Essie was right. A woman. That’s what he needed. That would solve everything.

Then he laughed.

For certainly that was madness in itself. When had a woman ever given a man anything but more trouble?

Hermione struggled to catch her breath, even now that Rockhurst no longer had his cross-bow pointed at her.

She still couldn’t quite believe it.
A cross-bow?

What sort of medieval madness had she stumbled into? Gentlemen didn’t jaunt around London armed as
if they were readying themselves for some Crusader’s tournament.

Yet here was the Earl of Rockhurst pulling all sorts of armaments out of the leather bag at his feet. Wicked-looking knives, a pair of pistols, a short sword.

Right now she wished he was in the arms of Essie the Fallen Dove, and that was the worst of his sins.

Murder? Death? She’d been quite happy to consider all that talk as nothing more than jesting or some masculine cant that she hadn’t any experience listening to. But this? A cross-bow and a sword?

She sank to her knees and gauged the man she’d thought she knew better than anyone and now discovered she knew so little about.

And what had he been going on about?
His people? His realm?
More nonsense.

The real nonsense was that she’d wished herself here. With him. Whatever had she been thinking?

Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on her glove. When that failed, she tugged it off with her teeth.

Well, she was done. No more wishes. From this night forth, just a sensible marriage to someone like Lord Hustings for her. Tugging at Charlotte’s ring, she tried with all her might to get it off.

But the ring stubbornly clung to her finger.

I’ll get this ring off, and I’ll be visible again
, she reasoned. She no longer cared if the earl ever looked at her. She’d seen enough for one night, and it was time to end this charade.

Then what? If she got the ring off and became visible again, what would she do?

Well, demand the earl take her home. Right there and then. He was still a gentleman, a peer of the realm, wasn’t he?

She took a quick glance up at him and answered her own question.

Not.
For what noblemen carried around cross-bows and swords as a matter of course? She had to imagine Lord Hustings never did.

But the Earl of Rockhurst…well, she knew now he was no…no…

She glanced over at the man, who had now stripped out of his waistcoat and was pulling off his cravat, and all her arguments and discontent fluttered away into the shadows.

His valet would probably weep to see the once–perfectly ironed and starched linen tossed aside—but all Hermione could do was stare—for here he was, nearly undressed. As he rose, the muscles of his back and shoulders were outlined by his tight shirt.

He stretched again, like a great cat, and all she could think was that it was as if one of Townsend’s Greek marbles had come to life—specifically the relief of a man trying to calm a horse. Her mother had called it evidence of the Grecian eye for “artistic glory,” but Hermione had thought it a perfectly unbelievable example of manhood.

Now she knew how wrong she’d been, for it was all she could do to breathe at the sight of Rockhurst. She rose as well, catching hold of the railing beside her as her breasts grew full, her nipples tightening, tingling as they never had before. She couldn’t do anything but
stare at the corded muscles in his arms, gape at the sure grasp with which he held that deadly-looking sword. Her knees quaked, but not out of fear, more so from the way her thighs tightened and grew hot.

No, she wasn’t afraid any longer. At least not for the same reasons she’d been earlier.

Her unease had to do with the ache that pulled at her, and she had no idea what it meant—only that she couldn’t stop looking at him, couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to see him in his altogether, a true embodiment of a Greek relief.

For stripped of all his guises, she had no doubt this man would know how to ease this trembling need inside her, steal away her fears.

Then something else hit her. She was looking at him without getting nauseated.

Perfect! Now that she knew his hobbies consisted of extortion and murder, she could tolerate being in the same vicinity as the man.

She gave the ring one more frustrated tug.

Rowan let loose a loud
woof,
a bark filled with annoyance at her presence and his master’s inability to see her.

Rockhurst glanced at his dog and turned toward her. Those blue eyes that more than one debutante had swooned over bored down on the spot where she stood, and for a moment she swore he could see her.

It sent tendrils of desire through her veins as much as it did fear, especially when he stalked toward her, cross-bow in hand.

He stared at the place she was standing for a moment
longer, then glanced over his shoulder. “What has you in knots, boy?” he said to Rowan. “Something amiss?”

Hermione froze since no more than a whisper separated them. She swallowed back the breath caught in her throat, not daring even to exhale, lest she give herself away.

She gazed in fascinated awe at the lines around his eyes, the set of his lips. When he turned again, he was looking right at her—not that he could see her, but she was used to being invisible to his discerning gaze.

But this? This was utterly disarming.

This close, this intimate, she could smell him. She couldn’t help herself—she took a slow, silent inhale, letting the masculine scent fill her nostrils—no bay rum for Rockhurst, but a scent that held stark notes and rich tones. The bolt of desire it ignited nearly gave her away, for her knees trembled, and she continued to cling to the railing, feeling that her wish had cast her into something far beyond her ken, well beyond her understanding.

Shopping and silks. Gossip and balls. Promenades and flirtations. That was her realm. Not this dark world into which Rockhurst had unwittingly dragged her.

Perhaps the gossips and tattlers were right, there was a stripe of evil through the earl that no woman would ever tame.

Hermione didn’t want to tame such a beast, even try to contain it, for just then she was struck by an unshakable feeling that something was about to go very wrong.

And then it did.

Rowan’s low growl had Rockhurst spinning around even before the telltale tremble in the ground reached his boots.

He looked left, then right, trying to gauge just where the door was about to appear, until a bit of light started to pierce the darkness before him.

He braced himself and raised his cross-bow. He’d seen this hundreds of times before, the blinding light, the shimmer of colors before the door finally opened. And though he never knew what was going to step through, there was one thing that never changed—whatever it was, it was evil.

But never in his life nor in all the legends that his forebears had passed down had one of them ever described the banshee wail that rose up behind him as his two worlds collided.

He reeled around. Christ, there
was
someone there.

The piercing scream put his every nerve at points. A woman? What the devil was some bit of muslin doing out here? And after he’d told Cappon to bar the door.

Yet he stared at the steps, and there was no one there, just agonizing screams of fright coming from the empty space between him and the door back into Cappon’s brothel.

This disruption didn’t seem to bother Rowan, for the wolfhound stood his ground, barking madly at the more pressing problem opening up in the alley.

What had started as a tiny crack all of a sudden burst open, the illumination more bright than if it had been the midsummer sun. And then came the roar—like that
of a thousand cannons—followed by an explosion of power, a jolt not unlike one delivered by those newfangled electric machines that had Trent’s brother Griffin all excited.

As the wave washed over him, instead of standing his ground as he’d always done, he found his boots sliding about in the offal beneath him, and he was thrown back, the cross-bow flying out of his hand and landing at the foot of the steps.

Rockhurst cursed roundly, scrambling to get to his feet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been caught like the worst sort of greenling.

First Almack’s. Now he was covered in this wretched muck.

Could his evening get any worse?

A dark and dangerous laughter filled his heart with dread. “Having trouble, my friend?”

Oh, yes, it could.
Rockhurst turned, slowly and cautiously. “Melaphor.” His hand rose, but he realized he no longer held his cross-bow, so he had to scramble to draw his sword.

So much for his usual self-assurance.

Standing in front of him, Melaphor laughed again. His dark cloak swirled around his tall, regal figure. “Whatever has you so unnerved, my friend? Weren’t you expecting me?” He drew closer, the red of his eyes hypnotic.

But Rockhurst knew better than to look the creature in the eyes. At least not directly. “You have no business here, Melaphor,” he said. “Go back where you belong.” Rowan growled as well, echoing his master’s displeasure.

Melaphor cast an uneasy glance at the dog, but only for a moment. Then he grinned, his teeth like those of an animal, sharp and dangerous. “But I’ve come to help you,” he said, his words coming out in a lazy purr, only emphasizing his tawny, leonine features.

“Help me? Help yourself, would be more like it. As you have been for the last few months.”

The evil lord before him stilled. “What do you mean? I haven’t been—”

Rockhurst waved his hand, dismissing whatever the creature had to say as more lies and deceptions. “Haven’t been what? Feeding? Of course you have. What about the girl from the other night. Or have you gotten so corrupt and aged, you can’t remember?”

Taking a step back, Melaphor studied him, his fair brows drawn across his pale features in a taut line. It was almost as if he were weighing these accusations for the first time.

The disquiet that had weighed on Rockhurst earlier resurfaced. There was something wrong about all this. But like the scent of apple blossoms, he shook off such deceptively distracting thoughts.

For it had to have been Melaphor—or at the very least, one of his minions. For who else could have wrought such horrors?

The fiend tipped his head and studied him. “How dull of you to natter on about my age. As for a girl…” He gave a negligent shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Was she pretty? I tend to remember the pretty ones more readily.” He chuckled, but his laughter held no playful humor but a deadly reminder of the horror he was
capable of. “And now that you mention it, I am rather hungry. Indulge me, my friend. Look the other way and I shall reward you. Just this once—a small child perhaps, or some bit of gamine untried flesh. A reward for not killing you a few moments ago.”

“If you could have killed me, you would have,” Rockhurst said, keeping Carpio pointed at the creature’s black heart.

“Truly, would you honestly miss one of these insignificant little mice you call your subjects?”

“I have none to spare.”

“Such a poor kingdom for a prince, don’t you think? I rather pity you—for we are much alike I think. Desirous of a life beyond our own, shall we say, tedious obligations.”

“We are nothing alike,” Rockhurst replied. He settled into his boots, his footing regained and his confidence coming to the forefront.

If only he could shrug off the notion that there was somebody behind him. Most likely it had been one of Melaphor’s tricks, but then again…

“Nothing alike? Don’t fool yourself, Paratus. I kill for pleasure—as you do.”

“I kill to keep my people safe, and I will kill you if you take one more step into
my
realm.”

“Kill me?” Melaphor’s eyes narrowed and lips drawn into a sneer, “I think not. For if you did, my entire family would follow me here to feast—”

“What? In celebration of your removal from their midst?”

Melaphor shrugged. “Amusing, but crude. Do you
really think you can kill me, Paratus?” He paced a bit to the left and the right, smoothly and sleekly like a tiger in a cage, testing the boundaries of his prison. “Do you know how many of your kind I’ve killed? Eighteen. I’ve left them just alive enough to watch me take my pleasures with their wives and daughters before I ended their servitude in this wretched world of yours. Really, I was doing them a service, one that I would be more than happy to offer you.”

“You can try,” Rockhurst told him, feeling the surge of power that came just before a fight.

“Not yet, youngling. You haven’t mated yet, haven’t produced an heir.”

“Who’s to say I haven’t?”

“Oh, you’ve rutted your way through this city of yours, but you haven’t mated. Found that one woman to tempt your lily-pure heart. If you had, I would be able to smell it on you—like the scent of fear.” Melaphor paused and studied him. “And I will take great pleasure in killing her, if only to see the pain it will cause you for denying me what I want.”

This is a nightmare,
Hermione told herself, pinching her arms and hoping she would wake up. But instead of rescuing her from the dark, sleepy realm of Queen Mab, she only gained a series of marks up and down her arms.

No, she was awake. And this terrible creature before Rockhurst was real.

But he couldn’t be. Why, he was exactly like some terrible, wicked fae devil their Irish nanny had threat
ened her and her brothers and sisters with when they misbehaved.

Tall and elegantly attired like some great prince of old, Melaphor stood as tall as the earl, if not a little taller. Sleek of build, he moved like one of the large cats she’d seen at the Tower. Why, his golden hair alone, what with the way it fell to his shoulders in angelic waves, would probably have every debutante in London swooning.

But this man was no heavenly guest, for Hermione sensed the evil clinging to him as thickly as the Floris perfume Lord Hustings wore.