Teresa Medeiros (20 page)

“We ain’t no gents,” came another voice, low and threatening. “And you ain’t no lady.”

Lucy’s amused chagrin faded as a third figure emerged from the shadows. His narrow face had the sharpness and cunning of a fox’s.

His rabid gaze snaked to her reticule. Its satin skin was swollen with her handkerchief and everpresent watch. “Seein’ as we ain’t got no coin and you do, mayhap you could pay us for our services. We’re worth it, ain’t we, mates? All the wenches says so.”

Their harsh laughter grated across Lucy’s nerves. Her heart began to thud dully in her ears. She inched toward the mouth of the alley only to discover her path blocked by the men. She had no parasol with which to defend herself, no tender, teasing bodyguard to protect her.

Fighting the paralysis of terror, she forced a coy smile and dangled the reticule in front of Mr. Fox-Face’s greedy eyes. His ragged whiskers twitched in anticipation.

“I doubt even the three of you together are worth this much gold,” she said.

He snatched at the bait. Thankful for the solid weight of her watch, she swung the tiny purse in a wide arc, smashing him in the ear. Before she could flee, the other two were on her, dragging her to the cobblestones in a flurry of straining limbs and rending silk.

Gerard lounged against the wall next to the alley and waited for Lucy to emerge. He supposed she was sulking, expecting him to soften and return to retrieve both her and her precious glove. His self-contempt mounted as he realized he was doing it again—playing
his role as bodyguard with such flair and conviction that even he was coming to believe it. How could he hope to protect Lucy when the most dangerous threat to her was him?

He tilted his head back, letting the icy darts of rain stab his face. They did nothing to cool his rage. The time had come to bring this ridiculous charade to an end. He’d known it the instant he’d seen Lucy’s damning sketches and listened to her tender defense of Captain Doom. It was a pity, he thought, that the jaded pirate would never fully appreciate the loyalty, however misguided, of his enemy’s daughter.

He shoved himself away from the wall. He had thought to see his young mistress home for the last time, but surely even the disaster-prone Miss Snow could make it one block to the security of the carriage without his protection.

He ought to be thankful to be free of this farce, he told himself as he slipped the spectacles into his coat and started down the pavement. But unbidden memories pelted him with every step: wrapping Lucy in his coat to shield her from the rain, feeding her sugary comfits from his fingertips, drawing her so tightly against his body that she’d felt like a part of him that had been missing since birth. A phantom limb that now ached all the more because of its fleeting restoration.

With no effort at all, Gerard could feel her melting against him through her thin negligee as she’d done in that moment when he had enfolded her in his arms. Could feel the tickle of her damp hair against his cheek. Smell the lingering scent of soap warmed by the secret hollows of her flesh until it incited his body like an aphrodisiac. His loins pounded an exquisite protest, torturing him as he deserved.

He hastened his steps. He might have removed himself
from Miss Snow’s service, but he still had unfinished business with her father. The rigid contours of his pistol prodded his ribs.

A muffled yelp sounded behind him. He stopped. The crowds streamed around him, recoiling from his fierce expression.

“Her bloody Highness probably wants me to step on a cockroach for her so she doesn’t soil her dainty little slipper,” he muttered. “Sorry, Princess, not this time.”

Ignoring the hollow clench of his gut, he resumed walking, his long strides surer than before. He was done playing knight in tarnished armor to Lucy Snow’s lady bountiful.

He froze in his tracks. For over the raucous clamor of the crowd had flown a sound he’d never thought to hear. A single name couched in a terrified scream that chilled his blood to ice.

Gerard
.

T
HE IMPACT OF GERARD’S FIRST STRIKE against her attackers rattled Lucy like a broadside from a seventy-four-gunner.

There was no time to feel relief, no time to do anything but crawl through the confused tangle of arms and legs to cower against the wall. Helpless to stop shivering, she drew the tatters of her cape around her, deafened to everything but the uncontrollable chattering of her own teeth.

Her bodyguard dispatched the hooligans with ruthless efficiency. He grabbed the one by his long, stringy hair and smashed his face into the bricks. The man collapsed in a groaning heap upon the cobblestones.

Another rushed at Gerard’s back. Lucy tried to scream a warning, but her swollen throat refused to cooperate. Her hoarse squeak proved to be superfluous, for with the well-honed instincts of a born street brawler, Gerard wheeled around and drove his fist into the man’s face with enough force to dislodge the remainder of his rotting teeth. The enraged thief was
fool enough to draw a knife and charge him again. Gerard grabbed the man’s wrist before the jagged blade could pierce his cheek and twisted.

Lucy slammed her eyes shut at the resulting crunch.

Her eyes flew open at another sound, even more damning than the last.

Gerard stood with his feet braced wide on the damp cobblestones, deadly mastery etched in his stance. Even more deadly was the gleaming pistol cocked in his hand. Lucy stopped shivering. A primitive thrill shot through her as she realized for the first time what a dangerous man her protector truly was. Primitive, for instead of cringing in repugnance, her heart swelled with pride.

The object of Gerard’s lethal attention was the be-whiskered leader, who had taken advantage of his compatriots’ recklessness to slink toward the crumbling wall at the back of the alley.

The man lifted his shaking hands in a plea. “ ’Ave mercy, gent,” he whined. “There ain’t no call to shoot me. We meant no ’arm t’ the little lady. We thought ye’d had yer fill of ’er and wouldn’t mind us takin’ a turn.”

Gerard’s expressive mouth curled in a sneer of contempt. “That’s where you made your mistake, chap. I never let another man touch what belongs to me.”

His arrogant assertion, however much of a bluff, should have outraged Lucy. Instead, it sent another peculiar thrill tingling through her.

Gerard’s gun arm tensed, and for one terrible moment, Lucy thought he was going to shoot her assailant down cold. Then he slowly lowered the pistol and the man fled, scampering over the wall like a terrified rodent.

The cold, heavy weight of the pistol dangled from Gerard’s hand. An icy ball of fury had lodged in his
chest, slowing his heartbeats until each one of them rang in his ears like a ship’s bell tolling disaster. He could scent blood, taste the heady promise of violence on his tongue. Through the roaring in his ears, he heard laughing taunts in. French and Spanish, the dull thud of a boot slamming into his rib cage, the impotent rattle of chains. A hand gave his sleeve a tentative tug.

He swung around, his chest heaving with fury.

“Are you all right?” Lucy whispered.

A wave of self-loathing washed over him. He was supposed to be this woman’s bodyguard, yet she stood gazing up at him, her fingers entangled in his sleeve, her eyes luminous with tender concern.

She was shaking so hard that the rattle of her teeth was audible. Disheveled strands of hair tumbled over her face. Shadows bruised the delicate skin beneath her eyes, making them look even more enormous against the stark pallor of her skin. She had valiantly tried to arrange the soot-stained tatters of her cape around her, as if they could ward off more than just the chill.

As she blinked back tears with a stubborn bravery that shamed him, the ball of ice in Gerard’s chest began to melt. He felt something he’d only felt once before. A searing heat. A fierce tenderness. A raw desire to protect and cherish. A dangerous vulnerability.

He shoved the pistol into his coat and reached for her, but the ugly stains on his hands stopped him. Bloodstains. Not his own, but the blood of others.

Perhaps it was for the best. Better for her to see his true nature as only those dark, damning stains could reveal it. He waited for her to recoil in horrified disgust for the sort of man he had proved himself to be.

He was stunned when, instead, she threw herself past his hands and into his open arms, burying her face
in his cravat and twisting his coat in her balled fists as if she would never let it go.

Caught unprepared by the grace of her trust, he wrapped his arms around her. The crude stains on his hands forgotten, he smoothed her damp hair and whispered hoarse, soothing words, some coherent, some not. When his ministrations failed to ease her violent trembling, he scooped her up in his arms and drew the torn cape over her hair to shield her from the fitful rain.

Undaunted by the weather, a rapt crowd had gathered at the mouth of the alley, their appetites for excitement whetted by the rumor of an ugly brawl. Refusing to expose Lucy to their leers and speculations, Gerard bounded over the back wall. There would be ample time later for remorse, time to lash himself for his sins, not the least of which was leaving Lucy to fend for herself on the hazardous London streets.

For now, all he wanted to do was take her somewhere warm, dry, and private. Home was out of the question since her father’s suspicions and censure would render it a prison, not a refuge. He veered away from the carriage and strode toward the welcoming lights of a modest inn.

As Gerard burst through the door in a flurry of wind and rain, the balding innkeeper paused at polishing the bar. A handful of patrons scattered at tables around the hearth glanced up eagerly from their drinking and gaming to see what fresh sport was to be had.

At the sight of the inert, but plainly feminine, bundle in Gerard’s arms, the innkeeper slammed down his rag. “Come now, gent! This is a respectable establishment. We’ll have none of that here!”

Lucy peeped out from her cozy nest, flinching at the rumble of the hostile male voice. Without a word, Gerard
drew a heavy leather purse from his coat and tossed it toward the innkeeper. It landed on the bar with a promising clunk. Even in her muddled state, Lucy thought to wonder how Gerard could have amassed such a relative fortune. The Admiral was not known for his generosity to his staff.

To the innkeeper’s credit, he didn’t pounce on the purse as he obviously longed to do. Instead, he blinked away his moral indignation, seized by a mercenary spirit of amiability. “There’s fresh sheets on the bed, sir. Will you be requiring any ale?”

“Warm water and hot coffee,” Gerard snapped with the confidence of a man accustomed to having his orders obeyed. “And see that we’re not disturbed.”

“Aye, sir, whatever you wish.”

As her bodyguard carried her up the narrow stairs, Lucy buried her nose in the worn folds of his badly knotted cravat, breathing in the clean masculine scent of spice and tobacco to wash away the gin-tainted stench of the men who had thought to brutalize her.

The third room they came to was unoccupied. Gerard deposited her on the plain wooden bed and gently pried her hands from his coat so he could draw it off and drape it over her shoulders. Lucy’s hungry gaze never wavered from him as he lit a stubby tallow candle and dragged a faded quilt over her lap.

Beads of frozen rain tapped against the window-pane, dissolving like fluid diamonds as they struck the glass. The fireless room was chill, but after enduring the bitter bite of the wind outside, Lucy found it almost cozy. She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand, admitting ruefully to herself that it was not the shelter that made her feel safe, but the man who shared it.

Minutes later, the innkeeper’s wife came banging on the door with the water and coffee Gerard had demanded.
She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the bed, but Gerard nudged the door shut in her ruddy face.

As he poured the steaming water from a ewer into a chipped ceramic basin, Lucy tugged at a damp strand of her hair, knowing she must look a fright. Gerard hadn’t spared her so much as a glance since their arrival in the room.