Untouched (7 page)

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What was the fool woman up to?

Matthew signaled Wolfram to stay. Monks and Filey closed in on their prey and didn’t notice as he edged up behind

them. What he heard as he came within earshot froze his blood to ice.

“Happen there’s only one way you’re leaving, lass. That’s dead as a doornail. Do it now or wait until his lordship has his

fill. Any road, it’s up to you.” Monks spoke softly but clearly. Matthew could have told her the quieter the thug became,

the more lethal he was.

“And first, I’ll have my go.” Filey stepped to one side of the girl so they had her boxed against the brickwork. “I’ll not

throw away such a grand chance.”

“I’m trying to tell you you’ve made a mistake. I’m a respectable widow, not a…a whore.”

Matthew still couldn’t see Mrs. Paget past the broad backs. But he heard how she struggled to maintain the sweet

reasonableness of her tone. Good God, she spoke to these two unpredictable curs as if she invited them to tea.

Monks snickered. “All lasses are whores. Any road, whatever you once were, you’ll learn to play a whore’s part right

fast.”

Her voice developed a pleading note. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve done. You have my word.”

Did she know the danger she courted? Anger at her recklessness tasted sour in Matthew’s mouth.

Monks laughed again. Even Matthew, who knew his adversary of old, couldn’t restrain the shiver that ran down his spine

at the pure evil of the sound. “Your word, eh? That’s worth nowt to me. No, you stay and keep his sodding lordship happy.

He might be out of his head but he’s right pretty, I reckon.”

“He doesn’t want me,” she said.

Matthew closed his eyes in despair. Christ, what had she done? Whether she was a willing instrument in Lord John’s

schemes or merely an innocent swept into this fiendish game—and at this precise moment he couldn’t say for sure—she’d

just signed away her life.

“Eh, the lad’s nowt but shy,” Filey said coaxingly. “He’ll get over that soon enow.”

“No, I’m not to his taste,” she persisted, idiot girl.

“Eh, then it’s daft to keep you,” Monks said in a businesslike tone. “Filey, use the wench until tomorrow then I’ll finish

her off.”

“No,” she protested frantically. “You don’t understand.”

Filey chuckled with lascivious eagerness. “Oh, we understand right well, flower. It’s you who’s a mite confused. His

lordship has you, then I do, then we shut you up good and proper with a hit on the head or a knife to the neck. If his

lordship’s not interested, we skip the first step.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him.

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“Let me go!” she cried out, writhing in her captor’s grip.

Even if she was a lying trull, Matthew couldn’t help but pity her terror and helplessness. Terror and helplessness he’d felt

often enough himself over the last eleven years. He resented but couldn’t stifle his swift empathy. It no longer mattered

whether she conspired against him. All that mattered was that she was small and defenseless and the only champion she

could call on was Matthew Lansdowne.

“What is the meaning of this?” he snarled, stepping forward. He signaled to Wolfram and the dog loped up, his hackles

rising.

Monks turned toward him and sketched a bow. These days, his jailers preserved superficial respect for his rank. When

they’d had him bound before them, they hadn’t been so careful. Perhaps they thought in his raving, he’d neither register

nor remember their cruelty.

“My lord. This slut hasn’t met with your approval. We’ll take her away and get you a new one.”

“I’m not a toy,” the woman snapped, still trying to wriggle free of Filey’s bruising hold.

“Shut your gob, bitch,” Monks said. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

“You have no right to speak to me like that,” she objected in her cut-glass accent, a perfect match for Matthew’s.

“I warned you.” Monks raised a clenched fist.

Matthew got there first, his arm upheld to fend off the blow. Staring fixedly into Monks’s small dirt-colored eyes, he

stood like a barrier in front of the frightened girl.

“Damn you, let her be.” He summoned every ounce of Lansdowne arrogance. And still knew it mightn’t be enough.

It was enough for Filey. He released the chit and shifted away. “Beg pardon, your lordship,” he muttered, keeping a

nervous eye on Wolfram.

Matthew wasn’t so sure of Monks. For a long space, the brute stared with obstinate hatred into his face. Eventually

something—fear of future consequences, unwillingness to break the fragile but long-held truce between them—made

Monks’s eyes flicker away.

The girl was still at Matthew’s back. He reached behind to snatch her arm and tug her forward to stand beside him. He

didn’t look at her but he felt the convulsive tremors that ran through her. Thankfully, for once she’d decided silence was

her best tactic.

“This lady is under my protection. If harm comes to her, my uncle will hear. I promise you, he won’t be pleased.”

Monks might be in retreat but he was far from defeated. His lips stretched in a leering smile. “So I take it the bitch is

mistaken and you do want her, your lordship?”

Matthew hesitated. Admitting he wanted the woman meant he enlisted in his uncle’s foul scheme.

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If he didn’t claim her, she would die.

Triumph glowed in Monks’s eyes. He was far from stupid and he was party to many of Lord John’s plots. He knew the

significance of this moment.

Matthew couldn’t say it. To save his soul, he couldn’t.

At his side, the girl choked back a terrified sob. She stood close enough for the scent of jasmine to lure his senses. She

was warm against his body. Warm and alive.

He looked steadily into his enemy’s eyes and spoke with calm certainty. “Yes, I want her. She is mine.”

The words wouldn’t have been nearly so difficult to say if they hadn’t been the absolute truth.

Grace heard the marquess speak from a great distance. The actual words hardly registered. Shaking with sick relief, she

pressed against his side. He was all that shielded her from unimaginable horror. His ruthless grip on her arm anchored her

to reality, stopped her screaming out her fear.

Her disbelieving heart thundered two words over and over.I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe.

Monks grinned at Lord Sheene in a horribly knowing way that made cold sweat break out all over her body. “I wish your

lordship good sport. Eh, I’ll be right glad to give you tips on pleasing a lass.”

The marquess’s smooth baritone dripped ice. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, Monks. Treat this lady with respect or by

God, you’ll answer for it.”

Lord Sheene’s arm slid around Grace’s shoulders and drew her into his body. Like an elixir against panic, the clean smell

of his skin wafted out to tease her. It was familiar although she’d have thought herself too disoriented yesterday to notice

his scent.

“That goes for you too, Filey.” He sounded like a man who commanded armies, not a poor captive lunatic. “Now leave

us.”

The aura of authority must have convinced. Filey and Monks scuttled off in bowing confusion. Only when they were out

of sight did Lord Sheene untangle himself and step away. Grace immediately missed his heat and strength.

“Are you all right?” His hauteur had vanished. He sounded concerned, kind. The hostility for once was absent.

Grace wrapped her arms around herself to control her shaking but they didn’t provide the warmth she’d found in Lord

Sheene’s embrace. Her legs felt like they might collapse under her. She needed a couple of attempts before she could

control her voice enough to reply. “They…they didn’t hurt me.”

“They would have. It was foolhardy to confront them.” Intent golden eyes ranged over her. Eventually, he gave a nod as

if he accepted she was unharmed. “I believe your story about the kidnap.”

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Well, hoorah for you.Good honest anger swamped her dread. Renewed energy made her straighten and glare at him. “I

appreciate your condescension, my lord. Any man with eyes in his head could see I was telling the truth.”

His lips curved in another of his wry smiles. “You forget you’re dealing with a poor mad fool, Mrs. Paget.”

His show of charming self-derision made her angrier. Unless she got away, she’d pitch something at his handsome head.

“I think you are precisely as mad as you wish to be, my lord.” She whirled around and marched toward the house, cursing

every male born into this miserable world.

By the time she came downstairs for dinner, Grace regretted her temper. It had been reaction to her paralyzing fear when

Monks spoke so dispassionately of killing her. She shuddered anew at what could have happened if Lord Sheene hadn’t

saved her.

If Lord Sheene hadn’t claimed her as his.Of course, it meant nothing. He didn’t want her. If he wanted her, he could have

her. What stopped him extending those elegant hands and taking her? He’d even come to her room last night, then hadn’t

been able to stomach the act.

When she quietly entered the salon and saw him standing at the window, her heart began to race. She told herself she

trembled because she was scared. But years of endurance and unhappiness had taught her unflinching honesty. Along with

fear, other emotions stirred. Her wariness of the marquess held none of the gagging revulsion Filey aroused.

Lord Sheene kept his back to her as he looked out into the twilight. Yet again, his isolation struck her. His physical

isolation. And also his spiritual isolation. Perhaps that alone constituted his madness. So far, she’d seen little other sign of

his affliction.

He spoke without turning. “Stay away from Monks and Filey. They don’t make idle threats.”

Again, that instinctive animal awareness of what happened around him. Were all madmen so attuned to their

surroundings?

She wouldn’t have thought so.

A sudden memory pierced her of his intense concentration on the spindly rose bush that morning. His hands had been so

deft, their very sureness breathtakingly beautiful. Her wayward heart dipped into an unsteady dance at the thought of

those hands on her skin.

Grace, stop it! You’re in enough trouble as it is.

Heavens, she must regain self-control and quickly. The last thing she needed was an infatuation with her fellow captive.

She hadn’t thought about a man touching her for pleasure in years. Certainly not since her marriage and the collapse of

her girlish fantasies.

She stepped up to stand beside him. The window faced the darkening woods. The day had been clear. Now the first stars

shone in the cloudless sky. It could have been a landscape by Claude, if one didn’t know an unscaleable wall circled the

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trees or two homicidal devils guarded the gate to this perilous Eden.

The silence allowed her to say something she was guiltily aware she should have said earlier. “Thank you, my lord. If you

hadn’t come…”

“Don’t think about it.” He focused those uncanny eyes on her. Except that after a day and a half, she noticed their

strangeness less and their beauty more.

“I can’t help it.” She’d been frightened and wretched for so long, even before her abduction. But nothing matched the

horror that had gripped her when Monks stared into her face and promised rape and death. Compared to that, the mad

marquess was a bastion of security. The clinging ghost of today’s panic made her speak more freely than usual. “You were

magnificent.”

A bleak smile tilted his generous mouth. “Hardly.”

He swung away from the window. He clearly couldn’t bear standing so close to her. Perhaps her gaudy clothing disgusted

him. She hitched at her amber silk gown’s neckline but it remained as provocative as when she’d put it on upstairs. A

clashing pink sash cinched it around her waist but she hadn’t been able to fix the loose bodice.

She’d turned the bedroom upside down seeking her widow’s weeds. No black bombazine, but she’d found plenty of

gowns to make a cyprian blush. She lacked nothing a whore required for her trade. Slippers dyed to match the tasteless

dresses. Drawers full of filmy underwear such as she’d never seen, even in her days at Marlow Hall. A coffer overflowing

with cheap jewelry. Boxes of cosmetics.

She’d also found a chest of the marquess’s clothes.

There was something unbearably intimate, almost marital, in having his personal belongings under her hand. As if he

could pop in at any time to select tonight’s shirt or neckcloth. She’d quickly slammed the lid down on the neatly folded

attire. The idea of him making free of her bedroom wasn’t quite so easy to shut away.

After a long search, this tent of a dress was the best she’d come up with. It threatened to slide off into a slippery pile,

leaving her clad in only her shift. She could just imagine how the marquess would turn his well-bred nose up at that.

Why should she care for his approval? They were strangers flung together in an impossible situation. Whether he liked

her was irrelevant. Already she spent too much time thinking of him in ways she shouldn’t.