Anne Stuart (10 page)

She had stolen his jewels and his coat and climbed out his window to disappear into a snowstorm. If only all women could be so resourceful.

He considered letting her go. She was undoubtedly a great deal of trouble; if he hauled her back, she might grow agitated, and try to skewer him.

The notion had a certain oblique charm. No one had tried to kill him for a number of years, ever since he had dispatched his third man in a duel. He was considered possessed of the devil’s own luck, both in dueling and in cards, and most people avoided both those pursuits with him.

So circumspect were the majority of his acquaintance, in fact, that he found them deadly boring, as well as vicious, petty-minded snobs. On the other hand, Nathaniel’s ill-concealed dislike managed to provide him with some much-needed distraction. And despite being vastly irritating, young Nathaniel, with his stern disapproval and heroic ways, was twice the man any of Killoran’s London acquaintances were.

Of course, he wasn’t nearly so distracting as the strapping, flame-haired murderess who had so conveniently dropped into his lap. He was convinced she’d been brought into his life for a purpose, not by mere chance, and he found the thought curiously soothing. In the past five years only one human being had managed to rouse him from his ennui, and that was Jasper Darnley.

The score he had to settle was an old one. He’d worked away at it, bit by bit, until the sport was almost gone. But still, Darnley managed to surprise him and come back. Emma could provide the means for the long-awaited coup de grace.

However, she was a double-edged sword. Killoran knew Darnley would take one look at her and be consumed with lust. That was exactly what he counted on.

The only danger was that he might fall prey to the same weakness he offered his enemy,

She was almost at the edge of the garden now, and her tall figure was obscured by the blowing snow. Her thin shoes would be worthless in the deep slush. Her clothing was rough, cheap, unimaginative, and too flimsy. And his satin coat would provide little protection from the elements.

Would she freeze to death within sight of his house? He considered the notion absently. It would certainly make things interesting. He could well imagine the rumors that would abound. People would assume she was a serving girl, seduced and abandoned. Or some indigent relative, turned away without a crust of bread. People believed the worst of him, and rightfully so. He was a heartless bastard, worse even than they imagined.

She might get as far as the stews of London. She wouldn’t last long on a night like this. If the cold and the storm didn’t stop her, one of the denizens of the night would. He couldn’t imagine how she’d survived before, but he had seen her pale face and shadowed eyes and known she was at the limit of her endurance.

If he didn’t go after her, she’d be dead before the sun rose. It was just that simple.

A villain wouldn’t care. The heartless, soulless creature he prided himself on being would accept her fate as her just deserts. He’d rescued her twice now, and the night was cold and wet. Only a sentimental fool would go after her.

He turned away from the window and poured himself a leisurely glass of brandy.

Her feet were numb. Surely she’d been this cold before, but at the moment, Emma couldn’t remember the occasion. Odd, that her feet would hurt so much when all feeling was gone. Every step was torment, yet still she moved onward through the blinding snow.

The wind had whipped her hair free from the knot at the back of her neck, and it blew in her face. Several strands were caked with ice, and she could feel frozen tears against her eyelashes. The sun must be rising, but she couldn’t see a thing in the swirling storm.

Freezing to death wasn’t supposed to be an unpleasant way to die. She wasn’t sure where she’d garnered that piece of information, but it lay in the back of her mind, embedded there like all useless bits of knowledge yet she needed that knowledge now. Because freezing to death looked to be very unpleasant indeed.

She didn’t know whether she’d reached the limits of Killoran’s property, and she didn’t care. She ran into something, hard, iron, slamming against it in her blind dash for shelter, and she sank down, huddling against it. It had to be a fence of some sort, and it provided no comfort at all, but she was beyond the point of hoping for comfort in this lifetime. All she desired was a swift, merciful end.

She wasn’t going to cry. She couldn’t stand the thought of any more ice on her face. She was shaking so hard she could hear her teeth rattle, and she kept waiting for that blissful, disorienting blanket of approaching death to wash over her. Where was it, damn it? She’d had enough of this vale of tears.

He loomed up, out of the blinding storm, before she had a chance to run. One moment she was alone, an ice princess. In the next she was being hauled roughly upward, by a caped figure.

She tried to struggle, but her movements were hampered by the numbing cold, and the creature simply scooped her up with almost uncanny strength. She managed a feeble shove, and he responded with a resounding curse. It was Killoran, of course.

“
If you don’t hold still,” he said through the thick snow, “then I’ll drop you and let you freeze to death.”

It was hardly reassuring. She made one more vain attempt to free herself, and his response was swift, leaving her to subside with a pained whimper. He moved swiftly through the storm, taking less than a quarter of the time to cross the area it had taken her so long to traverse.

This time there were servants when Killoran kicked savagely at the door. Heat and light surrounded her, the chatter of voices, and then he dumped her, unceremoniously, so that she stood for a moment, ice-caked, weaving, in the front hallway.

“
Poor lady,” an elderly woman’s voice clucked. “Where did you find her, my lord?”

She wanted to faint. She wanted to sink to the floor in a graceful escape, but she was made of sterner stuff than that. She squared her shoulders and looked up into Killoran’s face through ice-caked eyelashes. He was staring at her with a cool, unreadable expression.

“
I fished her out of the snow, Mrs. Rumson,” he replied. “Take her and thaw her out, would you?”

“
Where would you have me take her, sir?”

His smile would have struck terror in the heart of a Bow Street Runner. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said lazily. “She’s a bedraggled creature, is she not? Perhaps she might be presentable, but right now she doesn’t do much to excite my interest. See that she’s well taken care of, Mrs. Rumson. Doubtless I’ll find some way to make use of her.”

Emma was beginning to warm up. She didn’t like the sensation. “I’m not your possession,” she said, the effect somewhat ruined by the chattering of her teeth.

Killoran’s smile was sweet indeed. “Certainly you are, my dear Miss Brown. But we shan’t call you Miss Brown—that’s much too humdrum a name for a mad creature like you. I shall put my mind to it while you’re thawing out.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly. It would be a waste of time. She needed to conserve her energy for another escape.

“
Don’t even think it,” he said gently.

“
Think what?” she blurted out.

“
You aren’t leaving here until I’m ready to let you go. It’s extremely simple, and you strike me as a bright enough creature.”

“
You can’t keep me here.”

“
Of course I can. And the more you try to escape, the more you interest me. Your wisest course of action, my dear Miss Brown, is to become very conciliatory. Labor to do my bidding, please me in all matters, and I shall soon grow beastly tired of you and send you on your way.”

“
No.”

“
No?” he echoed, much amused. “Then consider your options. Here you have a warm bed, decent food, and I’ll replace those hideous clothes with something a great deal more suitable. Your alternative is selling your body on the streets.”

“
At least I’d have a choice.”

“
Don’t deceive yourself. Miss Brown. You’ll have no choice at all. You’d be dead before long, from a knife to the belly or the pox, it wouldn’t make much difference. One takes a bit longer, but you’re dead either way.”

“
I’m not afraid of death.”

“
Obviously not, since you’re not loath to deal it out on occasion. Come, child, you’re being foolish. Would it appease you to know that I have absolutely no interest in your enchantingly voluptuous body?”

She looked at him warily. “You don’t?”

“
Not a bit,” he said calmly. “I can have quite any female who interests me, ones, I regret to say, who are a great deal lovelier than you are, pretty though you may be. I’ve lost interest in affairs of passion, my child. I’m more intrigued by affairs of cunning.”

“
Then where do I come in?”

“
I have need of you. Miss Brown. I’m counting on you to help me with a small problem concerning an acquaintance. Once that’s taken care of, I’ll see you’re suitably rewarded and sent on your way. Your options are not extraordinary, my dove. You can assist me and be generously recompensed. Or you can find a swift end on the streets of London. Trust me, child. I have no intention of touching you. You believe me, don’t you?”

She looked up at him. Her body was racked with shivers, her feet were blocks of ice, and her skin fairly screamed with pain. She ought to run, but she knew she’d finally reached the end of her endurance. He was looking down at her, faintly bored, slightly amused, and she believed him. She knew as well as anyone what she looked like, and in her current half-frozen, half-melted state she could hardly flatter herself by thinking he desired her. Besides, she’d seen his current mistress, Lady Barbara. The man would be mad to want her instead.

“
I believe you,” she said, her voice not much more than a rusty whisper.

For a moment she imagined she saw a flare of triumph in his cool green eyes. If she had, it was gone in an instant. “I knew you were an intelligent child.”

“
I’m not a child.”

“
Compared to me you are. Mrs. Rumson should have your bath ready by now.”

She hesitated. “My lord…” she began.

“
Call me Killoran. Only servants pay attention to the Irish peerage,” he said coolly.

“
Are you certain…?”

“
Don’t be tedious. Miss Brown. God, what a wretched name. Almost as bad as Pottle.”

“
Pottle?” She was confused.

“
What’s your name, child?”

She didn’t like being called child, but she had no intention of telling him her name. Cousin Miriam would like nothing better than to have her cousin returned to the bosom of her family. “Brown,” she said firmly. “Emma Brown.”

“
Emma,” he said. “How very disappointing. You should be named Boudicca. You’re far more like some mythic warrior maiden than plain Emma Brown. Up to the bath with you, Emma. You look as if you’re going to melt into a puddle in the middle of my Aubusson carpet, and that wouldn’t please me, you know.”

She looked down at her feet. She was standing in a very wet spot, and shivers were still racking her body.

The flight of stairs looked very long indeed, and she wondered how in the world she would make it up them without assistance.

One step at a time, she reminded herself. She turned from him slowly and began to mount the stairs, secure in the belief that the cool green eyes that followed her progress held no interest whatsoever.

She was a ridiculous creature, Killoran thought idly. And so very gullible, to believe his arrant lies. He would use her to destroy Jasper Darnley. He would use her for his own pleasure, if and when he chose to. And then he would dismiss her, without another thought, and if she ended up on the streets after all, it wouldn’t be his responsibility.

He didn’t give a damn who spent his or her foreshortened life on the streets. He still wasn’t certain why he’d decided she’d help him, why he’d drained his bowl of brandy with unappreciative speed and gone out into the storm after her. It was surely senseless to keep rescuing her, just on the chance she’d help him effect his final revenge.

Ah, but perhaps that was part of the sport. Her very unwillingness to be rescued from the consequences of her rashness amused him. Her lack of reaction to him, when he’d grown weary of impressionable young women willing to fall at his feet and into his bed, stirred his pique. And her luscious, pale-skinned beauty aroused him in ways he hadn’t even begun to consider.

She’d believed his promise, poor child. Believed he had no more interest in her than she had in him. She wouldn’t know what he was about until she was lying on her back in his bed, her legs wrapped tight around his hips, her strong hands digging into his shoulders, her voice crying out in pleasure and release.

Ah, yes, she had an education in store for her, one she couldn’t begin to fathom. He would seduce her, slowly, delicately, and so thoroughly that there wouldn’t be a waking hour in her life when she didn’t think of him.

And he would haunt her dreams as well.

Ah, he was a bad man. A very, very bad man. With a faint smile on his face, he headed back to the library, to devote the proper appreciation to his French cognac.

Chapter 6

“
What are you planning on doing with her?”

Killoran looked up lazily from his breakfast of warm ale and sirloin. It was close to dusk, and he found he’d awakened with less of a headache and more of an appetite than he’d had in years. He hadn’t forgotten why. The luscious Miss Emma Brown was somewhere in the vastness of his London house, and that bleak, cold spot within him seemed temporarily alive. He had no doubt she was still there. His servants were rightly terrified of him. They wouldn’t be likely to let her escape, and if by any chance she outsmarted them, every single servant would have disappeared rather than face his wrath.