Anne Stuart (24 page)

He brought his hands up and covered hers. “No, Barbara,” he said, very gently.

“
No?” she echoed, deliberately misunderstanding him. “Then it will be my pleasure to be your first. I can teach you a great deal, Nathaniel. I have endless experience.”

She tugged at her hands, but he wouldn’t release them.

“
No, Barbara,” he said again. “I don’t want to bed you. Not now. Not this way.”

She heard the words, and for a moment refused to believe them. Stunned, she yanked herself away from him. “Then why are you here, Nathaniel?”

“
Because I love you.”

“
Don’t be absurd. Men don’t love me. They lust after me. And I assuage their lust. It’s what I do, boy. If you want me, I’ll lift my skirts for you. If you don’t, go away.”

“
I love you,” he said simply.

“
Stop saying that!” Fury swept over her. “You’re a child, with a child’s emotions. How many women have you fancied yourself in love with? There’s Miss Pottle—Killoran told me about her. And you’ve shown a strong protective streak toward Emma—perhaps you’re in love with her as well. And now me, your cousin’s mistress. Whom else do you fancy yourself in love with?”

“
You’re not his mistress,” Nathaniel said. “No matter how hard you try to convince me of it.”

“
Not for want of trying,” she shot back. “And if he won’t bed me, I’m more than willing to settle for second best. Namely you. But if you don’t get on with it, I’ll withdraw the offer. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

Reaching up, she yanked at the far-from-demure neckline of her dress. The delicate material ripped, and she pulled it down her arms, exposing her breasts in their lacy chemise.

He didn’t move. Didn’t look at her breasts, a fact which terrified her. Was she losing her beauty? Would men cease to want her? Cease to spend their futile desires in her well-trained body? What, then, would she do with herself?

The silence grew between them, long and harsh, and she was suddenly ashamed. She pulled the torn material back up around her, covering herself. “Get out,” she said, enraged.

If only he weren’t quite so handsome. If only he didn’t look at her with that damnable compassion, the kind of look that made her want to scratch his eyes out. He started past her, slowly, and she wanted to fight, to goad him.

“
What were you planning to do with me, Nathaniel?” she called after him in her most shrill voice. “Rescue me from my evil ways? Immure me in a convent? Pray for my soul? It’s too late—my soul’s long gone. Which is why Killoran and I deal so well together.”

He turned to look at her. “I want to save you,” he said.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment. And then she smiled brightly. “Don’t you know people can’t be saved? They each go to hell by their own choosing, and neither you nor anyone else can stop them. You can’t save me, you can’t save Killoran, and I doubt you can save Miss Emma Brown, either. The best you can do is to save yourself. And the way you do that is very simple. Keep away from me. Keep away from all of us. Go back to Northumberland, find yourself another Miss Pottle, marry her, and have fat, healthy babies.”

“
I want to marry you,” he said. “I want you to be the one who gives me fat, healthy babies.”

Something inside her snapped. She didn’t know how she moved so swiftly, but she was beside him, slapping him again and again, pounding at him, furious, fighting, fighting Nathaniel, fighting the insidious seduction of what was impossible for a woman like her.

He let her hit him. He stood absolutely motionless as she pounded at him, beat at him, at his chest and his face, until finally his arms came up around her, pressing her close against him, entrapping her with a terrifying tenderness.

“
Barbara,” he said, his voice suddenly weary and old before his time.

She heard the sound, but she couldn’t recognize it at first. The great, tearing sobs had to come from somewhere, but she couldn’t pinpoint their source. Nathaniel wasn’t weeping, he was holding her tightly. It must be a maid somewhere, suffering from the toothache. But Lord, that hideous weeping noise seemed to fill the quiet room!

He stroked her hair, pushing it away from her face, and his hand felt damp. She had no idea why. She was cold, so very cold, and her body was trembling. But he was warm, he was strong, he was all that was decent and good. He was not for her.

She pushed him away, suddenly, abruptly, using all her strength, and he released her. “I
want you to go,” she said in a raw, cold voice, shaky with some confused emotion. Her face was wet, and she backhanded the moisture from her cheeks. “I want you to leave me alone. Clearly you’re not interested in what I have to offer, and I’m not interested in what you would give me in return. Go back to Killoran; go back to Northumberland. Go.” Her voice was rising, and she was powerless to stop it. Rage and despair had taken hold of her, and she was desperately afraid the wetness on her face could only come from her own tears. Impossible, when she never cried. “Get out of here,” she cried. “Get out, get out, get out...!”

He silenced her, catching her in his arms and putting his hand over her mouth. “Hush, now, darling,” he said, achingly gentle. “I know you’re frightened. But you have to know I’d never hurt you. You can trust me, I promise. You’ll believe that, sooner or later.”

She looked up at him mutely over his silencing hand. She could bite him. She could seize the flesh of his palm between her strong white teeth and tear at him until she drew blood. When he finally released her, she could call for her servants and have him thrown from her house.

She stood stock still in the circle of his arms, waiting. He looked down at her, and there was tenderness in his blue, blue eyes. He bent down, and pressed his mouth against her eyelids, one at a time. And then he released her.

By the time she realized he was gone, it was too late to go after him. She sagged against the sofa, stunned, shaken. Her eyes were swollen, stinging, from the tears she wouldn’t admit to. Her body was shaking, from the cold, she thought, even though her flesh felt as if it were on fire. Damn him, she thought furiously.

She’d underestimated him. She usually avoided innocent young men. They were tiresomely passionate, and far too easily entrapped. She preferred to keep her assignations with old men, roués, rakes, dissolute men who cared for nothing. Killoran was going to be her greatest conquest, a man who had absolutely no redeeming morality and was decadently handsome as well.

But Killoran had proved oddly resistant to even her most blatant overtures. And now she had his hopeless puppy dog of a cousin declaring his ridiculous love for her.

But he wasn’t the hopeless puppy she’d imagined. And the look in his eyes, the touch of his lips against her eyelids, had shaken her more than a score of encounters with more experienced men.

She would have to keep away from him. Keep his strong, gentle hands away from her. Keep his mouth away from her, keep his tender, compassionate love out of her sight.

“
Damn him,” she whispered out loud, rubbing the back of her hand across her tear-streaked face. “Damn him, damn him, damn him.”

And in the quiet room there was no answer, but the latent, muffled sob that she couldn’t quite control.

It was just past dawn. Jasper Darnley had been abed for less than an hour when the noise intruded, tearing him from a drugged sleep. He sat up, bleary-eyed, and stared around him in the murky darkness. It must have been a hell of a noise to have roused him—he’d taken more than enough laudanum to ensure that he’d sleep like the dead.

“
Who’s there?” he demanded sharply.

A ghostly figure began to materialize out of the shadows, and a sudden superstitious horror filled him. “Maude?” he whispered in a choked voice. “Is that you?”

The figure came into view, solidified into a sight not much more welcome than the shade of his dead sister. “Not likely,” Killoran said coolly. “Don’t tell me you’ve been plagued by ghosts, Darnley?”

“
What are you doing here?” He didn’t bother to disguise the panic in his slurred voice. He usually slept with a pistol, but he hadn’t been in any condition to check on it when he finally collapsed onto his bed and allowed his long-suffering manservant to divest him of his clothes. It had been a hellish night, with the abortive attempt to kidnap Killoran’s sister almost turning into her demise. Before he’d had her. The very notion had sent him into such a sick rage that he’d almost strangled the life out of that evil harridan who’d unhappily become his partner in crime.

It had wanted only the appearance of Killoran to make the night a total disaster.

Killoran was dressed in his usual black and white. His lace cuffs drifted down around his hands, his cravat was gone, and his jet-black hair hung loose around his face. Untidy without a wig, Darnley thought absently, fingering his own closely shaved head. But what could you expect from the Irish?

Killoran said nothing, moving closer. He didn’t seem to be armed, but Darnley wasn’t fool enough to discount his own danger. Perhaps Killoran was tired of the waiting game he’d been playing.

“
Are you going to kill me?” Darnley demanded hoarsely.

“
Oh, most definitely,” Killoran responded. “That’s never been in any question. But if you’re asking me if I’m going to kill you now, I’m afraid not. I haven’t yet derived my full pleasure from tormenting you.”

“
You don’t torment me,” Jasper said, his rasping voice making clear the lie. Killoran only smiled in response. “If you haven’t come to murder me in my bed, then go away. I’m tired.”

“
You do need your beauty sleep, don’t you, Darnley? You haven’t been feeling well lately, have you?” The concern was maliciously mocking. “Very well, I’ll get to the business at hand. Someone tried to murder my sister tonight.”

“
Are you blaming me?” Darnley’s voice rose a couple of notches in pitch. “Why in God’s name would I want to kill your sister?”

“
Why would you want to kill your own? You have a diseased mind, Darnley, brought about by inherent evil and aggravated by your lust for everything forbidden. You are to keep away from Emma.”

“
Of course.” Darnley managed to summon a mocking smile.

“
And you are to tell me what you know about her.”

Darnley’s amusement was complete. “What I know about your sister? It could hardly be more than you are already acquainted with. You must know the details of her proper upbringing, her loving family, her life of piety.”

Killoran moved closer, but Darnley was too drugged to care. Even the feel of Killoran’s large, strong hand around his throat, pressing against it, brought no fear to his ruined body.

“
I could kill you so easily,” Killoran mused. “Just a certain amount of pressure and I could crush your throat. You’d suffocate, and there’d be nothing anyone could do to save you.”

Darnley stared up at him, unmoved. “That is my greatest advantage, Killoran. I truly don’t care whether I live or die. And despite your efforts to prove that you are just as heartless, you still have a few sentimental longings for the auld sod and family. That’s the difference between you and me, Killoran. The difference between the English aristocracy and an Irish upstart. We will always triumph.”

The hand around his throat tightened for a moment, infinitesimally, and Darnley blinked. Perhaps he wasn’t quite so inured to the thought of dying, after all. There were doubtless better ways to meet his Maker than suffocating in his own blood.

Killoran smiled down at him with terrifying sweetness. “It was a mistake to come after Emma, you know. I trust you won’t make such an error of judgment again. Two men are dead, and I could quite easily make you the third.”

“
I’m not worried.”

“
Perhaps not. But you can answer me one question. One simple question that will keep you alive for at least another day of miserable existence. Who is helping you, Darnley? Who wants Emma dead?”

Darnley glared up at him, letting his unvarnished hatred show through. “Go to hell, Killoran. Kill me, or get out. Whichever you please.”

For a moment the hand tightened further, and the breath caught in his throat. He lifted his hands, to claw at the strong, merciless arm, but his intruder seemed oblivious of his struggles. The night was growing darker around him—odd, when it should be getting lighter. The man was actually going to kill him, here and now.

There was a certain relief in that notion. What little strength Darnley had was leaving him rapidly, and his arms fell back on the bed as the darkness began to close in on him. Death, he thought with a vague smile on his face. Maude.

Killoran released him, stepping back from the bed in disgust. Darnley still breathed. He’d be bruised around his throat, a fitting enough fate, considering he’d delivered the same to Emma’s fragile flesh.

The room stank, of sweat and alcohol and drugs, and of the sickly-sweet miasma of decay. The man who lay so still in the bed was not far from death as it was—it would have taken only a moment or two to push him over the edge. “Not yet, my friend,” Killoran said coolly. “You’re not getting off quite so easily.”

He glanced around the room for a moment, then began to search, silently and diligently, secure in the knowledge that Darnley’s servant wouldn’t dare approach his master until summoned. Darnley had blinded a footman, a decade ago, in one of his enormous rages, and most servants were properly frightened of him.

There was little sign of anything interesting. The servants were well paid, well trained. It was almost full light when Killoran finally had a modicum of success. A card, poorly engraved, on cheap vellum.
Miss
Miriam DeWinter, Crouch End.

Why in God’s name would someone like Darnley know anyone in Crouch End? Why would he keep her card for that matter? Had this Miss DeWinter come to Darnley’s house? For what possible purpose?