In My Wildest Dreams (30 page)

With narrow-eyed intent, Celeste shoved a chair under him.

Stanhope stumbled, lurched and went over hard, landing on his back.

Driven by fury, Throckmorton leaped up and jumped on Stanhope with all his weight. Stanhope rolled. The shotgun slid away from them, but neither of them noticed. The shotgun no longer consumed their attention.

The desire for vengeance, hot and pure, burned between them.

Throckmorton smashed his fist into Stanhope's mouth. Blood spurted.

Howling, Stanhope caught Throckmorton's hair, holding him still for a forehead slam. Pain exploded in Throckmorton's nose. Rage exploded his gut.

Stanhope rolled on top of Throckmorton and pummeled him. Right and left, he punched Throckmorton while Throckmorton blocked and swayed, wanting nothing more but to win, to beat Stanhope within an inch of his life for daring to commit treason. For annihilating their friendship. Most of all, for daring to threaten Celeste.

He retaliated with a flat-handed slap to both of Stanhope's ears. For a moment, Stanhope's eyes rolled back in his head. Throckmorton kneed him, came up on top, and slammed his fist beneath Stanhope's chin.

Stanhope hit his head on the stone floor and with a gasp, went limp.

Livid, Throckmorton hit him again, and again.

Something caught his arm, and he swung around, enraged.

Celeste looked down at him, her eyes stern. “Stop. Garrick. Stop! That's enough.”

She'd been saying that for a while, he realized. Saying that while they fought. She held the shotgun in one hand, and he thought that was a good thing. While she kept the rifle, he wouldn't be tempted to commit murder.

“He's unconscious.”

He'd heard that tone before. His tutor had sounded as stern that last time Throckmorton had lost his temper.

“If you continue, you'll kill him,” she said.

He allowed her to draw him to his feet. She was so beautiful, and Stanhope had wanted to kill her.

“I'll call the landlord. I'm sure he heard the fight.”

Throckmorton swayed, all his concentration on her. She was alive. He had saved her.

Her voice softened, and she stroked his arm as if calming a maddened beast. “The landlord didn't know Stanhope came through the window. With the noise, the poor man is probably mad with curiosity.”

The intensity of Throckmorton's rage became the intensity of passion. Tugging her into his arms, he held her. Just held her. She was alive. Breathing, talking. Holding him. All her intelligence, beauty, defiance, laughter, saved by him, for him. In his arms.
Alive.

Through no fault of her own. He gritted his teeth so hard he could scarcely speak. “Blast you, Celeste, how dare you try to help me?”

“You needed help.”

He had no interest in her commonplace tone and
prosaic answer. “Why didn't you run when we started fighting? He could have killed you.”

“He could have killed you, too.”

She still didn't seem to realize her folly. “You could have
died.”

In a voice muffled by his chest, she said, “It made sense to present two targets rather than one.”

“Do you have no brains? Do not ever try to—”

A scraping sound. Behind him. Incredulous, he pushed Celeste away. Whirling, he saw Stanhope, beaten, violent, desperate—on his feet.

And Stanhope saw him. In a burst of speed and strength, Stanhope ran and jumped at the window. His body slammed into the frame. He broke through the crossbars, shattered the glass. He fell onto the grass behind the inn, got up, ran as if death itself was after him.

It was. Throckmorton dove after him. The copse of trees at the edge of the property offered sanctuary; Throckmorton leaped through the breach.

Still holding the rifle, Celeste ran to the shattered window. In the endless hour Stanhope had spent with her, he had threatened her. He had threatened Garrick. Most of all, he had confessed to being the wits behind Penelope's kidnapping.

Without a qualm, she lifted the shotgun to her shoulder.

But she couldn't shoot yet. Garrick ran after Stanhope, right in the line of fire. “Swerve,” she urged as if he could hear her. “Swerve.”

At thirty paces, Stanhope stumbled.

Garrick swerved to avoid him.

Celeste pulled the trigger.

29

C
eleste tossed the sheet back from Garrick's bare body, and smiled as she looked down at the expanse of Garrick's back and buttocks, marred by the half dozen small, round, red holes left by the wide spray of buckshot. Fondling the sharp point of the scalpel, she said, “Those certainly look painful.”

Facedown on her bed at the inn, Garrick turned his head to glare at her. “I will wait for the doctor.”

“The doctor is here, but he's taking dozens of pellets out of Stanhope's hide.”

“Stanhope is a prisoner. He can wait.”

“He doesn't have to.” Garrick had been caught by the periphery of the blast. A few swollen wounds amounted to nothing more than minor discomfort for Garrick . . . and retribution for her. Sweet retribution. “You have
me,
and I wouldn't want you to suffer longer than necessary.”

“It would be reassuring to have someone who had previous experience with gunshots.”

He had quite a gorgeous, long, muscled back. Taken with the length of his legs, the breadth of his shoulders, and the muscled backside, he made quite a handsome package. “I do have experience. When I was a governess for the Russian ambassador, the older children were teasing the youngest daughter. She grabbed a pellet gun and shot little Laurentij in the cheek.” Leaning over one of the wounds on his shoulder blade, she squinted. She could see the pellet, and with the point of the scalpel, she flicked it out.

“Ouch!”

“Very passionate people, the Russians. Given to bloody acts of revenge.” Holding the pellet down by Throckmorton's face, she showed him the round, shiny, lead shot. “There's the first one.”

He stared with the outraged gaze of a cantankerous patient. “That hurt!”

“That was easy. Wait until I start cutting.” She swabbed the wound with whisky.

“Ow!” Lifting himself on one elbow, he turned toward her—although he took care not to display his lower body.

Idly she wondered what that meant. He couldn't be aroused in these circumstances . . . could he? Surely he couldn't be thinking about fornication when she stood over him holding a scalpel . . . could he?

And why should she care, anyway?

She knew the answer. Because although he was naked and furious, and suffered a swollen nose, a black eye and a split chin, he looked absolutely appealing.

The bruises on his face were rapidly turning darker.
His black hair fell around his face. “You're enjoying this far too much,” he accused.

“Mmm . . .” She pretended to consider. “Yes.”

“You're still angry at me.”

“Very astute of you.”

“I came for you, didn't I?”

“I was depending on it.”

“I rescued you, didn't I?”

“Except for that part where I brought the villain down.”

Garrick flopped flat on his stomach again. “And shot
me.
”

“You're welcome.”

“I'm not ungrateful.”

She placed her finger on another one of the wounds and pressed until the lead shot rose to the surface. She tossed it in a pan beside the bed. “You are. Dreadfully.”

He turned his head and caught her hand. “Let me say now, I am grateful.” He pressed her fingers to his lips. “I'm grateful for everything about you. For your beauty, and your intelligence, and everything that makes you
you.
”

“For my bravery in not leaving you to face Stanhope alone?”

He visibly wavered between pacification and exasperation. As she expected, exasperation won out. “You should have escaped.” He sounded clipped, irritated. “If faced with such circumstances again, you are to save yourself.”

The man never gave up. She sounded just as clipped and irritated when she said, “I doubt I shall face such dangerous circumstances in Paris.”

His muscles clenched. “Celeste, I truly do love you.”

As if she believed that. “I'm still going to take the shot out of you.”

“No, I'm telling you the truth. I love you.”

“You'd have to be a fool not to.” She paused. “Oh, but I forgot, you are a fool.”

“You sound like my brother,” Throckmorton snapped.

He had caught her unwilling interest. “Your brother? What does Ellery have to do with this?”

“My brother, my mother, my daughter, my niece, and my future sister-in-law. Before I left to come after you, they all told me I was a fool.”

“Good. It's unanimous. We all agree.”

“Your father didn't tell me I was a fool. He just punched me in the face.” Throckmorton indicated his swollen eye.

“Good for Papa. Did you know Esther put castor oil in your whisky?” The unmitigated horror on his face made her laugh. “I don't know that for sure. But if I were you, I'd check when I got back to Blythe Hall or you could make close friends with your chamber pot. Lie back down. I need to get these out.”

He lowered himself, his body a lovely tan against the white of the sheets. “Don't you care?”

“About what?” She managed to push two more pieces of shot out of his back while he squirmed.

“That I love you?”

“Do you think declaring that you love me makes everything all better?”

“Doesn't it?”

She had to refrain from plunging the scalpel into his thick head. “Should I be so honored to be the recipient of your love that I will forgive everything? All your lies, all your betrayals, the way you used me?”

“You weren't angry about being used in connection with Stanhope.”

“No, for in that instance I understand why you used me.” With the point of the scalpel, she made a tiny cut over the swelling on his buttock. He gasped and held himself very still, and with the tweezers she removed the pellet. “I even agree that, when weighed in the balance, my pride is not as important as my country.”

He sounded very serious when he said, “I never meant to strip you of your pride.”

“But put together with your sneaking, underhanded seduction and that ticket to Paris and a bank draft, all in the pursuit of a suitable business alliance between the Throckmortons and Lord Longshaw . . . that doesn't carry the same weight as saving England, and taken altogether makes an ugly portrait of you and your mercenary soul. Your declaration of love can't clean the grime away.”

“You're right.”

“What?”

“I said you're right.”

Her eyes narrowed on him. What does that mean?

“I did the wrong thing. I am always insufferably sure my way is best, and that is why I should marry, so I can be told, frequently and often, that I am wrong. Are you woman enough?”

He made her want to laugh, and she hated that. This was no time to remember the enjoyment she experienced with his conversation, no time to recall how well they fit, mind and body. “I'm woman enough to cut this last pellet out.” She smoothed his buttock where the shot had punched a hole through the skin. This was the deep one, the only one that really required surgery. “You must remain very still.”

He ignored her, stirring restlessly on the bed. “What about
your
declaration of love?”

“What about it? You didn't believe me.” And right now, as she laid out the needle the doctor had left, she resented that, too.

“So I was right. You really don't know what love is. You never truly loved me.”

How had this happened? How had she lost control of the conversation? She was no longer on the attack, he was, and that wasn't fair. For the first time in this affair, she held the knife, and in more ways than one. She wanted to keep it that way.

“I loved you enough to . . . to trust my body to you.”

Slowly, he sat up, staring at her, revealing himself in all his glory. Despite his pain, despite her reprimand, he wanted her.

And from his expression of grim triumph, she realized she had been manipulated into an imprudent statement. She should have remembered with whom she sparred.

“You loved me that night.”

If she had denied it, she would be nothing more than a wanton. If she agreed . . .

“One pellet left. Lie down and let me get it out.”

To her surprise, he obeyed her.

Because, she realized, he'd used his body to distract her, then made his point. While entrusting himself to her hands, he was content to let her think about the state of her heart.

Cunning. The man was cunning.

With a light touch, she slid the scalpel along his skin, swabbed the blood that welled up, probed and found the
shot. She eased it free, took the single stitch necessary to close the wound, pressed a pad on the site—and suddenly found it necessary to sit down.

She didn't care about his pain . . . did she? Taking that pellet out had been just retribution for his misdeeds . . . hadn't it?

Yes, this weakness was nothing more than her reaction to being held hostage, to putting herself in danger, to shooting a man.

Sinking on the bed, she sat very still and waited for her trembling to cease.

At once Garrick recognized his advantage. He sat up again.

She tweaked the sheet over him.

“It's a little late for that.” Removing the sharp scalpel from her fingers, he gingerly placed it on the nightstand. “You've seen it all. You've had it all.” He took her face between his palms and looked into her eyes. “You've kissed it all.”

She wrestled herself free. “All right! You've driven your point home. We both understand we've had . . . we've taken pleasure of each other.”

“Are you sorry now for what we had?” Taking her hand, he pressed it to his groin. “Did the light on my sins make your love evaporate?”

It was hard to think when her fingers were wrapped around his member, and the heat and the memories pressed at her. He could give her such pleasure, yet she had to resist. She wasn't going to marry him. At least not out of gratitude. And certainly not out of lust. “You are embarrassed because of me.”

“Do I feel embarrassed?”

She used just a hint of her fingernails.

He let her hand go at once. “You don't embarrass me. I told you before. I'm not a snob.”

“I believe you truly don't care that I'm the gardener's daughter. But with me, you lose all your heady superiority. You're no longer Garrick Throckmorton, lord of the spies, sovereign of business, in control of yourself and everything you do. You're Garrick Throckmorton, a man who gives into temptation. You blame me for what you consider a weakness. I do not accept the blame. I will not live with guilt, yours or mine, for all my life.”

She had struck a rich vein, for he cleared his throat and looked abashed. “I might have thought that before,” he admitted. “But when I'm with you, I'm not a man like any other. I'm better than all the others, better than I've ever been before, because I have you.” He corrected himself. “Because I'm
with
you.”

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He wanted possession of her. Even now, when he was trying to say the right thing, to convince her of his contrition, his true nature strutted through his conversation.

She should have anticipated his next move. She could only blame her own weakness for her lack of foresight.

Because he wrapped her in his arms and fell backward on the bed, taking her with him.

She struggled. “You're going to hurt yourself.”

“Not if you stay still.”

“You're going to bleed on the sheets.”

He chuckled. “There's my practical girl.” When she would have thumped him, he clutched her tighter. In his
deepest, lushest, most dark velvet voice, he said, “I understand my mistake.”

She hated that she fit into his embrace so snugly.

“I made our entire courtship a farce. You called me a liar. You wonder if you can trust anything I say. So what good does it do me to tell you I love you?”

She hated that she listened to the thump of his heart and heard in it the echo of her own.

“But I do love you.”