Jo Beverley - [Malloren 02] (2 page)

But delicate was not the word that came to mind.

Resolute, perhaps.

Or sizzling.

Energy—part courage, part anger, part fear—crackled from her like sparks from green wood on a fire. He couldn't tell the color of the hair that flowed loose down her back, but he suspected it would be red. She really would shoot him if he provoked her, and that alone was enough to intrigue him.

It was also inconvenient. He did not have much time in which to complete his mission, and this tiny warrior seemed determined to prevent him. He tried reason first.

"I confess to having broken the kitchen window in order to gain access, madam. But no one answered the door."

"And do you always break into houses when no one answers the door?"

He considered it. "Generally speaking, the houses whose doors I knock upon seem to have servants. You have no servants?"

"That is none of your business."

But he'd hit a nerve. Who the devil was she? This house in Maidenhead had been rented by the Earl of Walgrave to act as a prison for his daughter, Lady Chastity Ware. Bryght had expected to find it empty now Chastity had escaped.

The young woman raised the pistol a threatening inch. "Leave, sirrah!"

"No."

Bryght heard her hiss of irritation and awaited events with interest. It took a truly callous soul to shoot a stationary person in cold blood, and whatever her qualities he didn't think this pocket Amazon was callous.

He was proved correct. She did not pull the trigger.

"Now," he said. "I have a reasonable purpose in being here."

"What reasonable purpose can excuse housebreaking?"

"I have come to collect a document left by a recent occupant."

She didn't waver an inch. "What recent occupant?"

"You are full of questions, aren't you? Let us say, a lady."

"What lady?"

"I prefer not to answer that." Tiring of the game, he stepped forward to disarm her.

He saw her suck in a breath and raise the gun an inch farther.
Damn
. He threw himself at her legs just as she squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Portia was flat on her back, squashed under a giant. Her hands felt numb from the kick of the pistol, and her head was ringing where it had connected with the tiles of the hall floor. Or perhaps it was ringing with the thunder of the pistol shot. She had never fired a gun indoors before. It made a lot of noise.

She stared up dazedly and saw that the house-breaking devil seemed rather concerned.

He raised some of his weight on his arms and she took a deep breath. "How
dare
you!"

"I could hardly let you shoot me."

"Then you should have left." Portia heaved to try to throw him off but immediately realized that it was a very bad idea. He was lying between her legs and her simple dress with but the one petticoat was a flimsy barrier.

The way his elegant lips twitched at her predicament made her want to scratch his all-too-handsome face. No one had a right to features which so closely resembled an amused Lucifer, especially a bullying, house-breaking wretch.

"Who
are
you?" she demanded.

"Bryght Malloren, not precisely at your service. And who are you?"

"That, sir, is none of your business." She tried to wriggle from under him, but he had her trapped.

"Then I will call you Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons." He brushed back a tendril of hair that had fallen over her eyes, and the gentleness of the gesture disconcerted her. The same gentleness was in his voice when he said, "Do you always fight against the odds, Hippolyta?"

His dark hair was disordered, too. It was escaping its ribbon and falling in wavy tendrils about his face. The informality was disarming.

"I had a pistol," she pointed out.

"Even so." And he grinned.

Portia growled. The wretch was
laughing
at her. "Get off me." She made each word clear.

"Not until I claim my forfeit."

"Forfeit?" Portia felt the first touch of real fear. She had been alarmed to hear breaking glass. She had been almost horrified at first sight of the dark creature coming down the corridor toward her. But in some way while bandying words with this man she had not been truly afraid.

Now she realized she was at his mercy. She was not missish by nature, and in her salad days had been a tomboy, but she had never before been unprotected in a strange man's power.

"Forfeit," he said, and the gentleness did not reassure her scurrying heart at all. She found herself staring at his earring—a discreet but expensive-looking jeweled stud. Only the wildest wastrels wore such outrageous ornaments, and only a wealthy one could afford that jewel.

She was in the power of a wealthy, dissolute rake.

He smiled, and it was a devil's smile. "I always claim a forfeit from women who try to kill me."

Portia started to fight in earnest, but her hands were tangled in her three woolen shawls. By the time she'd dragged them free he was ready to capture her wrists.

"Do you ever stop fighting?"

"Would it help?" She twisted against his grip, but it immediately tightened. "You're hurting me!"

"Then stop fighting me."

"I'll cry."

"Can you really do it on demand? I'd be interested to see that."

Portia hissed with exasperation, but her fear was ebbing like the tides. For some reason she simply could not be truly afraid of this man. It was most peculiar.

She became aware that his weight over her—mostly carried by his arms—was almost comforting, and that she was warm when before she'd been chilled. Faint scents came to her, too. Lavender, she thought, from his linen, and a perfume such as men wore, but a subtle one. Not the heavy sort used to cloak dirt and disease...

"Can you not force even one tear?" he teased, and Portia snapped her wits back into order. She tested his grip again, but he immediately tightened it just enough to control.

"You don't think I have
reason
to cry?" she spat.

"I don't think you're a weeper, my Amazon, unless you see it as a weapon." And he kissed her.

In all her twenty-five years, Portia had never been kissed like this. Not with a man's hard body pinning her to the floor and his hands confining her for the assault of his mouth.

But it was a tender assault.

Braced as she was for something much worse, the tenderness almost trapped her. She remembered in time that he was her enemy, and held herself still and unresponsive beneath him.

He drew back, and she heard humor as he said, "What a range of weapons you have, my warrior maid. If I give you the victory in this, will you allow me to collect the document? It can be no concern of yours."

"No."

He laughed and rocked back onto his feet, then helped her up. While she was still finding her balance and gathering her tangled shawls, he sidestepped her and ran lightly up the stairs.

"Stop!"

Portia raced after him, shedding shawls, her shoes clattering on the bare wooden treads. He moved swiftly as if he knew the house, and headed straight for the back bedroom.

That showed he didn't know the house at all. That room was empty, stripped of every item of furniture. Perhaps he had the wrong house after all.

She fell into the room after him and grabbed his cloak. "There see. There is nothing here."

He simply unfastened the cloak and went forward, leaving her with a mass of heavy wool in her hands. She dropped it and plunged after him. He was headed for the fireplace and she ran around him and spread herself in front of it, gasping, "Not another step!"

He stopped mere inches from her. It occurred to her at last that she was being very, very foolish.

This room had two long uncurtained windows and the moonlight was bright, showing him to her clearly at last. Beneath his dark jacket and leather riding breeches was clearly a superb collection of bone and muscle that must out-mass her two to one. Behind the beautiful face was a will that would not be turned from its goal.

His goal just now was the fireplace she guarded with her body.

She swallowed, hoping she didn't look as frightened as she felt.

Portia's mother had often bemoaned her daughter's rash nature, blaming it upon the name chosen by her idealistic father. Hannah Upcott did not care for theater at the best of times, and thought Portia's name encouraged an unseemly drive to challenge the world. She had insisted that her second daughter be named Prudence.

Hannah regularly predicted that Portia's reckless nature would land her in trouble, and often quoted the adage: "Those who tempt fortune risk losing all." Portia feared that she was about to prove her mother right, but she still couldn't meekly step aside.

Her opponent made no immediate move to manhandle her. "If there is nothing there, why the heat?"

Despite a racing heart, she looked him in the eye. "You have forced your way into this house, sir. I will not allow this intrusion."

"At another time, Hippolyta, I would be amused to test your ability to allow or disallow, but my business is somewhat urgent. May I point out that the easiest way to have me leave is to allow me to find what I have come for?"

"You will have to prove you have the right to the document. To whom does it belong?"

"I told you. To a lady." There was the warning edge of impatience in his voice.

"And how did it come to be here?"

"Let us say, she was a guest."

She glanced around the stark room. "In here? I doubt it."

"Perhaps she has ascetic tastes. Why, I wonder, are you so fierce in your guarding of this place? Does the Earl of Walgrave deserve such allegiance?"

The name startled Portia. If this Malloren man knew the house was leased by the Earl of Walgrave, then he clearly was not in the wrong house after all.

For the first time Portia wondered if his business here was legitimate. He had, after all, knocked on the door like an honest man. She had heard the sharp raps but ignored them. No one would be knocking at the door looking for her, and being alone in the house she had no mind to open it so late at night.

She said, "The earl, like any householder, has the right to expect that his home be inviolate."

"I doubt the mighty earl would claim this simple place his home. He merely leased it for a purpose. Since it is the earl's property, however, I wonder what
you
are doing here. Housekeeper, perhaps?"

"Certainly not."

"An intruder, then, like myself? After all, I came upon you skulking in the chilly dark, pistol in hand."

"I was not
skulking.
We are guests, sir. We are well-acquainted with the earl, and he invited us to stay here." Portia would not tell him that she and her brother were impoverished supplicants and that the earl had commanded them to await his pleasure here.

"Us?"

Portia realized she was being trapped into conversation, and conversation was dangerous.

"Us?" he repeated softly.

"Myself, ten hefty brothers, and three servants," she declared, chin high. "They are all out at the moment."

"Only three servants?" he drawled. "How paltry. I require that many to hand me my clothes in the morning."

She was not entirely sure he was joking. "I will not meekly permit you to do what you want here, Mr. Malloren."

"My lord," he corrected amiably, moving a little closer. "Lord Arcenbryght Malloren. An absurd name, but mine own."

Portia was aware of a distressing tendency to both gape and sidle away, but she hit back. "Your rank does not excuse your wickedness, my lord."

"True." He caged her with a hand on the wall on either side of her head. "But it makes it a lot less likely I'll be hauled before the magistrates for my sins, doesn't it?" His height forced her to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, and her neck hurt as she watched his lips lower toward hers. Her heart was pounding and she was beginning to turn dizzy. Damn him, damn him, damn him....

"So,
mignon,"
he whispered inches from her lips, "why not just allow me my wicked way?"

Portia admitted at last that she was completely outmatched. He was a lord, a rake, and a large, ruthless man intent on his purpose. She ducked away from him and he let her go, flashing her an all-too-knowing grin.

May the ten curses of Egypt fall on his head!

She gathered what remained of her dignity and gestured disdainfully at the empty hearth and plain wooden surround.

"Proceed, my lord. I cannot wait to see you produce paper out of thin air. Are you perhaps a magician?"

"Perhaps I am." He went forward and instead of looking in the empty grate or up the sooty chimney, he inspected the place where the wood joined the plaster wall. Portia couldn't resist going closer to see what he was doing.

He was prying at the space between the wood and the wall, but he suddenly cursed and sucked a finger.