Just This Once (41 page)

“Easy, you wildcat,” Ethan whispered in her
ear. “Haven’t you done enough for one night?”

“Ethan!”

His hand clamped over her mouth as she
shrieked his name, then collapsed against him. Her arms coiled
around his neck, clinging, inhaling the smell of him, feeling the
strength of him. He was soaked and rain streamed down his
coal-black hair into that beloved bronzed face. From beside them in
the sodden darkness loomed Ham.

“Look out, lad, here they come,” he warned,
and suddenly the shadowy forms of Spooner, Deck, and Noah raced
around the corner of the gin house straight toward them.

“Looking for someone, boys?” Ethan sprang in
front of Josie so that she was shielded by his body.

Spooner froze. Noah and Deck went for their
guns. They never had a chance. Ethan drew like lightning and the
dark alley rocked with gunfire.

Josie’s shoulders trembled as she squinted
through the rain. She could just make out Spooner wheeling around,
running back up the alley, and Ham bounding through the shadows in
pursuit.

But she suddenly heard the zing of another
shot as Snake fired his Colt from the stairs. Her blood went cold
as she heard Ethan’s sharp intake of breath beside her.

He grasped her arm and dragged her around
the corner and behind a stack of crates, breathing hard.

“Ethan, you’ve been shot!”

“Damn right, sweetheart. How about
that?”

He was
grinning
, Josie saw
incredulously.
Grinning
. And despite the blood that poured
from a gaping wound in his arm, he sounded amazingly calm, almost
pleased. “Always knew it had to happen sooner or later. Kind of a
relief to get it over with.”

“Winged ya, eh?” It sounded like Snake had
reached the bottom of the steps. He was edging closer. “Next time
you’re going straight to hell, Savage. Hear that, Josie? Then it’s
just you and me gonna be left. The two of us... all alone. Just me
and my no-good runaway wife.”

Ethan clenched his jaw, whether from pain or
anger she couldn’t tell. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” she whispered, terrified by how pale
he’d gone, and by how much his arm was bleeding. “I’m fine....”

“Liar,” he said softly, lovingly. Then he
called out to Snake, his voice ringing through the alley like raw
steel.

“She’s my wife now, Barker. And you’re going
to pay for every bruise you ever gave her.”

“Ha! Your wife! Not legally she ain’t. Your
marriage didn’t mean squat, because all the time that lying bitch
was still married to me!”

Flattened against the wall, Ethan spoke
again, his hard voice clearly piercing the steady drum of the
downpour. “Then I reckon I’ve got to make her a widow before she
can be my bride.”

As Josie watched in wordless terror, Ethan
pushed himself away from the wall and swung around the corner. He
swayed a bit on his feet as he faced the outlaw in the
downpour.

“No!” she groaned, hugging her arms around
herself, but even as the words left her lips, two gunshots split
the night. Paralyzed, Josie stared at Ethan with fear raking her
throat. When he swayed again on his feet, staggered a bit, and
lowered the gun, she launched herself at him.

“My God, Ethan... no!”

Then she saw Snake was dead, sprawled prone
in the alley, blood oozing into the mud and sewage, a rat leaping
over his bloodstained chest and disappearing behind a heap of
refuse. Ethan was bleeding heavily from his wounded arm, but
otherwise unhurt.

Snake’s shot had gone wide.

“You... all right?” he asked her, looking
into her face as she dropped Pete’s pistol into her pocket and
wrapped her arms around him, trying to take some of his weight.

“Me? I’ve never been better, Ethan, but
we’ve got to bind your wound and get you to a doctor.”

“Ham?” Ethan ignored her comment, detached
himself from her, and started down the alley. “Ham!” he called
sharply.

“Here, lad.” The old groom swam out of the
gloom. “The other one got away, but to bloody hell with him...
you’ve been shot.”

“You and my wife are so perceptive.” With an
effort Ethan managed to grin at Ham over Josie’s head as she yanked
his handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it quickly around the
wound. “She’s a hell of a lot of trouble, this woman of mine, but
she’s worth it.”

“Aye, I should think so.” Ham frowned. “Can
you walk, lad?”

“He won’t admit it if he can’t.” Feeling
queasy, Josie wiped her bloodied hands on her skirt and peered
around the alley. “We must get out of here and get a hansom.”

“Aye. Here, my lady, let him lean on me.
Come along now.” They started forward slowly, past Snake’s prone
form, veering away from Noah and Deck’s blood-spattered bodies.
“We’ve got to get you and the Countess out of here.”

Their feet sloshed through oozing puddles.
As several dark forms peered out of tiny windows or materialized
like ghostly wretches in the shadows of the alley, Josie drew the
pistol from her pocket—just in case.

“Ye... es. Damn right.” Ethan’s gaze met
Josie’s as she lifted anxious eyes to his. Love and worry twisted
through her delicate features. For her sake, he smoothed the pain
from his face and forced himself to grin at her, though weakly, and
to walk more steadily between them.

“We’ll send the police back later... for
what those bastards stole. Right now, we’ve got to get my
Countess... safely home.”

W
hen the balding
and bespectacled Mr. Grismore ushered them into his office chamber
at precisely two o’clock the following afternoon, Josie braced
herself for violence—Oliver Winthrop was present, waiting beside a
deep green chair, his hands folded behind his back. Beside her, she
felt Ethan stiffen.

“Don’t hit him, please,” she whispered as
Ethan escorted her to a comfortable burgundy leather armchair that
faced Grismore’s desk.

“I’ll just shoot him instead,” Ethan replied
loudly enough for both Grismore and Winthrop to hear.

Winthrop flushed. Grismore stared hard at
the surviving son of his former employer, his gaze lingering on the
sling that supported the Earl of Stonecliff’s left arm.

“My lord, I trust this is going to be a
civilized interview. No violence. It appears to me you have already
been injured sufficiently.... I trust the accident was nothing
serious?”

“It wasn’t an accident, it was a bullet. But
it’s little more than a flesh wound,” Ethan informed him easily.
“Lost a bit of blood, but I’m fit enough to throw my esteemed
cousin out of here in style if he doesn’t mind his manners.”

“This is outrageous!” Winthrop protested,
then as Ethan turned toward him, his voice trailed off into a
squeak. “Mr. Grismore, I demand you seize charge of this interview
at once. I won’t be intimidated.”

“Won’t you?” Ethan asked dangerously, a
mocking smile curling his lips, and beside him, Josie had all she
could do not to giggle at the terrified expression on Winthrop’s
face.

“Please—let us proceed, gentlemen,” she said
sweetly, but there was a silent plea in her eyes as she glanced at
Ethan.

He kissed her hand and waited until she had
slipped into the chair before seating himself in a chair beside
her.

Mr. Grismore began by repeating the grave
reservations the late Earl of Stonecliff had felt in bequeathing
his fortune, his lands, his houses, and all of his worldly
possessions to the son who had in the past showed himself to be an
irresponsible hothead with no respect for his own noble birth or
position.

“After the unfortunate demise of your
brother, your father felt that you would benefit greatly and be
much more likely to settle into your new position, if you had the
advantage of a wife. The proper sort of wife,” Grismore added. “A
lady.”

He looked expectantly at Josie and studied
her over the top of his spectacles.

“Hence the rather unusual terms of his
will.”

“My father was always a damned tyrannical
bastard,” Ethan said, and Mr. Grismore’s neck muscles bunched above
his stiff collar.

“My lord, that is quite—”

“Quite true.” Ethan cut him off silkily.
“But I’m not here to talk about my father. He’s dead, and the past
is over. I can’t change it, and I can’t relive it. My wife has
helped me to recognize that, and to give me some hope—and some
enthusiasm—for the future.”

Josie turned in her chair to arch a brow at
him. “Only some enthusiasm?” she said softly.

And in her eyes, Ethan saw reflected the
tender kisses and whispered words they’d shared last night after
arriving safely home.

As always when he looked at her, when he saw
her beauty, her vitality, her innate sweetness—which, thank God,
had never been stamped out by the harshness of her life—he felt a
jolt of desire, of pleasure and delight so strong, he wanted to
snatch her into his arms there and then. And the fantastic tale
she’d told him last night about having discovered the truth about
her parentage, a matched set of jewels, a shy sister, and the Duke
of Bennington’s being her grandfather, only added to the odd
enchantment of Josie Cooper Barker Savage.

Only the damned priggishness of their
stately surroundings and the need to conclude this ridiculous
stipulation of the will now, today, kept him from kissing her until
her eyes darkened with a desire every bit as intense as his own for
her.

“More than a little. Quite a bit more,” he
said for her ears only, and the truth was in his eyes as they
exchanged glances. With an effort, he turned his attention back to
Grismore.

“This meeting is now over. You’ve carried
out your obligation to my father. You’ve met my wife, and seen for
yourself that she is by all means a lady. Your responsibility in
this matter is now at an end.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t quite that simple, my
lord.” Grismore fixed him with a regretful glance. The lovely young
woman seated beside the succeeding earl was certainly elegant in
her teal silk day gown with its cream-colored lace trim and tiny
bustle, her hair coiled in shining ringlets atop her head, where
perched a fashionable little ostrich plume hat. She moved
gracefully, and her voice was beautiful, low and musical. It wasn’t
that he found fault with the brilliant sparkle of her eyes, or the
outright provocatively sensual shape of her mouth, but he could
scarcely ignore the report he had received from Mr. Oliver
Winthrop. A report that, if true, would be utterly shocking and
render her entirely inappropriate to the position of Countess of
Stonecliff.

But he had to tread carefully. Should Mr.
Winthrop’s assertions prove untrue or exaggerated, he would be in
an awkward position with the new earl. That would hardly benefit
him. He was walking a careful line between his duty to the late
earl, and his wish to win the patronage of the would-be new
one.

“Mr. Winthrop has brought to my attention
some information which is worrisome. I regret, my lady, that I must
bring up these matters, but it is essential to get at the
truth.”

“I understand.” Josie took a deep breath,
bracing herself for the questions and accusations to come. Ethan
had told her that Winthrop knew the truth about her and had been
planting rumors behind her back, and that he would have certainly
reported to Grismore.

Now she had only one choice. To lie. To lie
well enough that Mr. Grismore believed her rather than Winthrop, so
that he wouldn’t pursue the matter with inquiries back to
America.

If he did, all was lost. It would be easy
for him to discover that Winthrop was right—not about her being a
pickpocket, for who would know that—but that she was a nobody, an
orphan who’d worked as a cook and in a dance hall, who was far,
very far indeed, from the pampered and proper lady the late earl
had dictated his son must marry.

Josie felt Ethan tense. She knew he was
silently damning his father. He’d told Josie last night that if he
had to choose between her and his inheritance, he would choose her
without hesitation. They would return to America, he said, where
they would build a life together free of anyone’s restrictions or
interference. To hell with Stonecliff Park and London and
Parliament....

But she knew that he loved Stonecliff Park.
Why, she herself had felt it stealing its way into her heart, and
she was almost a stranger. How easy it would be to love that house,
that gentle emerald land—to call it home.

Home.
She who had never had a home
might now cause Ethan to lose the one that should rightfully be
his.

She couldn’t bear that. “I will answer all
of your questions with pleasure.”

She offered the solicitor the well-bred
smile she’d been practicing before the mirror since the morning
she’d sailed for England.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Grismore, I can
clear this up with a few simple questions.” Winthrop bustled
forward, avoiding getting within range of Ethan’s fists, skirting
the desk, and coming to stand beside Mr. Grismore’s chair.