Samantha James (3 page)

His censure was sharper than he intended. She didn’t like it—not one bit, he saw. Not that it appeared there was anything she liked about him…

“Well,
sir,
” she stressed, “not that it’s any of your affair, but I wasn’t with a gentleman. Nor do I take kindly to strangers—or anyone else—telling me what I should and should not do. I’m quite able to take care of myself, thank you very much.”

I’m quite able to take care of myself
,
thank you very much.
Aidan discovered himself unexpectedly amused. Wasn’t that what Alec had said the lovely Raven told her counterpart Rowan?

He conceded that women were changing. They were more independent than when he’d left for India, capable of seeing to themselves and their needs.

“So I see. As for who I am, my name is Aidan. Aidan McBride.” He bowed low. “And now I am no longer a stranger.”

Judging by her silence and the set of her jaw, she didn’t agree.

Aidan gestured over his shoulder, and went on pleasantly. “A pity we must make introductions at this time of night. I’ve just moved into the town house down the street, you see.”

“Excellent.” She spoke through her teeth. “Then it won’t take long for you to get home.”

“And I won’t be returning home until I escort
you
home.” He held up a hand. “I see you are tempted to argue. However, I insist.”

Her back was ramrod-straight. “Sir, as you must surely be aware, this is a highly respectable neighborhood. Therefore, you may leave.”

Drat, but the woman was stubborn! “I couldn’t call myself a gentleman if I left a woman alone on the streets at this hour of the night, no matter how respectable the neighborhood. I should imagine my mother would be quite disappointed were I to
do so.” He didn’t bother disguising the steel beneath his polite statement.

He knew that
she
knew it too. “While I should hate for your mother to be disappointed in you, I say again, sir, you may leave.”

They continued to lock horns.

“Nonetheless, I am compelled to escort you to your home,” he said quietly. “I warn you, it will do no good to argue.”

She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to. Aidan saw it in the way she tightly compressed her lips. Yet the strangest thing happened—something flitted over her face. He had the oddest feeling that she was warring within herself.

“There is no need to escort me further. You see, I…
am
home.”

It was a grudging admission.

Aidan glanced up at the sign dangling above. “Every Book and Cranny,” he read aloud. He squinted, then looked down at her. “But—this is a bookshop.”

“So it is,” she returned pleasantly.

His gaze narrowed. “You live here?”

“I do.”

“Abovestairs?”

“I don’t believe that is any of your business, sir.”

“Well—” Aidan was at a rare loss for words. “Then at least allow me to know that you are safely inside, Miss…” He paused expectantly.

“Hawkes,” she said finally. “Fionna Hawkes.”

Yet another grudging admission. Lord, but it seemed the chit guarded herself closely!

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Hawkes.”

Somehow he didn’t expect her to return the courtesy.

And she did not. She merely regarded him with that same wariness that marked the whole of their encounter.

“What makes you so sure it is ‘Miss’?”

“You denied having a gentleman friend. I believe if you had a husband, you’d have very promptly pointed it out to me. And,” he said smoothly, “you are not wearing a ring.”

“I am wearing gloves! You couldn’t possibly see whether or not I wear a ring!”

“A vehement denial,” he said softly. “And you’ve just now given me good reason to believe I am right.”

Her entire body stiffened. “You presume too much, Mr. McBride.”

Her lips barely moved. She had fire, Aidan decided. She had spunk.

And Aidan liked that. The admission startled him a little. Moreover, the woman piqued his interest more with every word.

“Perhaps,” he said with a shrug. “But you’ve taken a dislike to me, I see.”

He was surprised when her gaze skittered away. He heard the ragged breath she drew. “It is not dislike, sir,” she said. “I…We do not know
each other. I am, by nature, protective of my private life.”

Aidan was silent for a moment. He could respect that, he found himself admitting. God knew, he’d grown protective of his own. “Well, then”—he gave a slight bow—“I shall bid you good night.”

The words declared an end to their encounter. He executed a slight bow.

The chit said no more. His hands behind his back, Aidan remained where he was, watching as she retreated a few steps, then extracted a key from the inside of her cloak.

He noticed the way she glanced over her shoulder several times as she fumbled a little with the key before the lock finally turned and she opened the door. He also noted the way she did not turn her back on him fully, as though to make certain he made no sudden move to follow as she slipped inside.

The click of the lock seemed unusually loud.

Only when he saw the glow of a lamp inside the shop did he turn and amble toward his town house, his mind on the woman he’d just met.

Fionna Hawkes was a most untrusting woman. A most cautious woman. All in all, a most curious one, to be sure.

And, he realized with a vehemence that was almost startling, quite the most fetching one he’d seen in a long, long time.

Of that, he was most certain of all.

Fionna loved the dark, for it lit her mind, her muse; it was truly her inspiration. It fired her imagination as nothing else could. She had never feared the depths of night, not even as a child. She reveled in it, particularly on those moonless nights when all the world lay closed and sleeping, while
she
lay awake and dreaming—of legends and myths, and stories yet to be told. That was when her mind came alive, when
she
came alive.

Climbing the stairs to her apartments above the bookshop, she couldn’t forget the incident. Had she acted like a fool? No, she decided, it was better to be prepared. And she would not remain closeted behind closed doors, cowering like a frightened little mouse. She’d never been the sort to frighten easily, else she could never write the stories she did.

No, she was not easily frightened, which made her wonder if she had been followed last week.

There was no logic to it, unfortunately. She had sensed a presence, with all that she possessed. She’d known, even before she whirled to confront whoever it was that followed, that she would see nothing. Yet that very same sense warned that something—some
one
—was near. Following.
Watching.

It was quite unnerving.

Distinctly unsettling.

Too much like
Demon of Dartmoor
for her peace of mind.

And Aidan McBride…he was nearly as unsettling as well, though in a far different way. She pictured him again. His manner grated somewhat. So confident, so sure of himself, so determined to play the gentleman/protector. She’d caught a glimpse of his profile, arresting and handsome, from what she could see of him. Somehow she sensed that had they met in the light of day, she would have found him a most striking man. His image swirled anew in her mind.

In irritation, she wrenched thoughts of him far away, relegating him to the distant corner of her mind. Mr. Aidan McBride was gone. And she vowed to give him no further thought.

Her dander rose as she recalled his insistence that he escort her home. His manner conveyed displeasure at her refusal—that she was out at midnight. She would certainly not entertain the notion that she cease her nightly walks. She’d been doing it for several years now, even before she’d moved to London. She never ventured far from home. By heaven, she would not be confined! She couldn’t. She wrote of all that lay secluded in the night, of all that lay hidden in the darkness of the soul, and…well, it put her into the proper frame of mind. It helped to set her thoughts to rights, for she was at her most creative at night.

Even when she was very young, Fionna had always been given to dreaming; an only child, she and her parents lived in a village just south of Lon
don. Once in church she’d sat through the service and hadn’t even noticed when at last the church had emptied, or even the sound of Vicar Tomlinson’s voice until he shook her shoulder, startling her. In school, she’d been scolded soundly for her lack of attention. But oh, how she loved the hours between sunset and sunrise! How she loved the night! And from the depths of the dark, her dreams of becoming something more than she had ever aspired to had been achieved.

The neighbors in the village would have been shocked to discover that Fionna Josephine Hawkes was the authoress of tales dark and twisted and tormented—of the fiends and monsters and demons conjured up. So would her neighbors in London, she suspected. No doubt at all, everyone considered her quite bizarre, for Fionna had little interest in finding a husband, either then or now. At six-and-twenty, she supposed she was now consigned to the role of spinster—not that she cared a whit.

Snug at home in familiar, comfortable surroundings, her earlier anxiety seemed rather silly now. Sternly she reminded herself that she’d never actually
seen
anything, nor had she been approached by anyone threatening—except for Aidan McBride. True, she’d been frightened, and yes, he’d nearly scared the very wits out of her. But
he
had not been frightening.

Annoyed with herself for thinking about him again, she headed to the kitchen. She boiled a
kettle of water, brewed a pot of tea, and walked to her desk. In her hand was a dainty, flowered teacup that was part of her mother’s china set.

No, Fionna thought. She would not be cowed. She was a woman of routine, of regularity. She was, she admitted, a very private woman. A young girl, Glynis, came several days a week to do the occasional chore and see that her gowns were kept clean and pressed. Fionna preferred to do her own tidying up. So she cooked for herself and cleaned for herself, though her monetary situation was hardly such that she must watch her pocketbook. Indeed, quite the opposite at present.

Perhaps, she decided, she was even wrong about being followed.

For there was a need for Fionna Hawkes to guard herself closely. To preserve her privacy in the same way she safeguarded her identity. To protect her secret to the utmost.

A tiny little smile curved her lips. It had long been a dream of hers to explore the world to her heart’s content. The pyramids in Egypt. To turn her ear to the chattering singsong of Chinese and wander amidst the markets as she wished, fingering lavish, delicate silks. Perhaps even to experience the wildness of an African safari—or see the majestic rise of the towering peaks in the American West.

But not now. Not just yet. For this was a dream that would simply have to wait…

Her mother must come first.

For now, she reminded herself, she must be content. She had a responsibility to her mother. When she’d brought Mama to London, they’d had to sell the house and lands. They had lived in comfort but not in luxury, for Papa had been but a modest landowner—and, as she discovered upon his death, he’d been a most lenient squire, dismissing many a debt from his tenants. But now that she was well established in her chosen vocation, her work had proved to have its rewards. She was well paid. She lived in ample comfort. And so did her mother.

That was the most important thing of all.

Slowly she lowered the teacup. An empty ache spread in Fionna’s breast. Her throat caught. Her mother…ah, but it hurt so to think of her! And her father…He had been her staunchest champion.

Rising, she went to the bookshelf next to her desk and pulled out a copy of
Satan’s Path.
How proud he’d been when she’d torn open the wrappings around that very novel. That moment was etched in her mind forever. Papa had been beaming, so very, very proud! And she had been so happy, happier than she’d ever been in her life.

She had always been a rather solitary person. Her father had always understood her best, and Fionna missed him dreadfully! Never had she dreamed—never in the world—that she would be quite so alone, the way she was now.

For her mother…oh, Mama was still in this
world…and yet she was not. A twinge of bittersweet pain closed around her chest. Her mother had always possessed a certain fragility about her. But when Fionna’s father, tall and stalwart and hardly ill a day in his life, had suddenly died in his sleep one night, no one expected it. No one.

It was then that Mama took to her bed for days, refusing to leave it, refusing to acknowledge that he was gone. Her father’s death had dealt a blow from which her mother never recovered, Fionna realized.

Rising, she raised a hand and moved aside the lovely lace curtains to stare into the frigid night.

No,
she thought achingly,
Mama never got better. Not really.
And when Fionna thought about her mother’s…illness, for she could not bear to think of it—to
call
it otherwise—her throat clogged tight with emotion.

It had been serendipity, she supposed, when the offer to serialize
Demon of Dartmoor
had come through. By then Fionna had authored four novels, but this offer surpassed all others by far. She could hardly refuse—for several reasons.

She had already sought help for her mother from the best physician in London, Dr. Colson. Cases such as her mother’s were his particular specialty. When he had suggested he could care for her better in his facility in London, Fionna had balked. Yet in time she had yielded, for her mother’s condition continued to worsen. Fionna
knew then that it must be done. And if her mother must be moved to London, then she would move as well, for it was imperative that she remain close to her mother. That Mama not feel as if she’d been deserted.

Fionna shuddered. That would surely have sent Mama over the edge.

It was also then she came up with the idea of opening Every Book and Cranny. Her position as bookshop owner afforded her the opportunity to maintain her anonymity as F.J. Sparrow, to continue the ruse even with her publisher—she “acted” as go-between, both with delivery of her manuscripts and payment.