The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (27 page)

Rachel glanced up at him, at his suddenly shuttered look, at the way he let his hair slide down over his bright eyes again. As if he hadn’t just told her the story he’d told her, with all its pain and self-recrimination and regret.

Oh, these men. These poor, idiot men. This
Brotherhood of Sinners
. All so brave and strong and hard—and so desperate to hide the most decent sides of themselves.

She breathed in the scent of lavender, and something shifted inside her.

Oh, Sebastian
.

The Giant was staring down at her now, expression fierce and unyielding once again. He reached down a hand to help her up. “We’d best get you back to Rosa’s house,” he said gruffly. “I believe you have some vengeance to exact against the Marquess of Hawkesbridge for locking you in your room.”

Chapter Fifteen

When the door to Rosa’s front parlor slammed open, and a woman marched in, pulling a mantilla from her hair, Sebastian thought for one stomach-swooping moment,
Sal is here. Rachel’s locked away upstairs, so this is Sal. Sal isn’t dead.

And the weight that had pressed down on his heart all these months momentarily lifted.

And then the woman hit him full in the chest with both her hands, knocking him back into the chair he’d just been rising from. “You fraud and charlatan!” she cried. “You dedicated a chapel to her!”

It took another moment for his mind to right itself. This creature attacking him wore one of Sal’s gowns, but the look on her face, a peculiar mix of ferocity and tenderness, was purely Rachel’s.

The hard, familiar weight sank back against his pulse once more.

And,
damn
. He felt his face blanch.
The chapel
. “How did you learn of that?” And then a fearful anger swelled up through him. “How the hell did you get out of the house?”

“It was your friend’s doing. He told me. He took me there.”

“
What
?” Panic shot through his gut, and he began to rise again. “What friend?”

“The Black Giant,” she said, pushing him down by the shoulders.

“
Who
?”

“The—the
enormous
one. The one I met in your townhouse in London. With the black hair.”

His alarm calmed slightly, and he let himself fall back into the chair. “Ah, yes. Him. He
would
take it upon himself to show you. He’s arrived in town, I take it. And reported to you before he reported to me, apparently.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. But don’t you dare change the subject.” Her manner gentled suddenly, and she sank to one knee before him, her eyes gleaming with some new, complex emotion. “I saw that place, Sebastian,” she said. “The fountain. The candles perpetually burning. With Franciscan friars to tend it all, no less.”

She really has seen it, then
. He breathing came unsteadily at the thought, but he attempted a casual shrug. “I owed Sal at least that much,” he said, trying for a tone of aristocratic boredom. “What, you think I’d have let her be buried at a crossroads? I’m a very wealthy man—that chapel is no hardship for me.”

“The
open
window,” she said, and her voice had gone husky. She laid her hands over his. “The lavender in the garden outside. The orange tree. Don’t try to tell me that was the
friars
’ idea.
You
did that. Because you knew Sarah so well, because you cared so deeply for her.”

Just that quickly, his composure cracked. The blood rushed to his face, and his stomach formed a sickening knot. He didn’t think he could bear to talk about this.

“The chapel is beautiful, Sebastian.” Her words were a caress. “Thank you. You did right by her.”

“No,” he whispered. He knew he should say something dismissive and ironical, something to anger Rachel and make her move away, but the knot in his chest had grown harder, pressing into his throat, and he couldn't manage the words.

One of her hands brushed his cheek.

And then her lips were on his. As gentle and tender as a breath.

Oh, Lord
.

For a few moments, he let himself sink into the softness of her embrace. But she pushed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and deepening the kiss. Deepening it to something far more flesh and blood than breath. Offering far more than he had any business taking.

He straightened abruptly, his hands grasping her elbows, and he surged to his feet, pulling her upright as well. He had to get out of here. He’d done a reasonably good job, he thought, since they’d arrived in Vigo, of shutting out tender feelings for her. Now it was all falling apart, with just one small blow from her.

He couldn’t let it fall apart. He dodged around her, not even bothering with an excuse, heading for the stairs.

But she was right behind him.

“Sebastian!” she called. She matched him pace for pace up the staircase and down the corridor, pushing her way into his room before he could close the door against her.

She was the one to shut the door and throw the lock, cutting them off from the rest of the world. All he could do was throw out his arms to block her from moving further into the room.

“Don’t,” he said, all he could manage.

“Please don’t ask me to leave.” She set her hands to his outflung arms, urging them gently back to his sides. “We’ve spent so much time already, shutting one another out. Pushing one another away. I know
exactly
what you’re doing, Sebastian, because it’s what I’ve done, too. Building up walls. Trying to hide what we feel. Trying to pretend that keeps us safe.”

“No!” he said flatly. “You don’t know. There’s far too much you don’t know.”

“Then tell me.”

God, why wouldn’t she just give it up? All of a sudden, his throat felt as if he’d swallowed a stone.

But Rachel Covington was nothing if not persistent.

“Look at me,” she urged. “Please look at me.” Her eyes seemed magnetic; he couldn’t
not
look at her. Oh, and the way she was looking at him—her eyes kind and questioning and open, as if she wanted to draw him inside her. Despite everything, despite what he was, despite the things he’d done.

The floor felt unsteady beneath his feet.

And suddenly, for the first time in years, a memory rushed into his mind—that awful day, riding along a riverbank with his father, inspecting village footbridges for damage after a flood. The air was thick with the smell of mud and rain, the river churning brown just beneath them, half-drowned tree branches careening downstream. And then the ground began to shift sideways, too heavy with rain to hold its form. Sebastian managed to guide his mount up the slope to more solid ground, but his father was further down the embankment. A thick shelf of earth broke free, and his father’s horse went tumbling with it. By the time Sebastian vaulted from his saddle and tried to get to them, it was too late. The fatal damage was done. And everything in the world Sebastian had loved was snatched away.

“What is it, Sebastian?” Rachel asked him now in a worried voice, still holding him with that open gaze.

No
. He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t.

If he stayed here with her, let her keep looking at him like that, something more was going to give way. Something he couldn’t stand upright without.

He pushed with all his weight, propelling Rachel towards the door. She grabbed hold of his sleeves, refusing to release her hold, and managed to pivot just enough that her back struck the doorframe.

“Sebastian,” she whispered. “You need to talk to me. You can’t spend the rest of your life like this, refusing to let anyone close to you, refusing to let anyone care for you.
I
can’t do it. I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

“Then don’t. But it has nothing to do with me.”

“Damn you, it has
everything
to do with you. You—
being
with you—don’t you understand? Since I’ve been with you, it’s the first time in so very many years that I’ve felt my heart was actually beating. I didn’t realize how close I’d come to letting it dry up and wither away.”

He squeezed shut his eyes, trying to shut her out. “Well, it’s too late for me, sweetheart. My heart turned to stone a long, long time ago.”

“It’s not stone,” she said fiercely, grabbing his arms and shaking them so he had to open his eyes again. “And you can’t fool me anymore, Lord Hawkesbridge. That
chapel
is proof you have a heart, a good and loving and loyal heart, a
living
heart, hard as you might try to hide it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s
not
what the chapel proves.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake. Just
stop
. Why do you have to do everything alone? Aren’t you tired of it?” She lifted one hand, let her fingers skim along his lower lip, a touch he felt through every nerve in his body. “
I’m
tired of it. Being alone. So blasted tired of trying to pretend I’m not made of normal human flesh and blood.”

Flesh and blood
.

Dear God. Did she have any idea of the effect she had on him?

One more word from her, and he was going to burst apart.

They were both breathing hard. Her face was so close to his, her breath warmed his skin. He could feel the pull of her body, drawing him closer, making the blood beat harder in his veins. He wanted to open that door and push her outside it. He wanted to pull her hard against him and never let go.

“
Please
,” she said.

No
—he was still master of his will. Her eyes and her mouth and her soft breath might mesmerize him, but he had the power to resist. She could not undo him.

But he hadn’t counted on her moving.

She rose up on her toes, her arms coming around his neck. When her lips touched his and her body pressed full-length against him, all his hard resolve melted in less than the space of a heartbeat.

Raw need surged through him—the need to touch her, hold her, taste her, feel her flesh grow warm for him, wrap her tight in his arms. He gripped her shoulders, drew her against him almost violently, and plundered her mouth with his tongue.

And he knew as he did it that she was right—that he’d walled himself off for more years even than she had, that he’d
tried
to make his heart a lifeless stone, but something had changed in both of them since they’d been together. She’d been slowly, bit by bit, chipping away through his defenses, fracturing the stone, making him feel the pulse of the living flesh that still survived beneath.

And it terrified him.

And he wanted her.

He wasn’t sure which one of them shifted away from the doorway, but in moments they were swaying towards the bed that filled the corner of the room, their bodies clinging, their hands and mouths frantically seeking ways to bring their flesh still closer. They fell together on the coverlet.

And then she was stretched out beneath him, warm and yielding, and he buried his face into the curve of her throat, kissing the fragrant skin there. So delicious. So full of the promise of life, and of joy. He needed that scent of her as desperately as he needed air to breathe.

Even so, his heart twisted. Despite the brain-drugging fog of desire, a dull note of guilt still hammered at him. “Rachel,” he groaned. “Wait. We shouldn’t—we shouldn’t start this again. This isn’t
right
for you.”

She gave a groan in return, hers even more full of frustration. “How do you know what’s right for me?” Her hands found their way beneath his coat and were working fitfully to find some way to pull it away from his body.

His own fingers, ignoring all conscious commands of his mind, were working their way down the sides of her gown, yanking at the fabric to draw up the hem. “I know what I am,” he said against her ear. “You deserve someone whole and—and
good
.”

“
You
are good,” she sighed, pulling back a moment to fix her gaze on him. “You’ve tried so hard to convince me otherwise. But I’ve seen too much of you now—too much that’s loyal, and brave, and strong—to be misled anymore into thinking you’re the selfish, cold-hearted thing you pretend to be. Sebastian Talbot, you are a good man. A very good man.”

“No. No, I’m not.” He gasped as Rachel lifted her hips against him. All his body wanted was for him to haul up her skirts and drive himself mindlessly inside her. And then all this agony would go away again, at least for a little while.

But this was wrong. This was utterly wrong.

No matter what had happened between them already, he had no right to be touched like this, not by her. There were things she didn’t know yet about what he’d done.

If he went ahead and took her now, took her fully, without her knowing everything, it would be . . . he didn’t want to think what it would be. With the last scrap of conscious control, he rolled away from her, landing with his back towards the wall so she had the open side of the bed, and an easy route to escape.