It hardly mattered to him. His body, well conditioned to the act, had already made it clear it would be happy to comply. If he thought about it, it rather amused him that he, who’d used so many women before, was now used so thoroughly by a chit barely out of the schoolroom.
Predictably, as soon as they’d rounded the tree, she shoved her hands beneath his coat and under his shirt.
“My fingers are cold,” she murmured. “Are yours?”
“Oh, yes.”
She withdrew her hands and slowly unhooked the silk frogs holding the front of her pelisse together. Beneath her coat she wore a gown more suited to a brothel than a walking path in February. Her little breasts were squeezed together in the constriction of the tight, low-cut bodice.
She took his hand and placed his gloved fingertips between the soft, warm mounds. “Isn’t that better?”
“Yes. Much better.”
“I have even warmer places,” she breathed, standing on tiptoe and running her tongue along his throat. She began backing beneath the yew’s branches, guiding him through the thick limbs until they stood beside the trunk, shielded in a tent of living green.
Idly, he wondered who’d introduced her to this dark bower. He’d never asked her about her other lovers. He knew they existed and she made no real attempt to make him think otherwise, but they didn’t overly concern him, especially not while her fingers were working nimbly over the fastenings of his trousers. His hard member sprang free, and she gave a little sound of pleasure as her hands closed over him.
Clever hands.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the gnarled trunk. He supposed he ought to be thankful he had the ability to really enjoy the physical side of love since he’d apparently never experience any other aspect.
“Do you like this?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I do, too.”
“Aren’t we fortunate?” If she heard the irony in his voice she ignored it, redoubling her efforts to please.
“I’m in some difficulty.” He heard her voice as if from a long way off. His concentration was completely focused on her fingers, sliding up and down, tugging expertly.
“I’m belly full, Giles.”
Well, yes. She was a young healthy woman and she’d been very active.
“Am I the father?”
She hesitated but her hands didn’t. “You might be.”
He broke out in laughter. God bless her, the girl might be a tart and a cunning romp but she wasn’t a liar. He could respect that. He opened his eyes and stared down at her. She gazed back, a look of slight irritation on her oh-so-pretty face.
“And what do you want me to do?”
“I need to get it fixed.”
The laughter died from his throat. Carefully he reached down and secured her wrists. Just as carefully he held them away from him. It didn’t matter now anyway. His erection had left.
“I don’t know who ‘fixes’ these things,” he said, looking at her face. Her skin was like cream, her green eyes clear, and her hair like a flame. So young to be so old. It didn’t seem right.
“But you can find out.”
“No.”
She pulled away from him, irritation fully marring that pretty face now.
Why not?
he thought.
Why the bloody hell not?
“You know,” he said, “it occurs to me there are better ways of dealing with this than subjecting that pretty little body to butchery.”
“Really?” She sneered over her shoulder.
At least he would have the distinct pleasure of surprising her. Who would expect that a man with his reputation . . .
He laughed and she turned around, looking clearly puzzled. “Why, you can marry me, puss.”
I hunted you. I tracked you. I trapped you. And now, by God, I’m going to keep you.
Anne stared listlessly out between the grillwork covering the bedroom window. Freedom taunted her beyond the iron tracery. Jack Seward taunted her with his absence.
She hadn’t left this room for two days. Not since Jack had dragged the young rector at Saint Bernadette’s from his bed and forced him to marry them. He’d returned her here, escorted her to this room, and left.
Within minutes she’d discovered the barred window and the jammed lock on the only door. The exterior bolt thwarted her every attempt to slide it back.
She’d huddled on the bed all night. The next morning that dour-looking Scotsman, Griffin, entered, followed by a wiry boy lumbering beneath the weight of a battered trunk. Under Griffin’s silent and forbidding supervision, a middle-age maid, Spawling, arrived and unpacked her clothing.
Jack had appeared while they were there. He was as somberly and immaculately groomed as ever, and she’d felt keenly her own soiled and disheveled condition. His blank gaze had swept over her. In a voice that could have been commenting on the weather, he’d asked her for a description of the boy who’d carried her last message.
He’d been flawlessly polite. There was nothing in him that she recognized as “Jack,” and it frightened her far more than his anger and brutal kiss of the night before.
She pleaded with him to let her go. He’d ignored her and left with the suggestion that she write and inform Malcolm and Sophia of her marriage.
The only other time he’d come near her had been late last night. She’d lain sleepless on the bed, staring into a black corner and imagining any number of fates that awaited a thief who’d challenged and debauched and betrayed Whitehall’s Hound, a man noted for doing terrible things.
She’d heard the bolt on the door slide back and held her breath. Soft footsteps crossed the room and came to a halt beside the bed. For long, tense moments she’d felt him standing over her. And then he’d gone.
She didn’t know what he intended to do with her. It could be anything. She’d been a fool to think she understood the smallest thing about Colonel Jack Seward. She didn’t. He was as terrifying and incomprehensible as the lightning she’d taunted atop the roofs. And God help her, just as seductive.
Below, the front door creaked open. She rose and padded to the door and pressed her ear against the oak panel. Footsteps climbed the stairs.
Her heartbeat skipped lightly in her chest. Anticipation and fear shivered through her body. He would come in now. He would introduce her to her fate.
The footsteps slowed. She straightened, lifting her chin and preparing to face him. He paused outside the door. She took a step back. The silence extended into long seconds and then the sound of footsteps resumed, grew faint, and disappeared altogether.
Tears flooded Anne’s eyes, broke over her lids, and washed down her cheeks. Maybe this was her fate. To be kept locked away from sight, alone with her mad passion her only company. Was that his punishment? Did he know how she’d felt? How much she wanted him?
God, you’re a fool, Anne!
she thought violently.
How could he not know? You took any opportunity, any excuse, to touch him, to taste him.
Of course he knew.
She banged her fists against the door. “You can’t keep me in here forever! You can’t!”
No one answered her shouts. She drummed harder, her tears came faster, sobs breaking her voice. She shook the knob, pounding again and again. “Damn you, let me out! You can’t keep me like this! Jack!
Jack!”
She beat against the door until her hands ached, called until she was hoarse. Her head fell against the hard wood panel.
He couldn’t be so cruel.
He could be anything.
She pushed herself away from the door and looked frantically about. She had to get away. Once more she studied the barricaded window for some weakness, and once more found none. The spacing between the ornate fretwork was far too small to wriggle through. One would have to be a child . . .
She spun around, ran to the hearth, and knelt down in the cool ashes. The fire had died earlier and no one had come to relight it. She angled her head under the chimney and looked up into a small, dark tunnel. Big enough. She could escape up the flue. She jerked her head back.
And then where
? She wouldn’t think past the moment of escape.
She grabbed handfuls of ashes and darkened her face and arms. The dress she wore was far too narrow and confining to climb in. It would have to be sacrificed. With a penknife she sliced away half the length of her skirts and most of the sleeves.
She snatched a light cloak from the wardrobe and wrapped it into a tight narrow roll, planning to use it to cover her destroyed dress once she was on the streets. Then, taking a deep breath, she crouched down and crawled into the center of the hearth.
The acrid smell of smoke permeated her nostrils and coated her throat. She lifted her face, blinking as a fine mist of soot and ashes rained down on her.
She stood up in the narrow channel and lifted her arms, groping blindly for the perimeters of her escape route. Tight, very tight. Bracing her back against the brick wall, she jammed her feet against the opposite side. Slowly, foot by painstaking foot, she began crab-walking up into the narrow, black channel.
It took forever. Each increment was an agony of black darkness and choking coal dust. She scraped her hands raw on the uneven surface of brick. Her legs cramped in the tiny hole. Tales of climbing boyschildren apprenticed to sweeps at the age of four or five caught in passages too narrow to go either forward or backward haunted her.
She came to a sharp turn in the flue. Only by twisting and scrambling was she able to squeeze around the angle and continue. Sweat coursed down her face. Her muscles trembled on the point of exhaustion.
Finally, mercifully, she felt the brush of cold air fall like a benediction upon her face. She redoubled her efforts. Minutes later she struggled from the tiny chimney pot like a bedraggled phoenix. She fell panting on the rooftop and lay for a few minutes, letting the sweet, icy air revive her. She couldn’t stay there. Any moment he could discover she was gone.
She clambered to her feet, unfolded her bundle, and wrapped the thin cloak around her shoulders. She looked around in despair. She knew these unmarked highways. They could take her away from here, away from Jack. But not tonight.
Tonight the fog was as thick as clotted cream. She simply could not see well enough to make the leaps these airy byways demanded. But she’d no time to waste in regrets.
She scrambled lightly down the side of the building, the descent as easy as the ascent had been hard. The streets below were deserted. Fog and cold made it too uncomfortable for any to be abroad but those with the most imperative reasons.
She kept close to the buildings. Before and behind her an occasional figure appeared like a phantom, only to dissolve a second later into the murky whiteness. She went slowly, disoriented in the fog, unfamiliar with these earthbound passages. Sound expanded around her, amplified by the wet air.
Gradually Anne became aware of a faint echo to her footsteps, as if someone followed her and was carefully matching his gait to hers. She looked over her shoulder and squinted, uncertain whether a figure hovered just beyond her ability to make it out.
She stopped, listening intently, all her senses focused out into the dense, churning soup. Nothing. Just an ominous watchful
“Dear God!”
The sleek little form sliced through the mist, darting across her feet. She jumped back.
A cat.
Her breath came out in a rush of nervous laughter.
“Poor cat,” she murmured. “You look as nervous as I”
The man was on her in a second. His shoulder rammed her into the wall, banging her head against the bricks and stunning her. His hands found her throat, closed savagely around her neck, and squeezed. She hung helpless in his grasp, choking, tearing at the hands throttling her. Fireworks exploded in tiny starbursts behind her lids.
Suddenly his hands were snatched away. She fell heavily to her knees, gasping for breath. A few yards away, half hidden by the mist, two dim figures swirled in a mute, violent dance. She heard the sharp, savage sound of flesh hitting flesh, a whispered groan, and then silence. One of the figures slipped down and was swallowed by the thick blanket of fog.
The other figure turned and came toward her.
Jack.
And Jack meant safety.
He is not your savior. He loathes you.
Her heart mocked her thoughts, but then her heart was an idiot, incapable of being trusted.
She skittered away from him on her hands and feet. His jaw tightened and he reached down. She blinked up at him, uncertain what he meant to do. He grasped her upper arm and pulled her upright.
“If you want to live, stay right next to me,” he clipped out, drawing her near.
“But how?”
“Griffin discovered you missing.” His gaze raked her dirty face and disheveled hair. He lifted her hand and turned it over. Blood seeped from her raw, dirty palm. “We didn’t think of blocking the chimney.” He dropped her hand, spun her about, and shoved her, propelling her ahead of him.
“That man tried to kill me.” Her voice came out in a shaky whisper.
“I know. But he didn’t. No one will kill you.”
She stared at him in amazement. His face was turned in profile to her. A small cut marked his cheek. He refused to look at her.
He‘d saved her life. Again.
She’d done nothing but betray him and hurt him and use him, and he’d saved her life.
Not that it made any difference to him. He’d removed himself from her as completely as if he inhabited another sphere. He may as well never have asked her to say his name. He would never make the mistake of exposing his vulnerability again. Perhaps she’d killed the last of it.
“He won’t be the last one who’ll try, however,” he said, eyes still fixed ahead.
“What?” she exclaimed. “He was just a”
Jack stopped, grasped her upper arm, and spun her around. He pinned her against the wall and moved in close. His coat brushed her breasts. His warm breath fanned her brow. He sounded winded. He looked angry and cold.
“That man wasn’t ‘just’ anything. You were no chance victim in a street attack.” His voice was tight, urgent. “He’d been sent to kill you.
You.
”
His gaze pierced hers. His body was warm; his hands pinning her shoulders to the wall were rough. For a long, tense moment he stared into her face, his expression damned and damning, his gaze roving over her features as if confronted by a mystery without answer. Finally he snatched her from the wall and pushed her forward again.
“Now,” he said, “if you want to livewhich I begin to doubtyou will do exactly as I tell you to do.”
“I want to live,” she said.
“Good,” he replied. “That ought to make it easier.”
“But why did he want”
“Later. When we’re in the house.” His expression brooked no argument.
At the corner he stopped her and went ahead.
Quickly he studied the street in front of his town house before returning. “This way, if you please.”
She followed him across the street, noting how he kept her purposefully to the inside of his figure, shielded from any traffic or eyes. The door to the house opened onto a black hall as they started up the stairs. Once inside, Griffin pulled her to the side. Jack slammed the door behind them.
“Where’s that maid?” Jack asked.
“Spawling, sir. I be here, sir,” the thin older woman said, coming down the stairs, dispassionately eyeing Anne’s filthy face and shredded clothes.
“Send the boy from the kitchen to me. He’ll need to take a message immediately. And Mrs. Wi” Jack stopped. “She needs a hot bath. And something for the cuts on her hands.” He looked down at her. “But first, we will talk.”