The Reckless One (2 page)

It was possible Madame Noir regretted her decision to choose him; that titillation had taken a backseat to fear.

But this woman was notorious for her
outré
appetites. The more probable reason for her ostensible fear was that it was all part of some perverse game. A game which, if Raine played it correctly, he might use to his benefit.

If he could convince her to unchain him he would be out of this carriage in seconds, losing himself in Dieppe’s twisting alleys. With such thoughts, he crouched low as he entered the carriage, conscious of the part he needed to play.

Mindful of how his shoulders crowded the doorway and blocked the light, Raine slouched down onto the seat opposite her, angling himself in such a way that he did not appear threatening. He could hear her short agitated breaths, feel her tension.

Jacques called out from up top and the horses plunged forward, pitching her across the slick leather seat. Raine flung out a hand to keep her from falling.

“Take your hands off of me,” she whispered.

She was not commanding him. She was pleading. As false as he suspected her trepidation to be, her simulated fear worked insidiously on him. His body reacted instinctively to the implicit submissiveness in her appeal. Was she pretending that she was an anxious virgin closeted with a ravening beast? If so, her fantasy marched closer to the truth than she could know.

It had been years since he’d felt such lust.

“Take your hand off me.” Her voice quavered. He obliged, releasing her slowly, letting his hands slide down her sleeve. He did nothing to hide the direction of his gaze, allowing it to linger on the agitated rise and fall of her breasts.

Role-playing be damned. He wanted her.

“Madame,” he said softly, lifting his arms and spreading open Jacques’s cape, displaying his shackled wrists and naked chest, the scars of Pierre’s frequent “disciplinary actions” ridging his white prison-hued skin. “As you can see, I am at your disposal, to do with as you please.”

She shrank back against the deep, tufted leather seats. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I do not,” he agreed. “You will teach me, though. What
is
your pleasure,
petite
Madame? You touch; I am not allowed to touch? You arouse and then withhold the culmination of the arousal? Is that how you achieve satisfaction? Pray, do your damnedest by me. I am in a lather to be so victimized.”

“Quiet!”

“Just tell me the rules of the game, Madame,” he said tersely. He was more than willing to pay whatever price freedom demanded. He sank back against the seat, his aroused body flaunted for her perusal. “You have only to look to see how primed I am for whatever sport you chose,” he said.

“O Lord.” Her whispered epithet embodied the virgin maiden’s horror of a lecherous suggestion. ’Sblood, she was a good little actress.

“I am yours.” He leaned forward and gently grasped her wrist, drawing her gloved palm forth until it lay flat low on his belly. He drew his breath in on a hiss of undeniable pleasure. “Can you feel my muscles clench with the promise of that which you withhold?”

She tried to snatch her hand back but he kept it there, desperately trying to gauge the nature of his role. How much to ravish; how much to seduce. His very life depended on his ability to judge her reactions. Once, a lifetime ago, he’d been well on his way to being a master of such sensual expertise.

“I was resigned to my celibacy, Madame,” he said grimly, “having long since purged myself of the tormenting memories of a woman’s soft body, a woman’s sweet mouth, a woman’s ardent embrace. You’ve resurrected those, given them substance, teased me with their reality.” His voice grew low and fervent. She tried to tug away, but her efforts lacked conviction. She wanted to hear this confession. Bask in it. Damn her.

He grabbed her other wrist and, heedless of her sudden resistance, yanked, tumbling her into his embrace. He hauled her into the lee created by his widespread legs. His arm snaked about her waist, the chains locking him to the floor jangling noisily.

She gasped, her hands trapped between them, pushing at his cold chest. The feel of her gloved fingers stroked his nerve endings. His heart thundered in his chest in equal parts fear and arousal.

“Cry out and I’m dead ’ere I’ve been of any use to you,” he grated out. She was svelte and tensile as a young she-cat, her hips narrow. Even through the thick layers of her skirt he could feel the delicate jut of her pelvic bones brand his inner thighs. Her veil settled over his knees in a drift of black silk.

“Let me service you,” he whispered, the line between playacting and reality blurring with the heady feel of her. His patience was wearing thin. She would find herself ravished in fact if he played this game much longer. “Let me touch you. Fondle you. Inflame in you a fire to equal my own,” he purred. “Enjoy me.”

He rocked lightly against her, striving to keep the anger from his voice. Anger as much with himself as with her, at the body that betrayed both his mind and spirit. “Here. Now,” he said. “Let me take you. I cannot wait. Only unchain me,” he ground out urgently, “and I will swive you as thoroughly as a spring stallion at his first mare.”

“Let me go!” The veiled face jerked back. Raine cursed his impetuousness.

He released her arms immediately. He’d read her incorrectly, decided that coarseness would appeal to what he knew of her appetites. Instead, she’d been appalled. He was not mistaken in that reaction; no one could act
that
well.

He forced his features into a submissive expression, dropping his gaze so that she might not see how it burned. Trembling, she scrambled into the seat opposite him.

“Forgive me,” he began in a hard, far from humble tone. But he’d been stretched a bit far, worn a bit thin. By this game. By her. “I should not have allowed my desires to make me so bold.” His hot eyes lifted contemptuously to her concealed face. “But then, I thought you liked your captives vulgar and base. ’Tis the rumor in the prison where you purchase your toys.”

As soon as the words were spoken he cursed himself again. He hadn’t planned on speaking thus. The words had simply come. He sneered at his manacled wrists. He’d thought that over four years in prison had culled the impetuousness from his soul.

He waited for the inevitable; a blow across his face, an imperious call to turn the carriage around.

Amazingly, it did not come. She only squeezed herself farther back against the seat. “Sir. Please. Be still. Be quiet. The guards might hear you. Only wait, I pray you,” she urged, “wait!”

“I am your creature, Madame. You have only to command me,” he replied flatly. “As you well know.”

They drove in silence until the carriage lurched to a halt. Raine peered outside. They were in the yard of a hotel. Beyond the three-story building, Raine could see only an occasional light in the distance. They were near the outskirts of the city. Good.

The carriage door swung open. Jacques stuck his massive head in and fitted a key into the padlock securing Raine’s chain. He unlocked it, wrapping the links around his fist and jerking Raine across the carriage.

With a snarl, Raine stumbled out. Pierre stood waiting for him. An anxious-looking middle-aged man emerged from the hotel and assisted Madame Noir’s descent. Together they hastened into the hotel.

“I will take him up to the room,” Pierre said to Jacques. “Once there, he is your responsibility. You best make sure he is returned by first light tomorrow.”

Jacques eyed the bloated French jailer with ill-disguised disgust. “Has Madame ever neglected her part of the bargain?”

“No,” Pierre said. “Make sure she does not grow lax in her … satiation. This one is wily. Reckless. Come.”

Without waiting for a reply, Pierre yanked Raine after him, leading the way to the servants’ entrance at the back of the hotel. From there they climbed a flight of stairs, stopping before a linen-paneled door at the top. The door swung open and the innkeeper, bowing and smiling, backed out of the room.

Jacques grabbed Raine’s arm and thrust him into the ornately shabby room, barking at Pierre to remain outside. Raine stumbled to his knees beside a four-poster hung with dull blue satin drapes. Madame Noir hovered on the other side.

“Madame,” Jacques said, eyeing Raine and holding a pistol out to her. “I will pay the jailer and his partner and return.”

“Must you leave?” she asked, coming around the corner of the bed.

“I do not trust the guard to give his partner his portion and I would not have you interrupted should the jackal come here looking for his share.

“In the meantime, keep this pistol trained on him.” Jacques nodded toward Raine. “If he moves, shoot him.”

She took the gun, leveling it at Raine. Slowly, he climbed to his feet.

“I
will kill him if he tries anything,” Jacques promised tersely, and then, with a worried glance at Raine, he stomped from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Raine stared at the gun. The pistol bore looked as cavernous as the entrance to hell, which, Raine allowed fleetingly, it just might be.

Without a second’s more hesitation he acted.

His hand flew out, snatching the barrel and twisting it viciously. With a cry, she released it. He grabbed her wrist, spinning her around and slamming her back against his chest, pinning her free arm to her side.

His forearm jerked her head back, pressing against her throat. It would be a simple matter to break that slender neck. With one hand he manacled her wrist, with the other he held the gun. Carefully, he released the hammer and shoved the pistol into the waistband at the back of his breeches.

“Scream now, Madame, and die now,” he whispered into the veiled ear so close to his lips.

In response she began struggling fiercely, her free hand tearing at his wrist. She kicked, but her movement was hampered by the thick layers of skirt. Still, one booted heel found his instep, crunching down and drawing from him a hiss of pain.

He wrenched her head back against his cheek, bringing the concealed face near his mouth. “Cease!”

She whimpered, her struggles abating but not ending. Immediately he became aware of her buttocks pressed against his loins.

He smiled humorlessly at his body’s heated attempt to subordinate reason. Since the moment she’d stepped into that damned cell, she’d bewitched him. Perhaps his years in prison had perverted his sexuality because, ’struth, she aroused him more than a thousand fantasies he’d devised to keep him company over the long years.

“Please,” she rasped. “Please. Listen to me!”

“No, Madame,” he whispered. “You listen. Heed me well. I will never return to that place. Not alive. And you are the means for me to keep that vow. You are
my
prisoner now.”

She moaned, her face twisting away from his, the silky veil slipping against his lips. “Please—”

“Shut up,” he growled as a sudden realization overwhelmed him.

He needed to kill her.

Without doing so his chances of this gambit succeeding were well nigh nil. Should he actually make it alive out of the hotel he would not last an hour if he had to drag her along with him. He didn’t have time to gag and tie her; Jacques could be back at any moment. And if he left her behind, she’d raise an immediate cry. He should kill her: quickly, silently,
now.

But he couldn’t. As much as every instinct for survival demanded it, he could not kill her. In more frustration than anger, his arm tightened around her throat. She began kicking again and he lifted her, hitching her against his hip, filling his arms with the firm, supple woman.

The old devil-may-care humor that had once been the hallmark of his character awoke in response. The rash, heedless boy who’d died, unredeemed and unransomed in a French prison, was resurrected.

No, he couldn’t kill her but at least he could claim something from this night. Damned if he wouldn’t see the infamous Madame Noir’s face.

He grasped a fistful of dense, gauzy material. “Madame, you are revealed,” he said.

He wrenched the veil from her head. Hair pins scattered at their feet, their small, sharp staccato a prelude to the silken whisper of her veil fluttering to the floor. Loosened tresses, soft and heavy as damask silk, cascaded over his bare forearm in shimmering waves.

Red-gold. Antique gold, healthy and luxuriant.

Confounded, Raine seized a handful of the silky stuff and jerked her head back.

Fine skin. Creamy and utterly smooth. Blue eyes, dark blue. Near indigo. Frightened. Young. Very young.

Too young.

“Madame,” he said, easing his forearm’s pressure from her throat, “who the hell are you?”

The girl—for certainly she was not much more than that—wrenched away, his surprise aiding her escape. She wheeled to face him and her hair came further undone, spilling about her shoulders and tangling with the jet beads decorating her bodice, the black silk a foil for the gleaming gold strands.

Black, too, were her brows. Or so nearly black as to make no difference. The contrast between them and her red-gold hair was startling. Straight, slender and severe, they lowered over the bridge of her nose. Wide, passionately full lips curled back over her pearly teeth, exposing the slight unevenness of the front pair.

“Who are you?” he demanded again.

“I have been trying to tell you!” she said. “But you … you idiot! Imbecile! You would not listen. You must grab and hurt and fight before you even know what you are doing. Thrice I asked for your patience!” She pointed a gloved finger at him accusingly.
“Thrice!
Could you not wait? Must you try to kill me?”

“Mademoiselle,” he ground out, anger quickly supplanting his astonishment at finding himself harangued by a small, spitting she-cat, “if I’d wanted you dead, you’d
be
dead.”

In answer to this, his most threatening voice, she flung up her arms in disgust. “Bah!” she spat. “You English are all alike. Push! Bully! Reckless. Fine, Monsieur. If you must be reckless be reckless with your own life, not mine and not Jacques’s.”

To claim astonishment would have been understating Raine’s reaction. The girl quivered with indignation. Or, fear. Raine’s gaze sharpened. He knew she’d grown pale because of the color slowly returning to her cheeks and the breath, which stirred a few strands of gold, came in pants.

He
had
frightened her. From the very beginning. What he’d read as a jade’s deviant role-playing had been real. She probably wasn’t even cognizant of the degradation he’d been willing to embrace in order to escape. Hell, he thought, she probably hadn’t understood half of what had gone on during that carriage ride.

“Pray, speak, Mademoiselle. I’m a captive audience,” he said, mindful of the pistol sticking comfortingly into the small of his back.

He crossed his arms over his chest, noting her gaze drop to his bare skin and skitter away as she blushed.

Dear Lord, she looked like a novitiate, Raine thought, and thus was reminded of another novitiate, a lass whose gaze burned with a far more secular fire than this one’s. But Merry’s dark beauty had been earthy while this girl—well, she was no beauty.

Those brows, for one thing, too boldly, defiantly straight. And her jaw was too square. And her nose too aggressive. Though, ’struth, she’d gorgeous hair. And a lower lip he’d greatly like to sink his teeth into, it was that rich and full. Her eyes—no one would fault them if they could but be appreciated beneath the dark slashes of those condemning brows.

“Stop staring at me!” she said, scowling even more fiercely.

“I’m not to speak, grab, or bully as well as not
look?
Well, now that you’ve finished looking
your
fill,” he said, noting in satisfaction that her cheeks grew rosy once again, “do you think you might enlighten me as to
what in God’s blood is going on?”

She flew the few feet separating them and reached up, smothering his mouth behind her fingertips, hushing him urgently.

“Quiet, you … you blasphemer!” she hissed. Dear God, she even spoke like a convent—

The door slammed open with such force that it bounced against the wall and slammed shut again, giving Raine a glimpse of Jacques’s beet-red countenance. Raine grabbed the girl and yanked the pistol from his waistband, pointing it at her head just as the door flew open once more and Jacques surged through it.

“Carefully,
mon ami,”
Raine advised. Jacques came up short, the sight of the pistol barrel a few inches from the girl’s temple stopping him as effectively as a brick wall.

“We should have taken the younger one,” the girl said.

“Bah!” Jacques spat contemptuously, his gaze trained on the pistol. “That quaking aspen leaf? No one would mistake him for
La Bête.”

“La Bête?”
Raine echoed. “Who is The Beast?”

The girl’s attention swung to him. “You misheard,” she said quickly. “Not
La Bête,
Monsieur.
Lambett.
My husband.”

She could not have surprised him more had she announced she had a tail. He could not say why. She simply didn’t
look
like a wife.

“Monsieur. Lower the pistol,” Jacques urged, making a broad, pacifying Gaelic gesture. The plea in his voice in no manner reached his eyes. “I’ll shut this door. You lower the gun. We will explain. Everything.”

“And if I choose not to lower the gun?”

Jacques’s countenance turned dusky. “Then we sit here until it falls from your numb fingers. Because if you try to leave we will simply call the alarm.” Apparently, his conciliatory mood had evaporated.

“I could always kill you,” Raine suggested.

“If you shoot, the sound of gunfire is its own alarm,” Jacques said with no small satisfaction. “So drop the pistol, eh?”

So Jacques disliked being threatened. So had Raine at one time. It was amazing what one could get used to if the need arose.

“I have a better idea,” Raine said. “I keep the gun where it is and you tell me everything anyway.”

“You
merde!”
Jacques burst out. “You gallows offal! How dare—”

“Jacques!” the girl broke in. “Please! This is getting us nowhere. Explain to him or I will.”

Raine studied her. A sheen of perspiration covered her face, shimmered above her luscious lips. A lie from her would be easy to discern.

“An even better idea,” Raine said.
“You
explain, Mademoi—Madame Lambett. And you, Jacques, remain very, very quiet. Or I will shoot you and then I will …” He smiled tellingly at the girl. “Well, you won’t be around to discover that, will you?”

“You were right,” Jacques said to the girl, his eyes on Raine. “We should have taken the aspen leaf.”

“Now, one last time, explain.”

The girl nodded slowly. “As you will, Monsieur. My husband, Richard Lambett, died a month ago from the fever. He was English.”

Raine’s interest was piqued yet he remained mute.

“I see you have some appreciation of how unlikely such a marriage is … was. But the heart is not always so wise, is it?”

“I wouldn’t know, would I? Having spent the years in prison most men are bedding wenches.” Raine sneered at her sentiment, causing her indigo gaze to drop.

“Oh!
Pardon,
Monsieur. I have been most callous.”

Dear Lord, she was apologizing to him for a breach of etiquette. He could not hold back a snort of laughter and just caught her quick sidelong glance of satisfaction. Damned, if she hadn’t fashioned that ingenuous statement to disarm him. She was cannier than he would have suspected—a worthy adversary.

“I now know you own an unwise heart,” he said. “Unfortunate for you but having little to do with me. And now pray excuse me, Madame, for
my
callousness.”

She delivered him a sharp, assessing gaze. Good.

“Continue,” he said.

“My husband, he was a diplomat,” she said.

“Apparently not a very good one,” Raine said. This time the glance came with a scowl. “Pray, correct me if I err, but England and France are still enemies, are they not?”

Behind her Jacques shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

“Oui,
Monsieur.” Her voice was tight, her eyes bright. Ire or pain? He could not tell. “Still, I would not have you speak unkindly of him. Perhaps if we had not fallen in love, if his attentions had remained on political matters—”

“Dear lady, such catholic willingness to accept blame speaks volumes about the Sisters who had you in their care,”—this won a startled glance from the wench. He’d been right; she
was
convent-raised—“but even nuns might balk at blaming a war on a minor diplomat’s amorous daydreams.”

The scowl became pronounced and Raine quelled an inappropriate desire to laugh. Regardless of the diversion this wordplay afforded, his life was still held in the balance. And unless Raine’s eyesight had suffered during his incarceration, big silent Jacques had edged closer while she’d distracted him. Raine swung the gun toward the giant.

“Come,
mon homme.
Practice the patience your lady upbraids me for lacking. Be still, Jacques, or be dead.”

Her lush mouth pursed. Yes, she was definitely piqued.

“Enough background. What do you want of me?”

Jacques nodded unhappily. She took a deep breath.

“A half year ago my husband received word that his uncle in Scotland had died leaving him heir to a great estate. He set about trying to make arrangements for me and little Angus to travel to Scotland.”

“Little Angus?”

Her gaze dropped demurely. “Our son.”

Son.
Raine’s gaze traveled down her slender figure to her waist. The necklace she wore could encompass it. Still, a corset could account for its narrow span.

“As you might well imagine, securing passage to Scotland for a French lady and her son is a difficult matter. Particularly for a French lady of some preeminence—albeit diminished. I am an orphan, Monsieur, fostered in my aunt’s household, the same household where I have been living since my husband’s death.

“Happily, after much searching my husband was able to contact a privateer and make arrangements for our travel. We were—we are—to follow the tide out tonight.”

“So why,” Raine asked, “are you instead here with me, masquerading as a notorious jade, rather than bustling little Angus through Dieppe’s shipyard? Not a word, Jacques,” he cautioned the other man.

“Because,” the girl said with a sudden flash of ire, “my husband died a few months ago and the man we were to meet on the docks expects to deal with a man, an Englishman. He wrote yesterday. In his note he ranted against having agreed to take a woman onto his ship. He says it is bad luck. That his men will rebel. He even goes so far as to suggest that we find other passage but ends his letter by saying he will grudgingly honor his agreement.”

Raine waited. She held out her hand, palm open in a gesture of impatience. “Do you not comprehend? I am alone. The passage has already been paid and I have no more money. There is no reason this smuggler, this …
pirate
should honor his obligation. I needed an Englishman and Jacques knew where to find one.”

“And how is Jacques so savvy?”

“My aunt …
she
is Madame Noir. Jacques is her steward. He always had an affection for me, even as a child and when he discovered my difficulty he … he presented a solution.” For the first time since he’d dragged the veil from her golden head, she looked self-conscious and abashed.

Raine’s gaze swung toward Jacques. He didn’t look much like an aristocrat’s steward, but admittedly Raine had had little experience with that breed and so withheld judgment. “So ’twas your idea to pluck an Englishman from prison to masquerade as Monsieur Lambett.”

“Oui,”
Jacques agreed. “I knew the arrangements Madame Noir made, the pattern, the names of those with whom she dealt. I knew that at so short a notice, the prison was Mademoiselle’s only hope of finding an Englishman willing to act as her husband.”

Every bit of Raine’s instincts for survival urged caution. He didn’t like this story. He mistrusted it.

“But”—Raine backed up a few feet, angling toward the door, his pistol still aimed in Jacques’s direction—“your plan hinges on finding a
willing
Englishman.”

“Monsieur,” the girl said, her brows dipping into a V of consternation, “why would you refuse to aid me when you can only benefit from my offer?”

“What exactly is your offer?”

“You go to the docks tonight, pretending to be my husband. You meet with the smuggler captain, then …”

“Then?”

“I arrive, we board and sail for Scotland. Once we are on land, we go our separate ways.”

“What about little Angus?”

“Angus? He will be with me, of course.”

“And once in Scotland you’ll walk to this great estate of your husband’s?”

“Non!”
she said impatiently. “Do not be foolish. My husband’s people, they await me … us.” A shadow dimmed the bright night sky of her eyes. She released a barely audible sigh and, catching his eye, smiled wanly. “Little Angus will be the new laird,
n’est-ce pas?
The point upon which all their plans and strategies and hopes hinge.”

An odd way of putting it, but Raine supposed that in some families a son might be looked upon with such concentration of pride and hope. Just because it hadn’t been so in his family didn’t mean it was a lie.

For the first time, Raine found himself believing her. Not all of it to be sure, but that last part perhaps, because of the sadness in her eyes. She looked as he imagined a fond mother might look upon realizing the burden of expectation being placed upon her child: resigned, troubled, a shade resentful.