The Rake's Inherited Courtesan (5 page)

A low blow, he silently acknowledged, remembering the panic in her eyes when Lord Albert slobbered over her hand. Damn it, every time he thought about it, he wanted to throttle the snivelling fribble.

What the hell was the matter with him? He never let a woman distract him. Miss Boisette had caused him nothing but anxious moments. ‘While we are on the subject, perhaps you would like to explain why you tipped me the double?’

‘Tipped you the double?’ She wrinkled her nose.

The urge to kiss away the furrow on her brow swept through him. He wanted to do more than that. Even with a frown, her incredible beauty numbed his mind and shortened his breath. His blood thickened. Never had a woman tempted him like this one.

He drew in a deep breath, crushing his desire. Dalliance with his uncle’s ward or mistress—which he no longer believed—remained out of the question if he wanted to preserve a grain of family honour.

Hell. He needed to get rid of her and continue on his way to the Darbys’. He set his glass down, the chink loud in the quiet room. ‘Come clean, Miss Boisette. Why did you not stay with your friend? You took money to go into business and within an hour of my leaving you, I find you at a common inn hanging on the arm of some young coxcomb.’

Arctic chill frosted her gaze. ‘Are you implying that I took the money under false pretences?’

‘I demand an explanation.’

‘You have no right to demand anything. You brought me here against my will and if you try to touch me, I will scream bloody murder.’

It seemed he now had her full attention. This beautiful young woman, who behaved like a trollop one moment and an ice queen the next, needed a good shaking. ‘Do you really think the Dorkins will pay any attention?’

Stark terror leaped into her eyes, bleakness invading their clear, cold depths like a plea for help. Fear hung in the air as thick and choking as smoke.

What did a woman like her have to fear from him? She had tossed more lures at him than a falconer to an ill-trained hawk. And he’d almost come to her fist, jessied and hooded.

Enough. He would do his duty and see her settled and he would see it done his way. Calmly, logically. The methods he used in his business dealings.

He poured a glass of wine from the decanter at his elbow and schooled his face into pleasant cheerfulness. ‘I must apologise. My anger is directed at Lord Albert and that damn innkeeper.’ Hell, the recollection caused his blood to simmer all over again. ‘However, we did have an agreement, one you proposed and appear to have broken.’

She didn’t speak, but stared at her empty plate as if trying to weave some new web of lies.

He pushed a plate of comfits in her direction. ‘Here.’

A pathetic peace offering, yet it eased the palpable tension.

Sylvia gazed from the heaped pink-and-white sugared almonds on the blue dish to his face. Emerald fires burned deep in his hazel eyes, not the usual blaze of a lusty male, but a deep slow burn that fanned the embers in the pit of her own stomach to flame.

A tremor she could only identify as fear quivered in the region of her heart. Without him she was stranded. All her money, apart from the few coins in her reticule, had been left behind in Tunbridge Wells.

Trapped. A shiver shot up her spine. And he was right. She did owe him an explanation. She took a deep breath. ‘My
friend, Mary Jensen, moved her business to London.’ She hoped he did not hear the hitch in her voice at her lie.

He frowned at his glass, then stared her straight in the eye. ‘I thought she expected you?’

She sighed. Obviously, he had paid attention. ‘There was some error in our communication. She left a forwarding address with the new tenant. The woman forgot to mail on my letters, therefore Mary did not know about your uncle’s unexpected demise.’

His intense scrutiny made her shift in her seat. She had the strong sense he did not believe her.

‘And?’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I must now go to London.’

‘You have her address?’

‘I do.’

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t see why—’

His mouth turned down and his eyes narrowed. ‘I’m sure you don’t. But you are mistaken if you think I am going to drop you off at a coaching house in the morning without knowing your proposed destination.’

‘You agreed to drive me to Tunbridge Wells. Your obligation ends there.’

‘I offered to drive you to the bosom of your friend and that is where my duty ends.’

The quiet emphasis in his voice made it clear he would not listen to further argument. She hesitated. It would do no harm to give him Mary’s directions. Once she reached London, she would never see him again.

‘Very well.’ She dived into her reticule and handed him the dog-eared paper with Mary’s new address.

He gazed at it silently for a moment. ‘Dear God. The Seven Dials. Do you have any idea what sort of place that is?’

Her stomach plummeted. ‘Not good, I assume.’

‘I wouldn’t worry if it were just not good, as you put it. It couldn’t be worse. It houses London’s worst slums and most dangerous criminals.’

‘Mary Jensen is of a perfect respectability,’ she flashed back.
Incroyable.
She’d lost her grip on her English.

‘Not living in that neighborhood, she isn’t.’ He tossed the paper on the table next to a hunk of fruitcake.

His innuendoes wearied her; the whole day had tried her patience, and the strange, nerve-stretching awareness between them exhausted her most of all. She was an idiot for leaving Tunbridge Wells in his carriage. She would have been much better off at the damned Hare and Hounds.

‘What does it matter? I am not of a respectableness enough for you or your most esteemed family. The sooner we make our own directions, the better,
n’est ce pas
?’

‘Do not raise your voice to me,
mademoiselle
.’

‘And do not dictate to me.’

She stood.

He followed suit with easy grace, looming over her, green pinpricks of anger dancing in his eyes. ‘I would not have to dictate to you, if you had been more forthright in your dealings with me. It is my duty to see you safely established somewhere and I will not brook an argument.’

Golden in the firelight, he stood like a knight of old surrounded by the armour of righteousness. Trust him, her heart murmured with a little skip. Let him enfold you with his strength, urged her body with a delicious shiver. An urgent warning clamoured in her mind.
You are no better than your mother.

‘I do not accept your right to give me orders.’

He bowed. ‘I suggest you go to bed. We will discuss what is to be done in the morning, when your nerves are less overset.’

She almost laughed in his face. Monsieur Jean must have lost his mind putting her in the hands of this dutiful and stuffy Evernden nephew.

‘Nerves, Mr Evernden, are for pampered darlings with fathers and husbands to protect them while they lie about on
chaises
with vinaigrettes and hartshorn complaining of headaches. I don’t have the luxury of nerves.’ She headed for the door. ‘We will certainly discuss this further
en route
to catch the mail in the morning.’

She turned in the doorway. ‘We will need to be up at five. I hope that is not too early for you?’

His open mouth gave her satisfaction enough as she swept out of the room and up the stairs.

C
hristopher paused on the front step of the inn and lit his cigar. The night air cooled his cheeks after the Bird in Hand’s blazing fire and his argument with Miss Boisette. Abstracted, he ran a hand over the thick wooden door, the raised studs and black iron bands rough beneath his fingertips. Hard to imagine that the man who had built this door had died more than two centuries ago and the tree from which he carved it had probably grown for two centuries before that. Those were times of knights and lords and deeds of daring. What would those men think of this world now?

The faint haze of his smoky breath drifted in front of his face. He drew on his cigar and savoured the acrid burn on his tongue and the mellow aroma in his nostrils. He needed a walk to restore some sort of order to his body and his mind before he retired for the night.

He left the warm light of the inn and strode down the tree-arched lane, stretching muscles cramped from the journey. Amidst the sparse spring leaves of the canopy above his head, stars winked their steel-bright messages in a stygian sky.

A wooden stile broke a gap in the dense hedgerow and he leaned against its rail. The full moon hovered yellow, fat and lazy above the horizon. Scattered lights twinkled along the dark slash of river valley meandering through rolling meadows.

He’d wandered this countryside as a boy while quarantined from disease-ridden London and his family. They had visited him here at his grandparents’ estate from time to time, but his father had insisted on residing in London.

He stared into the gloom, trying to identify boyhood haunts. He and Garth had ridden this country hard during school holidays. He grimaced. More often than not, Garth had been flogged for some of their more daring exploits, always taking the punishment for leading Christopher astray. He hadn’t needed much leading. But deemed too sickly to receive his share of the blame, Garth had taken it for both of them. Garth never seemed to care, but he had ceased to spend much time at Hedly Hall once he went away to school and Christopher hadn’t visited it in years. Too busy keeping on top of his business interests.

An owl hooted. Distant hooves beat the familiar rhythm of a gallop on the hard-packed earth. The drumming stopped, heralding a late-night visitor to the inn.

His mind flew back to Sylvia, the gorgeous vision of sensual womanhood he had seen in Dover, the frightened, but determined, girl at the Sussex Hotel. He smothered a curse. Stubborn woman. She had him out here pacing in the night air while she no doubt was tucked up in bed, dreaming of London, with a gown of the sheerest muslin covering every lithe inch of her. He grimaced. He didn’t care what kind of gown she wore; he wanted to see it on her. He wanted to slide it from her alabaster skin the way she’d stripped off her gloves. He wanted what lay beneath.

His arousal, a low controlled thrumming during dinner, spiked with urgent need. What the hell was the matter with him? He never had any trouble controlling his base urges when confronted with members of the opposite sex. Not even the most famous of London’s courtesans had heated his blood to the point he could think of nothing but slaking his lust inside her delicious body.

No matter how dull the attire covering her enticing curves, the longer he spent in her company, the more he wanted to explore her swells and hollows.

He groaned. He’d have more success knocking out Gentleman Jackson than battering his loins’ demands into submission. Damn John Evernden for foisting the wench on him.

No one need know if she became his mistress. The idea lit in his mind like a beacon. In London the news would make the rounds in a heartbeat, but tucked away at his country house in Kent, their liaison would be discreet enough. No one would know he’d taken his uncle’s ward under his protection.

He would know. And Garth would accuse him of hypocrisy the moment he guessed. He closed his eyes in silent contempt. Was he as bad as the rest of the Evernden men when it came to loose women?

Damn. There had been enough scandal in the Evernden family and he had sworn not to add to it.

He dropped the remains of his cigar, a smouldering red spark in the night, and ground it beneath his heel as if quenching the fire in his veins. If only it were that easy. He turned and strode for the inn.

What the hell should he do with her, then? The thought of a bordello chilled his blood. A lady’s maid? A seamstress? Apparently, she had some talent in that direction.

Idiot. She was French. A married friend had complained bitterly about the cost of his French governess. If, as Christopher suspected, this friend in London proved to be a hum, why not palm her off on some country squire seeking to elevate the prospects of his hopeful brood?

Because he wanted her.

Hell fire. A wry smile twisted his lips at the way his mind bent towards the urgings of his body.

He rounded the bend. A lantern lit the sign of the Bird,
a clenched fist with only the head of a bright-eyed robin visible. The door lay open, but the parlour window was dark and blank.

What would Mrs Dorkin say if he requested a tub of cold water to be sent to his chamber? She’d likely think he’d run mad and predict his death from pneumonia.

Tension locked his spine and he rubbed the back of his neck. A good strong brandy before bed would relax him and take the edge off the want clawing at the heart of his resolve.

Maybe two.

A brown gelding lifted its head from the trough on the stable wall. A nice beast, perhaps a little long in the leg, it had been ridden hard judging from the steam rising from its flanks.

Christopher ducked his head beneath the lintel and made his way through a narrow passage to the back of the house and the dimly lit taproom. Behind the long bar, Jack Dorkin, jolly and fat on his wife’s cooking, greeted him with a nod.

Dorkin put down a pewter tankard and his drying cloth. ‘Something for you, Mr Evernden?’

‘A brandy, please. Make it a double.’

Dorkin lifted a bottle and shook it. ‘I’ll have to go to the cellar,’ he muttered. ‘Won’t be but a moment, sir.’ He swung up a trapdoor in the floor and clattered down the steps.

Christopher leaned one arm on the battered oak bar. A couple of country labourers in traditional smocks, clay pipes clamped in whiskered jaws, clacked domino tiles in swift sure movements. An occasional chuckle or mutter indicated the state of play. A shepherd, his dog at his feet, nursed a tankard on the settle beside the red brick medieval hearth. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in the shadows at the far end of the bar. In a pool of light cast by an oil lamp, a square strong hand, the wrist covered by the cuff of dark green coat, lifted a mug. The horseman.

Christopher nodded. ‘Good evening.’

The hand raised in greeting. ‘The top of the evening to you too, sir.’

Irish by his brogue.

‘That’s a fine piece horseflesh you have there,’ Christopher said.

‘Aye, an’ it is and all,’ the man replied. He threw a coin on the counter. ‘I’ll be wishing you a good night, then.’ He stood and, with a slight bow, placed his hat on his head and sauntered out of the bar. The flickering lamp by the door illuminated his rangy frame and lean jaw, then he was gone.

Where had he seen the man before? Christopher rarely forgot a face, but right at the moment he could not place this one.

‘Here’s your brandy, Mr Evernden,’ Dorkin said, his cheeks puffing in and out. ‘Sorry it took so long. I keeps me best stuff locked up. Can’t trust the help these days, you know.’

‘Who was that?’ Christopher asked, his gaze fixed on the doorway.

‘Dunno, sir. Just popped in on the off chance, like. I’ve never seen him afore.’

Christopher picked up the goblet. ‘Cheers, Dorkin, and thank you.’

He wandered to the bench opposite the shepherd and stretched out his legs to the fire’s warmth. He savoured the smooth amber liquid on his tongue.

Oh, yes, this was the best stuff all right. Definitely French and certainly an improvement over a cold bath, if not as effective.

A scuffling noise invaded Sylvia’s consciousness. It couldn’t possibly be time to rise. Her eyelids refused the order to open and she submerged into the opaque veil of sleep.

A sound like fingernails on glass tormented her ears. The maid must be scratching at the door to wake her. She had to get up. She must not miss the coach to London. She groaned.
Just a few minutes more, then she would open her eyes. She wriggled further beneath the warmth of the blankets.

Stupid. The inability to sleep after leaving Christopher Evernden in the dining room did not give her an excuse to lie in bed. He reminded her of a disapproving older brother, except nothing brotherly lingered in the depth of evergreen eyes flecked with brown. His steel-hard resolve to do his duty and his ingrained sense of honour pulled at her like the full moon on the ocean. Not to mention his handsome face.

An ache squeezed her heart and her breath hitched at the pain. Burrowing into the pillow, she shook her head in denial. No handsome face would lead her down the path to ruin and misery. No. She would not let another Evernden man break down her carefully constructed defences.

A sliding noise and a bang jolted her fully awake. She stared into the gloom. It wasn’t morning. A pale square of light glimmered on the wall opposite the window; the rest of the room lay in deep shadow.

She turned over.

Oh, God! Outlined by moonlight, a head and shoulders filled the window frame.

Fingers of ice held her body immobile and squeezed her throat. She opened her mouth to scream. A faint croak emerged.

The dark shape dropped to the floor with a muffled thud. This had to be a dream. She swallowed what felt like gravel.

The shadow lunged at her. Shivers of dread clawed down her spine, breaking the frigid clasp of fear. She kicked the bedclothes aside. A heavy weight landed on her, driving the breath from her lungs, pinning her down. A warm callused hand covered her mouth and nose. She fought for air. The smell of tobacco filled her nostrils and she tasted salty sweat. She flailed her arms, kicked out at him. Her heart pounded in her ears.

Not again. This couldn’t happen to her again.

Her lungs begged for air. Her head swam; darkness crept
to the edges of her vision. She flailed her arms. He grunted as her fist made contact in the region of his head. His weight shifted, his grip eased. She closed her teeth hard on the soft flesh of his thumb. Sweat and tobacco soured her tongue.

He cursed.

Triumph surged in her veins. She gulped at the sudden sweet rush of air and squirmed from beneath him.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she cried. ‘Get out.’

‘I’m going,’ he said, shaking his injured hand. ‘An’ like it or not, pet, you’re coming with me.’

‘No.’

She dived off the bed towards the door. Her elbow struck the bedpost and sent agonising tingles shooting to the tip of her little finger. Bent double, she clutched her arm to her chest.

‘Help,’ she screamed.
‘À moi.’
Would no one come to her aid?

He raised his hand, his fist clenched around something black. She ducked.

The blow snapped her head back. A sharp pain, a flash of light, then sinking blackness rose up and swallowed her.

Christopher opened his eyes, his heart racing. What the hell? It had sounded like a woman’s scream.

He groaned. It must have been a bad dream, either that or some lusty knave was hard at it with a red-faced maid. The sour thought only made his own fantasies of Sylvia more frustrating.

The mist of sleep and the fog of brandy slowly cleared. Good God. He’d lain down fully clothed. He’d clearly spent far too long with Dorkin and his finest French brandy before coming to bed.

A thud overhead sent him bolt upright.

Devil a bit. Miss Boisette must be pacing the floor.

More bumps. The hair on the back of his neck stirred, his skin prickled. It didn’t sound like pacing. It sounded more like
a battle. What the deuce was going on up there? He leaped off the bed, flung open the door and peered into the hallway.

A whispered curse from above directed his attention up the stairs. Caught in the dim glow from the lantern on the landing, a man stood rigid, ready to step down. In his arms, he carried something large and white like a bundle of sheets. A servant?

‘Identify yourself,’ Christopher ordered.

The man let his burden slide to the floor. A pair of slender legs and trailing blonde hair gleamed before they disappeared into the shadows.

Sylvia?

Christopher dashed up the stairs. The man swung a bag at his head. Sylvia’s valise. Christopher ducked. He charged the man’s gut with his shoulder.

His opponent grunted, stumbling backward. Christopher bunched his fists. Disadvantaged by the man’s position above him, Christopher couldn’t get a clear swing. The man flung himself forward. A sharp elbow jabbed Christopher in the ribs. Air rushed from his lungs. He doubled in pain. The man shoved him hard against the balustrade and hurtled down two flights of stairs. He crashed out through the front door, still clutching the bag.

Gasping, Christopher started after him.

Damn. He couldn’t leave Sylvia. He turned and took the stairs two at a time to her side.

As still as death, she lay sprawled on the planked landing, her face pale and her lips bloodless in the lantern’s flickering light.

Bile rose in his throat. Dead? He knelt and lifted her wrist. Her pulse beat strong and steady. He ran his hands over her limbs and her torso. Thank God, no blood.

He chafed her cold hands. ‘Sylvia.’

She didn’t move.

He pulled her nightgown down to cover her shapely calves and picked her up. Her head fell back, revealing her slender
throat and a bruise behind her ear. Rage like molten metal surged through him. Damn the blackguard for striking a woman. If he ever got his hands on him, he’d kill the bastard.

He hesitated. He couldn’t leave her here or take her to her own room in case the damned rogue came back. Instead, he carried her down to his chamber and laid her on the bed.