Charming the Devil (5 page)

They stood face-to-face.

“Demmed, you’re ungodly fast for such a big freak of a man,” Connelly rasped.

“You should have deduced that before now if you’ve a wish to live out the day,” Bain rumbled.

“Oh, I’ll survive the day.”

“Aye? And how do you plan to do that?”

“I’m thinking a knee to the groin.”

“Perhaps ye shouldn’t have preceded the action with a warning, then.”

“I always forget that,” Connelly quipped, and, grabbing the pitcher’s handle, swung with a good deal of force. Had the blow landed, it would have rattled the Scot’s head like an empty gourd.

Instead, Bain caught Connelly’s wrist in his broad palm.

“Oh hell,” Connelly breathed.

“You were ever a dirty fighter,” Bain rumbled.

“But I saved your hide on more than one occasion.”

“Mayhap you should be more concerned about saving yours,” Bain retorted, and drew back his other fist.

“What was that?” Connelly rasped, and turned his head as if listening intently.

“That,
” Bain said, not bothering to listen, “is you acting like an imbecile.”

“Not that.” He paused, then, “
That,
” he explained, when a scratch of noise came from the front door.

Bain scowled.

Connelly grinned. “I believe we have visitors.”

“At dawn?”

“Maybe Marguerite told her friends of my charms.”

“Maybe Marguerite came to complain about some unexplained itching.”

Connelly laughed. “A problem you’ll never have if you continue to live like a demmed—”

The noise came again, a little louder now and definitely issuing from the front door.

Releasing Connelly’s shirtfront, Bain pushed the Irishman backward with a scowl and strode toward the entry hall. His boots sounded heavy against the hardwood. The door handle felt small in his hand.

He opened it with a snap and stopped abruptly, for a pixie-sized angel graced his stoop.

T
he door creaked open like the cover to a crypt, then he was there, Lucifer, stepping from the snarling shadows of her childhood. His eyes were gray, his sable hair unruly, his cheeks stubbled. He was dressed in an open-necked tunic and dark tartan. It crossed at his shoulder, was pinned in place with the miniature sword that passed through his pewter brooch and belted snugly about his waist, but she dared not look lower. Indeed, she dare not speak, for he looked too formidable. Too large and powerful and
angry.
But she had made a vow to Madeline. And that she would keep.

“Good morning,” she said, though even those simple words were all but impossible to force from her lips, for he was staring at her with those grim-reaper eyes, the left of which was rimed in magenta turning to puce. “Mr. McBain, isn’t it?”

His brows lowered even farther, though she would have sworn they could not.

Faerie Faye tightened her grip on the little paper-wrapped item in her hand and tried not to vomit.
She would do what she must. Would keep her secrets while ferreting out others’. For her cover. For the sisters of her heart.

“Who is it?” someone called, then the door opened farther, and another man stepped into view.

It was then that Faye tried to turn and run, but her legs refused to do her bidding. Refused to do so much as budge.

“Good God, McBain,” said the smaller fellow, and banged his companion on the back with a hearty whack. “Look who we’ve got here. Lady…” He turned to her expectantly, but her breath was caught fast in her throat, and she was wrong about her legs. They
were
moving, trembling like chimes in a windstorm. “Lady…” He canted his head a little and tried again.

“Mrs.,
” she corrected, and raised her brows in haughty challenge as she’d seen others do.

“Ahh well…” He shrugged, grinned, as charming as a serpent. “I’ve no prejudices, Mrs….”

It took everything she had to remember her supposed name. “Nettles.”

“Mrs. Nettles. How very nice to meet you. I’m Thayer Connelly, and this is…Well…” he chuckled. “I believe the two of you became acquainted last night. Did you not?” he asked, and glanced from one to the other.

Faye could feel his attention shift from her to the giant, but she dare not turn her own gaze from the brooding Scotsman. She’d wounded him, injured
him, a seasoned warrior, a celebrated soldier. Until this moment, she’d not thought of the humiliation that might cause him.

“Oh, where are my manners?” Connelly asked. “’Tis all but a crime to leave such beauty languishing on our doorstep, is it not, McBain?”

The giant remained mute.

“Please, Mrs. Nettles…” Connelly straightened. “We were just about to…have some tea,” he said, and skipped his merry gaze to his companion as if they shared some jolly secret that had nothing to do with tea at all. “Won’t you join us?” he asked, and motioned toward the interior of their home.

The ironbound door yawned like a dark maw ready to devour her.

“I just stopped by for a moment,” she said, and managed to keep from leaping into the surrounding topiary.

“Then we must surely enjoy every moment with you even more,” Connelly said, and reached for her hand.

She remembered to breathe though it was a close thing.

The Scotsman turned his attention to his friend, brows lowering still farther.

“Well…” said the Irishman, and, raising her hand, pressed a slow kiss to her knuckles. It was all she could do to refrain from launching herself from the stoop and bolting for the carriage Joseph kept waiting by the curb. “Tell us, please…” He straightened, then cupped her palm with his own.
It felt large and cool, like manacles against her skin. The Scotsman was standing perfectly still, staring at their hands. Just as Lucifer had watched from the darkness of her window, silent, looming, waiting until she could tolerate no more. Until she fled the house and Tenning’s toxic care. “To what do we owe this unusual pleasure?”

She searched for her voice, but memories were crowding in, crushing her larynx.

“Perhaps you had some unfinished business with the oversized Scotsman here. Or…” He smoothed his thumb over hers. “Maybe—”

“Irish.” The giant’s voice was no more than a rumble.

“Yes, my friend?” Connelly looked as happy as a puppy. As merry as a songbird.

Their gazes met like sunlight on steel.

“Mayhap your new whip has arrived at Master Balmick’s.”

“I only ordered it a few days past.”

“But you insist on going there each day regardless.”

“I am certain I can miss one—” he began, but McBain interrupted.

“Might you be prepared to mend that wall?”

A moment of understanding seemed to stream between them. Connelly remained absolutely still for an instant, then grinned, dropped her hand, and backed away. “My lady,” he said, and bowed. “It has been a rare pleasure meeting the lass who can—”

McBain cleared his throat. The sound rumbled like thunder in the morning air.

Connelly laughed out loud. “Until next we meet,” he said, and grinned as he disappeared into the house.

Faye’s heart beat like a drum in her chest. The enemy had been reduced to one now. But for the life of her she couldn’t decide if that made matters better or worse.

She clenched her empty hand and dredged up every molecule of courage she ever hoped to possess. “I wished to apologize.”

He said nothing.

She was holding her breath but managed to force out a few more syllables. “Usually I’m…”…
safely hidden away in Lavender House.
“…as mild as Mullen.”

His brows lowered even farther.

“Surely you’ve heard the term,” she said, mimicking Rennet.

“Aye,” he said. His tone was devilishly low, frightening in its intensity.

“I didn’t mean—” she began, but words failed her, so she thrust the package at him, pushing her arm out to its full length. “Here.”

He didn’t reach for the package, didn’t move at all, but remained exactly as he was, like a burly predator planning his attack.

Her hands were beginning to tremble. She steadied them and lifted her chin. “Please. Take it.”

He did so finally, slowly, engulfing it with his hand.

“It’s a gift.”

He raised his gaze to her.

She tried to think of something clever to say, but his steady, quicksilver eyes had driven every potential witticism clean out of her head.

He shifted his weight. “I’ve not received a gift from an adversary before.”

“An adversary!” she said, and almost bolted, but he motioned languidly toward his eye.

“Oh.” She contained a wince. “I just…” It looked so horribly painful, so hideously raw. “Sometimes I become a bit skittish in social circumstances.”

Silence pulsed around them, broken by naught but the distant sound of a baying dog.

“Skittish,” he said finally.

“Yes.”

“Were that all me Tommies were so capricious.”

She blinked.

His expression didn’t change in the least, but there was something in his haunting silver eyes. Something that almost spoke of humor. “Surely we would rout our enemies in a matter of minutes.”

The world went quiet, focused, cleared. And she realized suddenly that he almost seemed…uncertain. Yet he stared at her, as solemn as a dirge, not moving closer, not retreating.

She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes. “You should open your gift.”

Silence again. She tried a tentative glance. He was gazing contemplatively at the package in his hand.

“Might it contain a wee warrior even smaller than yourself?”

She scowled. “No.”

He tilted his head the slightest degree. “Are you familiar with black powder?”

“Do you think I mean to harm you?” she asked.

“For reasons entirely unclear to one such as meself, the possibility did cross me mind,” he said. Despite herself, Faye felt her lips twitch the slightest degree, but she had learned better long ago than to be charmed. Learned, ached, paid.

“Here,” she said, and, reaching out, took the package back. Their fingers brushed. And with that quick exchange came a flash of errant feelings that tingled through her system like static electricity. Not quite painful, but almost.

Her breath hitched up tight, and in the pit of her being, she felt a strange, shooting star of something. But it was only her cowardice, she was sure of it. Unwrapping the package, she lifted the contents for him to see.

He peered at the gift, unspeaking for a moment. “A rock,” he said finally.

Their gazes met with a velvet clash. “Bloodstone,” she corrected, and lifted the russet amulet by its leather thong. Her heart felt strange. “’Tis said to be a warrior’s friend.”

“Then mayhap you’d best wear it.” He was staring at her again, making her chest feel too tight for her heart.

She shifted her gaze away, then forced herself to meet his eyes again. “Ancient healers believed it to be advantageous.”

Behind her, a horse trotted down the street, the two-beat gait sharp and staccato in the fresh-stirring day. McBain glanced up, looking over her head. Like his chest, his throat was broad, she noticed. Broad and dark and corded with unquestioned strength.

“You should not converse with the likes of Rennet,” he said, his words slow and cadenced as he brought his attention back to her.

Startled by this change of dialogue and frightened by his…well
everything,
it was all she could do to hold his gaze. But amid the fear there was a spark of something else. Something never before felt and therefore unidentifiable.

His eyes were as sharp and low-browed as an osprey’s. “Terrible things occur even in the best of houses. You should not risk yourself beyond your husband’s protection.”

She drew a careful breath and forced herself to speak. “I have no husband.”

He stared at her a moment, then shifted his gaze back to the street behind her. “I am sorry.”

Interesting. Not a spark of pain sounded in her head. Not so much as a dull throb to suggest an untruth. Why? Did he find her so unappealing that
her widowed status prompted not the least bit of interest? “That I am not wed?” she asked.

He was silent for a long moment, but finally he lowered his attention to her face again. “That I made you revisit tender memories.”

“I’ve been alone for quite some time.” She was skirting the issue, avoiding the pain, but his next question forced her hand.

“How is it that he died?”

“He drowned.” She refused to wince. “Broke through the ice while returning to our modest but happy home in Imatra.” She’d mimicked that particular lie enough times so that it should no longer spark an ache in her brow, and yet it did.

He watched her in silence, and there was something about his expression, something about his solemn, silvery eyes that sounded a warning bell in her head, that jumbled her nerves and forced her litany.

“His name was Albert. He was the youngest of three, born on the third of June in 1782. He had fair hair and blue eyes and was but seven-and-twenty when he…”

She fell silent, though it was all but impossible to do so. What would she give to be normal?

“Your father, then,” he said.

“What?” Her voice was barely audible to her own ears.

“Mayhap your sire could accompany you if you feel it necessary to commune with men in the dark of—”

“My father is dead.” The truth. It had escaped. She felt panic bubble up like a fountain inside her. But wait! All was well, for this once the truth meshed with the lies she’d been fed with such cautious regularity.

“Certainly, you have a guardian.” He looked grimmer still. Enraged almost, and that anger seemed to fuse her tongue to the very roof of her mouth.

But she had made a vow. Thus she raised her chin and struggled for haughty. But truly, normal would be a welcome surprise.

“Can I assume you do not trust Lord Rennet?” she asked.

He nodded solemnly.

“May I ask why?”

He didn’t blink. Possibly ever. “He is a man.”

She felt her eyebrows lift of their own accord. Curiosity edged off fear. “You don’t like men?”

“It would be imprudent to trust them.”

Then she was certainly no fool, but she
was
intrigued. “Them?” She canted her head a little, trying to figure him out, to see through his mask. Everyone wore a mask.

“Us,” he corrected.

The rumble of his voice sent an odd, inexplicable shiver through her. Part fear, part something else, but she held her ground. “Do you always warn your victims, Mr. Mc…” And dammit, she’d lost his name.

“My victims call me Bain,” he said.

“Bain.” It suited him. Not as well as Lucifer, but well enough.

He nodded. “How do yours refer to you?”

“I have no victims,” she said, and for a moment he only stared, studying her face as if it were a portrait to be memorized. The sight of his colorful eye made her want to squirm, but she squelched the weakness.

“I am surprised they are not strewn about your feet like fodder,” he said.

She scowled, but he didn’t explain.

“Your friends then,” he said. “What do they call you?”

“Faye.” It was not her given name, but none but a very few knew that.

“Faye.” He said the word slowly. “As in wee folk?”

“Wee folk?”

“Pixies and their contemporaries.”

“I suppose so,” she said though she had no wish for him to associate her with anything otherworldly.

He nodded curtly and backed toward the door. “My thanks,” he said, “for the…rock.”

“Wear it,” she said.

He paused, broad fingers folded over the stone, which he glanced at before bringing his stormy gaze back to her. “Your pardon?”

“Against your skin,” she said, and touched her own throat. His gaze followed the movement, but
his body remained absolutely still. The air seemed suddenly motionless.

“Very well,” he said, and bowed as he backed away.

“Now.” The single word came out too sharp, too panicked. She almost closed her eyes against her own foolishness. “If you please.”

He was staring at her again. Perhaps he thought her beautiful. Entrancing even, she thought breathlessly, and knew all the while it was far more likely he found her odd.