Seduced (24 page)

Finally, she let out her breath slowly. “You mean what you’re saying. This isn’t some elaborate lie to separate yourself from me.”

He nodded, relief filling him as she began to take him seriously. “I do mean it, and it’s not a lie. But it is why we can’t be together, Letitia. I can’t even think about any future at all until this threat is neutralized.”

“How long?” she whispered.

He shrugged. “Weeks? God, months even. I wouldn’t ask you to wait—”

“It isn’t about waiting, Jack,” she interrupted. “Love is not a fancy for me, given or removed so easily. But I know that what you aren’t telling me, or are at least minimizing, is the danger
you
are in.”

He held his breath. She was too clever to believe any lie he told. And for once in his life, he didn’t
want
to tell a lie to distance himself from an emotion.

“Yes,” he said. “I am in danger.”

She reached for him, tears glistening in her brown eyes, those eyes flecked with gold that he had been drawn to from the start. “Then let me help.”

“No. If I had to worry about you, I would be distracted,” he said.

Her frustration was clear as she stared up into his face, but eventually she nodded. “Very well. You need me away, so I will stay away. But understand this, Jack, it is
only
to protect you.”

He shook his head, mostly because he could hardly comprehend what she was saying. He could count on two fingers the people who had ever wanted to protect him: War and Hoffman. And now Letitia stood before him, jaw set, eyes flashing, ready to go to war for him, or to step aside to keep him safe. His heart swelled, daring him to acknowledge the feelings he was too afraid to name.

But he didn’t. This was not the time to soften. For her he had to remain strong, hard. For himself because for the first time in a long time, he had something to come out of this alive for.

He covered her hand with his and squeezed gently before he stepped away. “Come, we should dress. And then let’s get you home, shall we?”

She nodded, but he could see she wasn’t happy about it. And in truth, neither was he. But this was his path now. And he had to stay on it. For everyone’s sake.

Letty smoothed her gown and used the mirror in Jack’s foyer to check the sloppy bun she’d put her hair into a few moments earlier. Finally, she turned to face him and found him watching her, a pensive look on his handsome face. He said nothing, though, but only reached out and silently took her hand, leading her out his door and toward her carriage. It was now parked on his drive, waiting for them.

Her hands shook as they moved ever closer to the vehicle and this parting. Perhaps their last parting. After all, she didn’t know the future. Though she saw the truth in his eyes, Jack was well versed in lying to get what he wanted. She knew that all his talk of danger and intrigue and protection could simply be a way to put her off.

She was not blind to the fact that while she had spilled her heart out to him, he had not told her he loved her in return. But at this point, she had to trust in him, trust in the connection they had made that she
knew
was strong.

Her servants stayed in place as the two of them approached her carriage, averting their gazes when she and Jack stopped next to the door. She wrapped her arms around him, despite the imprudence of the act, and held him close. She could hear his steady heartbeat through his shirt and clung tighter.

“Please be careful, Jack,” she whispered. “Please.”

He nodded, his face troubled, and then he dropped his lips to hers. She lifted into the kiss, feeling the same desperation she had seen in him earlier in the night. Now she understood it. Now it consumed her.

She pulled away and was about to speak again when there was a flash of movement on the street that she caught from the corner of her eye. She looked toward it in the dim light from the streetlamps, and at the same moment there was a loud crack of a gunshot that echoed in the air around them.

Jack lunged at Letitia, pinning her against the side of her carriage, covering her body with his own as two more shots rang out in the night. There was the thundering of hooves from the street and then all was silent except for the cries of her servants as they clamored toward them.

“Jack?” came Letitia’s voice, muffled by his body.

He pulled away and immediately began looking for any sign she had been injured. She was pale and shaking as she stared up at him, seeking answers in his face.

“Jack,” she repeated.

He shook his head. “Hush, be still.”

He smoothed his hands over her body, silently praying as he ensured she was unharmed. His hand touched something wet on her gown and he drew his hand up in horror. Blood. There was blood.

“You’re hurt,” he said. “She’s hurt,” he shouted to her servants.

She looked down at the place he was touching, where he was desperately seeking the hole in her gown, praying she hadn’t been hit in the lung or the stomach. He’d seen men die those painful deaths and it would kill him to see her do the same.

“It’s not me,” she said, pushing at his hands as they sought the horrible truth. “Jack, it’s not me—it’s you.”

He blinked down into her wide-eyed face, her pale and fearful face. “No.”

She grabbed for his arm and lifted it. He was still in his shirtsleeves, and his upper arm had been slashed by one of the bullets, cutting through both the cotton fabric and his skin. The cut gushed blood.

“Hell,” he said, sighing in relief. Though when he thought of where that arm had been positioned, his relief faded. He’d covered Letitia’s head with that arm. Which meant the bullet had come precariously close to ending her life.

“Oh God,” she murmured, lifting her hands to cover the wound. “Jack.”

“Sir, is she hurt?” Letitia’s footman asked, standing at Jack’s elbow as he looked around nervously.

Jack shook his head. “No, she seems to be unharmed. But you need to take her away from here. Right now.”

“No!” Letitia cried out. “I’m not leaving you when you are injured.”

“It’s a flesh wound, nothing more,” he said, trying to push her hand away from his bloody cut.

She refused, of course, glaring at him but not releasing the pressure on the wound. “I don’t care. We are going to Gabriel and Juliet’s. She can look at it.”

“No. Not to Juliet,” Jack said.

Juliet was married to Claire’s brother. There was no way his injury wouldn’t get back to War if Jack went to her. And then his brother would insist on staying to help him. He’d already put Letitia in danger tonight—he refused to risk his brother too.

“You need a doctor,” she insisted. “This is deep, Jack.”

Now that the panic, the surprise, was beginning to wear off, Jack realized she was right. His arm burned.

“I will go to my own doctor,” he insisted. “I promise. But for now, you must go, Letitia. Those men could come back.”

“How will you get to your doctor? On horseback?” she asked.

He swallowed back a curse at her stubbornness and then nodded. “Yes. On my horse, of course.”

She flung open her carriage door with the hand that was not pressing against his injury. “Absolutely not. Not only do I think you are not capable of riding, but if those men are thinking of coming back for you, they will see you riding out in the open and compromised by your wound. I will take you in the carriage.”

“That is unacceptable,” Jack burst out, his frustration boiling over at last. “You will not put yourself at risk.”

“I’m not asking you. Now tell my driver where to go and then get in this carriage, Jack Blackwood.”

“Or what?” he asked, both impressed and exasperated by her.

She pressed her lips together hard and seemed to consider that question. For a moment, he thought she might not be able to come up with a suitable threat, but then her eyes lit up.

“I shall tell your brother on you.”

“Tattling, Letitia?” he asked with a sigh. “I thought better of you.”

She shrugged and didn’t look the least bit sorry. “Get in the carriage, Jack. Now.”

He saw that she would not be turned from this course of action, and the longer they stood in his drive, the more danger she was in. At least at his lair, he could protect her.

“Fine, Letitia. Get in.”

She reluctantly released his arm and got into the carriage, and he turned to give a few directions to her driver before he joined her. But as the carriage door shut, he found he was far less nervous about his injury than he was about her seeing the truth of where he lived and who he truly was.

Letty caught up the hem of her silk gown and gave it a tug, rending a strip off her dress.

Jack stared at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

She moved to his side of the carriage and wrapped the strip around his wound tightly. “I’m making you a bandage,” she explained.

He shook his head. “That was a beautiful gown. You shouldn’t have ruined it for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t give a damn about the gown, Jack.”

He darted his eyes away from hers and frowned. “I shall buy you another.”

She put her attention to tying off the makeshift bandage, but when it was quiet in the carriage it only allowed her to think. Jack had been injured when men on horses shot at him from the street. And she had been facing the street when they did it.

And she’d seen something. Something horrible. Almost too horrible to be believed. Her hands began to shake as she thought of it.

He reached up and took one of her bloody hands, holding it gently. “Letitia, look at me. I’m all right. I swear to you, it is not a serious injury.”

She bit her lip as she let her gaze move back to his face. She was going to have to tell him what she’d seen in the drive even though she didn’t want to. But not right now.

After. After he was treated for his injury.

“I know,” she whispered. “I just…Jack, there is so much blood. Even now it’s leaking through the bandage.”

He winced as he turned slightly to face her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so selfish as to ask for one more night with you. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have had to see that. You wouldn’t have been in such danger.”

“You still would have been,” she said with a shiver. “At least I was there to help.”

He touched her cheek. “Leave it to you to want to save me.”

She swallowed, uncertain of what to say when the carriage suddenly veered sharply and came to a stop. Jack stroked a thumb over her cheek. “Wait here a moment. I have to talk or else your men will be in trouble.”

She shook her head in confusion and watched as he got out of the carriage. He shut the door, but she could still hear his voice.

“Stand down, boys, it’s me.”

There was indistinct talking after that and then Jack opened the carriage door and held out his uninjured arm to her. “Come.”

She stepped out at his command and looked around. The carriage had turned down a narrow alleyway. It seemed there was a way to pass through to another street, but it was currently blocked by five very large and menacing men who were holding guns and watching her servants warily.