Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) (26 page)

He bit back a curse.
Forget how beautiful she is, how perfect she feels lying beneath you. Remember what you have to do—and how to save her
.

“So these men have your father, and they want the pillow book. Then we’ll just have to find it and give it to them,” he said grimly.

“You—you don’t have it? Oh, heaven, I was hoping—”

“I was planning to track down that skulking little urchin who seemed to know his way around the roofs of London. I hoped that
he
might be able to help me. I suppose it
was
you behind those robberies?”

Chessy nodded, her expression defiant.

“Even at the Royal Asiatic Society?”

Another nod.

“You might have been killed! And what if you had been caught?”

“I—there was no choice. The notes were most precise. They said—”

“Notes?” Morland gripped her hand.
“What
notes?”

“The ones that directed me here—and to all the other places.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Of course. But they’re useless. There was no name, no sign at all of where they came from.” Chessy squirmed to pull free.

Morland ignored her. “How were they delivered?”

“Sometimes by link boys, other times by hackney drivers. Always a different person. Always someone who had no idea who sent them.”

“Only to be expected. And the last note told you to look here for the book?”

Chessy nodded. “They must be as much in the dark as we are.”

“I wonder,” Morland said slowly. “They knew to send you
here
.” His eyes narrowed. And then he froze.

“Tony? What were you—”

“Hush.” His hands locked on hers in warning.

The next moment Chessy heard it, a low tapping somewhere outside the window. The scrape of twigs? Or shoes inching across a tile roof?

The sound grew closer, soft and furtive and quick.

“Get behind the screen,” Morland whispered.

“But—”

“Now, damn it!”

The harsh command in his voice made Chessy turn quickly. She slid behind a lacquer screen overhung with a satin dressing gown and a shirt of finest linen.

Even now his smell hung about them, a faint blend of spicy soap, leather and
—gardenias?
Chessy stiffened as she saw her white flower sticking through the third buttonhole of Morland’s shirt.

Then there was no more time for thought. The room was plunged into darkness as Morland blew out the candle. “Whatever you do, don’t move from behind that screen,” he ordered. “I don’t care to go stumbling over
you
in the dark.”

Chessy waited, her heart pounding. The sound on the rooftop grew closer.

A scraping came at the window.

Close, so close
…

Automatically she took a slow breath, made her knees soften, relax.

Ready, always ready. As she had trained herself to be in Shao-lin. No matter what she’d promised Morland, she would not hide from danger. As she stood motionless in the darkness, Chessy caught the faint, sweet scent of gardenias.

They both might have their throats slit any moment, and all she could think of was the fact that he’d saved her gardenia—had thrust it into his shirt just above his heart. The knowledge tugged at her.

Then she forced away her turmoil as the windowpane rattled slightly. Cold wind sweep through the room.

The pane squeaked as it rose. And then came the rustle of cloth. Chessy locked her lips, rigid behind the screen while all her senses screamed for her to launch into an attack.

Cloth slippers brushed the carpet, heading for the bed.

And then a gasp. A low grunt.
Morland’s?
She focused, following the muted sounds of struggle coming near the window. Muscle smashed against muscle. Breaths checked, the enemies clashed, each movement muffled and desperate in the darkness. And though it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, Chessy waited motionless as Morland had told her.

A table crashed to the floor. She heard the shrill sound of ripping silk. And then a low curse. Morland’s curse.

Her fingers locked.

Another curse. This one high and sharp. In a southern Chinese dialect.

An armchair thudded onto its side as the two bodies made a phantom progress in the darkness, closer and closer to the screen where Chessy waited. Glass shattered and a heavy blow struck the screen and sent it crashing to the floor.

Morland’s grunt of pain was the last sound Chessy waited to hear. The next second she darted from the path of the falling screen and listened for signs of the intruder.

At first she heard only Morland’s rasping breath.

Then a faint scrape of cloth against cloth. A hiss of silk at the far side of the bed.

Chessy followed, careful to avoid the side table that had fallen to her right. The intruder was equally careful, making no further sound. But she caught the whisper of air and knew he was beside the bookshelf, searching the same panel that she had searched earlier.

If she could capture him, they might find out where her father was being held. Then the ordeal would end.

Soundlessly, she inched closer. She saw a bulky shape near the bed.

Chessy moved to block his path back to the window, wondering where Tony was. Then her toe crunched over shattered glass, and she winced at the burning pain, instantly jumping sideways, away from the betraying sound she had made.

A hard hand slashed down, catching the edge of her elbow. She dipped low, then swung about, trying to elude the next blow that would come from the darkness.

Her foot flashed out. She met silk and human skin. She kicked, twice, meeting muscle each time. She heard the low rasp of breath and a muffled curse.

Circling quickly, she sent a slashing chop to the point where she estimated the back of his neck would be. She struck muscle—a sinewy forearm. Gasping, she spun about and kicked high.

This time she caught the man flush in the stomach. The force of the blow sent him staggering backward.

“Aiyeeaa!” He spoke fast and shrill. “You fight well, shadow. For a stinking foreign dog, that is!”

Chessy did not speak. She knew the hard taunt for what it was—a ploy to force her to betray her location. Instead she circled back toward the window.

There she waited. She knew he was hit. He was cut off from his exit route. Now he must think of his retreat.

The blow came without warning. Rigidly extended fingers struck her neck. Only a handful of warriors could accomplish that maneuver, which could not be well controlled and might harm the attacker’s hands. Chessy had hoped to study its power, but the abbot had never agreed, saying it was all flash and no substance and not for such a one as she.

But an outlaw warrior would have known that sort of move. He would have used it without hesitation.

Panting at the pain burning through her neck and shoulder, Chessy lunged after the figure crossing the carpet. She tripped on a pillow and felt what she thought was Tony’s leg. But he made no sound and she could not stop.

Too late, she caught the
whoosh
of wind, felt the damask curtains sweep up around her face. The window!

She shot forward.

Down the slope of the roof a dim figure slipped behind a chimney. Chessy imagined that he turned and bowed mockingly toward her.

She crawled out the window, intent on pursuit, but then she heard the raw groan at her back. Another chair toppled to the ground.

Morland breathed harshly but made no other sound, and that, Chessy decided, was worse than any number of curses.

Grimly she slid through the open window, feeling her foot throb where she had fallen earlier. She ignored the shadow across the roof, melting back into the night. Tony needed her most now.

She knelt at his prone form and found a pulse, low but steady. When she brushed his head, she found two lumps, one rising just behind his ear and the other over his right brow. Fighting her own exhaustion, she maneuvered him to a sitting posture and touched his cheek.

“Tony? Wake up!”

A shudder ran through him. “What—” He smothered a curse. “Chessy?”

“Right here.”

Hard fingers reached out to grip her wrist in the darkness. “Are you
hurt
?”

She laughed bleakly. “I’m fine. But I lost our intruder. He was a man of great skill, I think.”

The fingers tightened. “You are certain he did not hurt you?”

“No. But what about you?”

“My shoulder. His knife…” Morland smothered a curse. “But it was not a deep wound, I believe.”

Suddenly light filtered beneath the bedroom door. Muffled voices echoed through the corridor, and the door was thrown open.

“My lord, are you there? Go fetch a lantern, Alice! And bring along the groom!” Heavy feet crunched over shattered glass.

“Here—Skelton. Mind the glass.”

Light swept the room as the servant entered, bearing a branch of candles.

It was a scene of chaos. Chairs and tables were pitched sideways, and the screen lay overturned in a crazy sprawl, clothing scattered everywhere. Glass fragments glittered beside the window, where the goblets and decanter had gone flying in the scuffle.

The servant gasped as his gaze fell upon Chessy. “Who—” He never finished. Stunned, he watched Morland push to his feet, moving hand over hand along the back of the armchair. The earl swayed and began to move toward the door. “Have to go.”

“He is already gone, back over the roof.” White-faced, Chessy watched Morland make an awkward progress across the glass-strewn floor. “You cannot find him now.”

“I must try. With your knowledge and skill, we can follow by carriage.” Morland caught at his thigh and began to totter. “Damned leg,” he said harshly.

Before the valet could react, Chessy was at Morland’s side. Swiftly she caught his waist, staggering beneath his weight. And then the servant was beside her, struggling to hold the earl upright.

“What happened? And who are
you?”
The man’s eyes widened, taking in the blue-black cascade of hair that had until then been hidden behind Chessy’s back. “But—you’re a
woman
!”

“Of course I am! Now help me get the earl to the bed before he does himself any further damage.”

Between the two of them, they managed to carry Morland to the bed. There was a gash across his breeches, and Chessy could see blood darkening the fabric.

Another long gash crossed his arm.

“Tony? What’s wrong?”

“Dizzy.” His fingers opened and closed on the sheets. “My arm, I think. Feels—odd.”

She gnawed on her lower lip, staring at the fresh, pooling blood. But why had the cut rendered Morland so weak?

She bent close, studying the clean line of the wound. Not deep, not a great deal of blood lost. So why—

Abruptly Chessy stiffened. It was the odd, sour scent that gave her the first hint of warning. Swiftly she bent forward and brushed the edge of Morland’s forehead, then his arm.

“See here, miss—whoever you are! Why is everything scattered? And what are you doing to the earl?”

Chessy paid no heed, intent on the faintly metallic scent on her fingers. Somewhere she had smelled that scent before. She froze as the memory returned.

Twelve years earlier, it was, at a village banquet. She had smelled that scent and then watched a man lapse into white-faced terror and die. It might already be too late!

She issued tense orders as she tugged off her padded outer jacket, then ripped at one sleeve. “I’ll need hot water and a knife—freshly boiled. Send someone around to fetch Whitby and Mrs. Harris from my home.”

Hearing silence behind her, she spun about, furious. “Don’t stand there gawking, you fool! Twenty-seven Dorrington Street. Tell them to bring Swithin and my kit with the needles.
Hurry
, man. Otherwise he’ll die!”