Suzanne Robinson (19 page)

The self-preserving instinct that should have been working all along suddenly resurfaced. Since he was fifteen he’d been the object of feminine traps. He could smell one. In this case, it smelled of lemon verbena. It was a skinny Dinkle with fingers like the legs of a spider and the flat body of a ten-year-old boy.

He deserved the breach of promise suit he saw galloping toward him, and cursed himself for his preoccupation with Kate.

Alexis was standing in front of a clothes chest at the foot of the little bed. The Dinkle had positioned herself between him and the door. It was half closed. Through it he could hear a faint metallic whine, the call of Mama Dinkle. Alexis took a step toward the door. A musket ball in satin and lace whizzed at him. He stumbled backward onto the clothes chest with Miss Georgiana Dinkle on top of him.

“Oh, my lord, oh, oh, oh, oh.” The oh’s got louder and louder. Mama Dinkle’s bleating drew near.

Spitting out a mouthful of petticoat, Alexis pawed his way out from under yards of satin. “Not again.”

“Oh no, oh no! Please, my lord!”

Alexis heaved the girl to the side and jumped up. Miss Dinkle landed on the floor with her skirts over her head. Alexis bounded out of the room. He scrambled back up to the wall walk, but heard Mama Dinkle howling nearby.

“Georgiana, my deeeeeeeeear, where are you?”

Alexis raced across the walk in the opposite direction from which the Dinkle horn blew. The terriers had his scent, but this rat wasn’t going to get caught. The entrance to another tower loomed in front of him. He threw himself into the doorway and down the stairs, heedless of the twists and turns. His long legs took the steps three at a time. He grasped a wooden rail and swung himself down and around a sharp bend, head low. He hit something, something hard. He heard a little cry as he fell back holding his forehead with one hand. A little figure in black collapsed at his feet on the stairs just below him and moaned.

“Kate.”

“Uuuuuh.”

He grasped her arms and lifted her. She had a hand on her forehead just as he did. They both slumped against the wall and held their heads. Alexis was the first to recover, and he helped her stand upright. Once on her feet, she made a fist and poked him in the stomach.

“You hurt me.” She twisted around and peered back down the stairs. “He’s coming!”

“Who?”

“The earl. I’ve got to hide.”

“Me too.” He grabbed Kate’s hand and plunged back up the staircase. At the top, he stopped and flattened himself against the wall. Inching around the corner, he made sure the wall walk was clear before hauling Kate after him.
He ran back the way he’d come. The Dinkle Hunt would be spreading out in search of him.

In the Watch Tower, near the bedchamber of the Dinkle trap, was a storeroom. Alexis darted into it, dragging his accomplice. When he released her hand, she closed the door and listened at it.

The room was filled with crates of tools, chains, and boxes of nails. Alexis shoved a few of these aside and knelt on the floor. Using an iron rod from one of the crates, he lifted a flagstone and hauled it back to reveal a black hole. He stuck one leg into the hole, and his foot met a step. Glancing back at Kate, he held out his hand.

“This is a way outside.”

“Are you sure?”

He caught her wrist and pulled. She sailed toward him, and he lifted her down into the hole. He could hear her breathing as she waited for him to replace the flagstone. Then, in complete darkness, he edged his way down the stairs with her clinging to his arm.

“I hate this,” she said.

“When I was a boy, I used to hide in here to escape my tutors. It’s most convenient.”

At last they gained the foot of the stairs. Alexis’s groping hands found the door and shoved it open. Peeking out, he saw the expanse of courtyard lawn outlined in silver moonlight. He slipped outside, pulling Kate behind him. Above their heads he heard a male voice furtively call Kate’s name.

“Damn and blast,” Alexis said. “Come on.”

He gripped Kate’s hand again and ran. Keeping close to the wall, they shimmied around two towers, then ran for the farthest structure in the castle, the keep. Once inside, they both leaned against a wall and breathed.

Alexis recovered first. “The keep’s under reconstruction. They won’t think to look here.”

“Did you know that one of your strides is equal to more than two of mine?” Kate asked.

He smiled into the darkness at the little puffs that kept coming from her direction.

“Next time I’ll go slower. There are lamps in here somewhere.”

He felt his way around until he encountered a table. He lit one of the lamps on it and came back to Kate.

She was still leaning against the wall beside the door, and Alexis came to an abrupt stop when he held the light near her. Her hair tumbled about her face and shoulders in fiery destruction. There was a bruise on her throat, and the sleeve of her gown was torn.

Drawing near, he touched a curl. She shied away from his touch.

“I will kill him,” Alexis said.

“Nonsense.”

“You don’t realize what this means. I have to call him out.”

She tried to pull her sleeve back up to her shoulder, but it kept falling. “I’ve already taken care of the earl.”

“What did you do?”

“I punched him in the nose.”

Alexis lowered the lamp so that he held it in both hands. “Dear Lord in heaven.”

“My hand hurts.”

“Let me see.”

He drew her to the table. Setting the lamp down, he took Kate’s hand in his and examined it. The skin over the knuckles and fingers was red, and the flesh was swollen.

“Can you move your fingers?” he asked. The small digits wiggled at him. “Your hand will be sore for a few days, but it’s not broken. We must soak it in cold water. While you’re doing that, I’ll deal with Cardigan.”

“Deal with Mrs. Beechwith,” she said. “I can put Cardigan in his place.”

“How did—You shouldn’t know—
Nom de Dieu.
The extent to which you are informed about my affairs is most improper, Miss Grey. No wonder you’re unmarried. A woman of breeding at least pretends ignorance. Look at Hannah.”

Alexis would have gone on, but Kate gave him one of her lower-than-a-worm-at-my-feet looks and sneered at him.

“Ha!”

“What do you mean ‘Ha’?”

“I mean ‘Ha.’ Lady Hannah refers to table legs as ‘limbs’ and covers them with little skirts because she thinks they’re obscene. She pretends women don’t have bodily functions or those ‘limbs’ she’s so disgusted with.”

A long curl of hair had spilled down her neck and across a white expanse of chest to nestle above the space between her breasts. Alexis didn’t know which made him more angry, her scorn of poor Hannah or the fact that he couldn’t touch that curl.

“We were discussing why you let Cardigan undress you,” he said.

Alexis had imagined Kate losing control many times since he met her. Standing on erupting volcanoes, pirouetting on the edge of a cliff, and similar brushes with death came to mind. He was fooled when she made a little hissing sound and planted herself across the table from him, her hands braced on its surface.

“Let me explain something to you,” she said. “I don’t like you. You seduced my cousin. She was flighty, and maybe she did think too much of your position, but she had a heart bigger than California. If you hadn’t insisted on coming to her that night, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen asleep and knocked that candle over and died.”

“What?”

“I’m not finished. She’s dead, and now you’re trying to seduce me. I may not be a proper Lady, but I’m not a fool.
You flutter about like a butterfly, lighting on a tulip, dipping into a rose, landing on an iris. Don’t try landing on me, sir. I’ll rip your wings off.”

Alexis was still stalled on her first remark. “I wasn’t with Ophelia the night of the fire.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Miss Grey.” He drew himself up to his full height. “No one has ever had cause to doubt my word.”

“Well la-di-da. Get used to it.”

“Don’t wear such a pleased look. It isn’t me whose word is about to be doubted.”

“What are you talking about?”

He folded his arms and smiled at her. She was glaring at him with her hands on her hips, which gave him an excellent view of her figure.

“You’ve been gone from the others for a long time. So have I. The Dinkles couldn’t have planned a better method by which to compromise themselves.” He strolled around the table and edged up close to her. “The whole castle knows we’re missing by now, and you can bet one of your precious gold mines they’ll never believe that you and I spent the whole time talking.”

To make his point he captured that enticing curl. The backs of his fingers brushed against her breast, and she jumped away from him. He kept hold of the curl until she yanked it out of his fingers. He grinned at her in triumph.

She snatched victory from him. “Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t care if they think I entertained a whole regiment.”

“You’ll be put out of society.”

“Never wanted to be in it.”

He stepped closer to her. “You’ll be ruined.”

“Dresses get ruined, cakes get ruined, sometimes cities crumble into ruins, but women survive, my lord. You’ll be
comforted to know I can live quite happily knowing that half of England thinks I’m a Fallen Woman.”

He cursed in a whisper, thinking quickly. “ ‘
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace,’ ma petite.
You may not care, but your mother does. If you keep on as you are, she’ll never kiss hands at court.”

The understanding that swept across her face made up for the shocks she’d dealt him. Almost. He couldn’t stand the unhappiness in her eyes.

“There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “You said yourself it’s too late.”

He couldn’t resist taking her hand, but he was surprised she let him keep it. She probably hadn’t noticed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have warned Cardigan off, but I was detained.”

“The Dinkles.”

“They laid a trap. God, I’m weary of fighting. Mademoiselle St.-Germain tried to twist me into a ring and put me on her finger. In French, of course. She thought I’d be more defenseless in a foreign language. During the war one of the infantry commanders’ daughters put herself in my tent. We were in the Crimea, for the love of God.” He groaned. “There have been too many women in my life.”

Kate heaved a long sigh. “The earl came after me even though his nose was bleeding. If he’s ruined me, I’m going to ruin his face.”

They studied the lamp in companionable misery. Alexis suddenly laughed. Kate scowled at him as he turned to her and clasped her by the shoulders.

“Little savage, would you like a great big helping of revenge?”

“I’d love it.”

Stepping back, he bowed over her hand, then held it to his heart while gazing into her eyes in an enraptured manner.

“Then do me the honor of betrothing yourself to me, my dearest.”

The little hand was snatched from him. “Toad.”

“Only for a few months. For protection, for your reputation.” Her hands were on her hips again. “For your mother.”

“For Mama?” Kate’s shoulders drooped. She rubbed her head where his had bumped it. “A few days.”

“Months.”

“Days.”

“Three months.”

“Weeks.”

“Think of Mama,” Alexis said. “It’s only a temporary arrangement.”

“Six weeks.”

“I bow to your wishes.”

“Somehow I find that hard to believe. What are you doing?”

Alexis had taken advantage of her distraction to pull her into his arms. He put his hand on the back of her head and lowered his mouth to hers. Before he kissed her he spoke.

“I’m sealing our bargain.”

The kiss went straight to his groin. He’d been trying so hard to keep from watching her all evening, only casting surreptitious glances at her face and breasts. Each furtive view whetted his appetite, churned his gut. He was done with looking. His hand belonged on her breast, so he put it there.

Before he could understand what was happening, the soft mouth and breast were torn from him. He felt as if someone had ripped the skin from his body. He fell back from her to lean against the table. After a moment he opened his eyes, aware that he’d been sprawled there with his eyes closed, heaving and flushed like a randy schoolboy. To cover his lapse, he grinned at Kate. She had retreated
to the shadows beyond the glow of the lamp, and he couldn’t see much of her.

“I’ll take you back to the castle,” he said. “You can’t join the others looking like that.”

She tried to push her hair back into place, but with no success. “I know.”

“I’ll have to tell them why we’ve been gone so long. I’ll say you’re so overcome that you’ve retired.”

“Me? Overcome?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I take it you’re not overcome. Pretend. As a courtesy to me. You can’t go about treating me as if I had leprosy if we’re engaged.”

He gave her his arm, and she took it with all the enthusiasm of a child facing a tooth extraction.
By the Queen’s ancestors
, he swore silently. He still ached with sexual tension, and she was as frigid as a mountain lake.

They emerged from the keep, and Alexis covered the hand that rested on his arm so she couldn’t withdraw it. He had six weeks, perhaps longer. Before those six weeks were over, his little savage was going to forget railroads and gold mines, Mr. Poggs, and even Mama. When he was finished with her, she would cling to him the way Carolina Beechwith did. She would wait for him, study his moods and his pleasure. Especially his pleasure.

It was seldom that he bothered to exert the power he knew he possessed, for using it meant enduring tiresome infatuations, as had happened with Carolina. However, enslaving Kate Grey wouldn’t be the same. She was as quick as a hornet and so unconsciously sensual. He wanted her to desire him. After all, it was only fair for her to suffer as he was suffering.

Kate untied the ribbons of her bonnet and lifted it from her head. She hoped the action would convince the physician who blocked her way that she wasn’t going to leave. She’d tracked the marquess to the Dower House, and no pompous old grouse was going to stop her from seeing him.