Your Wicked Heart (7 page)

A lump came into her throat. After so many months spent enduring Mrs. Pennypacker’s abuse—cringing like a beaten dog; desperate to leave but with nowhere to go;
despising
her own fear and helplessness—Ripton’s praise felt like a balm to her soul. She fought the sting of oncoming tears, for he would never understand it if she wept.

Instead, she tightened her grip over his and lifted their joined palms into a handshake. “Partners, then.” He would not find her a wanting helpmeet.

He laughed, a soft and mystified sound. “So formal, Miss Thomas.”

She felt a silly smile curve her mouth. “Yes,” she said, “I incline to it.”

But he returned her handshake. Why not? It was wise for a man to wish to be partners with a woman who was brave.

“Very well,” he said, “partners in this matter, officially and formally. And if he doesn’t appear here within a quarter hour—” And then his gaze moved over her shoulder, and his eyes widened. “
Duck!”
he cried, and pushed her off her seat.

CHAPTER SIX

Ripton’s shove knocked her to the floor. Then came a terrible crash as a stool landed where she’d just been sitting.

Amanda scrambled to her feet. A brawl was spreading from the table behind them—men raving, cards scattering. Ripton, who had risen to shout a reprimand, became a target. One brawler smashed a chair into his knee; he staggered backward, directly into the path of another man who hoisted aloft a stool that—it became clear to Amanda in an instant—was going to bash Ripton’s skull.

With a cry, she seized her toppled stool and smacked the miscreant in the back. Caught off guard, he stumbled, then wheeled toward her to seize her by the arm. She clawed at his grip. “Let go! Let—”

Ripton tore the man off her and threw him across a table. Turning back, he said breathlessly, “What rubbish. Shall we go?”

Wood splintered behind her. “Yes, please!”

Together they hustled toward the door. Four paces from their freedom, the publican vaulted the bar and landed in front of them, his teeth bared in a ferocious grin. His come-hither gesture did not look friendly.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Ripton, and let go of her. One neat punch and the man went down.

The quickness of it dazed her. She was staring at the publican’s slumped body when Ripton grabbed her arm and hauled her onward toward the door.

When it slammed behind them, the sudden silence seemed jarring. How quickly that fight had started! She realized that her legs were shaking. The police!

The door flew open, men stumbling out. With a curse, Ripton dragged her a step down the lane, then abruptly reversed course as a fresh gang of men came pounding from that direction. The police!

“Quick,” she said, pushing Ripton down the narrow cobblestone lane, away from the authorities. Hand in hand they ran, around one corner and then another, until her breath became a dagger in her throat and she stumbled, gasping, to a stop.

Running. Best done as a child, before one donned a corset.

Ripton turned back, a curious lurch in his movement. “Are you all right?”

She fell against a sunbaked wall. “Just—a moment—”

“Gladly.” Wincing, he leaned down to palm his knee. “Haven’t brawled since university. Bit out of practice, I fear.”

He had done well enough by her account. “Is your knee injured?” He had taken quite a blow.

“Bound to be a great big bruise.” He straightened, his expression lightening. “When I turned and saw you lifting that stool—”

She held up a hand. “Before you scold me, he was about to hit you—”

“Oh, I know,” he said, and then astonished her by breaking into laughter.

She stared at him, confused and then . . . fascinated. His laughter was beautiful, wild and rich. He drove his hands through his hair and lifted his face toward the sky, and in the bright sunlight he looked vibrant, vivid, alive with merriment.

He caught her staring and grinned. “Good fun, eh?”

Good fun? Her eyes dropped down his body. His knuckles were bleeding! “You’re a lunatic.”

“Yes, apparently you’re contagious.” He came limping toward her, his hand rising toward her face. She realized that her hair had come down only when he pulled a curl to his mouth and . . .
inhaled
.

What on earth
 . . 
. ?

“Tell me,” he said, his lips pressed against her hair, “how do you
still
manage to smell like roses?”

“I . . .” She smelled like roses? “I’ve no idea.”

Lifting his face, he laughed softly. “How puzzled you look,” he said. “Tousled and rosy and wide-eyed. Miss Muffet, having bested the spider.”

Alarm pierced her. “Did you hit your head in there?”

“Never mind the roses; I’ve a better idea.” He took hold of her waist. Increasingly baffled, she looked from his hands to his face—and then his mouth touched hers.

A kiss,
her amazed brain informed her.

His lips against hers felt warm. And so . . . gentle.

A breath escaped her, a breath of wonder and disbelief.

His hand cupped her cheek, his fingers lighter than a breath, warmer than the sun. His lips parted hers, and he tasted her.

A soft, hot prickle moved through her, a sudden relaxing of . . . everything: her muscles, her wariness, her wits. His lips were persuasive, confident, as alive as his laughter. He moved into her, crowding her against the wall, his body warm and solid, his mouth intoxicating. He tasted of the wine, but on his tongue it grew delicious. His tongue toyed with hers, flirting with her teeth, the sensitive lining of her lips.

Her stomach seemed to lift and then fall away. He smelled like sweat and soap and spices. He smelled
edible
.

Her arms tightened around him.
Just right.
She had kissed other men before—her erstwhile fiancé, and once, a cheeky shop boy in Little Darby—but never before had a man’s body felt so
right
.
Low in her belly, something pulsed and ached, and her body told her that
he
was the cure for it.

His mouth broke from hers. “You’re delicious,” he breathed into her ear—two simple words that made a shudder run through her.

“I thought I was a criminal.” How strange she sounded! Sultry, not at all like herself. She turned her face into his throat to take another deep breath of him.
So foolish. Stop this at once.

But his palm was stroking the small of her back, warm and firm and soothing. Her brain chattered uselessly in the background, supplying all the proper warnings, but they seemed to slip away without effect, like raindrops off a smooth glass pane.

“Let’s try that again,” he whispered, and then, praise God, he did. His mouth was all the sweeter now that she knew it was coming. His lips moved urgently over hers, persuading her, and the pulse in her belly suddenly dropped lower, concentrating between her legs.

You’re behaving like a harlot. With your kidnapper.

But he’d had good cause for kidnapping her! He’d thought she had cozened him, helped an impostor whose fraud was costing him precious time in his search for his cousin.

This is beyond stupid of you.

His tongue slipped again into her mouth. Exactly where it belonged. A lazy tangle of mouths as her hands felt down the hard planes of his back. Muscled, lean. So tall. He was built, in fact, very much like her fraudulent betrothed . . . only his kisses were so different. So much hotter. Wild, ravishing. Nothing like her former fiancé’s. He loved his family, protected them, was searching for his cousin, kissed like an angel . . . or a devil . . .

A guttural shout. He spun, putting himself squarely in front of her so she was sheltered from view—her heart skipped; what a gentlemanly posture!—and she rose on tiptoes to peek over his shoulder.

The police had found them. “English?” asked one of the men, his hand on the pistol at his waist. “Come. You come now!”

Ripton took her arm, pulling her into step with him as they followed the man. “Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. “Let me handle this.”

She nodded. How curious! With him beside her, she felt not the least bit afraid.

*   *   *

Crime did not appear to be a thriving business in La Valletta. The police station was little more than a whitewashed hut furnished with a rude desk and two wooden pens, one of which held a snoring man whose alcoholic reek traveled the length of the room. The other pen stood empty, and the sight of it prepared Spence to rage, condescend, or bribe, as needed—for he had no intention of them spending the night here.

But as it turned out, the inspector in charge had no interest in that, either. After barking a sharp dismissal to his sergeants, he offered Spence a handsome apology and the only chair in the room. Spence demurred and insisted that the lady take the chair.

Miss Thomas, blushing prettily, settled into the seat with an elegant flip of her skirts. She really did look like a Clementine. Once one got past the sharp bite of the first consonant, the syllables were soft and singing.
Clementine.
Lush. Almost
plush
. Much like her mouth . . .

He removed his eyes from hers, lest he disgrace himself in a police station. The inspector, to his mild amazement, was enthusiastically extolling Spence’s role in the pub brawl.

“Most nice! Most nice!” exclaimed Inspector Mizzi, stroking his moustache and beaming up at Spence. “I say, such
bosom
from an Englishman!”

Spence blinked. “Ah . . . bottom, I believe you mean. Courage,” he added when the inspector looked puzzled.

Clementine leaned into his view, giving him a narrow-eyed look.
Braggart,
she mouthed.

He bit back a smile. “That is, I had no choice but to fight,” he told the inspector. “I promise you, I was not the first to throw a punch.”

The inspector’s face relaxed into a smile again. “But of course not,” he said. “Bottom, courage! Yes, very good. My English, you will forgive. Not so nice. But you! Very nice. Most of your countrymen, they come, they go—one day, one night. Stay at hotels, never see our places, the local places.” The man’s broad, easy grin invited Spence to relax. But the smile paired rather oddly with the shrewd gleam in the inspector’s eyes. “I like you, sir. I like your . . . style, do they say? Very nice style. Is that the word? I admire it.”

“And I, your English.” For Spence had the sudden intuition that the man’s language skills were not nearly as rudimentary as he claimed. “I confess, I can’t speak a word of Italian.” Not the local variant, at any rate, which was heavily flavored with Maltese.

Clementine loosed a pointed huff. Impatient creature. Perhaps she was displeased by the interruption of their previous activity. Spence had rather enjoyed it, himself. Who would have guessed that she would kiss like that? He’d dallied with any number of practiced seductresses, but he could not recall a single one who had caused him to lose his head in an alley . . .

The thought lingered, suddenly darkening his mood.

Perhaps she
was
a practiced seductress.

Perhaps he was following in the very same footsteps as his cousin.

“But what brought you to that place?” asked Mizzi.

The idle question snapped Spence’s mind back to the present. “Thirst,” he said.

Mizzi snapped toward the doorway. An underling’s head popped around the doorframe. “Tea for you,” he said, and then rattled off a string of Maltese. When he turned back, his smile was benign. “But come,” he said. “You Englishmen—very nice tastes. Our native wine, not good for you. What brought you to the, eh, the
caffe
?”

Spence, pausing, considered Mizzi with new respect. This was a very cordial interrogation, but an interrogation all the same.

Accordingly, he changed his answer. “Curiosity,” he said. “Curiosity and thirst.”

“Oh!” Mizzi nodded. “I will recommend a very fine
ristorante
by the quay. Top-notch wine, what ho!”

Spence carefully maintained his smile. These toplofty Anglicisms took on a new attitude when rendered in such a heavy accent.

“But how did you find
that
place?” Mizzi pressed. “No one at the hotel would have . . . what is the word?
Recommended
it, I think?”

“Yes, well, we were looking for refreshment—”

“And a man.” Clementine popped to her feet, hands on hips. “We were looking for a blond gentleman, very tall,
very
English.”

Mizzi beamed at her. Spence cursed inwardly. “No need to trouble the inspector with that business,” he said sharply. Had he not explained to her the importance of discretion? The last thing he needed was for some Maltese policeman to be broadcasting Charles’s description—

“Ah! But I know this man!” cried the inspector, his manner warmly delighted. “Very,
very
tall?”

Tensing, Spence said, “No taller than I.”

Clementine was squinting at him. “Taller,” she said.

He shot her a look. “He is
not
taller.”

“Yes, taller!” agreed the inspector cheerfully. “He was—how do you say?—in a pinch. No, ah . . . money? He say, he was robbed in Syra.” The inspector tsked. “Syrosians. Do not trust them. Why, the taverna you visited, it is very popular with Syrosians—”

Spence’s thoughts began to spin. “
Robbed,
you say?” Was Charles wandering, destitute, a thousand miles from home?

“Robbed,” agreed the inspector. “Rule Britannia, what?”

“So what happened to him?” asked Miss Thomas. “Where did he stay?”

How eager she seemed to know the details.

And no bloody wonder.
She had Charles’s ring, didn’t she? After Charles
had been robbed
. Had Charles been robbed by
her
?

In the moment of shock that followed that thought, Spence realized how fully he’d come to believe in her innocence.

But
why
? What evidence had inspired him? The soft pink curve of her mouth? His
weakness
for her crocodile tears? Her easy sympathies for an impertinent cabin boy—a boy, now he thought on it, who had been caught thieving
for her
!