A shot sounded, crashingly loud in the night air. Melisande flinched. Suchlike woke with a little scream, and Mouse jumped to his feet and barked.
A loud, hoarse voice came from without. “Stand and deliver!”
The carriage shuddered to a halt.
“Shit,” Vale said.
JASPER HAD BEEN worried about this very thing since night had begun to fall. They were in prime territory for a highway robbery. He didn’t much mind the loss of his purse, but he was damned if he’d let anyone touch Melisande.
“What—?” she began, but he reached across and laid his hand gently over her mouth. She was a smart woman. She immediately held still. She drew Mouse into her lap and wrapped her hand around his muzzle.
The little lady’s maid had her fist stuffed into her mouth, her eyes wide and round. She didn’t make a sound, but Jasper pressed a finger across his own lips. Although he had no idea if the women could see him adequately in the dark carriage.
Why hadn’t the coachman tried to make a run for it? The answer came to Jasper even as he ran through his options. The coachman had already admitted he didn’t know the terrain well. He’d probably been afraid of overturning the carriage in the dark and killing them all.
“Come out o’ there,” a second man called.
So there were at least two, probably more. He had two footmen and two coachmen, along with two men on horses, one of them Pynch. Six men in all. But how many robbers?
“D’you hear me? Get out o’ there!” the second voice shouted. One would be holding a gun on the coachman to keep him from moving the carriage. Another would be covering the outriders. A third would be in charge of relieving them of any valuables—that is, if there were only three. If there were more—
“Dammit! Come out or I’m coming in, and I’ll be shooting when I do!”
Melisande’s maid moaned, low and fearful, Mouse struggled, but his dear wife held him firmly and was silent. A smart robber would start killing the servants outside one by one to force them to emerge. But this highwayman might just be stupid enough to—
The carriage door was flung open, and a man holding a pistol leaned into the carriage. Jasper grabbed his gun arm and pulled hard. The gun went off, shattering the opposite carriage window. The maid screamed. The robber half fell into the carriage. Jasper twisted the pistol away from him.
“Don’t look,” he said to Melisande, and slammed the pistol grip down on the man’s temple, shattering the bone. He did it quickly again, three more times, vicious and hard, just to make sure the man was dead, then dropped the pistol. He hated handling guns.
From outside came a shout and then a gunshot.
“Damn. Get down,” he ordered Melisande and the girl. A bullet could blow right through the wood of the carriage. She didn’t protest and lay across her seat with the maid and the dog.
Running footsteps came nearer, and Jasper moved in front of the women, bracing himself.
“My lord!” Pynch’s broad face peered into the carriage door. “Are you safe, my lord? Are the women—?”
“Yes, I think so.” Jasper turned to Melisande, running his hands over her face and hair in the dark. “Are you all right, my dearest love?”
“Y-yes.” She straightened immediately, her back as straight as ever, and a pang tore at his heart. If ever she were hurt, if ever he could not protect her . . .
The maid was trembling violently. Melisande let go of the dog and pulled the girl into her arms, patting her back comfortingly. “It’s all right. Lord Vale and Mr. Pynch have kept us safe.”
Mouse jumped to the floor of the carriage and growled at the dead robber.
Pynch cleared his throat. “We’ve captured one of the highwaymen, my lord. The other galloped away.”
Jasper looked at him. Gunpowder blackened half of Pynch’s face. Jasper grinned. His valet had always been an excellent shot.
“Help me get this one out of the carriage,” he told Pynch. “Melisande, please stay here until we are sure it’s safe.”
She nodded bravely, her chin up. “Of course.”
And even though Pynch and the maid were watching, Jasper couldn’t help leaning over to kiss her hard. It had all happened so fast. If things had turned out a little differently, he might’ve lost her.
Jasper scrambled from the carriage, eager to meet the man who’d put his sweet wife in danger. First, though, he helped Pynch pull the dead robber out of the carriage. He hoped Melisande hadn’t looked too closely. He’d crushed the robber’s cheekbone and temple.
Mouse jumped down from the carriage.
Jasper straightened. “Where is he?”
“Over here, my lord.” Pynch gestured to a tree by the side of the road where several footmen stood over a recumbent figure. Mouse trailed behind them, sniffing the ground.
Jasper nodded and asked as they walked to the group, “Anyone shot?”
“Bob the footman has a graze on his arm,” Pynch reported. “No one else was hit.”
“You’ve checked?” In the dark, with all the excitement, sometimes a man could be shot and not even know it.
But Pynch had been in the army as well. “Yes, my lord.”
Jasper nodded. “Good man. Have a footman light some more lanterns. Light drives away all manner of vermin.”
“Yes, my lord.” Pynch headed back to the carriage.
“And what have we here?” Jasper asked as he came on the group of footmen.
“One of the robbers, my lord,” Bob said.
He held a cloth against his upper right arm, but the pistol in his hand was steady and pointed at their prisoner. Pynch arrived with a lantern, and they all looked down at the robber. He wasn’t much more than a child, a boy not yet twenty, his chest bleeding profusely. Mouse sniffed the boy, then lost interest and urinated on the tree.
“He’s still alive?” Jasper asked.
“Just barely,” Pynch said impassively. It must’ve been his shot that had brought the boy off his horse, but Pynch didn’t show any pity.
Then again, this boy had held a gun on them. He could’ve shot Melisande. A horrible image of Melisande lying where the boy was rose up in Jasper’s mind. Melisande with her chest blown open. Melisande struggling to draw air into shattered lungs.
Jasper turned away. “Leave him.”
“No.”
He looked up and saw Melisande, standing outside the carriage despite his explicit orders to stay inside.
“Madam?”
She didn’t back down, though his tone was chilly. “Have him brought with us, Jasper.”
He stared at her, illuminated by lantern light, looking ethereal and fragile. Too fragile. He said gently, “He could’ve killed you, my heart.”
“But he didn’t.”
She might look fragile, but her core was made of iron.
He nodded, his gaze still fixed on her. “Wrap him in a blanket, Pynch, and take him up on your horse with you.”
Melisande frowned. “The carriage—”
“I won’t have him near you.”
She looked at him and must’ve seen she wasn’t getting her way in this. She nodded.
Jasper glanced at Pynch. “You can bandage his wound when we get to the inn. I don’t like lingering in this spot any longer than we have to.”
“Yes, my lord,” Pynch said.
Then Jasper walked to his lady wife and took her arm, warm and alive beneath his fingers. He bent his head and murmured in her ear, “I do this for you, my heart. Only for you.”
She looked up at him, her face a pale moon in the darkness. “You do it for yourself as well. It’s not right to let him die alone, no matter what he did.”
He didn’t bother arguing. Let her think he worried about such matters if she wished. He led her to their carriage and bundled her inside, closing the door. Even if the highwayman lived a few hours more, he could no longer hurt Melisande, and that was all that mattered in the end.
MELISANDE SIGHED WHEN the door closed to her inn room la
ter that evening. Vale always acquired two rooms at the inns they stayed in, and tonight was no different. Despite the excitement of the near robbery, despite the dying robber—who’d been carried into a back room—despite the fact that the little inn was nearly full, Melisande still found herself in a solitary room.
She wandered to the little fireplace, piled high with coal, thanks to a generous tip to the innkeeper’s wife. The flames danced, but her fingers remained cold. Did the servants talk about their mistress and master taking separate rooms so soon after their marriage? Melisande felt vaguely ashamed, as if she’d failed in some way as a wife. Mouse leapt onto the foot of the bed and turned about three times before lying down. He sighed.
At least Suchlike never mentioned the sleeping arrangements. The little maid dressed and undressed her with unfailing cheerfulness. Although she’d been hard-pressed to smile this evening after their near robbery. She’d still been shaking from the shock, and she’d lost all her merry chatter. Melisande had taken pity on the girl and sent her down early to eat her supper.
Which left Melisande all alone. She hadn’t much appetite for the dinner the round innkeeper’s wife had served. The boiled chicken had looked delicious enough, but it was hard to eat knowing a young boy was dying in the back of the inn. She’d excused herself early and come upstairs instead. Now she wished she’d stayed in the dining room Vale had reserved for them. She shook her head. No use remaining awake. She couldn’t go back down now that she’d undressed, and that was that. Melisande pulled back the bedclothes from the sturdy inn bed, relieved to see they looked clean, and climbed in. She pulled the sheets to her nose and snuffed out the light. Then she watched the firelight flicker on the ceiling until her eyelids grew heavy.
Her thoughts floated and drifted. Vale’s bright eyes and the look in them when he’d savagely pulled the first highwayman into the carriage. Boiled chicken and the dumplings Cook had made when she was a child. How many more days they’d spend traveling rutted roads in the swaying carriage. When they might cross into Scotland. Her thoughts scattered, and she began to sink into sleep.
Then she was conscious of a warmth against her back. Of strong arms and the brush of lips that tasted of whiskey.
“Jasper?” she mumbled, still half dreaming.
“Hush,” he whispered.
His mouth opened over hers, and he kissed her deeply, his tongue penetrating her mouth. She thought she tasted salt. She moaned, caught between waking and sleeping, all her defenses down and in shambles. She felt him lift her chemise and pull it from her body. His hands explored her breasts, stroking tenderly, then pinched her nipples almost to the point of pain.
“Jasper,” she moaned.
She ran her palms over his back. He was nude, his skin so hot it almost burned. His muscles shifted under her hands as he lay atop her, his weight settling between her spread thighs.
“Hush,” he whispered again.
She felt the nudge as he found her center and thrust inside.
Her body was soft, yielding from sleep and his hands, but she wasn’t quite ready. He shifted back and rocked slowly, gently, each small thrust stretching her and pushing him deeper inside. He hooked his hands under her knees and lifted them up so he was cradled between her thighs. And then he kissed her, brushing his palms lightly over her exposed nipples. Tantalizing her and tormenting her at the same time.
She tried to arch up, to make him touch her more firmly, but she hadn’t the leverage or the strength. He was in control, and he would make love to her in the manner that he desired. All she could do was submit.
So she tangled her hands in his hair and hung on, kissing him back, moving her mouth lushly, submissively under his.
He groaned. His hips worked a little faster now, his cock crammed all the way inside of her. She felt each thrust, each stretch of her feminine flesh as she received him again and again.
He broke the kiss and lifted his head away from her, his breath coming in loud, harsh pants. She didn’t open her eyes; she didn’t want to disrupt her dreamy state. Then she felt his fingers sliding down her side, twisting between their bodies. He searched and found her, his fingers strong and knowing. He pressed his thumb down on her clitoris.
“Come with me,” he whispered, his voice a rasp of desire. “Come with me.”
She opened her eyes at last. He must’ve brought a candle into the room, for muted light played along his side. His shoulders were wide and bunched with muscle, strands of hair clinging damply to his face, and his wild turquoise eyes stared into hers, compelling her.
“Come with me,” he whispered again.
His thumb circled her, pressing with exquisite accuracy as his cock filled her. She was splayed before him, a prize all his own, and he kept whispering, “Come with me.”
How could she deny him? The pleasure was building inside, and she wanted to hide her face. He was in control in ways she hadn’t let him be before. He would watch. He would know the secrets she kept hidden from him.
“Come with me.” He bent his head to lick her nipple.
She arched her head and wailed. He caught the sound in his mouth. Licked it up and swallowed it, a prize of this battle. He pressed down on her and held her as she came, jolting with each bolt of pleasure. He held her down with mouth and hips and that thumb, brushing lightly, sweetly, madly now. She’d never experienced an orgasm like this one, nearly painful in its intensity. She opened her eyes, gasping, and saw he wasn’t done. She’d been reduced to shivering pleasure, and he’d only started. He propped himself up on straight arms and watched her as he surged into her, hot and heavy and without mercy. His mouth was twisted, his eyes mad with lust and something else.
“God,” he ground out. “God. God. God!”
He threw back his head, arching convulsively, and she saw him bare his teeth as his body jerked into hers. His seed flooded her, warm and alive. She felt a joy such as she’d never felt before. She’d given and she’d received from him.
It was nearly holy.
His head was tilted back above her, his arms still straight. She couldn’t see his face because of his hair. A single drop of liquid fell to her left breast.
“Jasper,” she whispered, and cradled his wet face. “Jasper.”
He pulled out of her, the loss of his flesh almost a painful wrench, and climbed from the bed. He bent and scooped up his banyan and flung it on. “The robber boy died.”
He left the room.
Chapter Thirteen
That night, the royal court was abuzz with rumor. The serpent was dead and the bronze ring gone, but no one had come forward with the ring. Who was the brave man who had captured the ring?
Jack, as usual, stood beside the princess’s chair at supper, and she gave him a very strange look when she sat down.
“Why, Jack,” she cried, “where have you been? Your hair is quite wet.”
“I have been to visit a wee silver fishy,” Jack said, and turned a silly somersault.
The princess smiled and ate her soup, but what a surprise awaited her at the bottom of the bowl! There lay the bronze ring.
Well! That caused quite a stir, and the head cook was summoned at once. But although the poor man was questioned before the entire court, he had no knowledge of how the ring had got in Princess Surcease’s soup. At last the king was forced to dismiss the cook, no wiser than before. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
She must think him a ravening beast after the night before. It was not a happy thought to have over breakfast, and Jasper scowled at the eggs and bread the innkeeper’s wife had provided. They were rather tasty, but the tea was weak and not of the best quality; besides, he would take the smallest reason to feel out of sorts this morning.
He peered over his teacup at his lady wife. She didn’t look like a woman who had been ravished in the night. On the contrary, she appeared fresh and rested and with every hair in place, which for some reason irked him even more.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked,
possibly the most mundane of conversational openings.
“Yes, thank you.” She fed a bit of bun to Mouse, who sat beneath the table. He knew this, although she neither moved nor changed expression. Indeed she continued to gaze steadily at him. It was something in the very steadiness of her gaze that let him know what she did.
“We shall enter Scotland today,” he said. “We should be in Edinburgh by tomorrow.”
“Oh?”
He nodded and buttered a bun, his third. “I have an aunt in Edinburgh.”
“You do? You never said.” She took a sip of tea.
“Yes, well, I do.”
“Is she a Scot?”
“No. Her first husband was a Scot. I believe she is on husband number three at the moment.” He laid his butter knife down on the plate. “Her name is Mrs. Esther Whippering, and we will spend a night with her.”
“Very well.”
“She’s getting on in years but sharp as a tack. Used to twist my ear rather painfully as a boy.”
She paused over her teacup. “Why? What had you done?”
“Nothing at all. She said it was good for me.”
“No doubt it was.”
He opened his mouth, about to defend his youthful honor, when he felt something cold and wet on the hand in his lap.
He’d been reaching for the butter knife with his other hand, and he nearly dropped it again. “My God, what is that?”
“I expect it’s only Mouse,” Melisande said serenely.
He peered under the table and saw two eyes gleaming back. They looked a little devilish in the dark. “What does he want?”
“Your bun.”
Jasper looked at his wife, outraged. “He shan’t have it.”
She shrugged. “He’ll only bother you until you give him some.”
“That’s no reason to reward bad behavior.”
“Mmm. Shall we have the innkeeper’s wife pack a luncheon for us? She seems to be a good cook.”
He felt another nudge against his leg. A warm weight settled on his foot. “An excellent idea. We may not be near an inn at luncheon time.”
She nodded and went to the door of the little private dining room to make arrangements.