It was as Brennan had suspected, Fleur thought miserably as Josiah Clegg elbowed his way past the two angry women with an admirable combination of deference and swagger. And where was Robert Brennan when she most needed him?
“Now, now, Mrs. Blaine,” he said blandly. “You can’t blame the little miss for her sister’s transgression. Not that I blame you for being upset. Why, it’s an outrage, pure and simple. And being an officer of the court and sworn to uphold decency and protect the citizenry, I’ll see to it that Miss Maitland is returned back to London all safe and sound.” He followed this magnanimous offer with a bland smile, and his gold front tooth flashed brightly.
Fleur’s temporary calm vanished as she leapt from the chair, knocking it over in the process. “No!” she cried, but Clegg had already clamped one slightly grimy hand on her forearm.
“You don’t have any say in the matter, miss!” Ermintrude said sharply. “You’ve trespassed on our hospitality and you’re not welcome here. You either leave with the Bow Street runners or you leave by foot. Either way, I have every intention of having your bags searched to make certain you haven’t stolen anything from us.”
“Miss Winters.” It was Brennan’s voice, broad, calm, authoritative, that broke through the tension. “I’m sure you weren’t really suggesting any such thing. Not of an old family friend whom you were instrumental in inviting into your sister’s home.”
Ermintrude looked faintly flustered by Brennan’s commanding presence. “Er... I suppose not. But her sister...”
“Miss Maitland’s mother is ill. She was called away unexpectedly and she left her younger sister in my care. I promised I’d see her safely home, being as how I was the one who brought her here in the first place.” He cast a slow, meaningful glance at Clegg.
Clegg made no effort to release her. “I can take care of her, Robbie,” he said. “And maybe you’ll be explaining what happened to the Earl of Glenshiel?”
“He went back to London to consult his physician, and he was kind enough to give Miss Maitland a ride in his coach. Why don’t you release Miss Fleur, Josiah? I’m sure you didn’t realize you were still holding on to her.”
Clegg glared at him, but after a moment relaxed his crushing grip. Fleur stumbled away from him, toward Brennan, then halted. For a moment it seemed there was no ally, no help anywhere. The other guests were staring at her with every expression imaginable, from lecherous smirks to disapproving frowns. Only Brennan seemed calm and unmoved.
“And how did you know all this, Mr. Brennan?” Mrs. Blaine demanded.
“Aye, you’ve been a busy lad this morning,” Clegg added. “What made it your business to find all this out? Seems to me you spent last night otherwise occupied. You had a woman in your room, don’t deny it, and I’m wondering whether it was this little girl right here. Was it?”
The other guests were enjoying the melodrama immensely. Clegg’s accusation drew shocked gasps from the hordes of people crowding in her door, and Fleur could feel the color rise to her face like a damning flag of slutdom.
“Look at her!” Mrs. Blaine trumpeted. “She doesn’t even try to deny it! I have been grievously misled and betrayed in my efforts to help those less fortunate. Mr. Clegg, I want you to remove this creature from my house immediately.”
“No, Mrs. Blaine.” Brennan’s voice was quiet, commanding, halting Clegg in his tracks as he lurched toward Fleur.
“I beg your pardon?” Sally Blaine seemed astounded that a lesser mortal like Brennan would dare disagree with her.
“Come now, Robbie,” Clegg murmured. “You’re not thinking clearly. I’ll take over the care of Miss Fleur.”
“You’ll keep your hands off her, Josiah,” Brennan said pleasantly, “or I’ll cut out your heart.”
There was no missing the look that darkened Clegg’s affable eyes. It was a brief shiver of pure, mad rage, and for the first time Fleur began to understand Brennan’s worries.
“What did you say, Robbie?” His voice was deceptively mild.
Fleur finally moved. “He told you to keep your hands off me,” she said firmly. “Yes, I spent the night in his room last night, yes, I’m a slut and a whore. But I’m Brennan’s whore.”
The look on Robert Brennan’s face would have been comical if it weren’t so aghast. He opened his mouth to deny it, then shut it again, defeated. There was nothing he could say to rescue the situation, or her reputation, and he knew it.
“Well,” Mrs. Blaine said. “Well.”
“Not well at all,” Brennan muttered.
“You will take your... your strumpet and depart,” their hostess declaimed with impressive majesty. “And don’t expect any remuneration from my husband for your work these past few days. It seems as if you’ve been too preoccupied to keep my guests safe. It’s no wonder things have been pilfered right and left.”
Fleur met Brennan’s gaze. He was solemn, angry, and slightly dangerous, and for the first time Fleur began to question her unusual bravado. Perhaps this hadn’t been the best time to develop her self-assurance and her tongue.
He took her arm, putting his big body between her and Clegg, shielding her from the curious onlookers, and for a moment there was a look of great sadness in his blue eyes. “Lass,” he whispered so softly no one else could hear, “you’ve done for it now.”
“I know,” she said, smiling up at him quite brightly. “I know.”
The house was miserably cold. Jessamine rubbed her arms briskly, but it did little good. The Earl of Glenshiel’s residence was charmingly compact, but compared to the tiny house in Spitalfields, it was a rambling mansion. There was no way Jessamine could keep enough fires going to warm the place. The kitchen was cavernous and dank, and no sooner had the fire begun to penetrate the icy recesses of the house then she had to race upstairs to replenish the bedroom fire and check on her sleeping patient. By the time all that was settled and she trudged the three flights back downstairs, the fire in the stove would be out.
At least Nicodemus had proved to be a fairy godmother before he disappeared. On one of her many treks to the kitchen she’d found a box of food—half a smoked ham, five eggs, fresh milk and butter, and even a loaf of thick brown bread.
He also brought her discarded clothing. She’d looked at the garments with a mixture of relief and dislike. There was something beguiling about breeches, about going without a corset, about running wild and free with her hair hanging long and tangled down her back.
But those times were over. Disaster pure and simple had befallen the Maitland family for sure. The final coup de grace had fallen, and Jessamine could see no way out of it. She put on her corset, her petticoats, her thick wool dress with the huge rip under the arm. She draped herself in an old shawl she found hanging in the kitchen, a discard from one of the servants no doubt. And she bound her hair back as tightly as she could, welcoming the pain as a form of punishment for her many sins.
Pride, for one. Thinking only she could save her family, when it was she who had brought the final disaster upon them all. Self-indulgence. The wildness in her nature had been hidden for so long, and had broken free last night, so that when she followed Alistair across the rooftops of London she’d reveled in it, glorying in the very danger and excitement of it all.
Sloth and greed were minor flaws, but envy almost ate her alive. And worst of all, the greatest, most troubling sin had overtaken her. Lust.
She looked at Alistair MacAlpin with fascination and fear, but beneath it all was a sheer physical need that should have horrified her. But it was too powerful even for that. She could remember every touch of his hand, his mouth, and her body shook. She sat in the chair by the fire in his second floor bedroom as the winter darkness fell all around the city, and she longed for him. He slept on and on, and she wondered if his injuries were far worse than she imagined. She wondered if he’d never wake up, if he’d die. And she thought she would want to die as well.
“Damn you, Alistair,” she whispered to the crackling f
ire. “What have you done to me?”
And still he slept, and she wondered if he was slipping toward death.
She awoke with a start. The room was cold, and almost pitch black. The fire had burned out—only a bank of glowing coals remained, sending out a feeble heat into the shadowy room. Jessamine had no idea what time it was, and she was past caring. “Hell and damnation,” she muttered, getting down on her knees to work on the dying fire.
It took far too long. By the time it was crackling, she rose, aching and weary, and turned to look at her patient—only to realize that the bed was empty.
“Oh, no!” she moaned, panic slicing through her. She was halfway to the door when it opened, and she screamed.
Alistair’s reaction was immediate. His hand clamped across her mouth, her body was pressed against his, and she could feel the racing of his heart against hers. He was cold, wet, and angry, and he glared down at her with a rage that should have been awe-inspiring. Except that Jessamine was way past feeling awe.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
Unfortunately he kept his hand over her mouth, so there was nothing she could do but stand there, more and more aware of a number of disconcerting physical facts. Alistair was shirtless. He smelled of soap and brandy, and he’d obviously regained consciousness and taken care of the necessities of life, never realizing Jessamine lay sleeping in the chair by the fire.
“Mmmph,” she replied, glaring at him.
He dropped his hand, releasing her with unflattering haste. “I’m going to kill Nicodemus,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I told him to get you back safely. I won’t be having you on my conscience. Not that I have one, mind you, but introducing you to a life of crime was quite enough debauchery for one night. You were supposed to be safe with your sister.”
“You told me you weren’t going to let me go until you seduced me,” she replied, the words coming out of nowhere. “You might as well—I’m ruined already.”
“I changed my mind,” he said, moving past her toward the rumpled bed.
“Why?” It sounded damnably plaintive, and Jessamine brought herself up short. For all her romantic madness, this was the enemy. The creature who could steal everything from her—her heart, her happiness, her hope, and her one real talent. And he’d made it more than clear he’d leave her with nothing. Nothing at all.
He looked down at her. His dark hair was loose around his face. He’d washed, but he hadn’t bothered to shave, and the dark stubble on his chin made him look particularly piratical. But he was no dream pirate of a romantic girl’s fantasy.
“Not worth the trouble,” he said after a moment in a lazy voice. “Virgins are unimaginative and far too weepy. And you, my dear, have been a thorn in my side since I first saw you.”
“Then why haven’t you simply left me alone?” she demanded, telling herself that it was relief crushing her heart, and nothing more.
“Damned if I know,” he said, reaching for a discarded shirt and pulling it carefully over his wounded arm. “Maybe I’m entranced by pain.”
“If you like, I’d be more than happy to smack you on the arm,” she said sweetly.
“That won’t be necessary. Much as I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice your fair body, I believe I’ll decline the offer. We need to get you back home safely to your family and concoct a believable excuse for your absence. The alternative is unthinkable.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“The world, dear heart, would expect me to marry you to salvage your reputation. And that’s something I’m not prepared to do.”
“Neither am I,” she snapped. “In the first place, I have no intention of getting married to anyone. I dislike most men, and I loathe you.”
“Do you now?” She could see the faint smile play about his mouth, and her temper rose higher.
“And if I were fool enough to care about you, or to think my situation would be remedied by something as conventional as marriage, it would hardly be salvaged by marriage to a man who’s doing his absolute best to get himself hanged.”
“True enough,” he murmured. “But you’re not foolish enough to care about me?”
“No.”
“And you have no desire to marry anyone?”
“No.”
He was coming closer. He’d forgotten that he was buttoning his shirt, forgotten that he was about to drive her away. “And you loathe me completely?” he said softly.
“Yes.” She was backing away from him. The floor was still cold beneath her stocking feet, but the fire was beginning to warm the room once more. And Alistair didn’t look like a man who’d just returned from death’s door. He looked far too healthy. Far too dangerous. Far too determined.
“Despise me, in fact?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“Don’t want me to even touch you?” He caught a loose strand of hair between his long fingers and rubbed it slowly as his eyes met hers.
“Yes,” she said. “Er... no. I mean...”
“What do you mean, Jess? My Jess. You want to go to your grave untouched? Unsullied by brutish hands?”
“Yes,” she said, quivering, waiting for his hands to touch her, waiting for his hands to take her.
“And you think I’ll let that happen, Jess?”
“You just said you would.”
He leaned forward, his mouth so close she could almost taste the tang of brandy. “Oh, Jess,” he whispered, brushing his hard lips against her soft, trembling ones. “I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind.”
Twenty
She was looking up at him, Alistair thought, with a combination of despair and resignation. As if she knew all her running was at an end, the time had come, and he would have her. She knew it, and oddly enough she accepted it. But he couldn’t be sure if it was because she wanted it too, or she was simply worn out.
“I hate that dress,” he said in a conversational tone, reaching toward the modest neckline. He had strong hands, and it was easy enough to rip it open, the tearing sound oddly provocative in the shadowy room. He pushed the torn clothes off her shoulders and they fell to the floor, leaving her standing in front of him, dressed only in her underclothing.
“It’s the only one I have,” she said in a calm voice. Like a virgin martyr, he thought, going to her hideous fate.
“I’ll buy you another one.”
It was almost enough to stir some emotion in her. For a moment her blue-green eyes flashed, and then went dull again. “No.”
“We’re back to that game, are we? Yes.” He’d already dealt with her corset once, in the carriage that brought them to London, and the chemise beneath it was plain cotton, unadorned with even a stitch of lace. “And I’ll replace your underclothing as well. These look like they came from a convent.” He kept his tone easygoing as he deftly reached behind her and unfastened the corset strings.
“I don’t believe nuns wear corsets.” Her voice squeaked slightly when his fingers brushed against her breasts as he pulled the corset off her. He loved her breasts. He’d always been fond of well-endowed women, yet Jessamine’s small, warm handful seemed absolutely perfect to him. He wanted to taste her again.
But not yet. He had no intention of moving too fast, hurrying things. He’d thought about this moment for a long time, and it needed to be savored. And she needed to stop looking like a damned tortured saint and show a little more enthusiasm.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said, untying the tapes that held her moderate hoops in place. “I’ve never undressed a nun. Until now,” he added.
It didn’t work. She refused to look at him, refused to respond. The hoops and petticoats fell in a pool at her feet, leaving her standing only in her shift. The room was cold, and he could see her nipples through the plain linen material. He wanted to warm her up.
“I like your hair when it’s loose,” he said, reaching his arms around her to unfasten it. It brought her face deliciously close to his chest, and he could
feel the warmth of her breath even though she tried to hold it as he made short work of the hairpins. The fact that he was aroused seemed barely worth noticing. He’d been in almost a constant state of arousal since he’d first seen her, and he’d grown used to the situation. And to the sad fact that no one else appealed to him as a means to relieve that condition.
Her hair tumbled freely down her back, a shimmering tawny curtain, and he wanted to bury his face in it. He didn’t.
“You look like Joan of Arc, condemned to the flames,” he said softly.
It accomplished what nothing else had so far. She looked up at him, her eyes huge and luminous. “Am I?”
“Condemned? Yes. There’s no escape. Tell me, Jess. Do you really want to?” He bent down low, his voice soft and beguiling. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her breathing, but he couldn’t quite read her reactions. Was it fear and dislike, or was she feeling the same all-consuming need that he was?
“I wish I’d never met you,” she said in a low voice.
“That’s not an option. Do you want to escape, Jess? Say the word, and I’ll send you back home, unsullied.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again they were bright with anger and frustration. “Would you make up your mind, Alistair?” she said in a furious voice. “First you tell me you’re going to have your wicked way with me, then you say you don’t want me. Then you insist you’ll take me, then you offer me a way out. I don’t believe you have any idea of what you want, but whatever it is, it’s probably not me, thank God.”
She was delightfully furious. He took her hand in his, pulled it toward him, and placed it over his erection, holding her there as she tried to pull away. “That means, dear Jess, that I want you. Very badly.” She was still squirming, trying to free herself, but he wouldn’t release her. “It means I can take you whether you fight me, whether you’re as passive as a holy saint enduring the torments of the damned, or whether you want it, too. It means I’m a man, Jess. And right now I don’t care about honor and decency and a virgin’s reputation. All I want is your body beneath mine, your legs wrapped around me, your heart beating with mine. I want to be inside you. I need you.”