She was beyond fear. She glanced up at him, in perfect control, surveying him icily. “What are you doing here?”
“Now, what do you think, missy? We have an arrangement, you and me, and that arrangement stands until I choose to end it. You’re all ready to help me, I can see that. Look at your cards and tell me where I’ll find the Cat.”
She swept the cards up into a pile. “I can’t.”
The look on Clegg’s face in the flickering candlelight was not reassuring. “You’ve spent too much time with the toffs,” he said. “You’ve forgotten that I don’t take no for an answer.”
“I told you I can’t. I’ve lost whatever talent I had.”
He came up to her, standing too close, and he smelled of beer and dirt and something evil. “I don’t give a bloody shit about your talent,” he said. “Tell me where I can find the Cat.”
“I don’t know....”
He slapped her backhanded across the face, so hard that her head whipped around. He was wearing a heavy jeweled ring and it cut her. She could feel the dampness of blood on her stinging face, and she had the strange, remote thought that she didn’t want to bleed on her beautiful new dress.
“Where is he?” Clegg shoved his face into hers, breathing rank fumes. “I’ll give you your share once he’s strung up and dancing the hangman’s jig, but I’m not about to wait any longer. Brennan knows what’s up as well, and he’ll try to cut me out. I won’t let that happen. Right now he’s lying between your sister’s legs, but sooner or later he’ll remember what’s important. And I mean to see that it’s too late for him. Where is the Cat?”
“I don’t—”
He slapped her again. Her eyes stung, and she found she’d bit her lip. She stared up at him mutely.
“I’ll ask you one more time. If you don’t answer me, I’ll have to hurt you. Where is the Cat?”
She thought of the handful of gold coins she’d thrown back at Nicodemus. She thought of the crumpled letter that lay hidden beneath her pillow, the cruel, dismissive words. Revenge would be gloriously simple. Defiance would mean pain.
“I... don’t... know...” She spat out each word at him.
He put his thick-fingered hands around her neck, pressing tightly. “You know you’re pretty in that dress,” he cooed. “I never fancied you much—you have too sharp a tongue on you. It’s your sister I wanted, and I’ll have her after I’ve finished with Brennan. But mebbe I’ll show you what a real man is like, first. Not one of your fancy lords, to diddle you in a great fancy bed.”
She didn’t move. She couldn’t, she could barely breathe. He was pressing just hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to restrict her breathing, not enough to cut it off entirely. She stared up at him in silent scorn, waiting, willing him to hurt her.
He pressed harder, and her breath constricted. The room was growing darker, colder, and she realized she would die. It was an unappealing thought, but she could see no way out of it. At least if he strangled her she’d be unable to tell him what he so wanted to know.
The sudden banging overhead startled him into releasing her. It was Mrs. Maitland, her plaintive voice echoing down the stairs, calling for a hot posset.
“Who’s that?” he demanded.
She was struggling to get her breath back. She couldn’t talk, she could only cough and choke, a fact that amused him. “I remember. It’s your mother. Mebbe she’d like to learn what her daughter’s doing on the side with the Earl of Glenshiel? Climbing over rooftops and robbing innocent people?”
Jessamine looked up at him with mute horror.
“Oh, yes,” Clegg said with a foul smirk. “I know who he is. I just want to know where. He hasn’t been back to his house all day. I means to capture him, and I don’t care how I have to go about doing it. Now, where is he?”
“I haven’t seen him.” She braced herself for another blow, but instead he caught her chin in his hand, holding it in a painful grip.
“He’ll die, missy. And I’ll be the one to see to it.” He put his wet mouth on hers, forcing a great, slobbering kiss against her unwilling mouth. “And then I’ll be back to deal with you.”
It took all her remaining strength to drag herself from the chair. He’d left the front door gaping into the winter night, and she closed it, locking it, though it would do little good. It had been locked and barred before.
She scrubbed her mouth, washing the foul taste of him away, and then she looked at herself in the mirror. She had never been a beauty, but at the moment she looked positively horrifying. Her eyes were huge in her pale face. The cut from his ring had congealed, and with luck could be covered by her hair. The darkening bruises would be more difficult to disguise, but it was night, and no one would look too closely, either at her face, or the marks of fingers around her pale throat.
Her mother pounded with her cane once more, her querulous voice drifting down. Jessamine didn’t hesitate. Her cloak was old, but still serviceable, thick, and concealing. She pulled it over her head, grabbed her reticule, and headed out into the dark London night.
It was past midnight when Brennan finally returned home. The tavern beneath his rooms was raucous, and he winced, wondering what his bride would think, lying alone upstairs, listening to the carousing below.
But perhaps she was no longer there. He might finally have succeeded in driving her away. She knew her way around the streets of London—for the past few weeks he’d done nothing but worry about her when he wasn’t able to keep an eye on her. And now that he’d deliberately left her, she’d probably taken off, and she’d be lying in some alleyway, her throat slashed, and...
She was lying in his bed, asleep. The candle beside the bed had burned low, casting strange shadows across the room, and he stood over her, caught in a spell. She looked like a princess, delicate and fragile, far too beautiful for a man like him. He could see shadows beneath her eyes, the faint trace of dried tears. He looked at her, and he gave in.
He hadn’t made a sound, but suddenly her eyes flew open, and she looked up at him with a wariness that cut him deeply. And was no more than he deserved.
“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” she said.
“This is my home.” It came out more gruffly than he wanted, but he didn’t know how to use the sweet words. How to be gentle, when he was nothing more than a rough farmer.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m glad you went out. It gave me time to think.”
He stripped off his heavy overcoat, hanging it on the hook. Beside her discarded wedding dress, he realized with a start. “And what did you think about?”
“That I have done you a grave disservice,” she said, her voice solemn. “I ignored your warnings, I was selfishly unmindful of what I was doing, and I have ruined your life. I have thought about it, Robert, and I have decided that the only fair thing would be to release you from your vows.”
He took off his jacket, sat in the chair, and began to pull off his boots. “Lass,” he said, “I made my vows to God, not to you. And unless you’ve suddenly turned into the Almighty, you’re not the one to release me from them.”
She looked stricken, and he cursed himself. “Then I will simply go away,” she said. “I will join a convent, and you can pretend I’m dead....”
“You aren’t a Catholic.”
“I can convert,” she said desperately.
“And I’m no bigamist. I’ll take no other woman to wife.”
“I’ll kill myself....”
“Stop it!” His voice rose to a shout, and she flinched beneath its power. “Stop it,” he repeated more quietly, standing up and sliding his braces off his shoulders. “I won’t deny that I did everything to keep you away from me. I wanted to save you. I wanted you to have everything you deserve, not a life of hard work and no elegance. I’m the one who’s ruined your life, lass. And the damnable thing about it is, I’m glad.”
For a moment his words didn’t seem to make sense. She stared at him in confusion. “You’re glad? You mean
you want me? Just a little?”
He sighed. She was beautiful and shy and delicate. Clever and gifted and thick as a brick on occasion. He came to the bed and knelt on it, sliding his hands behind her head, lifting her face toward his. “Fleur,” he said, for the first time using her given name, “I love you with all my heart and soul. I love you so much, I was willing to give you up rather than cause you pain. But you stopped me at every turn, and it’s too late now. Today I promised God that I would love you until death. I promise you now that I’ll love you even beyond that. I’ll love you forever.”
“Robert,” she said with a tremulous smile, “I think I knew that.”
He was afraid he’d crush her with his huge, strong body. She was so fragile, he was so big. But she was stronger than he gave her credit for, and her slenderness had nothing to do with frailty. She took him and held him, as she would hold their babies, and he knew there was no going back. He would plant his seed in her this very night, another Yorkshire farmer who, God willing, wouldn’t be lured away to the city like his da.
She cried a bit when he hurt her, smiling at him through her tears as she took him into her body. She cried even more when he brought her pleasure, her entire body suffused with it.
And she cried in his arms afterward, wrapped tight against him, fitting perfectly beneath his heart. And he held her there, knowing he would never let her go.
The house on Clarges Street was dark and deserted. It came as no surprise to Jessamine—Clegg had already told her that Alistair had disappeared. If he had any sense at all, any notion of self-preservation, he would guess that they might suspect him and he would make himself suitably scarce.
But then, wisdom and self-preservation seemed to be in short order in Alistair’s makeup. He was entirely capable of swaggering back home in the small hours of the morning, oblivious of the fact that he was in danger.
All she could do was wait. The other alternative, to go in search of him, was unacceptable. She wouldn’t be welcome in polite society, not after her disappearance from Sally Blaine’s miserable house party. And there was no way she could find Nicodemus, her most likely ally.
Her only hope was to wait for him. To warn him to run as far and as fast as he could.
He would doubtless laugh in her face.
The kitchen was just as she had left it that morning, cold and dark and unwelcoming. She stood just inside the door, listening carefully for any sign of life. Not a sound.
She didn’t dare light a taper. It hadn’t appeared as if anyone was watching the house, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to do anything to alert the runners.
The scrubbed wood floor was icy cold to her feet, even through her thin slippers, and she tiptoed toward the pantry, suddenly famished. If she had to settle down for a long wait, she’d try not to do so with an empty stomach. There was no way in heaven that she would venture upstairs. Alistair wouldn’t come home to find her asleep in his bed, waiting for him. He’d find her awake in his kitchen, with a carving knife in her hand in case she needed to make her point.
The pantry was pitch black. No light penetrated its inky recesses, and she put her hands out in front of her to guide her way. Only to have them touch something warm. Something solid. Something breathing.
It happened very quickly. He caught her arms, spinning her around and pushing her up against the wall, hard. A strong body covered hers, but she knew that this time it wasn’t Clegg. It was someone far more dangerous to her very soul.
It was Alistair.
“It’s you,” he said after a moment, sounding surprised.
“Who did you think it was?” she responded with commendable asperity. She was getting mortally tired of being pushed around by men. Alistair hadn’t hurt her physically, but neither had he released her.
“I thought you had more pride.” He was nuzzling her neck, his body pressed up close behind hers. Even through her layers of skirts she could feel him wanting her, and the knowledge made her furious.
She slammed her elbow back, aiming for his ribs, but he must have felt her muscles tense in anticipation, for he simply whirled her around before she could connect. Even in the darkness she could see his eyes glittering down into hers.
“I didn’t come back to bed you,” she said bitterly.
“Did you think twice about the money you threw in Nicodemus’s face?”
She tried to stomp on his instep, but he was too adept for her, pinning her against the wall again, with his hips pressing her, his arms imprisoning hers.
“I came to warn you.”
“Generous of you, given the circumstances.”
“Don’t play games with me, Alistair! I may despise you, but I don’t want to see you die. Clegg knows who you are. So does Brennan, and God knows how many other people. You need to leave London before they arrest you.”
“If they had any proof, I’d be in Newgate,” he said evenly. “Did you tell them who I was?”
“No.”
“Then how did your good friend Clegg find out? For that matter, why did he confide that knowledge in you? But then, you’re his confederate, are you not? You take a share of his prize money. Most likely it seems cleaner than the money I tried to give you.”
“I didn’t earn that money on my back.”
Curse his soul, he laughed at her. “Trust me, my pet, if that was remuneration for your services, you were vastly overpaid. And if I remember correctly, you weren’t always on your back. You were on top, once, and...”
He was too strong, and she couldn’t stop his hateful words. “Why are you doing this?” she said, torn between fury and helplessness. “What have I done that you should torment me?”
“Am I tormenting you? I promise you, I could do far worse. We didn’t really try everything last night. Come upstairs with me, and you can tell me what you told your good friend Clegg.”
“Go to hell.”
“You shock me, Jessamine. Such language from a gently bred girl,” he murmured lightly. “I could take you from the back. You’d like that, my pet. I could touch you when you found your release, make it last even longer.”
“Stop it!” The more she squirmed against him, the stronger and harder his body seemed to grow. The images his words were conjuring up were powerful and demoralizing. He knew she was growing heated despite her rage, and he leaned down and bit her lightly on the side of the neck. “I find I’m quite overcome with lust, my pet, which is not a usual case for me. But then, you tend to have that deleterious effect on my sangfroid. I should send you on your way, but self-control has never been my strong suit. I want to come in your body, love. And you want me to. I can feel it in the tiny quiver that dances down you.”
How could he guess? The unbearable knowledge shamed her. “Leave me alone,” she said furiously.
“Or you could take me in your mouth, sweet Jess,” he whispered. “And then you could go back to Clegg and tell him where to find me.”
It was more than she could take. This time when she shoved him he fell back, though she knew it had to be willingly on his part. She almost made it as far as the kitchen door when he caught her, and they went down on the wood floor together, his body covering hers.
For a moment she lay still beneath him. And then he shoved her skirts up with rough haste, and she let him, unwilling and unable to stop him. Needing him. Putting his arm under her waist, he pulled her to her knees, and she could hear him fumbling with his breeches. She didn’t care. She cared too much. He thrust inside her, and she immediately shattered, convulsing around him in hateful, mindless delight. He moved his hand down between her legs and stroked her hard, prolonging it, and she was sobbing, begging for heaven only knew what, and when he filled her with his seed she cried out, torn with love and anger.
He pulled away from her, leaving her, and she collapsed on the floor, her face buried in her arms, trying to still the sobs that shook her. She had never felt so lost, so abandoned, in her entire life, and the worst knowledge of all was that he
r despair wasn’t in his taking of her. It was in his leaving.
“Get up,” he said when she thought he’d left.
She didn’t move. She had little recourse against him but sheer stubbornness, and she held on to it fiercely.
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she tensed, expecting him to haul her to her feet.
Instead, he was oddly gentle. “Get up, Jessamine,” he said in a quiet voice. “The floor is cold.”
She didn’t want his gentleness. She managed to pull herself into a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her legs and burying her face against her knees. “Leave me alone, please,” she asked in her most polite voice.
“As you wish.” He opened the door, letting in a shaft of moonlight that surrounded her in a silvery pool. He paused, turning back to look at her, and she knew he could probably see the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. She didn’t care.
“I doubt it’s much consolation to you,” he said in a perfectly amiable voice, “but no matter how much you despise me right now, it’s nothing compared to how much I despise myself.”
She lifted her head to stare at him coldly. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s no consolation whatsoever.”
He was halfway through the door when he stopped again, and this time when he came back he closed it behind them, shutting them in the darkness once more.
Jessamine had reached the end of her tether. “Go away!” she said, her voice breaking into a sob.
But he was kneeling beside her on the cold floor, and his hands were unbearably tender. “What happened to your face, Jess?” he whispered.
“Nothing.”
“Someone hit you.”
“I ran into a door.”
The moonlight betrayed her, spreading across the kitchen with the brightness of candleglow. He touched her neck, and she knew there must be marks there as well. “Clegg,” he said simply. “Did he give you a reason for this?”
“He wanted to know where you were.”
Alistair shook his head. “He’s smarter than I realized. He could have found me if he really wanted to. Instead, he did this. You’re a pawn, Jess. Nothing more. He knew if he hurt you I’d become careless. And that’s what he wanted.”