He dragged her on with him, hauled her alongside, glanced back as a “Hoi!” rang out.
Two—no, three—burly men jumped out of the hackney and started pounding along the pavement after them.
Deliah had taken a quick glance, too. Catching up her skirts, she started to run in earnest. “Come on.”
The slick, wet pavements made running dangerous, but they had no choice. With her gown, two petticoats and the skirts of her heavy pelisse swinging about her legs, her reticule banging against one knee, she raced as best she could along the thankfully level flagstone pavement of the Strand.
Del’s hold on her hand helped steady her, yet even without looking she knew their pursuers were closing the distance.
“Now I remember why I always preferred breeches in situations such as this.”
“Sadly, there’s no time to change.”
“No breeches, either.”
“That, too.”
A silly exchange, but it confirmed how desperate their straits truly were. From the sublime to the horrendous had taken mere minutes; her mind had yet to catch up. But it was long after ten o’clock on a wet winter’s night. Although there was plenty of carriage traffic still about, there was almost no one on foot. No support, no succor, and nowhere to make a stand.
Del suddenly changed direction, urging her up a side street heading away from the river. She agreed with the sentiment—the river wasn’t a wise destination—but for a moment she worried the lane they’d taken would prove to be a dead end.
But no. The murk ahead was cut by a beam of light, then they heard the rattle as a carriage rumbled along the street at the upper end of the lane.
“Thank God.” Deliah looked down and put her mind to keeping up, and not slipping on the wet paving stones as Del raced them up the lane.
Neither she nor he could resist a glance back.
The three men were too close, and gaining rapidly. They were all hulking brutes. One was carrying a club.
They were more than two-thirds up the lane, but with the men closing ever more rapidly, ever more determinedly, they weren’t going to reach the street beyond.
A pace ahead of her, Del abruptly stopped, hauled her up to him, then pushed her on. “Go! As fast as you can, then to the left. I’ll catch up.”
Releasing Deliah, Del swung to face the men.
They grinned, and fanned out as they came on.
Behind him, he heard Deliah’s retreating footsteps. At least she was away; if either of them were going to fall into the clutches of the Black Cobra, he’d much rather it was he.
The bruiser in the middle was the one with the club. He slowed, smiled evilly, then stepped in and swung the club at Del’s head.
Wondering who had taught the man to fight, Del stepped inside the swing, grabbed the man’s arm with one hand, his throat with the other, and used the man’s own momentum to heave him into the man on his right.
They both went down heavily in a tangle of limbs, heads cracking against the stone gutter.
Del swiveled to face the third man—and found himself instinctively leaping back from a knife.
Cursing his own stupidity in coming out unarmed, he shifted, backing, assessing his opponent and the long-handled blade he held. A distraction was what he needed.
He’d reached that conclusion when he saw a shadow shift behind the man.
His blood turned to ice as he saw Deliah creeping up behind the man—he’d told the damn woman to run!
Quickly he looked back at the man—leapt back from another swipe.
Deliah rose behind the lout and clouted him over the head with her reticule.
Caught totally by surprise, the man yelped and instinctively ducked.
Del stepped in, seized the hand with the knife, then smashed his boot into the side of the man’s knee.
There was a vicious crack and the man went down, howling and clutching his leg.
Del glanced at the other two. They were groggily trying to get to their feet. They didn’t appear to be able to focus yet.
He didn’t dare take them on with Deliah there.
Turning, he grabbed her hand and tore up the lane. She struggled to keep up, but did, without complaint.
In the mood he was in, that was just as well.
They weren’t out of the woods yet.
They reached the end of the lane and stepped into a wider street. Looking left, he saw the spires of St. Martin-in-the-Fields rising through the low-hanging fog, and thanked heaven for a military man’s sense of direction.
He glanced back down the lane, then pulled Deliah on toward the church.
Assessing the possibilities.
The two bruisers he’d left mobile were up and heading their way, in a very much grimmer mood. And he and Deliah were still too far away from the church precincts to trust in reaching them safely.
They needed a place to hide, and they needed it now—before the two chasing them reached the street and saw them. The place didn’t need to be perfect, just somewhere the two brutes wouldn’t think to look….
Ahead, a row of hackney carriages materialized through the murk. If they took one…they risked their pursuers catching up with them in the traffic crawling around Trafalgar Square and all the way to Grillon’s.
With renewed urgency, he hurried Deliah along, scanning the buildings they raced past. Praying they would reach the carriages in time.
Reaching the nearest hackney, he halted, tossed the jarvey a sovereign. “Don’t ask why—just drive, as fast as you can, down Piccadilly. Go!”
The jarvey blinked, but was already lifting his reins to set his coach rolling.
At least the voice of command worked on some.
One glance back showed their pursuers had yet to reach the street. Tightening his grip on Deliah’s hand, he swung her toward the buildings, hurried and harried her into a small alcove before a locked door. He pushed her into the shadows, then crowded in, too, just as the two men came out of the lane.
He looked at Deliah—just as she opened her mouth.
Felt her breasts press against his chest with the breath she’d drawn in.
Seizing her other hand, too, he ducked his head and shut her up.
By kissing her.
Hard.
He shifted into her, trapping her against the brick wall of the alcove. His greatcoat was dark, his trousers were, too, and so was his hair, which currently reached his collar. With his head bent, with her trapped before him, completely shielded by his body, they should be all but invisible in the shadows. Not even her pale face could catch a stray gleam from the smoky street flares.
He hoped, he prayed….
He had to fight the distraction of her lips beneath his, ignore the temptation to taste her, try to blot out the sensation of her exceedingly feminine body pressed along the length of his, and concentrate, focus all his senses, on what was happening in the street behind his back.
Through the sensual storm hazing his brain, he heard the bruisers’ pounding footsteps near, heard them halt, swear at the retreating carriage, then he heard them—yes!—hail the next hackney in line and clamber up, calling orders to follow the other carriage.
He didn’t lift his head when the carriage door slammed, not even when the horses’ hooves rang in the street. He didn’t pull back from the kiss and risk a look until the retreating hoofbeats were fading.
The hackney with their pursuers was disappearing into the murk at the end of the street.
They were safe.
Registering Deliah’s silence, he looked back at her. Despite the shadows, he fell into the dark pools of her wide, stunned eyes. He felt the quick rise and fall of her breasts, mashed against his chest. Saw her lips, lush and ripe, full and parted in the poor light. Beckoning.
He saw the tip of her tongue glide over her lower lip, making the lusciousness glisten.
He didn’t need to kiss her again, yet he did.
It wasn’t a simple kiss but one fueled by anger, and relief. And by something he did
n’t understand—that something she and only she evoked, and set pounding in his blood.
Her lips had been parted; he filled her mouth, stole her breath, then gave it back. Deliberately lingered, tasted, explored.
He tightened his fingers on hers, kept their hands safely locked, arms down, even though every instinct pushed him to free his hands and seize her, hold her, bring her close—much closer.
He wanted her, and that want was open, undisguised, there in every bold stroke of his tongue, in the demanding pressure of his lips on hers. In the hard ridge that pressed against her belly. Deliah had no difficulty reading his desire, recognizing it—along with the response that raced through her, hot, instinctive, and strong.
She wanted him, and that was dangerous.
Dangerous with a capital D.
Yet she couldn’t back away, pull back—end this unwise kiss. Because she didn’t want to. Because there was, it seemed, no force within her powerful enough to counter the pull of it, and him.
Once again, Del found himself in the unaccustomed position of having to force himself to end a kiss—a kiss that promised so much more, that left him aching and hungry for much more. A “more” he now was certain he could have, but while this, it seemed, was the right time, it absolutely wasn’t the right place.
Drawing back from the exchange, limited though it had been, was hard enough. Lifting his head, he looked down into her face, at the lashes that fluttered, then lifted, revealing eyes clouded with rising passion. Her lips were lightly swollen, sheening from his kiss.
Stepping back was much harder, losing the elementally feminine cushion of her curves, an evocative softness that had cradled his hard frame. Easing back, subduing his rising clawing need, took more effort than he’d imagined, but he finally moved back, then, releasing one of her hands, he turned and stepped out of the alcove.
After checking they were indeed safe, he drew her out, too, without a word led her to the nearest hackney, opened the door, and helped her in. He looked up at the jarvey. “Grillon’s.”
Climbing in, he shut the carriage door and dropped onto the seat beside her.
He didn’t say a single word on their journey back to Grillon’s—and neither did she.
By the time the hackney pulled up outside the hotel, Deliah had recovered her composure, but her pulse was still pounding.
With suppressed anger, and unslaked passion.
She recognized both, and knew which was the safer to address. While she could understand, even without his explanation, why he’d kissed her the first time, she couldn’t explain, and didn’t want to think about, why he’d kissed her again. The second time.
That second, much more thorough time.
Sweeping into the hotel’s foyer, she regally nodded to the clerk behind the desk, then continued without pause up the stairs and down the corridor to the suite.
Del, of course, followed; she heard his heavy footsteps closing in from behind. Reaching the suite, she threw open the door and swept in.
He strode in on her heels and shut the door with force.
Halting, she whirled on him, temper sparking. “Don’t you dare upbraid me for coming to your aid. I’ll do it again in such circumstances.”
“No. You won’t.” Eyes already narrowed, he walked toward her—only halted when he stood directly in front of her with a bare inch between her breasts and his chest, so she had to tip her head back to meet his eyes.
Eyes that snapped with a temper to match hers. “You will never, ever, disobey my orders again. If I tell you to go on, you will—without hesitation.”
She narrowed her eyes back. “No. I won’t. I’m not one of your subordinates you can order around. Whatever the situation, I’ll do as I think best.”
Del felt his jaw lock. He fisted his hands against a nearly overpowering urge to seize her and shake some sense into her. It was a moment before he could trust himself to speak. “If you wish to continue to be a member of this group—to assist in my mission—you will henceforth do exactly as I say.”
One finely drawn dark brow arched. Maddeningly. “Or what?”
He had to stop and think.
When he didn’t immediately answer—not because he couldn’t answer but because, belatedly, wisdom had caught his tongue, and he couldn’t immediately think of a response it would be safe to utter—her eyes, her expression, hardened, and she went on, “I’m not some flunky, or some private who has to jump to do your bidding. What’s more, if you recall, I offered—only this morning—to step away from this enterprise, but you insisted that, having commenced it, I had to see it through to the end. So I am—I will. However, I didn’t agree to transform into the sort of weak-kneed twit with more hair than wit who runs away and leaves you to deal with not one, not two, but three assailants—one armed with a club, another with a knife!”
She flung up her hands. “Why are you even lecturing me about this? We’re here, we’re safe—isn’t that the important thing? Aside from all else, I’m my own person. I’m twenty-nine, for heaven’s sake! I’ve sailed to Jamaica and back, more or less on my own. I’ve been an adult, my responsibility and no one else’s, for a very long time!”
“Which is undoubtedly my problem.” Del tried to shut up, but something—that something—was riding him hard. He met her glare for glare, leveled a finger at her nose. “This habit of yours of putting yourself in danger has got to stop!”
“Me putting myself in danger? Pray tell, who insisted we go to the recital tonight? And yes, I enjoyed it, thank you very much, but taking me there doesn’t give you the right to dictate to me!”
“You’re a female—one in my care. Your parents’ request for me to act as your escort makes you my responsibility.” Lowering his finger, he jabbed it at her sternum. “It’s my job to protect you.”
Her eyes narrowed to flinty shards. “Indeed? Is that what that kiss was about then? The second kiss. Protecting me?”
Deliah heard her voice rise—abruptly remembered the kiss in Madame Latour’s narrow hall, the more recent exchange, and her helpless reactions. She searched his eyes, all dark, hot and heated. Heaven help her, he was infinitely more dangerous to her than any thug.
Luckily, he didn’t know it.
So she could look down her nose and scornfully state, “I am not yours, not in any way—you don’t need to feel responsible for me!”
Fueled by a senseless, witless fury that he’d only kissed her to keep her safe—to continue their roles before the modiste, to stop her making a sound tonight, and even tonight’s second kiss she felt sure he’d have a sensible reason for—she whirled and stalked into her bedroom.
The door had been left ajar. Passing through it, she shoved it closed behind her.
Waited to hear it slam.
It didn’t.
On a stifled gasp she swung around—to see Del, his face like a thundercloud, storming after her.
Fury boiled through her veins. She straightened to her full height, raised one arm and dramatically pointed to the door, opened her mouth to order him out—
He grabbed her pointing hand, jerked her hard against him.
His head swooped.
And he covered her lips with his.
Six
Crushed them. Hauled her into his arms and held her as if he were trying to absorb her into his body.
He kissed her in the same way.
As if he wanted to devour her. To own her, claim her.
Have her.
In every imaginable way.
Deliah sank her hands into his hair and kissed him back. With equal fervor, equal need.
Their wills met and merged in a clash of fire and passion.
Of instant conflagration and fiery need.
The anger that had driven her converted in a heartbeat to something more potent, to a compulsion that thrummed in her blood, that filled her head with dizzying desire, that burgeoned, erupted and swept her on.
Her inner self seized control, and it wanted, needed, year
ned.
For more. For this. For what it had been starved of for so long.
He angled his head, ruthlessly, relentlessly deepened the kiss, and she pressed against him, into him, and met him caress for caress.
She remembered this, the heat, the urgency.
Yet this time there were flames and fire, and heady desperation.
Del sensed the same, knew beyond doubt that he ought to stop, that if he’d been wise he’d never have kissed her.
Yet he’d had to.
He had to show her because she refused to see, had to demonstrate unequivocally in the most indisputable way that she was his—his in more ways, deeper ways, than could ever be needed to justify his right to protect her.
He wrenched his mouth from hers. “This is why I need to keep you safe.”
Safe from the Black Cobra. Safe from all danger.
Safe. And his.
She blinked up at him, jade eyes drowning in a glory of passion. Then her grip on his head tightened and she hauled his head down, hauled his lips to hers. Catapulted them both into a blazing inferno.
An eruption of molten desire shook him—snared him, lured him.
If he’d been able to think…yet he couldn’t, not with her hands gripping his skull, not with her lips ravenous beneath his.
Not with her tall, curvaceous figure provocatively plastered along the length of his.
She wanted, incited, and he broke, seized, took. Claimed her mouth, then, holding her tight within one arm, raised a hand to her breast and claimed that, too.
Her response was instantaneous, undeniable, encouraging—a murmuring moan trapped in her throat. Her fingers tightened in his hair as his fingers played, learned. Seduced.
Deliah felt the wanton within her rise, felt her blossom and bloom with every evocative touch, with every heavy thrust of his tongue against hers, every increasingly flagrant caress.
No matter her memories, it had never been like this. Never so fiery, never so fraught. She’d never been so desperately needy.
Even through her pelisse, his knowing hands made her breasts swell and ache, a sweeter, sharper ache than she recalled. Griffiths, the bastard, had never made her feel like this. There was no comparison.