“You are a Fenian who has been caught.” His tone was deceptively smooth and calm.
Bridget knew a moment of remorse. She had pushed him to the brink, and she had been so certain she would spot a weakness in his armor. Something she could poke until it bled. He had given her nothing.
“Hurt me then,” she demanded. “What do you prefer? Fists? An open hand? Perhaps more. Do you like to whip your prisoners? Would you like to lash me? Is that what interests you?”
“I do not mix pain and pleasure,” he gritted. “Or I did not. Volunteer for the task, and we shall see which one of us is first to break.”
Her nostrils flared. Him. Without question. “Yes, Duke. Let us.”
“Tell. Me. Your. Name.” He bit out every word as if each was its own sentence.
“Jane. Palliser,” she said quietly. Calmly.
“Damn you, woman. You only hurt yourself in your stubborn persistence.”
“I thought you wanted to hurt me, Your Grace. What’s the matter? Am I robbing you of the pleasure?” She was pushing him again, and she knew it. Perhaps too far. But she didn’t care. She was tethered to the bed no better than any criminal, and her body liked this raging beast of an Englishman far too much. “Be quick about it. I do not like to wait for my punishment.”
Something flashed in his eyes, but his expression remained impenetrable. “Do not imagine I will give you warning, Miss Palliser. I already know you thieved my waistcoat and that you are guilty as sin. Your punishment will come when you least expect it. And have no doubt, my dear, that you will sing. Like a fucking bird.”
His tone was vicious. So too his gaze as it raked over her.
She suppressed a shiver. It seemed they were at a stalemate, and her wrists and hands ached, as did her wound. Her body was in need of respite. “I require a bath. Do you allow your prisoners ablutions, or am I to be tied to this bed like an animal until you cast me into prison?”
He sniffed the air. “I will allow it on account of the fact that you stink, madam.”
Her cheeks went hot, for her nose told her she did. Lord knew how many days she had been unconscious, sick with infection, and sweating. Her skin itched.
She would have told him to go to hell. Indeed, it was on her tongue, ready, but he spun on his heel and stalked from the chamber before she could manage a coherent sentence.
“English bastard,” she muttered after him.
Her fingers felt as if they had been pricked with a thousand needles. Her wrists ached. And she was being held captive by the Duke of Carlisle. Fine turn of events this was.
Fine turn of events this was.
His captive was on her way to recovery, but she was as hardheaded and strong-willed as ever. He had not known, when he had left her here at his lesser Oxfordshire estate, Willoughby, if she would live.
But live she had.
And now he would need to bathe her, for he did not trust the woman who professed to be Jane Palliser—the woman who was decidedly not Jane Palliser—would not attempt to either slit his throat or escape the moment he loosened her bonds. How difficult it was even for Leo, who had seen untold evil in his years leading the Special League, to believe a small, beautiful woman like her could foster such an endless capacity for treachery. Her bravery knew no bounds. So too her foolishness.
The woman did not know when she was outgunned. Daring, fearless, and determined, she was a dangerous sort of female indeed. She was the kind of foe he could almost admire. Would have admired, except for her attempt to abduct his innocent nephew and her allegiance to the bloodthirsty Fenian menace.
Leo’s jaw clenched as he stalked down the main hall. One of many in the vast entail, the house was staffed simply with a cook, butler, and a scant handful of maids and footmen. The structure was smaller and far less grand than he was accustomed to, yet had served its purpose well in this instance.
In the aftermath of rescuing his nephew from Miss Palliser’s duplicitous clutches, he had flatly turned down Clay’s suggestion he return to Harlton Hall whilst the Fenian virago recuperated. After the harrowing experience Edward had just faced, Leo had no wish to subject him to further fear.
He had taken his unconscious prisoner past the rail station to this house, knowing he could at least leave her here without causing any more harm to Clay and his growing little family. He and Ara had only just wed, for Christ’s sake, and while Leo harbored no love for the grim institution of marriage, he was nevertheless glad to see his brother settled and happy, reunited with the woman he had always loved and the son they’d had together. He had earned his reputation for being cold and ruthless, but Leo loved his true family, and he would lay down his life for them.
His duties in London had forced him back to town, and he had left his prisoner in the care of the maid he felt he could trust most, and the region’s best physician. To the Home Office, he had reported his captive officially dead for reasons all his own.
He found the servant, Annie, idly flirting with a footman. They broke apart when they saw Leo, but he understood all too well what they had been about. It was as old as the seas.
“Your Grace.” Annie flushed, stepping away, righting her skirts, and dipping into an atrocious curtsy. She had been casting him longing eyes ever since his arrival with a wounded woman in tow, and he knew if he wished it, he could avail himself of her undeniable charms. Annie was a golden-haired beauty. Samuel, in comparison, was a large-footed oaf with a receding hairline.
Before his arrival here today, part of Leo had been tempted to accept her unspoken offer. In the days following his prisoner’s wounding, she had taken ill with fever and had been insensate for days. The physician had not been certain if she would survive the infection that had set in. He had spent many sleepless nights in London communicating with the Home Office and his agents, attempting to glean more information to assist him with his interrogations if his prisoner awoke.
Through it all, he had been plagued by an irritating abundance of suppressed lust which could only be quenched by sinking inside a warm, wet cunny and losing himself. But the trouble was, Annie was not the woman he wanted, and the woman he did want was not only his enemy, but on her sickbed, put there by him. Altogether an untenable situation.
Moreover, he was beginning to suspect from what he had viewed thus far—namely Miss Palliser in a bed which had not been stripped for days, wearing nothing but a chemise stained by her own perspiration—that Annie had not taken care of his prisoner at all as he had asked.
The sensitive nature of his missions meant none of his domestics were aware of his true position. He had fed his staff a story about Miss Palliser being a distant relative who was not only mad, but a danger to herself and others, and had left two of his own men behind to aid in guarding her. His sense of honor had required him to see a female tended to his prisoner while she was with fever. But he had seen at once Annie had not been the right choice for the task.
“The lady requires a bath,” he said without preamble. “She is lying in her own filth as we speak, Annie. Tell me why her bedding has not been freshened and why she is wearing the same chemise I left her in a week ago.”
Annie blinked, straightening her skirts. “She would not cooperate, Your Grace. As you said she was a danger who must be kept locked in her chamber at all times until you returned, I did not deem it wise to spend too much time in her presence.”
Damn it to hell.
Or any time in her presence, which seemed far more apt. He despised Miss Palliser and her actions, along with everything she stood for, but that did not mean the sight—and smell, for that matter—of her had not affected him. He had noted it from the moment he had first gone to her chamber to find her sleeping the deep, calm slumber of a babe. And he had instantly sought to restrain her. Annie’s message about their patient’s recovery had reached him two days late since he had been hosting one of his infamous fêtes.
It had both begun and ended with a woman attempting to suck his cock. Different women. Both
rebuffed. He had neither the time nor the inclination, though he had been tempted to accept not only both offers, but to drown himself in all the spirits and opium in Blayton House. He had not been this conflicted, this driven to the edge of the darkness dwelling within him, in some time, and he did not like it.
“The bath,” he snapped. “See that it is readied. She will take her ablutions in my bathroom.”
His order was partially self-serving. He had no wish for the domestics to witness the manner in which he had tied Miss Palliser to the bed. Also, he had placed her in a chamber ordinarily reserved for a governess. As such, it contained no private bath, unlike the ducal apartments, which had been renovated from their original, Jacobean splendor—or lack thereof—by his father the duke before him.
“Your chamber, sir?” Annie asked, frowning her disapproval.
He stared her down. She was not paid to disapprove. Nor was it her right, nor her place, especially given the state in which he had discovered Miss Palliser. “Yes, precisely as I said.”
Samuel intervened. “I will see the bath prepared, Your Grace.”
“Shall I attend her, sir?” Annie asked, her tone reluctant and more than just a trifle bitter.
He ought to allow the duty to fall to her, it was true. But he did not trust the banshee tied to the bedposts not to fillet poor Annie and eat her liver for dinner, leaving her to bleed out on the floor whilst she made good her escape. Nor did he particularly trust Annie, albeit in a different fashion. He suspected the two women possessed different shades of cruelty.
“I alone shall attend her.”
Though he very much hated to accept the task, it must be him. She was cunning and crafty, Jane Palliser, and she knew how to fight. In a word, she was dangerous.
In two, damned dangerous. And since she had risen from the nearly dead, she was once more his albatross to bear.
“Very good, Your Grace.” Samuel nodded.
Annie’s expression soured. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be proper.”
Leo raised a brow and pinned her with the stare he used upon everyone who dared to oppose him. “The lady cannot be entrusted to anyone’s care but mine. She is very treacherous and would think nothing of shooting you in the heart if it would suit her purposes.” When Annie paled, he flashed her a taut smile. Occasionally, he forgot what it was like to be someone who did not expect lethal force, mayhem, and perfidy at every opportunity. “Never fear. I shall not allow her to harm you; that is merely why I must attend her myself.”
“Yes.” Annie swallowed, eyes wide. “Of course, Your Grace. We must and shall defer to your judgment.”
“Indeed,” he told her coolly. “You shall. Samuel, I expect the bath readied within the next half hour. Annie, have Cook prepare some clear broth and a light tea as a repast afterward. Perhaps some gruel. I expect she will be hungry as well. She looks too thin by half.”
Though why he should give a damn about her appearance or whether or not she ate properly was beyond him. Indeed, he should not. But there it was again, something about her, that infernal woman. She dogged him, taunted him by her mere presence in his home. By her wide, blue eyes, the purple crescents beneath each. Her dirty shift, her dull, matted black hair. Even in her current state, she was more beautiful than any woman should be.
The footman nodded and left, hastening to his task, returning Leo to the responsibilities at hand. But the maid lingered.
She approached him after Samuel had gone, her blue eyes glittering with undisguised sensual intent. “Perhaps I could assist you later this evening?”
Perhaps she could warm his bed was what she meant to ask. The answer was no. Still no. Resounding.
“I fear I shall be otherwise occupied,” he told her.
Her expression closed as she dipped into another curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
And then she was gone, leaving Leo once more alone. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Hundreds of assignments over the years. He had dealt with villains, criminals, the most barbaric acts and men he had ever known. He had made decisions, led men to their deaths, to their adulations, to their ruin, to their triumph. And yet, in all those years, in all those deeds, he had never once hungered for the person at the center of his investigations.
Now, today, as all the days since he had first clapped his eyes upon her, he did.
He wanted his bloody prisoner. His body knew it. His cock understood it all too well. Regardless of her identity—who she was, where she had been, what she had done—he could not deny he remained attracted to her. Some wicked, deep-seated part of him whispered she was his.
The prisoner. Jane Palliser. The Irishwoman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The one woman who managed, whenever he looked upon her face, to render him speechless. That was who he wanted. That was who he needed.
It was also who he could never, ever have. He banished all such unwanted thoughts from his mind and stalked back to where he had begun. His feet carried him back up the narrow staircase. Back to the door leading to her.
Miss Jane Palliser, or whoever the bloody hell she actually was. One thing was certain: she had lied to his sister-in-law about her qualifications. He vowed he would uncover the truth about her, beginning with her name. The more she longed to withhold it from him, the more he wanted it.
When he re-entered the chamber, he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
Miss Palliser’s cheeks were wet. Her gaze met his and she sniffed, attempting to school her features into an expressionless mask. But it was of no use, for he had already glimpsed her. The real her. And he would now use it against her.
“A bath is being prepared for you in my chamber,” he announced, closing the door at his back, before striding across the small chamber to her bedside. “You have been weeping, Miss Palliser. Why?”
She stiffened, tugging at her wrists as her eyes blazed into his. “Because I am in pain, Your Grace. I have been tied to this bed as if I am no better than an animal.”
“You have earned your treatment with your own actions, madam,” he reminded her.
“I have done nothing wrong,” she denied, stubborn and beautiful to the last.
Even after having been ill with infection and fever, even bedridden for days and only just now on the brink of recovery, his prisoner was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. She took his breath and enraged him, intrigued him and confounded him, in equal measures.
“On the contrary,” he countered swiftly, “you have done everything wrong. But you shall still have your bath, madam. You will have it in my chamber, as the bath is already laid out there, and I have no wish to cause extra duties in this household on account of you.”
Perhaps he was being harsher than necessary. He did not give a good goddamn. The truth of the matter was—and he could acknowledge this in spite of his infernal weakness for the woman—she was wrong. Her cause was wrong. Everything about her was so very, horribly wrong.
Except for her lips.
He cursed himself for that rogue thought and turned his attention to the matter at hand, namely, getting Miss Palliser safely across the hall and bathing her, all whilst he kept her wrists bound. The best way, he deemed, was to free one wrist, bind them together, then free the other, leading her to the bath in that fashion.
He joined her on the bed and her eyes went wide.
He smiled at her without mirth, finding odd humor in the impossible situation. “You have no need to fear me. I have no wish to force myself upon any female, let alone a traitorous Jezebel such as yourself.”
“I am no traitor.”
“You are an enemy of the Crown,” he snapped, withdrawing his blade and slicing at the bonds on her wounded arm first. “And my prisoner. And most definitely a traitor.”
She hissed as the blood surged back into her hand, and he knew it would be painful. He examined her wound, moving her arm with care, pleased with its progress. She was healing nicely now, and that fact, coupled with her moments of lucidity, had told him
she would soon return to the world of the living. He had bound her accordingly, and he was grateful for his decision now. Perhaps some pain would encourage her to reveal her associates to him.
Pain along with the need to save her own hide.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“What is your name?” he returned, slicing the other rope, then hastily binding her wrists together before her.
She paled, crying out as he jostled her with more force than necessary. But, true to form, she remained stubborn. “Jane Palliser.”
“Here is how this shall go, prisoner.” He stood from the bed once more, gazing harshly down at her, unable to keep himself from noticing the dark circles of her nipples beneath her chemise. “You must give me information before I shall give you any. You may begin with your name. Until you offer me a truthful response, I will not reveal a damned thing to you. Don’t, for a moment, think you can lie to me. I have my best men digging into your past.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I want my bath.”
Obstinate woman.
He took in her struggles to sit upright with her hands bound and the pallor of her skin. Perhaps he ought to assist her in her walk to his chamber, but he was not going to. Let the banshee suffer. Perhaps it would render her more amenable to making some revelations.
“Stand,” he ordered. “You will walk to your bath, or you will have none.”
Slowly, she moved her legs, sliding her feet gingerly to the floor, as if the effort required every bit of strength she possessed. And perhaps it did. Having been spoon-fed nothing more than broth by himself and Annie during her bouts of lucidity, and given water as she could swallow it, she was likely weak. Her small frame, hugged by her chemise, was noticeably less curvaceous.
He watched, impassive, as she attempted to stand and fell back to the bed on her rump. “Try again. If you cannot stand and cannot walk, you cannot go to your bath.”
Heartless Duke Page 8