by Clee, Adele
“Did it remind you of your time as a struggling actress?”
Scarlett couldn’t help but smile. “No, it reminded me of the time spent with you.”
The hot, sensual look in his eyes was similar to the one she had seen moments before in the alley. “Despite my injury, I remember the time with great fondness.”
“You look as if you might suddenly kiss me again, Mr Wycliff.” A woman could live in hope.
“Perhaps I might, Widow.”
The anticipation of feeling his mouth on hers burned in her chest. Every sign of lust, every snippet of affection, drew her deeper under his spell. Having him was no longer an option. She would take him into her body, savour every delicious moment, devour every inch of the man who loved her in her dreams.
A tiny gasp left her lips as he straightened. Every fibre of her being tingled while awaiting his touch. But then a gruff cough brought an end to her fantasy, and she cast a sidelong glance to see Dermot Flannery’s large frame filling the corridor.
Dermot ran his hand over his bald pate, drew it down the length of his long ginger beard. He stomped towards them, and Scarlett held her breath.
“It isn’t gentlemanly to keep a lady lingering in a cold corridor.” Dermot stared down his bulbous nose.
Was it cold? She hadn’t noticed.
“Few people would call me a gentleman,” Wycliff replied. “Though when it comes to Lady Steele, you should know I would lay down my life to protect her.”
Scarlett blinked. No doubt Wycliff exaggerated for effect. A man would have to care a great deal to make such a sacrifice. Then again, Damian Wycliff never said anything he did not mean.
“Glad to hear it,” Dermot said. His sly smile faded, replaced with a stone-like seriousness meant to threaten and intimidate. “Because if you hurt my Scarlett, I’ll take a knife and fork to your fancy ballocks and serve them for supper.”
Chapter Thirteen
A deathly silence hung in the air. The disturbing sound sought every crack and crevice in the dingy basement room Dermot Flannery used to conduct his business.
As the man stared at Damian Wycliff across the battered oak desk, every long, stretched-out second felt like an hour. The ticking of the mantel clock was akin to a death knell. And while it was Scarlett who paid Dermot’s wages, the man’s need to play parent in her father’s absence left her sitting in the seat next to Mr Wycliff feeling just as anxious. That said, the gentleman at her side did not look the least bit intimidated.
Dermot scanned the ledger laid open on the desk. From the faded ink on the pages, the records were not recent. “In all the time you played at these tables, you’ve never lost,” Dermot said in his faint Irish twang. “Nor have you borrowed from the house.”
Wycliff shrugged. “Let’s just say some people find it hard to read my expressions. Let’s say that having wisely invested in my future, I do not need to borrow from a gaming hell, my father or the bank.”
Scarlett didn’t find it hard to read him. He wanted to murder the world, ravish her. Damian Wycliff held himself up in an impenetrable fortress and yet somehow she had found the key to the gate. She had seen the look of longing flash in his eyes. She was aware of his growing need to touch her—light strokes on her arm, snatched opportunities to sit close, a tender kiss stolen in a dark alley.
“I can read you.” Dermot relaxed back in the chair and drew his hand down the length of his beard. “I can read every unspoken word.”
Wycliff snorted. “Then I am thankful I never played you at piquet.”
“You’d have lost, so you would,” Dermot countered.
“Would you care to make a wager?”
“What I’d care to do is have you tell me why two men bundled you into a carriage at Vauxhall. Why the same two men carried you into a house in Bruton Street, and why Scarlett spent three nights sleeping under your roof.”
Good Lord!
Dermot Flannery must have hired men to watch her. Shock rendered her momentarily speechless. No wonder he had been acting strangely since she told him about the incidents with her horse and the savage dog in Green Park.
Dermot turned to her and raised his hand in surrender. “Now, now, I know I never told you about hiring the guards to—”
“Guards!” she blurted, feeling somewhat suffocated by the thought this man had monitored her every movement. “For heaven’s sake, Dermot, I am not a child. You had no right—”
“You might be a fancy lady,” Dermot replied as he folded his thick arms across his chest, “but your father made me swear an oath, and I’ll not go back on my word.”
Wycliff cleared his throat. “And while I’d like to tell you to rot in hell, Flannery, for your interference means I must pack my belongings and lease a new abode, respect for the lady at my side prevents me from telling you about our little sojourn to Vauxhall.”
“Would you care to make a wager?” Dermot said.
Wycliff arched an arrogant brow. “Don’t ask me to betray Scarlett’s confidence. But know that I, too, swore an oath. Hence the reason I am sitting here listening to your patriarchal drivel.”
Scarlett sucked in a breath. Wycliff promised to mind his tongue.
Dermot’s eyes grew large and round. “Listen here, lad.”
“I am not your lad. Scarlett is not your daughter.”
Dermot sneered. “And she’s not your wife, yet you kept her in that house of yours for three days. Yer man doesn’t need a Cambridge education to know why.”
Wycliff shot forward and gripped the edge of the desk. “Then if you’re so adept at reading people, one look into my eyes will tell you the lady nursed me from the brink of death, nothing more.”
Silence descended once again.
Beneath hooded lids, Dermot stared into Wycliff’s eyes. Seconds passed before he said, “Maybe we should call a truce. Mark it with a friendly arm wrestle.” Just as Scarlett was about to object, he added, “Just to appease old Flannery.”
As a man who favoured his right hand, a man with a wound to the same arm, Wycliff had no choice but to decline. Nonetheless, Scarlett knew with absolute certainty he would not refuse.
“Dermot, this is ridiculous,” she pleaded, hoping to make him see sense. “Mr Wycliff is here as my guest. You have no reason to distrust him.”
She would never call rank and play the heavy-handed proprietor with Mr Flannery. The man worked tirelessly to protect her investment. Having lost her once, he lived to ensure he never failed her again. And he was the closest thing to kin she had.
“You can learn a lot about a man when he flexes his fist.” Dermot yanked one arm out of his coat, pushed the ledger aside and settled his elbow on the desk. “Come on, Mr Wycliff.” A chuckle escaped him as he wiggled his fingers. “Let’s see if you’re as strong as you look.”
When Wycliff leant forward and placed his elbow on the table, Scarlett shot to her feet. “Mr Wycliff is unwell. Are you determined to see him keel over from the strain?”
The gentleman in question cleared his throat. “You may beat me in an arm wrestle but let us see how you fare with swords or pistols.”
“Fops fight with swords.” Dermot laughed. “Cowards fight with pistols. Real men fight with their fists.”
“Make no mistake. I can throw a decent punch. Indeed, I would take great pleasure putting you on your Irish arse.”
The loud slap of their palms clashing echoed in the room. Both men bared their teeth as they adjusted their grips. Wycliff—the damn fool—was in danger of ripping open his stitches, of bleeding out onto Dermot’s well-trodden rug.
“Stop this at once.” Scarlett thumped the desk with her clenched fist though seemed powerless against two such stubborn men. “If only you could see how absurd you look.”
“Let’s begin on the count of three.” Dermot shuffled in the seat, placed his best foot forward and angled his body closer to the desk. “One.”
“Mother Mary have mercy on both your poor souls.” Scarlett glared at them. �
�If you hurt Mr Wycliff, I shall never forgive you.”
Wycliff cast her a mild look of reproach. “Have faith in your champion, my lady.”
“Two.”
“No!” Scarlett grabbed their clasped hands. “Mr Wycliff took a lead ball to the arm three days ago. Do you want him to die on your desk?” She sounded dramatic, she knew, but after her experiences with Lord Steele, she never fared well beneath the clawing fear of helplessness.
She waited for what seemed like an eternity before Dermot slapped his free hand on the desk in a sign of surrender.
Something about his expression told her he had no intention of wrestling with Wycliff, that he had led them down this path purely to pry.
“You were shot at Vauxhall?” Dermot said as he attempted and failed to pull his hand from Wycliff’s grasp.
Wycliff kept a firm hold and stared down his nose. “I’d wager you already knew that.”
“Yer man noted that your shirt was cut, your arm bandaged. Who shot you?”
“It doesn’t matter who shot him.” Scarlett was growing tired of being a silent voice. She knew better than most what it meant to be invisible. To have one’s thoughts and opinions discarded.
Wycliff’s dark eyes glinted with menace. “If I knew who put the ball in my arm, the villain would be dead and buried beneath a hefty mound of soil.”
Dermot chuckled again. “Ah, a fellow after my own heart.”
Scarlett stared at the two men. Now they had played this odd game of intimidation, perhaps they might converse as adults, might unearth some truth from the past in the hope of bringing clarity.
And yet, the hollow emptiness in her chest made it hard to focus. Not since those terrible nights when her husband’s depravity poisoned his mind had she felt so weak, so irrelevant.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
She needed air, at present couldn’t bear the company of either man and so turned on her heel and strode to the door. Their questions chased after her, demanding a response regarding her intention.
“Scarlett! Wait!”
She was at the door leading to the alley when Wycliff came up behind her. He braced both hands on the frame, caging her in a hard, masculine prison.
“I had no choice but to play Flannery’s game,” he whispered, his cool breath breezing over her neck to send shivers down the length of her spine. “Men like him, men like me, we’ve had to fight our whole lives for our positions.”
“I’ve had to fight, too.” Years of untold misery pushed to the surface. Too many times she’d hit back believing she might die.
“I know. And I wish I would have done something to prevent it.”
Scarlett closed her eyes in an attempt to rein in her volatile emotions. It didn’t help having Wycliff’s hard body pressed so close. Part of her knew why people used pleasure to obliterate pain.
“About Flannery,” he continued. “It’s evident he thinks of you as a daughter, that he thought highly of your father, too. We should tell him the truth about the intruder. If his man followed us to Bruton Street, then it stands to reason Flannery might be of assistance to us in our efforts to find the blackguard.”
Perhaps Wycliff knew that refocusing someone’s mind worked to banish painful memories of the past. Perhaps he knew that just hearing the smooth timbre of his voice was akin to consuming a calming elixir.
“Don’t let our efforts to find the villain come between what is happening between us,” he murmured.
Come between them?
Nothing would prevent her from having this man.
Scarlett shuffled around to face him, her body brushing against his in the tight space. “They say the temperature will plummet tonight,” she said, surprised at the depth of desire in her voice. “Body heat is the only way to keep the cold at bay.”
Eyes, dark and dangerously hot, scanned her face, strayed to her hair, lingered on her lips. She wondered if he experienced the same heavy ache in his loins that kept her awake at night, that plagued her now.
Wycliff brushed a stray tendril from her cheek, tucking it with care behind her ear. “Then we should see to this business quickly. The anticipation of warming your sweet body makes it hard to concentrate.”
His mouth hovered achingly close. She wanted to kiss him, tangle tongues, have him plunge deep into her willing mouth, deeper into her starving body. She might have given in to temptation had Dermot Flannery’s voice not disturbed their intimate exchange.
“Most couples are forced to wed when caught in a clinch, so they are.”
Wycliff pushed away from the door and straightened his coat. He gazed into her eyes, a look to remind her that honesty was the best way forward.
“Being a widow, the same rules do not apply. Besides, you know only too well that I’ll never marry again.” She glanced at Wycliff, hoping his expert ears had failed to catch the lie. She would marry for love. But the only man who had ever touched her heart was a notorious rake who rarely settled in one place for longer than a few months.
“Well, Scarlett?” Dermot said in the comforting tone of a caring parent. “Will you be sitting down to tell a tired man how our friend happened to take a lead ball in the arm?”
It was time to stop hiding the truth. The threat had escalated. And she would die inside if anything untoward happened to Wycliff. “Perhaps I should begin by telling you how I first met Mr Wycliff. And then I’ll tell you how fate conspired to bring us together again.”
“Why do I get the impression I’ll need more than ale to calm my nerves?” Dermot gestured for them to follow him back to his basement office.
They all returned to the dimly lit room. Both men sat in silence as Scarlett relayed her tale. Numerous times Dermot cursed and thumped the desk for she had never told him about the scars, or the cruelty she’d suffered at the hands of Lord Steele. Wycliff’s face remained stone-like though she could feel the fire raging within.
After dragging his hand down his face, Dermot said, “Had you not escaped from the seminary, had you but waited a few more days, I could have saved you years of pain and heartache, so I could.”
“If life is about learning lessons, then things happened as they ought.” Had she not fled from the seminary, she would never have taken work as an actress, would not have ventured into an alley off Drury Lane to save the life of the rogue sitting quietly at her side.
“Had yer man Steele not thrown the miniature of you into the gambling pot, I might never have found you.”
That was the first night fate had been kind.
Despite a lengthy argument about where Scarlett should reside while they investigated the attacks, they agreed she would remain with Wycliff, and Dermot’s men would watch over the house on Bruton Street.
The conversation turned to the suspects.
“Ever since you told me about the dog attack in the park,” Dermot began, “I’ve had someone spying on yer man Steele. You should never have told him you owned his vowels.”
“It was the only way to regain control.” The information was akin to putting a noose around her husband’s and stepson’s necks. She held the rope, knew when to give it a hard tug.
“It’s a sure way to end up dead in a ditch,” Wycliff countered.
“At the time, I wanted peace from the nightmare.” It had given her leverage against her husband—a means to bargain for her safety and security. But Wycliff was right. She had failed to consider Joshua a threat. “In hindsight, I’ve made many mistakes. Mistakes that may have forced Joshua to act out of character.”
“If you die, he gets the house in Bedford Street.” Wycliff gave a weary sigh. “He can sell it and relieve his burden.”
“I’m certain it wasn’t Joshua who throttled me in my bed.”
“So you say.” Dermot growled. He knew nothing about the intruder, which supported Scarlett’s theory that the villain entered the house via the garden. “But I’ll have the blackguard by the end of the week. Whoever he may be.”
<
br /> “You think the intruder was a hired thug from the rookeries?” Wycliff said. “Few people have the arrogance to murder someone in their own home.”
Dermot nodded. “And I want to know where your cook buys her flour. There’ll be a record of the transaction, so there will.”
“I have already attempted to extract that information. Marleys have no record of the order.”
Wycliff snorted. “Mr Flannery means someone took the order, someone paid to taint the flour with arsenic.”
“And by the time I’m finished, someone will tell me everything they know unless they want to take a dip in the Thames.” Dermot opened the desk drawer and rummaged inside. Retrieving a leather notebook, he pushed it across the desk, not to Scarlett, but to Mr Wycliff. “Everyone the Steele boy has visited, every place he’s been for the last two months, yer man recorded in there.”
“I’m sure it will make for interesting reading.” Snatching the book from the desk, Wycliff flicked to the last page and then turned to Scarlett. “We should examine it at length. I imagine it will either prove Joshua Steele’s guilt or his innocence. The last entry made was three weeks ago and will shed no light on the attack in your bedchamber.”
“That will be in O’Donnell’s new book. I’ll have it sent to you in Bruton Street.” Dermot turned to Scarlett, his green eyes brightening. “You’re welcome to stay here if you’d rather, you know that, so you do.”
Why would she stay above a noisy gaming hell, when she might spend the night in bed with Damian Wycliff?
Lust, tinged with something far more potent, fluttered in her belly. She had waited three years to press her naked body against his. Only in her wildest imagination had she ever thought her dream might come true.
“Thank you, Dermot, but we must examine the notebook as a matter of urgency.”
“And if we hope to lure the devil from his lair, we must be the bait.” Wycliff stretched his injured arm, which still clearly pained him. He had refused laudanum, refused to fill his silver flask with brandy. Perhaps it was a way of punishing himself for failing to anticipate the danger at Vauxhall.