His hand was starting to feel warmer. She turned her attention to his other one. “It will be Christmas soon,” she said, her voice ringing cheerfully. In her head, she heard Mrs. Wakefield’s voice encouraging her to talk to him. “Perhaps you’ll be awake before then and can celebrate the holiday with your family.”
A voice spoke into the thick silence. “You really think so?”
With a gasp, she spun around, her gaze flying to the doorway, half expecting to see Lord Strickland there again, even though something deep and primal struck her at the core as that voice rippled over the air.
The doorway was empty. She twisted in her chair, searching the room, her gaze landing on a person sitting in a shadowed corner, his big frame dwarfing a wingback chair, booted feet stretched out into the fall of light.
Her gaze traveled up those boots and legs. Big hands clasped the chair arms as the body leaned forward, bringing a face out of the shadows.
“You,” she croaked, and just like that her stomach dropped to her too-big shoes. Of all the faces she wanted to see, Struan Mackenzie’s was the last, and yet there he sat, looking at her with equal displeasure and sending her heart into palpitations.
“In the flesh,” he returned, his gravelly voice sending a rush of goose bumps over her flesh. Suddenly, she was acutely, achingly aware of how alone they were. It was just the three of them. Her lips twisted wryly.
Considering one of them was in a coma, it was more accurately the two of them.
Chapter 10
“Miss Fairchurch,” Struan greeted stiffly. In fact, all of him was as rigid as a board sitting in the chair, watching her from his corner. The only movement was the tapping of his fingers against his thigh.
From the moment she had entered and taken position at Autenberry’s bedside, tension thrummed through him, vibrating along every nerve. He felt his lip curl as he observed her decidedly one-sided exchange with his half brother. It was sweet and endearing and he despised it. He despised her.
No, that wasn’t true.
He felt something other than dislike for her. That much he couldn’t deny. There was an irrefutable stirring in his cock as his gaze fixed on the fine arch of her throat, the soft wisps of light brown hair that grazed the soft skin at the back of her neck. Unbelievable. His bouncing fingers increased their ticking, picking up speed. It was a definite first. Never had a woman’s nape managed to arouse him.
He shouldn’t have felt anything at the display. Truthfully, he had no stake in either one of them. Not his brother. Certainly not her. And yet the sight of her bent so dotingly over Autenberry, chafing his hands as though she could will life back into him, stabbed him with annoyance.
He wanted to cross the room and pull her from her position at his brother’s bedside. He wanted to run his hand down that throat, force her around and press his open mouth to the back of her neck and sink his teeth there in a primitive display of dominance.
He sucked in a sharp breath and tried to shake off the unwanted image, willing his hardening cock to slumber.
To say that his train of thinking would scandalize her would be an understatement. Even as Autenberry’s paramour, she couldn’t be accustomed to proclivities such as his. He was no gentle lover. Born of the streets, his tastes ran to rougher bed sport than was common among blushing, milk-skinned females.
He chose his partners carefully, and with reason. No tender misses for him. Experienced women he didn’t have to seduce or ply with gentle words. That was usually his preference.
Usually.
“You should have alerted me to your presence.” Her soft voice was full of accusation.
Aye, he should have, but he’d held silent, watching. He did not bring himself to speak, hoping to learn something of her that she would not willingly reveal.
“And miss any potential bedside declarations?” he mocked, finally reclaiming his voice.
Her features tightened.
“Don’t fash yourself, lass,” he assured. “You didn’t say anything inflammatory. More’s the pity. In fact, I was quite bored sitting here.” The lie tripped easily off his tongue. He preferred boredom to watching her moon over Autenberry. If he had to endure any more of that he might put a fist into a wall. He scowled, telling himself what she did and said—with Autenberry or any man—shouldn’t affect him.
“What were you expecting?” she demanded.
“Oh, I don’t know, kitten. A titillating profession of love. Some naughty reminisces of sweeter times?”
Her shoulders squared. “You’re perverse.”
Again, he felt his lips threaten to break out in a smile. She had no idea what he was, but he imagined the truth would horrify her.
“I’ve been called worse things than that, kitten.” Although usually not by the fairer sex. Even before he’d amassed his wealth, females had always favored him. His mother called it the one blessing Providence had seen fit to bestow on him. Yer face has been touched by angels, lad. Don’t let such a thing go to waste.
“Don’t call me that.” She hissed the last word as though it were something dirty.
“What?” he asked, all innocence, enjoying the flash of fire in her cheeks and imagining what other activities might produce that same fire in her.
“You know . . . kitten!”
He pushed to his feet and strode toward her, his pace unhurried. “Oh, you don’t like that? That’s what you remind me of. Soft and small with big eyes and tiny sharp teeth and claws. Just like a kitten.”
“It’s much too intimate, sir,” she reprimanded, those tiny teeth and claws at work as she glared at him.
He stopped a few feet from her. She remained sitting, her hand pushing against the chair back but not moving as she looked up at him. “And what does your duke call you?” He nodded to the bed. “Miss Fairchurch?” He could not stop the sneer from curling his lips. He knew his half brother’s proclivities. They were all the gossip. He did not maintain platonic relationships. He doubted his brother called her Miss Fairchurch as he plowed between her thighs.
That image settled like boiling acid in his stomach. He did not like it. He did not want it. He banished it from his head.
Still, he could not deny the truth of it. If this girl was tangled up with Autenberry, their relationship was definitely in the realm of intimate. She needn’t act so prudish or pretend with him. He knew what Autenberry was.
Consequently, he knew what she was. She was low-hanging fruit, ready to be plucked. So why shouldn’t Struan be the next man to pluck her?
At the mere idea, his blood rushed south, straight for his cock.
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped in answer to his question.
Even in the dimness of the firelit room, he marked the deepening rush of color to her face. “Come now. Does he call you by your Christian name? Or some endearment?”
She released a huff of breath. “You are the only one so bold as to use a nickname.”
“Am I?” The idea pleased him somehow . . . even though it ought not to. He wanted to be different. He wanted to make his mark on her.
“Your brother is far too circumspect for that.”
At that, he chuckled. “Autenberry? Circumspect? That is one adjective I’ve never heard applied to him.” Arrogant. Boorish. Smug bastard.
“Perhaps you don’t know him,” she challenged.
“Perhaps you don’t,” he returned.
Especially if she believed his half brother would actually marry her—a lowly working class girl. Never in this lifetime would he do that. Autenberry was too much of a snob. He was a product of his father and his class.
Struan would be doing her a favor if he convinced her of that. If, by the time Autenberry woke up, she was no longer enamored of him, then all the better. She wouldn’t be crushed when he gave her the boot.
“That is quite enough, sir.” She shot a quick glance to the door. “It isn’t seemly for us to be alone in here at this late hour. You should go.”
He
glanced at Autenberry, scratching his chin as though in deep contemplation and ignoring her demand. “He doesn’t strike me as a deep thinker.” Of all the things he’d heard about his brother, no one ever called him clever. “I’d wager he calls you something unoriginal. Is it ‘darling’? Or ‘sweetheart’?”
She stood abruptly, her face still hot with color. Initially, he thought her unremarkable in looks, but now he could see her appeal. She was comely with her ire up. He imagined it would be the same effect in bed—her eyes bright, cheeks flushed, mouth parted with arousing gasps. His cock hardened anew.
“If you won’t leave, then I shall,” she huffed.
He stepped sideways, blocking her retreat. For a moment they brushed, her softness colliding with his body. He heard her breath catch . . . felt his own breathing stop and hold. She need only glance down to see the evidence of his arousal . . . here beside his coma-stricken brother. Then she would really think him perverse.
To little surprise, she took a hasty step back, as though fearful of their contact.
“We’re practically family,” he said. “No need to rush away.”
Her expression turned almost comical. She looked as though she just bit into a tart apple. Her nose wrinkled and her lips worked. “Family? You? And me?” She glanced again to where the duke slept. “That status is built on the fact that you and His Grace are in actuality family.” She laughed a touch sharply. “From all accounts, your relationship is strained.”
True, and the reminder of how precisely unbrotherly their relationship was stung as it shouldn’t.
“Oh? Listening to gossip, Miss Fairchurch?” A sinister thread wove through his voice. “Who has been filling your ears? The staff?”
“I witnessed proof enough of that with my own eyes.”
He shrugged. “A mere spat. Not uncommon among family.”
“Not my family.” Bryony might make Poppy want to pull her hair out at times, but she loved her sister and she had no doubt that her sister loved her back. They would never strike each other.
“Then you’ve led a sheltered existence.”
She narrowed her gaze at his mocking tone and crossed her arms. “Why are you even here, Mr. Mackenzie?” She paused and flicked a glance to the duke’s bed. “You aren’t feeling guilty, are you?”
“Guilty?” He started. Of all things he thought she might say it wasn’t that. “For what?”
“For your role in all of this.” She waved toward where his brother slept.
There it was again, that prick of something in his chest—a tight, twisting pinch. She was closer to the truth than he liked to acknowledge.
“My role? And what of your role?”
Her eyes flared at the charge and her voice escaped in a sharp squeak. “Me?”
“Yes. You.” He took another step forward and she backed away one to match. He followed with another. “You were the one that shoved him out of the way, after all.”
Her breath escaped in a hot rush. “Out of the way of a charging carriage, you mean!”
“Yes, but if you hadn’t attacked me, I would have been there in the street with Autenberry. I could have pulled him safely away without knocking him to the ground . . . where he then struck his head.”
Her mouth parted, lips trembling as she stared at him, as though trying to understand what she was seeing . . . what he was saying.
And suddenly he felt like the biggest bastard. It wasn’t her fault. He knew that. He simply didn’t like her placing the blame on him so he flung it back on her. And let’s face it. Everything in him bristled around her with the need to lash out. He couldn’t stop himself. It was primal in nature. Almost the same as his urge to grab her and pin her beneath him. To unwrap the camouflage of her pinafore and see just what she hid beneath the trappings of her garments.
She at last recovered her voice. “By that logic, sir, you could also blame yourself for starting the fight that put you both in the street.”
An angry breath huffed out of him. “For the last time, I did not start that bloody fight, as you well know. You saw it begin.”
“Since when are you so concerned with the truth?” She waved to the bed, her bright eyes snapping with emotion. “According to you, I’m responsible for putting him in that bed, remember?” Her chin went up. “You made it abundantly clear that I’m culpable. If he dies, it’s on me, you . . .” Her lips worked, searching for a foul enough epithet. She arrived at, “Beast!”
Before he could form a reply, she dodged past him and fled the room.
He stood there for a full minute before releasing a foul curse and giving chase, not about to let her have the last word—and not about to let her leave here with that bit of guilt hanging over her head. Never mind that he had been the individual to plant it in her head to begin with. For some reason, the notion of her in any kind of anguish was unacceptable.
Chapter 11
He was horrible. An absolute wretch! How could he possibly even be related to the honorable Duke of Autenberry? It didn’t seem possible that they shared any bloodline at all. There wasn’t a scrap of decency to him.
She’d been battling her own demons, questioning if she had really saved the duke when she pushed him out of the carriage’s path. Her efforts had only caused him damage, after all. And then Struan Mackenzie had come along and only confirmed her suspicions.
How dare he so accurately pinpoint and give voice to her most private fears?
How dare he take no responsibility for his part in all of this?
How dare she care so blasted much what he thought?
She scarcely uttered a farewell word for the footman as she stalked out into the wintry night, wrapping herself more fully inside her cloak. Nonsensical mutterings fell from her lips as her boots bit into the walk.
She walked at a clipped pace beneath the gaslight cast from the sconces at the gates of Mayfair mansions, her anger notching higher and higher with every stride she took.
Gradually, she left Mayfair behind and her surroundings altered to darkened shop fronts closed up for the night. Her steps rang out, echoing on the air as she made her way home.
Eventually, she became aware of steps thudding behind her. Her heart quickened and she shot a quick glance over her shoulder, marking a figure in the distance following her. She quickened her pace and it seemed that the person followed suit. Mrs. Gibbons’s words drifted back to haunt her. Could it be a ruffian looking to filch her purse?
Her racing heart steadied at the sight of a small group of people walking across the street. It was comforting to see she wasn’t entirely alone out in the night. She need only shout out for help if necessary. She darted one more glance behind her.
The person behind her was much closer now and passing directly under a streetlamp. She had no difficulty identifying the familiar features of Struan Mackenzie.
That fine edge of alarm she first felt when she heard the footsteps tapered into annoyance. She should have known he would follow her. He was persistent that way. Her gaze darted across the street again. The trio of people rounded a corner, leaving both she and Struan Mackenzie alone on the shadowy, fog-shrouded streets.
She stopped and spun around, propping her fists on her hips. “Why are you following me?”
“You shouldn’t be walking out here this late alone.” His voice drew closer as he advanced.
“Leave me alone or I’ll call for the Watch,” she threatened, feeling full of dramatic flair and a bit like her sister in that moment. Especially considering she didn’t see evidence of a watchman—or anyone, for that matter. Now that the people had rounded the street it felt as though she and Struan Mackenzie were the only two people left in the world. It was rather eerie. A call for help would likely go unheeded, swallowed up in the viscous night.
Feeling slightly threatened at that realization, she turned and hastened on her way. Not that she thought he would physically harm her, but there were other ways to do damage and she was quite positive Struan Mackenzie could e
asily, effortlessly, damage her.
His voice followed, hard and fast. And much too close. “Look around you. Do you see any solitary ladies strolling about?” She stubbornly stared ahead and increased her pace. The sooner she reached home, the sooner she would be rid of him. “Come back to the house and we’ll take my coach. I’ll see you home.”
“No. Thank you.”
“Stubborn chit—”
She whirled around. “I’d appreciate it if you did not call me names simply because I won’t let you order me around. Such intimidation won’t work with me.”
Mackenzie slid a step closer and she managed to hold her ground. “Perhaps you require being ordered around.”
“By you?” she scoffed. “I managed twenty years without you in my life—” Her indignant speech died away as two dark shapes stepped out of the alley bisecting the street directly behind Mackenzie.
“Well, what ’ave we here? A toff and ’is lady?”
Mackenzie turned slowly to face the strangers while placing a hand on her hip and shoving her behind him. In that moment, she didn’t even mind that hand curled around her hip. Not the bold intimacy of it. Not how very large his palm and splayed fingers felt against her. All sense of propriety flew to the winds as the air thinned to something that felt cold and clammy on her skin. In this instance, his touch offered solace.
Standing on tiptoes, she peered around Mackenzie’s great body to scrutinize the men. Suddenly all of Mrs. Gibbons’s warnings flooded back and she tasted coppery fear in her mouth. She hated that the woman was correct.
“Good eve, gov’nor. Why don’t you ’and over your purse and anything of value and we won’t ’urt you or the lady.”
Poppy blinked. It was harder to remember to breathe, however. Her chest squeezed.
Mackenzie appeared, however, to have no problem functioning. He reached into his coat and pulled out his pocketbook. With a flick of his wrist, he handed it over. No hesitation. No comment. No objection.
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