"But where is Fletcher now?"
"I sent him to the inn to gather up our belongings. He should be back sometime after breakfast. At least, if he manages the task without getting into trouble." Slade's brows crashed together in a scowl. "Now, my question is this. What are you doing out here, wandering around in the rain? Hell, that's how I found your father, as well. What is it with you people?"
"It's not raining. At least, not anymore." Juliet drew herself up as primly as possible with her feet half buried in mud. "As for what I was doing, well, I had to go out to unlock the gate."
Sabrehawk's jaw went slack. "Unlock it? Are you insane?" He released her so abruptly she almost landed smack on her rump. His mud-spattered boots ate up the distance to the open gate.
Juliet stumbled after him, sputtering a protest. But before she could reach him, he slammed the iron portal shut with a crash so loud it should have shaken the shingles from the roof.
"Stop that!" Juliet cried, grappling for the iron bars. "No one can get inside if you close it." She might as well have battled with Achilles for possession of his heel.
Slade flattened one palm against the gate and threw the bolt with the other.
"Let go of this at once!" Juliet blustered. "You have no right—"
"You're damned right, I don't! But, fortunately, I don't give a damn! Now, you take your behind back inside that house before I carry you in and lock you in the pantry." "Lock me—you—you—how dare you even—"
"What the blazes—" he snarled as lightning drizzled blue glow over her, those tempestuous eyes sweeping a scathing path down her body. "You're wearing an infernal nightgown!"
Juliet choked out a horrified cry, as the realization she'd lost her shawl in her struggle with Slade swept over her. She might as well be stripped bare for all the damp, mud- spattered garment did to conceal her body. If it weren't for the sheltering darkness... She crossed her arms over her breasts, stumbling back away from those piercing dark eyes.
"Oh, no, madam. You're not going to catch your death of lung fever out here! No more blood-vows or rain-soaked feverish tyrants ordering me about."
Swear words, so blue they should have blistered her ears rang out. But she didn't even have time to draw a shocked breath before sword-toughened hands closed around her waist. He launched her up and smacked her, belly down, across one broad shoulder.
She squawked, kicked, hammered with her fists against his back with all her might, but he only clamped an arm immovable as an iron manacle across her thighs to hold her. Then he strode through the night-shrouded garden like Hades dragging Persephone down into his dark kingdom.
When he reached the house, he gave the door to the kitchen a kick with his boot, and it swung open. In a heartbeat, he kneed it closed, then dumped her into the chair tucked in the nearest corner.
She scuttled across the wide seat to make her escape, but his hands clamped down on her shoulders, pinning her in a cage formed of chair-spindles and brawny masculine arms. His breath rasped, hot against her cheeks. His jaw knotted with fury.
Fury that spawned an answering rage deep down in Juliet's core. She tried to kick at him, but her bare feet only skidded harmlessly off his thigh. He planted his knee across her legs, holding her helpless.
"Let me go, or I'll scream," she vowed, outrage banishing all thought of her questionable attire. "Scream loud enough to bring every woman in this house down here."
"Do it! By God, I'll summon 'em myself. They probably know the safest place for me to lock you up in this accursed place. Hold still, damn you, and listen!" he growled. "The game is over, Angel Lady."
"G-Game? It's not a game!"
"You bet your infernal prayer book it's not! I spent some time at a place you might know of—a tavern called The Fighting Cock."
Juliet couldn't stifle the shudder that ran through her at the mention of that establishment. "I couldn't care less where you spend your time, as long as it's far away from here."
"Their main form of entertainment tonight has been planning what kind of hellish things they're going to do to you. How do you feel about this house being burned down about your head? Or how about a more fitting vengeance still? Giving you a taste of what these ladies have endured?"
What little blood remained in Juliet's cheeks drained away. Her stomach lurched. "I'm not afraid," she lied. "Threats... they're none of your... concern."
"That's right. You've heard all this before, haven't you? In those notes—those meaningless notes you consigned to the fire."
Juliet's heart was hammering its way out of her chest, her whole essence seemingly dwarfed, crushed by the pulsing power of Adam Slade's. "Why should you care what happens?"
"I shouldn't, damn it! You want to play Christian and feed yourself to the lions, I should just stand out of the way and ring the dinner bell."
His eyes flashed black fire. "Well, I can't, blast you to hell, no matter how much I might want to. You say you won't leave this rat trap? Fine. Then until Mother Cavendish and her horde are driven back into the hell they came from you'd better just get accustomed to having me shadow your every step. You aren't going to pick a flower, bake a biscuit or go to the privy without me being a sword's length away from you."
"There is absolutely no way I will tolerate that!" Yet despite those brash words, Juliet couldn't help the tremor of unease that racked her. The notion that this giant of a man—Adam Slade, Sabrehawk, who feared no man— should be frightened for her was more sobering than anything that had befallen her since she'd walked through the door to Angel's Fall.
It was easy enough to close her eyes against the danger when she was alone. But Slade was forcing her to examine things that made her quake inside. Possibilities so horrible she didn't know if she were strong enough to endure them, no matter how much she wished that she was. "Why can't you just go away? Pretend you never found me?"
"Because they are going to hurt you, woman. Badly. The instant they get the chance. And there's nothing you can do to stop them."
"But you can?"
"I already have," he said grimly. "At least for tonight."
He released her and turned away. Juliet tried to straighten her nightgown, her cheeks stinging as the wet cloth clung to her breast.
Adam stalked over to stir up the fire. It flared to life, tongues of flame dancing, shoots of light writhing up to tangle in the ebony waves of his damp hair, gild the sun-bronzed planes of his face, the hard curve of his mouth.
His mouth...
The outrage that had been sputtering in Juliet's chest died as her gaze locked on his lower lip. That blatantly sensual curve was just a little swollen, a fine red line splitting it near the left corner, a smear of fresh blood just beneath. Fire-shine danced over his brow, revealing a darkening bruise around his right eye, and a nasty scrape near his temple.
"You—you're hurt! What in heaven's name happened?"
"Percival broke a chair over my skull. Fortunately, I have the hardest head in Christendom."
"You were fighting?"
"Like the foul fiends of hell, lady, the odds seven to one."
"Those—those reprehensible, villainous... curs!" She scrambled up from her chair, flitting toward him like a wary, yet determined dove. "It's a miracle you escaped!"
"Escaped? Bah! They were the ones who turned tail and ran." Despite the injury, those lips pulled into a wolfish grin. "I'd wager the good sergeant will never make the mistake of underestimating me again."
A shiver of something foreign tingled deep in a secret part of Juliet's soul—the dark part, the unruly part that had been shuttered away by her father's saintly patience and gentle remonstrances.
Pleasure, heady and sweet and intoxicating that this man had battled those craven curs, faced them down and scattered them to the winds. Heaven forgive her, but Juliet would have given a year of her life to witness those scurrilous knaves, frightened themselves instead of terrorizing someone helpless. No wonder legends were filled with feminine glee at heroes riding
back from doing battle.
She fought against the primitive surge of triumph no gently bred woman should entertain, praying that Adam Slade hadn't seen the flash of sinful delight in her eyes. Heaven forfend—he wasn't her champion. The only way she wanted to see Adam Slade was riding away from Angel's Fall, leaving her in peace. Wasn't it?
She avoided that too-keen gaze, dashing away her emotions by bustling about. "Let me tend your injuries at once! I won't have your wounds becoming putrid on my account."
"I've had worse splinters, Miss Grafton..." He started to scoff, then stopped, watching her for a moment out of heavy-lidded eyes. Awareness sizzled along her nerves. This man had fought for her. Interposed that hard-muscled body between her and her enemies. Been injured... and might have been killed. Tears stung her eyes.
Adam stared down at the gleaming droplets that clung to her lashes, seeing the gratitude in her eyes—reluctant yet undeniable. Only a son of a bitch would use that to his advantage. A knot of self-loathing tightened in his belly, but he stepped toward her, his legs wobbling, just a whisper unsteady, his hand groping out to brace himself against the table.
Juliet cried out, rushing toward him to steady him. "You can barely stand! Look at you! Sit down before you fall!"
"I'm not... going to fall." Adam acted as if he were mustering his strength of will, his brow furrowing with concentration, his teeth clenching until his jaw ached, but not half enough to drive away the sensation of self-disgust that stirred inside him. But hell—he had to find a way to get inside the blasted house, didn't he? To protect her for her own good? He might be play-acting now, but the savage hate in the faces at The Fighting Cock were no illusion. They were real. All too chillingly real.
"This is nothing," Adam insisted, brushing his cut lip with the tips of his fingers. "It's the tiniest scratch. And God knows, I'm such a scarred-up beast of a man, it wouldn't matter a damn if Percival carved his initials all over my body. But you..." He leaned heavily against the table. "I don't want to see this to happen to you, Juliet."
He could see the fear flicker in those celestial blue eyes. Knew in that instant that she understood more of what she faced than he'd imagined. He didn't want to respect her courage, her strength of will. But he did.
She crossed to a bench, gathering a bowl of water and a clean cloth. When she returned to him and placed her supplies on the table, her gaze was so earnest it wrenched at something buried deep, all but forgotten, in his heart. "If something bad befell me, it would be because of the path I've chosen. Freely, Adam Slade. Willingly."
"As I choose to protect you." He caught her hands in his, held them, tight. Blast, what a beast he was to prey on her this way. "Let me guard you, Juliet. You and your ladies."
He could see it in her face—a moment of sweet temptation before she withdrew her hands and shook her head in denial. "But you cannot say you have had a change of heart. You made it clear what you think of my quest here. That it is foolhardy and futile and—"
Her fingers fluttered to her throat, drawing Adam's gaze. Awareness shot through him, the muscles in his chest clenched as his eyes locked on Juliet's garb, his gaze heating so fiercely it should have sizzled the lace from her wrists and bodice. Light poured silver-blue down into the hollow of her throat, exposed by the open collar of the most angelic nightgown Adam had ever seen. One that would have tempted a guardian angel to sin.
It was all he could do to drag his eyes away from the delicate gown before he terrified her in her innocence. He swallowed hard, struggling to focus on her words, fashion a reply that made some vague sense.
"That will be our bargain if I stay. You can attempt to teach me how wrong I am. While I..."
"Can nail me in a barrel and ship me off somewhere?" she asked with a light laugh, retrieving the cloth and dunking it in the water.
He could think of a hell of a lot more appealing things to do with her than lock her away in a keg. Holding her prisoner in a silk-lined bed, with the softest of chains wrought of his kisses. Where the devil had that thought come from? Adam's cheek burned in alarm.
"No barrels," he croaked out as she dabbed at the cut on his brow. "I give you my word as a former officer." She curved one soft hand beneath his jaw, tipping his face up to the firelight. Her fingers were feather light, stirring as brands, as they drifted across his swollen lip, delicately swabbing away the dried blood.
He flinched, and she gave a soft cry of regret, as if she'd hurt him. But she'd done worse than that. Adam's loins knotted, and he knew he needed only to turn his head a little bit to bury his lips in the soft dark cup of her palm. The image appalled him.
Blood and thunder, he had to make an end to this before he botched it beyond repair.
He groped for a plan, desperate. Then he hesitated, weighing a tactic in his mind, measuring the risk. A lieutenant colonel had once taught him that one of the best strategies for gaining someone's trust was sharing a vulnerability of one's own. It could be the most dangerous, or the most successful, of gambits. But he had little choice. Adam sucked in a steadying breath and cast out the dice.
"There is another reason I'm asking to stay here. Juliet, your ladies are not the only ones who are fugitives from their past."
"You are... running from something?"
Not nearly fast enough, he thought as her sweet brows arched in astonishment, concern. She was woman enough to adore some wild tale about his adventures, Adam thought. But for once, the truth would serve his purposes better.
"Not me. The boy."
She dropped the cloth back into the bowl of water. "Fletcher? He's like a great gallumphing puppy. What could he possibly be running from?"
Adam leaned forward, his hands framing her cheeks, his gaze burning into hers with the fierce fervor he knew no woman could resist. "Can I trust you, Juliet Grafton-Moore? Do I dare?"
Her pulse quickened under his thumb, and Adam felt his own mouth go dry, the need to press soft circles into the ivory satin of her skin astonishing him. He forced his fingers to stay still, concentrating on what he needed to accomplish.
"Fletcher's real name is Kieran O'Hara. There is a price on his head and a hangman's rope waiting for him in Ireland and a firing squad in France."
Horror drew an ash-hued veil over her face. "But he— he's only a boy! He... what could he possibly have done?"
"Attempted murder of a peer of the realm. Assaulting an officer."
"Stuff and nonsense! He'd have to be a monster! There's nothing of that kind of evil in his face!"
"You want evil, my lady, look into the eyes of his accusers. But it won't matter. If they get their claws in him, they'll hang him. Do you wish me to tell you the boy's story? All of it?"
"It doesn't matter. He's innocent. Anyone who looks in his eyes can see it is so." Adam felt a bitter stab of envy, wondered if he'd ever been so certain of the goodness in a stranger.
Still, telling Juliet the whole ugly tale could only help convince her to let them stay under her roof. He drew in a deep breath. "Kieran, or Fletcher, as the case may be, blew a sizable hole in the shoulder of a nobleman who had seduced his sister."
He saw Juliet's eyes flash with admiration and grimaced. "And here, I thought you abhorred violence," he muttered. It seemed Miss Grafton-Moore and Fletcher were two of a kind.
"Fletcher was most put out when the blackguard didn't die, and was damned determined to go back and finish the cur, but his uncle hired me to snatch him out of harm's way. The boy was eager to fight, so old O'Hara hoped Fletcher could make his way as so many other Irish exiles have done before him. Fighting another country's wars, spilling his blood for another man's cause."
"But then how did you end up in England?"
"My young charge is a trifle like a powder keg. I had delivered him to his regiment, and was downing a celebratory bottle of whiskey when I heard he'd pinked some colonel's son in a duel. The officer intended to fling the boy to the wolves. There are a hundred ways a commander can rid himself of a soldier if he c
hooses."
She shuddered. After so many years in the military, Adam knew he could tell her tales that would make her hair turn white. "But Fletcher is only a boy," she said.
"Boys are an expendable commodity in the army, my dear. It would have been one thing for the young fool to get his head blown off because of his own stupidity. Another thing entirely to be sent on a suicide mission because some spoilt military brat has gone whining to his papa. If I hadn't intervened, Fletcher would have been dead within the first week."
"So you are risking your life to protect him."
"I won't let you entertain any romantic notions about it. It only stands to reason that if his uncle had been willing to pay to keep Fletcher alive once, he'd be happy to do so again. I much prefer the boy stay alive so I can collect the fee.'
He was stunned to find himself wincing at the disappointment that clouded those incredible eyes at his words. "I expect to receive a second payment once we're settled somewhere. The problem is where to settle with him. He's guilty of attempted murder in Ireland and desertion in France. I had to come to England because of my vow to your father. There was nothing to do but bring the boy with me and try to keep him alive until his uncle decides what to do with him next. Miss Grafton-Moore, the Irish nobleman Fletcher shot has offered a sizable reward for his capture, and there are plenty of men greedy enough to take it. Angel's Fall would be the last place they would search for him. But if we continue battling our way through your enemies, and camp in your garden there is a good chance someone will recognize him. That is, if any of those employed in hunting him down should manage to trace our path to London."
She was pale, suddenly very still. "You're pressing an unfair advantage. Using Fletcher's plight to get your way."
"Maybe I am. That doesn't change the fact that I've told you the truth."
She paced away in an agony of indecision, gnawing at the full curve of her lower lip. Adam remembered all too well what it felt like to taste it.
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