by Gayle Eden
The man laughed rather grating. “But of course, everyone knows Rotherham’s rep for bloodshed. Did you think I did not see you enter? Perhaps, I have decided that it is worth the risk anyway. I note the way you move and carry yourself, Lady Alina… I sense that you are a woman who my like something… a bit larger between your fine white thighs.”
“You are a fool.” She sucked in a rigid breath, watching Rotherham look her way, then above her head to where the man could be seen, as he was taller.
Rotherham slid back his chair.
“Leave now. For God sakes,” she choked out.
The man did not leave. He leaned to whisper in her ear with brandy-scented breath, “Once I kill him, my lady, I’m going to shove my cock into—”
—He did not get it said.
Rotherham strode toward them shoving people roughly aside before pushing Alina away too. His whole hand was covering the man’s face, shoving him backwards.
There were gasps, screams, from those he had pushed down. However, by the time everyone realized why—Rotherham’s roaring growl of; “You dare touch my wife, Ellsworth? You dare look at her, speak your filth to her?” He drew back a fist and hit the man, sending him plowing into others catching him before they shoved him back.
Trevon growled, “I will rip that bloody foul tongue out of your head, before I kill you.”
In the chaos and nose, Alina had tried to get close to Rotherham. He was clearly in a black icy rage, his face and neck veins filled and eyes flashing a kind of arctic fire.
The rake foolishly laughed and swung at him, snarling loudly, “What virtue do you protect, Rotherham? That which she and her sister sold from their slatternly little cottage, in Berkshire?”
“That’s not true!” Alina raged in a half scream. “That’s not true—”
After Rotherham had hit him again, sending a loud crack echoing through the room, since music stopped, blood was spurting through his nose.
The man staggered, wiped at it, and declared, “I fucked her Mother too. Sweet old Mary, for two pence an hour.”
Alina screamed when Rotherham picked the man up by his long hair and slammed him across a table—breaking the delicate legs and sending people scattering.
When she saw a flash of a blade, and saw Rotherham stride to where he still lay on the broken wood, and grasp the man’s throat, she heard gasps of horror, knowing with everything in her that he was going to cut the man’s tongue out.
She shoved, clawed, her way through people, and then ran to him, reaching Rotherham when he snarled like the wrath of Satan, “First you will correct that lie, you bastard. Then you will choke on your own blood.” Knee on the man’s chest, hand gripping his throat, Rotherham pierced the tip of that blade into the skin of Ellsworth’s cheek.
“Trevon, Please!” Trembling, desperate, she tried to touch his face so he would look at her. “Please, just let him go. He is foxed, and a liar. But he’s—”
“He has sat there, all through the night, insulting both myself and you. He bloody well knew what he was doing—and came here for the express purpose of doing it. Did you not, Ellsworth?”
Gasping, skin almost purple, the man rolled his eyes to her as if asking for help.
She wet her lips. “It makes no matter. Please, my lord. Meet him for a duel, hit him, but do not do this.”
Rotherham’s blade drew blood and sank all the way through the man’s cheek. “You goddamn bloody cur. It is too bad I have none of my wife’s generosity when it comes to overlooking your filth and lies. That is my wife, my family. You bloody well know I will kill any man who so much as breathes wrong in their presence.”
Gasps, screams, had already echoed and overlapped each other. The crowd went back; away from the scene, a step or two at the sight of that blade sinking though flesh and sinew.
Rotherham pulled it free and struck Ellsworth several times across the face with the fisted hand holding the knife hilt—leaving it red, bloody, and swelling.
“Enough! Enough, Trevon!” Alina fell to her knees beside the man’s twitching body, looking up at her husband and seeing a stranger who was beyond frightening. “Let him go. You have made your point. He cannot refute his foolishness because you are strangling him.”
Rotherham’s fingers let go of the man’s neck, but his knee was still on that chest while he watched the man gasp, hands flying to his throat and trying to breathe. Blood spurted, flew from his lips.
“Get out of the way, Alina.” Her husband did not look at her.
“No,” she rasped, reaching to touch his dewed face. “Do not kill this man, my lord. Yes, he is scum. But not worth this. Please, I beg you.”
The man wheezed, his eyes swelling and gaze going between them. “Ap…apologies…Madam…” He managed. Then louder. “I lied…I never met your wife. Knew her Mother from…a chance passing…” He paused and drew in a strained and painful breath. “Don’t kill me, Rotherham. I will…will retract every word and leave England.”
“Not with your tongue and cock you won’t.”
Alina moaned at the man’s now very real terror of Trevon.
She cupped Rotherham’s face, uncaring if he snarled at her. Alina forced him to look at her. “Let him go, Trevon. Honor has been satisfied. He is terrified of you now. Please, Rotherham, let him up.”
He cursed explicitly and tried to jerk his face away.
Alina grabbed his hand with the knife and used the other to force it back toward her. “For God sakes, Trevon, please stop. You are not yourself. He is done. Broken! Let him go.”
Those sherry eyes were glazed with ice but as she kept talking, and pleading, they cleared a bit.
Trevon did not give her the knife, but sheathed it in his boot.
Moving her hand from his face, Rotherham stood and then lifted a barely able to stand Ellsworth. He growled, “Say it again. Louder.”
“I lied,” the man all but screamed, fumbling to tear off his cravat and hold it to his bloody face. “I apologize to Lord Rotherham, and his Countess. Tis true, I was paid to distract him—from the game.”
There were loud gasps amid sudden chatter and whispers.
Trevon turned his head to stare at Alina. “That, Madam, is the real truth.”
She moistened her lips, glancing around for those who were at his table and seeing several dashing for the door or through halls to hide themselves.
She looked at the bleeding man. “Give my husband their name.”
“Serighard.” He held the cloth to his skin and looked around. “He appears to have vanished.”
“He won’t go far.” Rotherham let him go, and suggested icily, “You had best find the fastest ship out of England by dawn.”
Nodding, the man fled, pushing through the crowds blindly focused on the exit door.
Alina walked behind her husband as he reached the table and lifted his jacket from the chair, eyes going down the table, he snarled, “The bastard cleaned out the pot.” He looked at Alina. “I was winning. The stakes had reached six thousand pounds.”
Still atremble she begged, “Let it go.”
Trevon looked around the room, seeing few who met his gaze and servants hurrying to right chairs and soothe patrons. He glanced back at her. “No, Madam. I will not.” He escorted her to fetch her wrap and out on the street, lit a cheroot while the coach came round.
Pulling her hood up, still in shock, Alina whispered, “What good will it do? He will have hidden or spent the money. I do not understand—”
He took her arm, all but forcing her in the coach when it stopped. Once inside, and on their way home, Rotherham uttered grimly, “Serighard has tried thrice to have me killed. Once in Austria, and twice in Spain. He even poisoned my drink, or rather hired a whore to do it.”
“My .God.” She eyed his profile as he stared grimly out and smoked. “Who is he?”
“A Count. A worthless noble, and family castoff, who has spent his whole life cheating and stealing.‘Tis rumored he killed two of his cousi
ns at fifteen so he could pawn their fobs and watches. He caught one in a shed and beat him with a club. The other he stabbed in his sleep.”
“Why—why has he not been arrested?”
“No proof and too much family influence. They may hate him, but his family will not stand the scandal of his hanging. He has been in several prisons for various crimes. Both lewd and illegal. He ran a string of ladies in Paris who poisoned and robbed for him. When he gets let out, he flees somewhere else—and takes up much the same.”
“Don’t go after him, Trevon.”
He released smoke through his nostrils. “If I do not kill him, Alina. He is going to succeed sooner or later—in killing me.”
“Why you?”
“Aside from the fact that I win more often than not.” Rotherham glanced at her, then back to the dark streets. “I have caught him cheating, and called him on it many times. After his attempts on my life in Spain, he was thrown in a stinking hole for months. I knew when I saw him at that table something was afoot—I was distracted—for the first time in years—and what unfolded did so…”
“By me—” She swallowed.
His jaw flexed. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” She felt her eyes burn, the events now shuddering through her, and the very real seriousness of it impacting her like an icy wind.
When he did not answer that, Alina turned her face to the window, glad when they reached home.
She watched Rotherham stride for the study and heard the door slam so loud, it echoed through the house.
“What on earth!” Audra came running from one of the sitting rooms, hand to her stomach and eyes wide.
“Come with me.” Alina wiped tears from her cheeks and reached for Audra’s hand, dashing with her up the stairs. As she stripped and bathed, she filled her sister in—though at points describing Rotherham—covering her face and having to catch her breath.
Finally bathed and in a white cotton robe, chilled, and seated on the seat beneath with her coffee, Audra had fetched, Alina’s teeth chattered while she eyed the fog outside, feeling her sister’s hand soothing her arm. “He’s going after him. To kill him.”
Audra sucked in a slow breath. “Perhaps, it is as he told you, Alina? This man is mad, deranged. He has tried to kill Rotherham before.”
Alina looked at her. “What if he doesn’t? What if Rotherham walks into some trap—or doesn’t know who comes out of the shadows?”
Audra touched her face. “I am going to get dressed and take the coach to Rane’s. He will know what to do.”
Alina took her hand and squeezed it. “Yes, I hope to God he does.”
“Drink your coffee. I will let you know something as soon as I have returned.”
* * * *
In a black hooded cape and gown, Audra rode in the coach through the dark streets, her eyes looking everywhere, as it bore Rotherham’s crest. Under her thin black gown, she had a dagger in her garter—and though her heart beat as fast as her breaths released, she knew she would use it.
As soon as the coach stopped at the viscounts, she ran to the knocker, and grasped the brass, banging it loudly.
Rane jerked the door open, looking tense and in the process of pulling on a black calf length coat. “I heard,” he muttered then took her hand and pulled her inside.
In the foyer, she let back her hood and looked around for servants. She saw none. “Has Rotherham sent for you?”
“No. Tell me what happened.” He got the caped coat on and then led her to the study, where he went to a case and took out pistols, then primed and loaded them, sticking them in his waistband.
While Audra repeated the whole scene to him, pacing in front of the desk, Rane removed money from a safe, and then slid a dagger into a hidden sheathe at the thigh of those leather trousers.
“You don’t think he’s still about, do you?”
“Yes.” He glanced up at her grimly. “There is nothing going out of port until dawn.” He took her arm again and escorted her out, calling for Louis, and when the man materialized, ordered, “See that my unmarked coach is brought to Lord Rotherham’s.”
“Right away, my lord.” The man obviously sensed the urgency and took off toward the back of the house.
Outside, they crossed amid traffic, her hood up again, but feeling him tense as every rider, buggy, and hack went passed. Inside the coach, Rane sat across from her, his tawny eyes shining light in the semi shadows—looking rather sinister to Audra, in that long black coat, high boots, and wine leather breeches. His shirt was black. It was not only the clothing, but the look of his taut visage. His body appeared relaxed, one elbow on the window, the other hand on his thigh—but even as their gazes held she sensed he was tightly coiled and alert.
“Does this happen, often?” her husky whisper filled the silence over clipping hooves and churning wheels.
“No. Not in this manner, usually.” His gaze drifted over her and then back to her eyes. “There are the usual thieves and footpads, in any crowded city, particularly around the hells. One gets jumped, clubbed, and robbed, if you are not alert. But Rotherham has made enemies. Not only with his success at the tables, but his wealth is tempting. Madmen, like Serighard, however—become obsessed. They know no fear because they are not normally caught or punished. He has lain low for some years…”
“And you—your…past?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “I’m not the most favored among some men. My covert life is little known, but suspected. Trevon, on the other hand, has had his every encounter witnessed.”
“Alina said—she said—he changed before her very eyes. Whilst I cannot imagine him any colder or harder….though lately…. In any event, she said it was if he was inside himself trapped in some black and fiery pit.”
Rane sighed heavily and looked up at the roof of the coach before dropping his gaze. He uttered finally, “I cannot betray him and tell you why that happens. Just trust me that it saves his life more often than not. Rotherham is…has been for many, many years…a man trapped in a hell few can understand.”
Rane leaned forward, taking her bare hands, looking into the shadows of her hood. “You cannot tell Alina what I have said. It has been my hope, as I have seen him begin to live at last since he wed her, that what I sense happening inside him because of her, will break down that wall at last.”
Audra searched his face detecting some shadow of pain in his own eyes. “I hope so. I hope that he can see what I do. I believe that Alina is in love with him.”
Before sitting back, Rane pressed her hands to his lips a moment, closing his eyes, breathing a sigh that seemed to shudder through him. When he did loose them and settle back, he looked out the coach window and offered gruffly, “It may not appear so to those who do not know him, but he deserves that. He needs that.”
Audra said nothing more, turning to look out too until they reached the mansion. She went through the main door as Rane left her to walk around to the study where he murmured he knew Rotherham would be.
Audra went above and entered Alina’s chambers.
Taking off her cape, she found her sister sitting where she left her and told her, “Rane is here. He is with Rotherham.”
Alina let her head fall to her hand. “Thank God.”
“I’m going to change. I assume they will be leaving shortly. Rane thinks the man is still in the city. Do you want me to come and sit with you?”
“No.” Alina reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. “Thank you.”
Looking over her face, Audra said softly, “It’s not your fault. This is a long held grudge, and—”
“—He likely thinks it is. He said he was distracted.”
“No. Listen to me, Alina.” Audra went to her and sat on the edge of the seat. “He chose you because you are strong. And, heaven knows when we were dragged before the magistrate, and witnessed those hangings…we have known fear and faced it. You got through the trial for the shooting of Captain McKay—and we lived through mother’s keepi
ng us a breath from the gallows. You must simply see the truth in what he says—someday, this man will kill him. Or perhaps do harm either of us.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” Alina met her gaze.
“No matter what he says, how cold he acts, whatever it takes him to do this—you know, deep down, that you must not be wringing your hands and acting anything other than helpful?”
“I will. I do.”
Audra stood. “Try to sleep a few hours. It has been a hellish night for you. In the morning, you will be yourself.”
Alina stood and then hugged her. “I will. I will be fine, really. It all happened so fast. I thought too many times I would not reach through that rage.”
Audra nodded and then left, stripping and bathing, sitting in the scented water, arms around her knees, while she replayed that coach ride—and Rane’s image. Staring at the far wall, she knew that things could not go on as they were between them. The night of the theater was as tense and difficult as that day in his house. She had wanted to kiss him, to touch him a dozen times. She recognized, as a grown and virile man Rane exercised restraint, limiting himself to holding her hand, kissing it, while his eyes said so much more.
She leaned back on the rim, straightening her legs. She wanted him beyond her fears and obsessive thoughts of having some panic moment and spoiling whatever intimacy she allowed. In the days, hours, times she had been with him, her senses were more and more attuned to his voice, his scent. His image always drew her eyes covertly.
Tonight in his most dangerous mode, like a great cat on the hunt, she’d realized in that coach that her body flushed, her breath became shallow—and she knew his clothing, his manner, his stare, aroused, instead of frightened her.
There were other times his smile flashed or his voice would drawl in a husky manner and she had felt the same. Times—when she eyed his lithe and honey muscled frame sprawled in that masculine way he relaxed it, and she traced every inch of him. Rane often looked at her with a flash of hunger and heat that burned through her bones.
Audra closed her eyes, remembering when she had stared at the sinew of his throat, or when he had rolled back his sleeves, and his arms simply fascinated her. He sipped or chewed and those high cheekbones flexed. His semi full lips flushed, and she would feel a curling fire low in her belly.