“That,” he bit out, “wasn’t very nice.”
“Neither is accosting a female when it’s clear she finds you repulsive!” Joanna spat, her chest heaving with indignation…and a tiny, but rapidly growing, sliver of fear.
There were at least four other people milling about the statue garden, but it was clear none of them had any plans to come to her aid.
She should have stayed on the bench.
“You’re feisty, sweet.” A drunken grin stumbled across the duke’s mouth as he reached between them to rub himself suggestively. “I like that.”
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed, pinching her eyes shut and turning her head to the side when he tried to place a sloppy kiss on her lips. “Release me this instant!”
“Or what?” he sneered.
“Or I’ll break your fucking face.” Moving through the darkness like a shadow, Kincaid materialized behind the Duke of Telford and wrapped his forearm around the duke’s throat. “I believe Miss Thorncroft asked you to release her.”
“The hell I will,” the duke retorted. “Do you have any idea who I am? Sod off and find yourself another fine piece. This wench is—ahhh,” he gurgled when Kincaid applied pressure to the duke’s windpipe, effectively silencing him.
“You’re going to apologize to Miss Thorncroft,” the detective said calmly. “Then you are going to get the hell out of her sight, or I’m going to snap your neck like a bloody twig. Do you understand?”
The duke wheezed something unintelligible.
“What was that?” Kincaid asked, loosening his grip a fraction of an inch.
“I—I’m sorry,” he gasped. “T—truly.”
“Is that sufficient, Miss Thorncroft?” Although Kincaid’s tone was pleasant, even polite, his eyes burned black fury as he met her gaze.
Joanna sucked in a startled breath.
Gone was the quiet, mild-mannered private investigator who rescued cats and left mugs of coffee scattered around his office (seven, at last count). In his place stood a man who was every bit as much a warrior as the statues that surrounded him. He was fierce, and frightening, and there wasn’t a doubt in Joanna’s mind that he wouldn’t hesitate to make good on his threat to kill the Duke of Telford in cold blood.
All for the sin of touching her.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, it’s sufficient. You can let him go.”
Please let him go, she thought, for even though the duke had treated her abominably, she didn’t want his death on her conscience.
To her great relief, Kincaid honored his word and released the duke.
After nearly collapsing to his knees, the nobleman righted himself, but he was either too pompous or too stupid to heed Kincaid’s warning.
“You’re going to pay for this!” he said shrilly. “I’ll see you thrown in Newgate! Then I’m going to take your little whore and—”
Whatever the duke’s nefarious intentions were, he never had the chance to speak them aloud for with a sickening crunch of bone striking bone, Kincaid slammed a fist into the middle of the duke’s nose and he sank to the ground like a stone.
“That’s one way to shut him up, I suppose.” Lifting her skirts, Joanna stepped neatly over the Duke of Telford’s body. “Shall we?” she asked Kincaid.
“I told you to remain on the bench,” he growled as they left the statue garden.
“I’m not very good at following directions,” she admitted.
“Obviously.” Drawing her to the side of the path, he lightly grasped her elbows as his dark gaze, more amber than obsidian as his anger slowly receded, raked across her with a blush-inducing intensity. “Are you injured, Miss Thorncroft? Did he hurt you in any way? If you need to see a doctor—”
“I’m fine. Truly,” she insisted when he still appeared dubious. “The only thing injured was my pride, but I’m confident it shall recover in due time.” She bit her lip. “That—that was a duke. Granted, I’m not all that familiar with British titles yet, but I know that’s an important one. Won’t you suffer repercussions for assaulting him?”
The detective’s eyes flashed. “He put his hands on you. He should consider himself lucky I didn’t kill him.”
And now Kincaid had his hands on her, but she didn’t mind.
She didn’t mind at all.
The Duke of Telford had repulsed her from the very first word he’d spoken. Even before his mouth turned cruel and his grip turned demanding, she hadn’t trusted him. Her instincts had warned her something was wrong. The very same instincts that told her Thomas Kincaid was right. That he felt right. That standing here, with him, with moonlight in her hair and a mad fluttering in her heart, was where she was meant to be.
Her lashes skimmed across her cheekbones, disguising her uncertainty…and her hope. She might have crossed the Atlantic to find a ring, but that did not mean it was the only thing of value worth discovering. In Somerville, love had eluded her more times than she cared to acknowledge. And despite Evie’s theory, she refused—refused—to believe it was because she didn’t want to fall in love.
Maybe her heart had just been waiting for the right person.
Never knowing that right person was on the other side of the ocean.
“Are you certain you are all right, Miss Thorncroft?”
Joanna blinked, then raised her gaze. “Yes. I…I am appreciative of the lengths which you employed to ensure my safety, Kincaid. I realize that was not part of our original agreement.”
She’d meant to compliment him but, for some reason, her words only seemed to cause him annoyance. Then again, he was always in such a perpetual state of irritation it was difficult to gauge whether he was scowling because of something she’d said or he was scowling because he was breathing.
“There’s a carriage waiting for us,” he said curtly.
“Wait,” she called out, hurrying to catch up to him when he started to walk away. “What about Evie?”
“She’s not here.”
Bunching her skirts in her fists, Joanna broke into a light jog. “She’s not here?” she repeated, panting slightly as she struggled to keep pace with the detective’s considerably longer stride. “What do you mean?
Kincaid halted with such abruptness that she plowed into the back of him. They both fell forward, and would have continued falling had he not twisted around and wrapped his arms around her.
“I mean,” he snarled, his face an inch from her own as he hauled her upright, “that she left as soon as she saw what kind of place this is. Because, unlike her sister, she is sensible.”
“I’m sensible,” Joanna protested.
“You are many things, Miss Thorncroft. Sensible is not one of them.” With that, he released her and stalked through the gate, leaving her to follow after or be left behind.
After a quick glance over her shoulder, she followed him to a different carriage than the shoddy cab they’d arrived in. This one was large, and sleek, and its glossy black surface reflected her pale, tired countenance back at her as she climbed inside and sat across from Kincaid.
He acknowledged her presence with a low grunt, the only sound he made for the entirety of the ride. She could tell he was angry at her but, after everything she’d been through over the past hour, she did not have the energy, or the will, to pry the reason out of him.
When they finally reached the boarding house, it was nearly half-past midnight, and she was relieved to see the soft glow of candlelight coming from the room she and Evie were sharing.
“Thank you,” she told Kincaid while she waited for the driver to come round and open the door. “For…for everything. The theater, and coming with me to find my sister, and giving the Duke of Telford what he deserved.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was hardly nothing.” She waited for him to say something else. To say anything else. When he remained cloaked in stubborn silence, she gave a small sigh. “Goodnight, Kincaid. I shall see you at your office in the morning.”
“Miss
Thorncroft,” he said after she’d departed the carriage.
“Yes?” She turned towards him expectantly, only to be greeted by a swath of shadows. Just the lower half of his jaw was visible, and it was so rigidly held it was a wonder he could move it enough to form words.
“If I were to ever kiss you, I would not need to ask permission.” With that, the door slammed shut and the carriage rolled away…leaving Joanna to wonder if she wasn’t alone in waiting for love.
Chapter Nine
The ice house was colder than a witch’s tit. Kincaid’s teeth chattered lightly together as he waited at the mouth of the well for the iceman to return. Somewhere down in that deep, dark chasm there was over four long tons of ice, cut into rough blocks and stacked as high as seven men. Kincaid only needed a pound of it to wrap around the hand he’d plowed into the Duke of Telford’s ugly arse face.
An impulsive bit of violence, that.
The likes of which he hadn’t employed since his days as a peeler.
He had more self-restraint now. More control. Or at least, that’s what he liked to believe. But when he’d stepped into that statue garden and witnessed Telford grabbing Joanna, the last thing he’d felt was in control.
The duke was lucky he wasn’t dead, or worse.
“Those are some ugly knuckles you’ve got there,” the iceman, a skinny fellow with a head as bald as an ivory cue ball, remarked as he climbed out of the well and handed Kincaid a slab of ice wrapped in a dirty, brown cloth.
“You should see the other bastard.” Fishing a shilling out of his pocket, Kincaid paid for the ice and immediately applied it to his throbbing hand before he headed towards home.
He’d been so enraged, he had forgotten to untuck his thumb when he punched, and was paying a fine price for such an amateur mistake. His entire arm throbbed like the dickens, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if one, if not more, fingers were broken.
Still, the pain was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of watching Telford crumple to the ground…and the knowledge that he’d put him there.
The sheer rage that had flowed over him…it was like nothing he’d experienced. And nothing he hoped to experience again. For the duke wasn’t the only recipient of his anger. He had told Joanna to stay put, hadn’t he? Remain on the bench, he’d said. Wait for him to return, he’d said.
Yet what had she done at the first opportunity?
Run off to a garden filled with naked statues of men.
Naked, well-endowed statues of men.
And a foxed duke who should have known better than to go chasing after his woman.
Everything inside of Kincaid stilled.
Including his heart.
Bloody hell.
His woman?
Joanna Thorncroft wasn’t his.
She was…she was a menace to society, that’s what she was. And he just happened to have gotten himself sucked into the storm of chaos that seemed to follow her wherever she went. That didn’t mean he thought of her as his. That would be…that would be ludicrous.
Almost as ludicrous as taking a gorgeous American he hardly knew to a damned pleasure garden to search for her sister who he didn’t know at all.
“I need a drink,” he snapped at James and Jane as he let himself to his house and went straight to the liquor cabinet in his office. The two cats trailed after him, their petulant meows a reminder that they hadn’t yet received their dinner. Dumping what remained of the rapidly melting ice in a bucket, he glared at the felines. “Go catch a mouse. That’s what you’re here for, and there’s plenty of them scurrying about in the attic.”
Jane, the shyer of the two, darted away.
James merely sat on his haunches at his master’s feet, opened his mouth, and yowled.
“All right, all right.” Cringing at the horrendous sound, Kincaid rummaged around in a cabinet with his good hand and managed to procure half a loaf of bread and hunk of hard cheese. There was no telling how long they’d been in there, but James didn’t seem to mind. Tearing off a piece of bread for himself, Kincaid poured a glass of whiskey and nursed it by the window.
Clouds obscured the sky, blocking out the stars and the moon and turning London as black as pitch save for the intermittent glow of cast iron lamp posts. Somewhere out in all that inky darkness were the peelers, combing the streets and the alleys and the docks. Four years ago, he would have been out there with them. Risking life and limb to protect a city that didn’t give a damn about him. Now, he was in his house with his cats, trying not to let his mind be led astray by a titian-haired beauty with eyes as blue as the ocean and the most temptingly kissable mouth he’d ever seen.
It was a miracle, really.
That he hadn’t kissed her yet.
God, did he want to.
Truthfully, he didn’t know if he’d ever wanted anything more.
And that terrified him more than when he’d found himself on the wrong end of a pistol after he was sent to break up a brawl at a riverside pub.
Grimacing, Kincaid sipped his whiskey, then took a bite of the bread before promptly spitting it back out. Hell, but it was stale. Like chewing on an old rubber shoe. Chasing the taste out of his mouth with more whiskey, he happened to glance down and saw James looking up, his yellow eyes slanted in annoyance.
“It’s not my fault,” Kincaid said defensively. “When I bought the bread it was fine. Try the cheese.”
Lowering his head, James gave the cheese a dainty sniff, then abruptly recoiled and batted at it with his paw.
Kincaid glared at the picky feline. “Don’t bloody well start with me. You’re a cat. Not the King of England. Who cares if it’s a little off color? If I can eat it, so can you.” Scooping the cheese off the floor—he’d gotten his food from worse places—he tried it. Then promptly spat that out, too, as James watched smugly.
“Go catch a mouse,” Kincaid repeated. Picking up his whiskey, he returned to staring out the window. The clouds had shifted, allowing a shimmer of moonlight to peek through. Instantly, he was reminded of the streaks of silvery moonlight in Joanna’s hair as she’d walked into Cremorne Gardens. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn she was a goddess of old.
Aphrodite, perhaps.
Or Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom.
Athena, he decided as he sipped his drink.
Most definitely.
While the wisdom of Joanna’s decision to sail across the Atlantic in search of a ring and a father she’d never met was debatable, her courage was not. It was clear she’d go to great lengths to protect her sisters. She already had. And if that wasn’t the sign of a true warrior, what was?
If Kincaid wasn’t determined to dislike her, he’d having nothing but admiration for her.
And lust.
Quite a bit of lust.
Along with…other feelings.
Feelings he didn’t want to feel, which was where the dislike came in.
Never mind that there was absolutely nothing he’d disliked about Joanna tonight. The notable exception being her refusal to follow even the simplest of commands. But even that, in and of itself, was a source of grudging appreciation. She was as headstrong a woman as he’d ever encountered, and he couldn’t fault her for it. Not when it was what had first drawn him to her.
“Will you stop looking at me like that?” he snapped when he turned round to find James was staring at him with a smirk.
Or so it seemed.
Were cats capable of smirking?
Kincaid did not have any idea. But if there was ever a feline who could pull off such a human expression, it was James.
“I’ll get you fresh fish at the market tomorrow. Does that meet your fancy, m’lord,” he said with a mocking bow, “or should I pull it out of the river with my teeth?”
James’ smirk only grew.
“You’re a bastard, you know that, right?” Tipping his glass, Kincaid finished the rest of the whiskey, considered pouring himself another, then put the bottle back
on the shelf with some regret. It was already late, and the morning was going to come early, and if he was going to continue to dislike Miss Joanna Thorncroft, he needed his wits about him.
Scooping James up in his arms—he could hardly leave the cat downstairs all alone now, could he?—Kincaid clomped off to bed.
*
Joanna was bored.
No, that didn’t do it justice.
She was bored of being bored.
And it was all Kincaid’s fault.
Since she’d arrived in his office some three hours ago, he had hardly taken the time to acknowledge her aside from dumping a large bin of paper on her lap and asking her to organize it by date while he conducted interviews with potential clients.
She realized he was busy. By her estimation, more than seven people had walked through the door this morning. A man in search of his missing horse, a woman in search of her missing necklace, and (the most interesting case by far, in Joanna’s opinion) a baroness who wanted to open an investigation into the sudden and unexpected death of her husband.
Sir Edgar Chamberlain, it seemed, had recently engaged in an affair with an actress—or that harlot, as Lady Chamberlain had referred to her—and upon his demise, the actress’ theater group had inherited a considerable percentage of Sir Edgar’s fortune. If Lady Chamberlain could prove Sir Edgar had been killed by the actress, the bulk of his estate would revert back to his wife.
It was a fascinating mystery, and one Joanna would have very much liked to assist on…if she wasn’t being completely ignored.
The least Kincaid could do was spare a bit of attention. Especially since his parting words from the night before had kept her up tossing and turning until Evie had thrown a pillow at her head and demanded that she either fall asleep or go find another room.
If I were to ever kiss you, I would not need to ask permission.
How could he say that to her, and then pretend the next day as if she didn’t exist? How could he knock a duke flat on his backside for the crime of simply touching her, and then greet her the next morning as if they were perfect strangers?
Bewitched by the Bluestocking Page 12