James did not rise to the bait. “What do you want, Richard?” he asked again.
“I want what is mine.”
Sarah felt the cold metal move as Richard shifted to face James. The dagger rested against her thigh now.
“I want the dukedom.”
“It’s yours—just put the knife down.”
“Just like that?”
“As long as you put down the knife and don’t hurt Sarah.”
“You care so much for your whore?”
“Put down the knife,” James repeated.
“Perhaps I’ll carve my initials into her white thighs first. Shall I? Then every time you kneel between her legs, you’ll remember that I was here, too. You’ll remember how I beat you.”
Richard turned back to Sarah and in that instant, James moved. He dove for Richard’s knife hand and grabbed it, twisting it up and away from Sarah’s body.
“No!” Richard screamed. He would not let go of the knife. “You bloody bastard.” His free hand swung at James’s face. James deflected the blow with his forearm, and Richard swung lower. James blocked that punch with his thigh.
“Richard, stop,” James panted.
“No, you whoreson. I won’t stop until you’re dead.”
Sarah strained against her bonds, but none of them loosened. She could do nothing but watch the men struggle between her legs. James had grabbed Richard’s other hand, and the two men were locked in a horrible parody of the waltz, with the grunts and pants of their exertion as their music. James was taller and stronger, but he was trying to control Richard, not kill him. Richard was wild with the strength of madness. Death shone in his eyes.
“Richard!” Philip appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing? Stop it, now!”
“Philip…” Richard glanced toward the other man, and in that instant, the knife flashed down. James jerked his arm back, but it was too late. Blood spurted from Richard’s chest.
“Richard.” The knife clattered to the floor as James put both his hands over the wound. He tried to staunch the bleeding, but the damage was too great. Blood pulsed out, turning Richard’s shirt and James’s hands bright red.
Richard gaped down at the spreading stain. His face was white as if all the color in him was draining out through the gash in his chest.
“You’ve won,” he whispered. Sarah heard a rattle echo in his throat. “God damn it, you’ve won.” His eyes closed and he crumpled, falling facedown between her legs.
The thick smell of fresh death filled the room.
“You’ve killed him.” Philip stared at Richard’s body.
“It was an accident.” James took his own knife and cut the rope holding Sarah, pulling her away from Richard’s corpse, off the bed and into his arms. She clung to him, burying her face in his shirt and breathing deeply. His familiar scent, the feel of his body against hers, the strength of his arms around her and the steady beat of his heart all calmed her and gave her solace. She dared to think that the nightmare was over.
“You’ve killed him,” Philip repeated, his voice dull with shock.
“I didn’t mean to. His grip slackened when he saw you. I didn’t anticipate it and I could not compensate.”
“He’s dead.” Philip walked slowly over to the bed. He gathered Richard’s body into his arms, pulling it tightly against his chest and smearing his own clothes with Richard’s blood. His cheeks were wet with tears. Sarah looked away as the first deep sob tore through him.
“Sarah.” James smoothed back her hair, talking quietly by her ear. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” She felt her own sobs clog her throat. “I’m so glad you’re here, James. I’m so glad you came.” She tightened her hold on him, remembering the terrible things Richard had said and done to her. “It was awful. He hated you so much.”
“Shhhh.” James rocked her against his solid body. “It’s over now. Richard can’t hurt you any more.”
“He can’t hurt either of us any more.” She tried to feel relief, but the smell of blood and death, the harsh sounds of Philip’s grief, and the pain in her own body all kept her tethered to the nightmare. “Let’s go home, James. Please, let’s go home now.”
“All right, love.” James kissed her gently on her temple. “Robbie and Charles will be along in a few minutes. They can clean up here.”
Sarah glanced at Philip. He had sunk to the floor, his face buried in Richard’s neck. “What will happen to him?”
“I don’t know. He helped abduct you. He should be punished.”
“He also tried to keep Richard from hurting me, James. He only wanted Richard to send you a ransom note.”
James nodded. “I believe you. I’m not eager to bring charges against him. If he were to stand trial, the whole sordid story would come out.”
Sarah’s stomach twisted. Surely she would not have to revisit this night? She clutched James’s arm.
“I want this over, James. I don’t want to have to talk about it or think about it again. Isn’t Richard’s death punishment enough for him? Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“Perhaps. I doubt Philip’s a danger to us or to anyone, though I don’t relish sharing the same city with him. I don’t even want to share the same country with him.” James cupped the back of her head, kneading out a little of the tension in her neck. “I’ll have him held for a few days while we decide where best to send him. There’s nothing tying him to England—I doubt he’ll object to an extended journey, especially when he considers the alternative might be the hangman’s noose.”
“All right.” Sarah relaxed slightly. She didn’t care where Philip went as long as she could put this evening firmly in the past.
“Your poor dress is in tatters, love. Can you bear to wear one of these hideous sheets wrapped around you?”
“There’s a cloak on the floor, James, on the other side of the bed. They wrapped me in it to bring me here. It will cover me.”
James went to fetch the cloak. Sarah wrapped her arms over her breasts. She didn’t mind James seeing her this way—he had seen her with much less on, of course—but she wanted to be covered before Robbie and Charles arrived. She glanced nervously at the door. They should be there any minute.
And she didn’t want to be exposed to Philip either. His sobs had finally subsided. She looked back to where he knelt with Richard.
He had moved. He had put Richard’s body aside and was rising, teeth bared like a vicious dog, with Richard’s bloody knife in his hand. His eyes were on James’s back where he bent to pick the cloak off the floor.
“James!” Sarah screamed and threw herself at Philip. He started to turn towards her. She aimed for the knife. She hit him on the side, and he twisted, falling heavily to the floor, his knife arm caught under him.
That was when Robbie and Charles finally reached the room.
“My God.” Robbie stopped at the open door.
Charles pushed past him. James helped Sarah up and wrapped her in the cloak as Charles knelt to examine Philip.
“Dead,” he said. “Knife pierced straight through his heart.”
Chapter 19
After reassuring Aunt Gladys, Lady Amanda, and Lizzie that they were all right, Sarah and James went upstairs, leaving Robbie and Charles to fill in the details.
“I need a bath, James,” Sarah said when they entered his bedroom. “I have to wash the filth of that place off me.”
The footmen brought up the tub and filled it. As soon as the door closed behind them, Sarah stripped off her clothes and sank down into the warm water. She was afraid she would never feel clean again.
Then she felt James’s hands, large and firm, on her back, soaping away the despair with the dirt.
“Dunk your head, sweetheart.”
James’s fingers massaged her scalp and slid through the long strands of her hair. His palms brushed her neck and his knuckles skimmed her earlobes. His mouth, so gentle, touched the bruise Richard had put on her throat. His tongue
caressed it. Her body woke in response.
She had feared that she would never want to be touched again. Now she knew that James’s touch was what she needed to heal. She needed his body in hers to wash away the final horror of the night. She needed his love flooding her, drowning all the ugly memories. She needed to love him to feel alive again.
“You’d better finish the job, Sarah. I don’t trust myself to wash your front.”
Sarah raised her hands, wrapping them around James’s wrists. She slid them up his forearms and heard his sharp inhalation.
“It’s all right, James. I’d like you to do it.”
“Uh, Sarah.” His voice was strained. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Are you ready for where it might lead?”
“Yes. I need you. In every way.”
She heard his breath release and felt the tension drain out of his arms. “Okay, sweetheart.” His voice shook slightly. Then his hands slid over her shoulders, down her collarbone to her breasts. It was what she needed, what her body ached for—his fingers, his palms, there on her skin. She breathed in his scent and knew it was James who touched her. She felt her body grow soft and welcoming.
His hands left her breasts, hugged her sides, smoothed her stomach and thighs. His fingers tangled in the hair at the juncture of her legs and touched her where she most ached for him. She shuddered and looked up at him. He looked back, his face intense and needy.
“I love you, James.”
He bent his head and brushed his lips over hers.
“And I love you, Sarah.” His voice was husky. “I think I’d better get you out of the tub now.”
He wrapped her in a thick towel and held her against him, letting his lips graze her jawbone, her eyes, her lips. She could feel his erection with her belly, and she rubbed against it. He moved back.
“Not yet, sweetheart. I want to wash the filth of this night off me, too.”
“Shall I wash you?”
“That would be lovely, Sarah, but I’m not under the best control at the moment.”
“I don’t mind. I want to touch you that way. Please?”
He kissed her deeply. “When you ask so nicely, love, I can’t say no.”
She started with his back, just as he had with her. She soaped her hands and slid them over his broad shoulders. She pushed him gently and he leaned forward, so she could reach all the way down his back to his buttocks. She moved her hands forward along the sides of his hips. His breath sucked in and he jerked in the tub, sending water over the side.
“Careful, sweetheart, or you’ll get soaked.” His voice was strained and breathy. Sarah smiled. She put her hands back on his shoulders and let them slide down over his arms, over the hard ridges and slopes of his muscles.
She needed this. She needed to feel this power after her nightmare of powerlessness. She let her towel slip as she leaned forward. She reached around to run her hands over the planes of James’s chest, brushing her naked breasts against his back.
“God, Sarah.” He tried to turn toward her, but she stilled him with her hands.
She needed to feel this power to give. Now she wasn’t a victim. She wasn’t even the recipient of James’s protection and love. She was the giver. She was strong. She felt her love for James flood her, washing away the very last dregs of the fear and hate she had felt in Richard and in herself.
She shifted position so she could further explore James’s chest and that tantalizing line of hair that ran from his chest to his navel and below. He reached for her breasts, but she pulled back.
“Not yet.” She placed his hands on the sides of the tub and held them there a moment. “No touching yet. Keep your hands right here until I tell you that you can move them.”
“God, Sarah, I don’t know if I can. Your touch is killing me.”
She grinned at him. “Then prepare to die, James, because I have many other places to touch.”
“Many?” he croaked. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I shall try to endure, but remember, I am only a man.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
He chuckled.
She bypassed that part of his body to wash his feet. Slowly she moved up his ankles to his knees and thighs. He slid forward and up in the tub, and she ran her hands over his buttocks. She circled around to his inner thighs and cupped the heavy round sacks that hung between them. He inhaled sharply and jerked. More water sloshed onto the floor.
“The servants are going to wonder what we’ve been doing.”
“Huh?” James looked at her, his eyes glazed with passion. She smiled and let her fingers move up the smooth length of him. He closed his eyes and bit his lip. His knuckles showed white where he gripped the side of the tub. She stroked again and James moaned.
“Please, Sarah, can we go to bed now?”
“When you ask so nicely, I can’t say no.”
James’s hands flew off the sides of the tub and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her forward. His mouth covered hers. Water cascaded over the sides of the tub.
She started laughing. “The servants are definitely going to wonder what we were doing.”
“The servants are going to know exactly what we were doing. Now come to bed before I explode.”
The sheets in James’s big bed were white, not red. The only sounds were James’s—and her—whimpers of pleasure. The only thing tying her was her love, and that was a knot she never wanted loosened. She opened willingly for James and he came to her, filling her body and her spirit. She reveled in the tension he built in her, and when their release came, she spiraled off into a deep peace.
“Do you think we made a baby?” she whispered when his body relaxed onto hers.
“Hmm?” He seemed pleasantly mindless. She ran her hands over his back and hips.
“Do you think we made a baby?”
He leaned up on his elbows and blinked down at her. “Maybe.” He grinned. “A baby would be wonderful, but I’m in no rush. I’m happy to work at it for quite a while.”
“At least now our baby will be safe.”
“Yes.” A shadow crossed his face. He slid out of her body and lay down next to her.
She leaned up on her elbow. “Are you upset about Richard’s death?”
“I didn’t mean to kill him.” He looked up at her. “We were struggling. When he saw Philip, he stopped, just for a second. Without his resistance, my hand flew forward. I couldn’t catch myself in time.”
“I know.” She cupped his cheek and looked into his troubled eyes. “You had no choice, not really. You both could not have lived—Richard would not have allowed it. He would have fought until one of you was dead.”
James closed his eyes. “I know. He was a problem with no solution, but he was also my cousin.” He looked back at her. “I should be appalled that I killed him, but mostly I’m relieved.”
“So am I.” She laid her hand on his chest. “There is still one thing that I don’t understand, though. Why did Richard spread the rumor about us at the Green Man? He must have known it would force you to wed me.”
James grinned. “I don’t think it was Richard who spread that rumor.”
“Who else could have?”
James pulled her down onto his chest. “My bet is that it was Lady Amanda.”
“Lady Amanda? Why do you think it was Lady Amanda?”
“Because her bosom bow, Melinda Fallwell, told me that’s where she got the story.”
Sarah thought back to the horrible night at the Palmerson ball when the story had spread like wildfire through the ton. She remembered Lady Amanda talking to Mrs. Fallwell and Mrs. Fallwell’s reaction.
“Maybe you’re right. But why would Lady Amanda spread the tale?”
“Perhaps,” James said, running his hands down her sides and cupping her naked breasts, “she realized that we belong together.”
Sarah shivered. It was so hard to concentrate when James’s clever fingers did such things to her. “I always thought Lady Amanda was quite astute.
”
“Quite.” He leaned up to nuzzle the sensitive skin behind her ear. “And loyal. I’m sure she is hoping for an Alvord heir in nine months’ time.” He flipped her over so that he was now on top.
“Shall we get back to work on that, sweetheart? We don’t want to disappoint Lady Amanda, do we?”
Sarah wound her arms around James’s neck.
“No, we certainly don’t want to disappoint dear Lady Amanda.”
About the Author
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in suburban Maryland, Sally MacKenzie ventured west in 1972 to help co-educate the University of Notre Dame. Graduating with a B.A. in English, she spent a short time at Cornell Law School before returning to the D.C. area where she lives with her husband and, depending on the time of year, some combination of her four sons. She’s written federal regulations, school newsletters, auction programs, class plays, swim league guidance, and the annual MacKenzie family newsletter, but The Naked Duke is her first published novel. Readers may visit her in cyberspace at www.sallymackenzie.net.
Praise for The Naked Baron
“…sweet and sexy Regency tale.”
—Maria Hatton, Booklist Top Pick!
“Naked and naughty—that’s the kind of hero MacKenzie stakes her reputation on, and it’s also the kind that readers adore. With their humor and heated love scenes, her books sparkle and light up readers’ hearts. Her feel-good stories are just what we need.”
—Kathe Robin, Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“Caution: Reading The Naked Baron may cause spontaneous smiles and feelings of happiness!”
—Connie, OnceUponARomance.net
“Sally MacKenzie may have penned her best ‘Naked’ book yet, raising the bar for the entire series. With unforgettable characters and blazing passion, The Naked Baron is a book to be savored over and over again.”
—Lettetia, SingleTitles.com
Sally MacKenzie Bundle Page 147