Just This Once

by Jill Gregory

  “Oh, forgive me, Rosamund dear, but Lady Stonecliff has been dreadfully hurt by that horrid monster and—”

  “And we are all most grateful to her,” Lady Tattersall interrupted, tottering over on the arm of her footman and peering down at Josie through wide, moist blue eyes. “My dear, how calm you were throughout that dreadful ordeal. Offering to help me when I’m sure that scoundrel would have choked the life out of me only to get that necklace from around my throat. And then actually striking that other man—well, my godson has certainly chosen himself a great and courageous lady!”

  Josie felt surprise at the gushing compliments of her hostess. “Th-thank you. But I only did what anyone else would have done,” she replied diffidently. Lady Tattersall shook her head.

  “No, no, no! The rest of us were quite in a tizzy. Couldn’t think or scarcely speak at all!”

  As Josie remembered how Lady Tattersall had carried on lamenting her misfortune and annoying the outlaws all the while, she had to hide a smile. “I’m only sorry poor Colonel Hamring is so badly hurt.” Anxiously, she peered over as the Colonel let forth a moan.

  Ethan adjusted a pillow beneath the Colonel’s head, then stood. “He’ll live if the damned doctor gets here soon. Ah, here they are,” he muttered with relief as the doctor and three sweating, breathless constables rushed in ahead of Lady Tattersall’s footmen.

  After that, events swirled together in Josie’s head. The doctor, upon completing his ministrations to the injured man, pronounced that Colonel Hamring would survive, and ordered that he be carried up to one of the guest bedrooms, where he could be made more comfortable and where he could rest. The lower floor of Lady Tattersall’s house became a beehive of frantic activity as the constables took over, carrying Lucian’s body outside, searching the grounds, and questioning everyone. Then the gunnysack containing all the jewels was opened and all the stolen property returned to the rightful owners.

  With painstaking care, the constables wrote down all that had happened. After conferring among themselves, they spoke solemnly about this being the second incident of Pirate Pete and his cohorts’ moving from London to rob people in their homes in the country—the first such robbery in Sussex.

  “At least this time they didn’t get away with the booty,” Sergeant Webb muttered, with a nod of acknowledgment to Ethan. “And the scoundrels lost one of their own.”

  “I am offering a reward, Sergeant, for the capture of Pirate Pete and the man known as Tiny.” Ethan glanced at each of the police officers in turn, his eyes very hard, leaving no doubt of his resolve. “Ten thousand pounds to anyone who provides information leading to their arrest. Let’s see if that smokes out someone who knows where these curs skulk and hide.”

  “An excellent idea, my lord. Most of them in the rookery are likely scared to death of Pirate Pete—he’s killed four men already, so far as we know—but for a sum like that, someone’s sure to give over a bit of information. But, sir, I suggest you take care. Once word gets out, Pirate Pete won’t take kindly to having a price on his head. Things might get tight for him, if you know what I mean. And also...”

  Sergeant Webb paused, choosing his words. “Pirate Pete has a reputation as a man who won’t take any slight lightly. He’s bound to be nettled with you for killing one of his men, and foiling him tonight. You may want to take extra care for yourself, and your lady, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Ethan’s gaze shifted to rest upon Josie, motionless and pale on the sofa. “I’ll take care of what’s mine,” he said grimly.

  Josie gave her head a shake as he advanced toward her.

  She knew what he was planning even before he reached out his arms.

  “I’m able to walk,” she protested. “It’s my arm that is hurt. My feet are in good working order, Ethan.”

  “Yes, my lord, that’s exactly right. You ought to take good care of the sweet dear,” Miss Perry cried approvingly as the Earl of Stonecliff swept up his bride as if she weighed no more than a kitten.

  “Cousin Clara!” Miss Crenshaw snapped. The sight of the handsome earl carrying that chestnut-haired girl in his arms as if she were some fragile treasure that might break filled her with unreasonable jealousy. She was in her second Season and no one in or out of London had yet looked at her with the kind of intensity she had seen sizzling in the Earl of Stonecliff’s eyes when he gazed at his bride.

  “I have a headache, Clara,” she sniffed piteously. “I require rest, a glass of ratafia, a cool cloth—I need you to attend to me, if you can spare yourself from fawning over Lady Stonecliff....”

  The black-haired girl’s voice faded disconsolately away as the young countess was carried across the drawing room.

  “There, there.” Comfortingly, Lady Tattersall patted Rosamund Crenshaw’s arm. “We’ll all feel much more the thing tomorrow, I daresay. Though I shan’t sleep a wink all night.”

  “Nor I,” Oliver Winthrop declared. He mopped his brow with an already sopping handkerchief. “Sergeant, I require your men to see me back to my inn. The Green Duck. And a guard must be posted outside all through the night.”

  Josie didn’t hear the police sergeant’s reply for Ethan bore her into the hall without so much as a backward glance or a good night. Lady Tattersall’s belated farewell echoed through the hall after them, but he didn’t slow his steps or respond in any way.

  “How rude of you,” she murmured as he carried her effortlessly down the dark, tree-lined drive toward the carriage.

  “Seems I’m rusty on all the little niceties,” he growled, his arms tightening around her as he glanced down at her wan face. The moonlight revealed the weariness and pain behind her eyes, though she tried to hide it with a weak smile. But she couldn’t hide her beauty, shining out like a luminous moonbeam, even after what she’d been through. And she couldn’t hide her strength either. Ethan was remembering how steady she’d been through the entire ordeal, how she’d tried to help Lady Tattersall, how she’d swung that candlestick at Tiny when she thought he was in danger.

  And it had cost her dearly.

  Somewhere inside of him, he vowed that Tiny would one day pay, and pay in spades, for what he’d done to her.

  “What is it? You look so fierce,” Josie whispered as they neared the carriage and the footman threw open the door.

  “It’s nothing. It needn’t concern you.”

  Nestled against the implacable solidity of his chest, Josie marveled at how safe and comforted she felt. Pampered. A unique feeling. No one had ever paid much attention to her hurts or her feelings. She was sure that it was only for show, however—that for the sake of their charade, Ethan was determined to demonstrate to everyone how solicitous he was of his “wife.”

  That was why, when they were settled in the carriage, and quite alone, she was surprised to find him still watching her intently, a worried frown between his brows.

  “You don’t have to fuss over me anymore, Ethan. No one is watching.”

  “I’m not fussing over you.”

  “What do you call it then?”

  “Taking care of you.” His tone was curt. “You had a bad time of it tonight. And you handled it admirably.”

  Josie lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It’s not the first time I’ve been around brutes and thieves,” she explained. She was so matter-of-fact that anger twisted through him. Anger at the rough times she had known, of experiences that must have branded her for better or worse, where possibly—if it was true that she was an orphan—no one had been there to look out for her, to give a damn if she was hurt or afraid or alone.

  With a flash of shame he remembered how roughly he’d treated her that first day in the alley, and again on the train.

  “We were all so worried about Colonel Hamring that no one thought to ask you.” Josie’s luminous violet eyes were turned upon him with such vibrant concern that for a moment Ethan lost himself in them. “Are you all right?” she asked, searching his face. “Are you hurt?
”

  “I’ve been hurt worse.”

  “What you did tonight—I’ve never seen anything so brave. You fought all three of them, with no one to help you.”

  “You helped me.”

  She smiled ruefully, shook her head. “I tried, but—”

  “You helped. It took courage to go after Tiny that way. And look what it got you,” he added, suddenly reaching for her arm. Gently he lifted it, pulled back the sleeve of her gown, and in the lamplight studied the bruises marring her pale flesh.

  The icy fury coiled tighter inside him. Suddenly a vision of Molly flashed into his brain. He remembered Molly’s pain, Molly’s suffering. Molly’s death. All because of him.

  He cursed under his breath and released her, throwing himself back in his seat. “If you want out of our deal, just say so,” he said in a short, hard voice that held an undercurrent of tension so powerful, it vibrated through the air. “I won’t hold you to it under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “There’s a cutthroat gang that might come after me, according to the constable. You didn’t bargain on that when we set up this marriage arrangement. I’ll put you on a ship for America tomorrow if you want to cut your losses and run.”

  “Where I come from, a deal is a deal.”

  “Not if I say you can break it.”

  She shook her head, and several wispy curls that had escaped their pins during the fray tumbled into her eyes. She pushed them back. “I’m not interested in breaking it,” she told Ethan in a low tone, wondering why he looked so grim, why he was suddenly willing to forfeit everything when before it had seemed so important.

  He was silent, staring at her. “So. You must enjoy living the high life. Willing to take risks to keep the fancy roof over your head, all these pretty dresses... it’s only for six months, sweetheart,” he reminded her coldly now, for part of him hoped she would decide to run for it, to bolt back to America. He didn’t want her blood on his conscience, too. He was suddenly beginning to feel that he was very bad luck for beautiful women.

  “I have my reasons,” she said in a quiet tone, and there was a flush of pride in her cheeks now, one that enhanced the brilliance of her eyes, and made her look all the more stunning as she sat in his carriage, her back very straight against the ruby velvet squabs.

  “So you’re staying the course.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re not afraid.”

  I’m more afraid of returning to America—of having Snake find me. Of never locating Alicia Denby, or discovering who I am. And of never seeing you again.

  But aloud she said the other truth that was rolling around in her head. “I don’t believe you’d let anything awful happen to me.”

  Silence filled the carriage. Outside, the darkness was thick and close, but for the faint sheen of moonlight silvering the treetops and hedges that lined the road. She saw Ethan’s brows draw together, sensed the tension ricocheting through him. For a moment he looked thunderstruck, then he gained control of himself and bit out with a savagery that quickened her heartbeat, “How can you trust me so much when I don’t trust you worth a damn?”

  When she just stared at him, he leaned forward and cupped her chin imperatively. “Answer me.” The words seemed torn from him.

  They brought forth an answering torrent from her.

  “I saw you back there. You fought all of them. You weren’t even afraid. You protected me. No one’s ever done that.” She rushed on, the words tumbling out. “And another thing. You speak your mind—not many people do, at least, not many I’ve known. So often they’d come to the orphanage and say they wanted to adopt a child—to raise and care for one—but when they brought me home with them, all they really wanted was someone to do chores and ease the burden on their farms or in their stores. You’ve set out what you expect me to do, and you’ve been plain about it from the start.”

  His eyes glinted at this, and she hurried on, trying to finish before she became too embarrassed and lost her nerve. “And there’s more. I sense something in you... I can’t explain it, but I don’t think you’d let anything happen to me. You’re not that kind of man.”

  “You have no idea what kind of man I am.” It was a snarl, ripped from his throat. Where before he had seemed restrained, almost approachable, now she saw fury.

  “Why are you so angry?” Josie took a breath, alarmed by the rigid tautness of that lean face, by the granite flash of his eyes. “Because I trust you? Because maybe I—”

  “What?”

  “Like you... a little.”

  “You’re a fool.” He leaned back in his seat and laughed at her, a cold, hard, infuriating laugh that hurt more than if he’d struck her across the face. “I’ve done nothing to make you like me or trust me. And as for me, there are few people I like, and fewer even that I trust. And you’re not among them, my fine little thief. But I’m responsible for you, so I’ll see you come to no harm while you’re... what? Married to me? In my employ? Which term best describes our little arrangement?”

  “No words can do justice to it,” Josie cried, stung. She was shaking now, fighting back tears. The tentative emotions of trust and warmth had vanished, and anger was seeping in. Anger with herself as much as with him, for having dared let down her guard for a moment. She’d mistaken his playacting concern for the real thing, she’d actually told him that she liked him, she’d tried to be a friend to him and he was turning it on her, making her feel a fool.

  You are a fool, a frantic voice whispered inside of her head. To feel about him as you do. He hates you. You’re nothing but the worst kind of stupid, senseless fool.

  Tears burned. She turned her face away and stared blindly out of the carriage window. Suddenly her arm hurt again, but not nearly as much as her heart. She longed for Stonecliff Park, for the solitude of her room, her bed, to be free of his presence, free to weep in privacy, to soak her pillow with tears, and pour out all the agony of her heart.

  The carriage ride home seemed endless. When the horses halted at last in the sweeping drive, Josie flung herself at the carriage door before the footman could even jump down to open it. She leapt out into the fresh night air, and clutching her skirt, started at a run up the walk, but Ethan was there beside her in a flash, his hand heavy on her shoulder, spinning her around.

  “Spooked you, have I? Now you see why it doesn’t pay to think of me as a friend.”

  “If you mean that you’ve driven me away from that idiotic notion—yes, you have. Now I’m tired. My arm hurts, and if you’d kindly let me go, I want my bed.”

  He wanted her bed too. With her in it.

  The realization came as a shock. An unwelcome one that pierced him with terrifying reality.

  And somehow he couldn’t let her go. His fingers circled her uninjured wrist, and the other arm snaked about her waist. He was oblivious of the footman discreetly driving the carriage off to the stables, oblivious of the scent of late roses and freshly cut grass that wafted in the darkness. Oblivious of everything but her.

  A war was raging inside Ethan at that moment. Lord help him, she was incredible, standing beneath the moon in the shadow of Stonecliff Park, the wind whipping her hair around her face, her delicate jaw taut with anger, and pure feminine fire flashing from her amethyst eyes. He ought to let her go, he ought to bolt across the gardens and meadows of Stonecliff and dive into that pond, let the chill water crash through his heated body and banish the desire raging in his loins.

  He had called her a fool. But he was the fool. Because he wanted her.

  Wanted a beautiful thief who couldn’t be trusted. A woman who held his future within her dainty hands, who could ruin him or blackmail him if she chose, if he let her have even a small bit of power over him. A woman who might face danger now because of him.

  She’s not Molly, an inner voice shouted.

  She’s nothing like Molly.

  But for the first time since Molly died, he wanted one woman, o
ne particular woman with a need that burned through his bones, that seared his soul, that ripped through him more agonizingly than a thousand arrows.

  There were a dozen reasons to stay as clear of her as possible, to feel nothing, to think of her as only a pawn in this game he played with his dead father’s tyrannical will.

  A dozen reasons to subdue the emotions she evoked in him despite all his resolutions and his resolve.

  And only one reason to keep her here within his arms, to draw her closer, as he was doing now, to lower his lips toward hers.

  “No!” she murmured in a ragged tone, and tried to pull away.

  “Yes.” Ethan yanked her back. “I need... to...” For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. Confusion filled him, a most undesirable emotion, and because of it he latched on to the one reason he could justify to himself, the one reason he could give her for why he was hanging on to her for dear life.

  “I’ll prove to you that I can’t be trusted. That you should be as wary of me as you would be of Tiny, or of that man you were running from in Abilene. You should run from me too. I’m worse than all of them.”

  “That I believe,” she cried, panicking because what she saw in his eyes was raw and wild and dark, and it reminded her of Snake.

  “You’re about to believe more.”

  She trembled all over at the ruthlessness in his tone, at the dangerous nearness of him as his face loomed over hers.

  “Consider this a warning of what will happen if you try to get near me, try to manipulate me.”

  “I wasn’t... I was being honest, trying to be your friend.”

  “Big mistake.” He wanted to scare her, he told himself as he clamped her against him. To keep her from reaching out to him again, from touching him, not literally with her fingers, but with that haunting trust in her eyes, be it real or phony.

  He had to drive her away.

  So he pulled her close, closer, until her breasts were crushed against his chest, and her slender body trembled like a windblown flower in his grasp, and then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.