Just This Once

by Jill Gregory

  “Like hell I belong in your arms,” she muttered, pushing against his chest. His hold grew more restrictive. “That’s enough, Snake. You’re hurting me....”

  “You hurt me, honey. Hurt my feelings real bad when you ran off. Didn’t she, Spooner?”

  Spooner swallowed, looking at the floor. From the main room of the gin house came a roar and cheers and wild crashing and thumping.

  “Snake, I’m thinkin’ we should maybe get back out there. Sounds like some fightin’—could be Noah and Deck. They told me before they thought Pirate Pete was cheatin’ at cards and they weren’t goin’ to put up with it—they’ve been drinking pretty heavy since Noah got back....”

  “You go. I’m busy.”

  “But... they won’t listen none to me. And you said we all oughta keep a clear head for later.”

  “What’s happening later?” Josie gasped, still trying unsuccessfully to get free of Snake. He bent her slightly backward and lowered himself over her.

  “Nothin’ that you need to worry your pretty head over, honey.” His breath reeked now of gin and onions and tobacco. His mouth covered hers, wet and sucking. In disgust, Josie tried to twist her face aside.

  When he pushed her down on the bed and threw himself down heavily on top of her, she was filled with as much repugnance as terror. This—Snake’s painful groping and panting, the smearing together of mouths—was an abomination, as different from the ecstasy she’d known with Ethan as horse dung from meadow flowers.

  “No... damn you! No, Snake—I’ll never let you do this... to me again.”

  His fingers closed, pinching over her breast. “I am doing it, and I’ll do it whenever I want to—you savvy?”

  With all her might, Josie jerked her knee up. Snake let out a yell. His heavy frame went rigid with pain, then he doubled over and rolled off her with a tortured moan.

  “Why, you... bitch.” His face was purple with rage, contorted with agony. “I’ll... teach you to—”

  Another crash from below, this one louder than the first. “Snake, you’d better do somethin’.” Near the door, Spooner shifted from one foot to the other. “If those are our boys fightin’ with Pete and Tiny...”

  “Son of a bitch... all right.” Snake took several deep breaths and grunted as he tried to stand. He was bent over, clutching his groin. The look of fury on his face made Josie’s heart stop.

  “Tie her up again—tight!”

  His eyes pinned Josie as Spooner looped the rope around her wrist into a hard knot, then tied it to the bedpost. When Spooner at last stepped back, his shoulders drooped and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Snake, still breathing hard but able to straighten up slightly, nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll be back pronto.” Painfully, he lumbered toward the door. “And then I’m going to make that last beatin’ I gave you look like it warn’t nothin’ at all.”

  Josie stared at the ceiling as she listened to the sound of their boots stamping down the hall. The rope was cutting painfully into her wrist, chafing the skin that was already tender.

  “But not for long,” she muttered between clenched teeth, and with her free hand, yanked Snake’s knife from the pocket of her gown.

  It was a good thing she hadn’t lost her touch. She inched herself up into a sitting position, twisted around as far as she could, and began to saw at her bonds.

  * * *

  At the mouth of the alley, Ham paused to drag in a deep breath. “It’s this way.” He wiped pouring rain from his eyes. “Down around that corner there, behind that wall, is the gin house. The very worst section of the rookery. She’s in a corner room, upstairs. There’s steps from the outside, broken ones....”

  A noise had Ethan spinning about, ready to strike. From the gloom a hunched figure materialized. But it was only an old drunken beggar, who glared at him with red, blank eyes and then hobbled away, muttering something indistinguishable. The stink of sewage filth, rats, unwashed flesh, urine, and liquor seemed to rise from the broken pavement. The crumbling buildings almost moaned with the echoes of human misery.

  His stomach sickened at the thought of Josie trapped here in the bowels of London. “Show me where,” he growled, his eyes narrowed against the rain.

  As the downpour grew even more intense, they crept forward into the deeper darkness of the alley.

  * * *

  Josie had only just freed herself when she heard footsteps in the hall. She dashed to the window and struggled to open it.

  Before she could do more than throw one leg over the sill, the door burst open. “Ehh! What ’ave we ’ere?” Pirate Pete boomed.

  Tiny didn’t waste words. He hurtled toward her.

  Josie threw Snake’s knife. It struck Tiny full in the chest. She saw his eyes widen as blood spouted out.

  “I’m goin’ ter kill ye wi’ me bare ’ands!” he roared, even as Pirate Pete dodged forward and hauled her back from the window’s edge.

  But Josie moved fast. She grabbed his pistol from his belt and gripped it in both hands, backing away.

  “Stand back!” She cocked the gun. “I’ll shoot you if you make a move!”

  “The ’ell ye will. Ye don’t ’ave the stomach fer it,” Tiny grated, and yanked the knife from his chest with a grunt. Blinking, he advanced on her, the knife raised, blood pouring down his shirtfront and pooling on the floor with each step.

  Without hesitation, Josie swung toward him and squeezed the trigger. The report sent pain ricocheting through her arm. It also sent Tiny whirling backward in a hideous explosion of blood and bone.

  “Yer mad, girl!” Pirate Pete exclaimed, and then he dived toward her with a snarl.

  She fired again. Pirate Pete doubled over and lay writhing on the floor, even as she heard more footsteps running down the hall.

  She dashed to the window. Her whole body was shaking as she clambered over the ledge, gripping the gun as tightly as she could in hands that were slippery with sweat.

  “Ye can’t get away...” Pirate Pete gasped as blood seeped across the floor beneath his shuddering form.

  “Watch me.”

  Even as she swung out the window and balanced precariously on the narrow platform, she heard the rumble of Snake’s voice as he and the boys burst into the room.

  “She went... out the winder.” Pirate Pete managed no more than a weak gasp. “She’s got me... gun!”

  “Damn her to hell! You boys git downstairs—head her off in the alley!”

  Hugging the wall, Josie started down the crumbling outside stair. She risked one glance back and saw Snake shoving his burly frame out the window after her.

  She raised the gun, letting go of the wall long enough to fire a shot. It missed, but the explosion shook her and almost made her lose her balance. Through the pouring rain, Snake’s features were a mask of venom.

  “You’re dead, girl. Dead!” he roared, and started down the stairs.

  Josie reached the bottom and hurled herself toward a corner, but suddenly she was seized from behind and pulled backward. She fought wildly and tried to point the gun.

  “Easy, you wildcat,” Ethan whispered in her ear. “Haven’t you done enough for one night?”

  “Ethan!”

  His hand clamped over her mouth as she shrieked his name, then collapsed against him. Her arms coiled around his neck, clinging, inhaling the smell of him, feeling the strength of him. He was soaked and rain streamed down his coal-black hair into that beloved bronzed face. From beside them in the sodden darkness loomed Ham.

  “Look out, lad, here they come,” he warned, and suddenly the shadowy forms of Spooner, Deck, and Noah raced around the corner of the gin house straight toward them.

  “Looking for someone, boys?” Ethan sprang in front of Josie so that she was shielded by his body.

  Spooner froze. Noah and Deck went for their guns. They never had a chance. Ethan drew like lightning and the dark alley rocked with gunfire.

  Josie’s shoulders trembled as she squinted through the ra
in. She could just make out Spooner wheeling around, running back up the alley, and Ham bounding through the shadows in pursuit.

  But she suddenly heard the zing of another shot as Snake fired his Colt from the stairs. Her blood went cold as she heard Ethan’s sharp intake of breath beside her.

  He grasped her arm and dragged her around the corner and behind a stack of crates, breathing hard.

  “Ethan, you’ve been shot!”

  “Damn right, sweetheart. How about that?”

  He was grinning, Josie saw incredulously. Grinning. And despite the blood that poured from a gaping wound in his arm, he sounded amazingly calm, almost pleased. “Always knew it had to happen sooner or later. Kind of a relief to get it over with.”

  “Winged ya, eh?” It sounded like Snake had reached the bottom of the steps. He was edging closer. “Next time you’re going straight to hell, Savage. Hear that, Josie? Then it’s just you and me gonna be left. The two of us... all alone. Just me and my no-good runaway wife.”

  Ethan clenched his jaw, whether from pain or anger she couldn’t tell. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” she whispered, terrified by how pale he’d gone, and by how much his arm was bleeding. “I’m fine....”

  “Liar,” he said softly, lovingly. Then he called out to Snake, his voice ringing through the alley like raw steel.

  “She’s my wife now, Barker. And you’re going to pay for every bruise you ever gave her.”

  “Ha! Your wife! Not legally she ain’t. Your marriage didn’t mean squat, because all the time that lying bitch was still married to me!”

  Flattened against the wall, Ethan spoke again, his hard voice clearly piercing the steady drum of the downpour. “Then I reckon I’ve got to make her a widow before she can be my bride.”

  As Josie watched in wordless terror, Ethan pushed himself away from the wall and swung around the corner. He swayed a bit on his feet as he faced the outlaw in the downpour.

  “No!” she groaned, hugging her arms around herself, but even as the words left her lips, two gunshots split the night. Paralyzed, Josie stared at Ethan with fear raking her throat. When he swayed again on his feet, staggered a bit, and lowered the gun, she launched herself at him.

  “My God, Ethan... no!”

  Then she saw Snake was dead, sprawled prone in the alley, blood oozing into the mud and sewage, a rat leaping over his bloodstained chest and disappearing behind a heap of refuse. Ethan was bleeding heavily from his wounded arm, but otherwise unhurt.

  Snake’s shot had gone wide.

  “You... all right?” he asked her, looking into her face as she dropped Pete’s pistol into her pocket and wrapped her arms around him, trying to take some of his weight.

  “Me? I’ve never been better, Ethan, but we’ve got to bind your wound and get you to a doctor.”

  “Ham?” Ethan ignored her comment, detached himself from her, and started down the alley. “Ham!” he called sharply.

  “Here, lad.” The old groom swam out of the gloom. “The other one got away, but to bloody hell with him... you’ve been shot.”

  “You and my wife are so perceptive.” With an effort Ethan managed to grin at Ham over Josie’s head as she yanked his handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it quickly around the wound. “She’s a hell of a lot of trouble, this woman of mine, but she’s worth it.”

  “Aye, I should think so.” Ham frowned. “Can you walk, lad?”

  “He won’t admit it if he can’t.” Feeling queasy, Josie wiped her bloodied hands on her skirt and peered around the alley. “We must get out of here and get a hansom.”

  “Aye. Here, my lady, let him lean on me. Come along now.” They started forward slowly, past Snake’s prone form, veering away from Noah and Deck’s blood-spattered bodies. “We’ve got to get you and the Countess out of here.”

  Their feet sloshed through oozing puddles. As several dark forms peered out of tiny windows or materialized like ghostly wretches in the shadows of the alley, Josie drew the pistol from her pocket—just in case.

  “Ye... es. Damn right.” Ethan’s gaze met Josie’s as she lifted anxious eyes to his. Love and worry twisted through her delicate features. For her sake, he smoothed the pain from his face and forced himself to grin at her, though weakly, and to walk more steadily between them.

  “We’ll send the police back later... for what those bastards stole. Right now, we’ve got to get my Countess... safely home.”

  Twenty-seven

  When the balding and bespectacled Mr. Grismore ushered them into his office chamber at precisely two o’clock the following afternoon, Josie braced herself for violence—Oliver Winthrop was present, waiting beside a deep green chair, his hands folded behind his back. Beside her, she felt Ethan stiffen.

  “Don’t hit him, please,” she whispered as Ethan escorted her to a comfortable burgundy leather armchair that faced Grismore’s desk.

  “I’ll just shoot him instead,” Ethan replied loudly enough for both Grismore and Winthrop to hear.

  Winthrop flushed. Grismore stared hard at the surviving son of his former employer, his gaze lingering on the sling that supported the Earl of Stonecliff’s left arm.

  “My lord, I trust this is going to be a civilized interview. No violence. It appears to me you have already been injured sufficiently.... I trust the accident was nothing serious?”

  “It wasn’t an accident, it was a bullet. But it’s little more than a flesh wound,” Ethan informed him easily. “Lost a bit of blood, but I’m fit enough to throw my esteemed cousin out of here in style if he doesn’t mind his manners.”

  “This is outrageous!” Winthrop protested, then as Ethan turned toward him, his voice trailed off into a squeak. “Mr. Grismore, I demand you seize charge of this interview at once. I won’t be intimidated.”

  “Won’t you?” Ethan asked dangerously, a mocking smile curling his lips, and beside him, Josie had all she could do not to giggle at the terrified expression on Winthrop’s face.

  “Please—let us proceed, gentlemen,” she said sweetly, but there was a silent plea in her eyes as she glanced at Ethan.

  He kissed her hand and waited until she had slipped into the chair before seating himself in a chair beside her.

  Mr. Grismore began by repeating the grave reservations the late Earl of Stonecliff had felt in bequeathing his fortune, his lands, his houses, and all of his worldly possessions to the son who had in the past showed himself to be an irresponsible hothead with no respect for his own noble birth or position.

  “After the unfortunate demise of your brother, your father felt that you would benefit greatly and be much more likely to settle into your new position, if you had the advantage of a wife. The proper sort of wife,” Grismore added. “A lady.”

  He looked expectantly at Josie and studied her over the top of his spectacles.

  “Hence the rather unusual terms of his will.”

  “My father was always a damned tyrannical bastard,” Ethan said, and Mr. Grismore’s neck muscles bunched above his stiff collar.

  “My lord, that is quite—”

  “Quite true.” Ethan cut him off silkily. “But I’m not here to talk about my father. He’s dead, and the past is over. I can’t change it, and I can’t relive it. My wife has helped me to recognize that, and to give me some hope—and some enthusiasm—for the future.”

  Josie turned in her chair to arch a brow at him. “Only some enthusiasm?” she said softly.

  And in her eyes, Ethan saw reflected the tender kisses and whispered words they’d shared last night after arriving safely home.

  As always when he looked at her, when he saw her beauty, her vitality, her innate sweetness—which, thank God, had never been stamped out by the harshness of her life—he felt a jolt of desire, of pleasure and delight so strong, he wanted to snatch her into his arms there and then. And the fantastic tale she’d told him last night about having discovered the truth about her parentage, a matched set of jewels, a shy sister, and the
Duke of Bennington’s being her grandfather, only added to the odd enchantment of Josie Cooper Barker Savage.

  Only the damned priggishness of their stately surroundings and the need to conclude this ridiculous stipulation of the will now, today, kept him from kissing her until her eyes darkened with a desire every bit as intense as his own for her.

  “More than a little. Quite a bit more,” he said for her ears only, and the truth was in his eyes as they exchanged glances. With an effort, he turned his attention back to Grismore.

  “This meeting is now over. You’ve carried out your obligation to my father. You’ve met my wife, and seen for yourself that she is by all means a lady. Your responsibility in this matter is now at an end.”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t quite that simple, my lord.” Grismore fixed him with a regretful glance. The lovely young woman seated beside the succeeding earl was certainly elegant in her teal silk day gown with its cream-colored lace trim and tiny bustle, her hair coiled in shining ringlets atop her head, where perched a fashionable little ostrich plume hat. She moved gracefully, and her voice was beautiful, low and musical. It wasn’t that he found fault with the brilliant sparkle of her eyes, or the outright provocatively sensual shape of her mouth, but he could scarcely ignore the report he had received from Mr. Oliver Winthrop. A report that, if true, would be utterly shocking and render her entirely inappropriate to the position of Countess of Stonecliff.

  But he had to tread carefully. Should Mr. Winthrop’s assertions prove untrue or exaggerated, he would be in an awkward position with the new earl. That would hardly benefit him. He was walking a careful line between his duty to the late earl, and his wish to win the patronage of the would-be new one.

  “Mr. Winthrop has brought to my attention some information which is worrisome. I regret, my lady, that I must bring up these matters, but it is essential to get at the truth.”

  “I understand.” Josie took a deep breath, bracing herself for the questions and accusations to come. Ethan had told her that Winthrop knew the truth about her and had been planting rumors behind her back, and that he would have certainly reported to Grismore.