“Give me my money, you slimy sod.”
“Hoy!” Leath bellowed to alert the men watching the inn. Surely they weren’t far away.
The street remained empty.
“I’ll bring him down, my lord.”
“Don’t move, you idiot,” he snarled to the coachman. “He’ll shoot you.”
Greengrass’s laugh was low. “That I will, if you don’t hand over that bag.”
Damn, in this restricted space, he couldn’t get a clear shot at Greengrass without risking hitting Brown. “Give me the diary.”
“Oh, no, my hearty. You cheated. That means no prize.”
“The inn is surrounded. You’ll never get away,” the coachman said.
“Shut up, blockhead,” Leath snarled.
Greengrass’s eyes narrowed until they were pinpricks in his massive face. He hauled Brown closer, making the man a shield. “You don’t play fair, your lordship. Now hand over my money and I’ll be off.”
“What about the diary?”
Greengrass smiled, clearly convinced that he retained the advantage. “The price has gone up another ten thousand. And I’ll thank you to be a bit straighter in your dealings, my fine fellow.”
“Leath!”
At last. The shout from the end of the alley came from Harmsworth.
Greengrass turned, hatred contorting his face. “What the hell is that bugger doing here?”
“Give up, Greengrass,” Leath said, voice still hoarse. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Greengrass cocked the pistol. “I’m not done yet.”
“My lord, watch out!” The coachman twisted and launched himself at Greengrass.
“Be careful, man!” Leath shouted to Brown as Harmsworth sprinted toward them.
There was a shot and a scream, then Brown reeled against the wall, one hand lifting to a patch of bright red on his shirt. “Blimey.”
Leath surged forward and clipped Greengrass hard on the chin. The man staggered back, then snatched for the loaded pistol. After a short, vicious struggle, the gun fired, missing Greengrass and striking chips off the brickwork.
Greengrass slammed forward and grabbed the satchel. Leath struggled to hold it and draw his knife at the same time. Then he realized that Greengrass’s hands were too occupied to protect the diary. Leath ripped at the green coat for the book. He shouted in triumph as he dragged it free.
“No, you bloody don’t,” the man grunted.
“Yes, I bloody do,” Leath responded, dodging another punch. “Harmsworth!”
Sir Richard, thank God, was nowhere near as stupid as Sedgemoor’s coachman. Despite Leath’s clumsy toss, Harmsworth caught the book. “Good throw, old man.”
“Leath! Harmsworth!”
Leath couldn’t see past Greengrass, but he heard Sedgemoor’s shout. “Here!”
“You really did play me false, you lying swine,” Greengrass said, grabbing Leath’s shoulder in a bruising grip and swiveling him around so fast that his head swam. “So much for being a man of honor.”
“You’re a rat in a trap,” he grunted, splaying his hands against the bricks to keep himself upright.
“Not bloody likely,” the man growled and with a violent push, shoved Leath into the wall. When his head met the bricks, everything went black.
A shot exploded as he opened his eyes. Greengrass’s elephantine form disappeared inside the inn. Sedgemoor rushed in pursuit. Leath told himself to follow, but the command came from far, far away.
“Leath?”
Blearily he saw Hillbrook’s concerned face above him. He’d collapsed onto the filthy cobbles. He raised a hand to his throbbing skull and struggled to think. Someone groaned beside him. “How is Brown?”
“He’ll live.” Hillbrook glanced at the coachman. “Looks like the bullet missed his vitals. Not that I’m any expert.”
“Damn fool deserves to suffer,” Leath grumbled, gradually remembering the disastrous sequence of events.
Another groan pricked Leath’s conscience, although he’d wanted to shoot the man himself when he’d burst in so disastrously. A murmur of voices indicated that Harmsworth offered Brown assistance.
“Greengrass got the money,” he said unsteadily, leaning against the wall.
“It’s only fifty pounds.”
“Says the richest man in Europe.” Leath struggled to stand, but Hillbrook settled a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay there until you can see straight. You got the diary.”
“Did I?”
Hillbrook smiled grimly and pointed to Harmsworth. “Look.”
Careful how he turned his head, Leath saw the volume in Sir Richard’s hand. Despite pain and anger, a tendril of satisfaction unfurled. “I did, didn’t I?”
Hillbrook’s smile broadened. “Good work.”
“Sod got away,” Sedgemoor announced from Leath’s right. “There’s a cellar with a passage through to the river.”
“Must be why he chose this place,” Harmsworth said. “I’ve made the mistake before of underestimating the brute.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Leath’s voice sounded thick in his ears. “Without the diary, he’s got no leverage.”
Hillbrook helped him up. “Come on; let’s get you back to Miss Trim.”
Leath staggered and cursed his clumsiness. Gratefully he accepted Hillbrook’s shoulder under his arm. “She won’t be impressed that I let the blackguard scarper.”
Sedgemoor took the other arm. “She won’t care when her wounded hero returns.”
For some reason, Leath found that description enormously funny and he laughed. At least until his stomach lurched in protest. Wounded hero indeed.
“I still think you should see a doctor.” Eleanor rose from her chair across the dinner table.
They were in Leath’s private parlor at the Royal Swan, Maidenhead’s best inn. Earlier, all five had enjoyed a meal to celebrate the diary’s retrieval. Leath’s head pounded, but he’d done his best with a single glass of champagne. The other men had made up for his abstention, raising glasses in increasingly lunatic toasts.
Eleanor had been reserved, but it was impossible to remain shy in Richard Harmsworth’s presence, and she’d soon joined the festivities. Leath had smiled to see her so easy in the high-bred company. More ammunition for his campaign to marry her. He merely bided his time before asking again. He suspected she guessed that. After she’d recovered from the shock of seeing his injuries, her manner had turned wary.
He appreciated the welcome the three men gave her. Even more, he appreciated that each had since found an excuse to leave the parlor.
Now Eleanor approached him, beautiful eyes dark with concern. It was a cold night and she looked so warm and inviting. In her neat gray dress, she seemed more his Miss Trim than the gorgeous creature in silk at Fentonwyck. He’d wanted that woman to the point of madness, but there was something familiar and delightful about this Eleanor.
Gently she ran her hand over the back of his head. Even such a delicate touch had him hiding a wince. She brushed her lips across his thick dark hair, so lightly that he barely felt it. Except that his lonely heart yearned for her care like a man dying of thirst yearned for a river.
Still gently, she caught his jaw in one slender hand and tilted his face. She rested her other hand on his shoulder as she scrutinized him with a detailed attention that made his bones melt with longing. She pressed another butterfly kiss to the bruise on his cheekbone. “You quite terrify me, James; you’re so scarred and bruised.”
He smiled. This was the first time she’d called him James all night. He raised his hand and pressed her palm against his jaw. “Who needs a doctor when I have Miss Trim? Will you stay tonight?”
For the sake of her reputation, he’d engaged a separate room for her, although he’d ensured it was across the corridor from his. A man lived in hope, after all.
She stared into his eyes and briefly he thought she might agree, before she shook her head. “No.”
He
tried to find comfort in her audible regret. “Are you sure?”
Amusement lit her eyes to gold. “Stop tempting me.”
She kissed his mouth. Her scent surrounded him. Fresh. Lemony. Eleanor. He parted his lips to set the kiss on fire, but she withdrew. “Your head must hurt like the devil.”
“Another part hurts worse,” he complained.
She snickered. “You’ll live.”
“Cruel beauty.”
She turned and laid her hand on the diary. “So this is the book that caused all the trouble.”
His smile faded. “No, my toad of an uncle caused the trouble.”
“Have you read it?”
“No.” He struggled to hide his disgust at what little he’d seen. Pages of his uncle’s banal and profane prose, all expressing relentless contempt for his lovers. Leath had been sickened and depressed. “Do you want to check what he said about your sister?”
Sadness dulled her eyes. “No. She paid the price for her recklessness. She was an innocent led astray. I don’t need to know more. What are you going to do with the diary?”
“I’d like to burn it so that it does no more harm.” He stared at the book. “But it’s the only record we have of my uncle’s sins. I’ll have to track down these women and make sure they’re all right. Only the bravest and most desperate have written to me, I suspect.”
Eleanor studied him, eyes glowing in the flickering light. “You’re a good man, James.”
The compliment warmed him, especially given her past suspicions. “I’m glad you think so.”
“I worry that Greengrass is still out there,” she said with a shiver. “By now he’ll know that the satchel was packed with newspaper.”
“He’ll go to ground somewhere close. We’ll find him.” Leath sat back and opened his arms. “Come here.”
She didn’t shift. “I told you I can’t stay tonight.”
“I know,” he said drily. “But that doesn’t mean you have to stand so far away.”
Her lips flattened with a fond exasperation that made his poor heart stutter. So desperate he was for any sign that she felt more than mere desire. “It’s all of two feet.”
“Too far.”
“And you’ve been in a fight. You’re covered in bruises.”
“You can take off my clothes and check if you like.”
“James.”
“Please?”
She sighed. He waited for her to stick to her guns and walk away, but she crossed the minimal distance between them and curled up on his lap.
She was right. He was covered in bruises. With Eleanor in his arms, he didn’t give a damn. His hold tightened as she rested her head on his shoulder with a trust that he couldn’t take for granted. Not when only days ago, she’d hated him.
“I was terrified when you went to meet that man.” Her soft confession vibrated with emotion.
He kissed her forehead. She’d tied her hair in a loose knot. His fingers itched to unpin it, but he restrained himself. He didn’t need more torture. “You hid it well.”
“Did I?”
He laughed shortly. “No.”
She nestled closer. “I held my breath until you came back.”
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
She framed his head between her hands. The light in her eyes made him imagine that she loved him. She drew him down until their lips met. The contact lasted long enough to turn his blood to honey.
She nipped his lower lip and placed glancing kisses along his jaw. This time when she stopped, he growled deep in his throat. Her teasing provoked him. He hadn’t been alone with Eleanor since that explosive evening in Sedgemoor’s library. On their journey south, they’d stayed in Northampton, then spent another night at Rothermere House, Sedgemoor’s luxurious pile in Grosvenor Square.
Leath settled her to allow better access to her mouth. Her hand traced a searing path up his chest, although the atmosphere remained sweet rather than sultry.
“Kiss me properly,” he murmured.
A frown creased her brow. “Are you up to it?”
He laughed and bumped her with his hips. He expected her to wriggle away, but she shifted closer. “You’re tormenting me.”
“A little. To pay you back for frightening me.” She paused. “To pay you back for getting hurt.”
Sweetness flared to heat and he groaned. “Eleanor…”
He didn’t hold back when he kissed her. By the time he raised his head, she strained against him. Her dress was unbuttoned and his hand curled around her breast.
“You’re dangerous,” she muttered, shoving aside his shirt and kissing his chest where his longing heart beat to the sound of her name.
He kissed the satiny white flesh above the pert pink nipple. “Stay with me tonight. Nobody need know.”
“Yes, they will,” she retorted, even as she arched nearer.
Unable to ignore the encouragement, his lips closed on the peak of her breast. She cried out and her fingers tightened on his shoulders.
“We could make love now,” he said unsteadily. “Then you could return to your room and nobody will be the wiser.”
“I hate the idea of people sniggering about… us.” She stared at him, troubled. “I’m not a very convenient mistress, am I?”
He spoke the words that he’d promised himself he wouldn’t say until this mess with Greengrass was resolved. The words that would blast all this lovely, warm intimacy to hell.
“You’d make a highly convenient wife.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Not this again.” Nell scrambled away. She put her hands on her hips and stared James down.
Unfortunately, his lordship was as dogged as she was. His chin jutted belligerently. “Eleanor, will you marry me?”
“No.” She whirled away, missing the luxuriant rustle of Lady Hillbrook’s gown. The narrow skirts of her gray dress didn’t lend her temper the same grandeur. A sign of how dangerously easy it would be to tumble into the fantasy that she belonged in James’s world. That his clever, rich, aristocratic friends would accept her. That she made a fit consort for this outstanding man.
“Is that all you have to say?”
When she turned, she saw he’d risen. He rested one hand on the back of the chair where for a few blissful moments she’d leaned into him as if he was her rock in a turbulent world.
He remained her rock in a turbulent world. But she could never claim him publicly. Not without damaging him. She stiffened her spine and prepared to crush her dearest dreams to dust. “If you marry me, you’ll never be prime minister.”
“I don’t give a rat’s arse about being prime minister. I’d rather have you.”
His language shocked her and she faltered back before remembering that she must appear strong. “You can have me—as a mistress.”
“I want more.”
“There is no more. Desire must be enough.” She turned toward a mirror to fix her hair. The face in the glass was rosy with kisses, but the eyes were frightened.
She saw him reflected behind her. In his bruised face, his smile expressed endless affection. “We have more than desire and you know it.”
Her wayward heart lurched with love. When he smiled like that, he was nigh irresistible. “Stop it,” she snapped, turning on him.
He was still smiling. How she wished he wouldn’t. “Stop desiring you? Never.”
His gaze conducted a leisurely exploration of her body. Without touching her, he set every inch tingling. Slow heat shimmered inside her, turned her blood thick and sluggish. Her stomach quivered with longing. She shifted to relieve the heaviness between her legs.
He read her reaction. His smile broadened, became wolfish. She blushed to think what ran through his mind.
“Desire is no basis for marriage.” Her sharpness targeted her own susceptibility rather than James.
“It’s a start,” he said patiently.
“You’re just worried that as your mistress, I’ll be all reluctance and propriety.”
Amusement lit his eyes. “Tonight doesn’t bode well.”
She dared to step toward him. “I need a little time to accept my place in your bed.”
They stood face to face like adversaries. She was torn between running away and clinging to him like the ivy clung to the ancient walls of Alloway Chase. When he took her hand, she jumped as if burned.
“I don’t argue with your place in my bed.” His thumb stroked her palm, stirring her restlessness.
“You can’t forsake the plans of a lifetime.”
James drew her to an oak settle, black with age, near the fire. He sat beside her, keeping her hand. “I’ve changed since I met you.”
Despite being so overwrought, a wry smile curved her lips. “These days you’re not always convinced that you’re right.”
“Ouch,” he said amiably, laying his arm along the back of the long seat. They must look like two sweethearts, instead of a nobleman and the lowborn woman he’d lured into an illicit affair. “I’m right about making you my wife.”
“No, you’re not.”
“And of course, you never think you’re right,” he said drily, toying with tendrils of hair escaping her knot. “Don’t you want to know how I’ve changed?”
“I don’t think so.” She stared fixedly into the fire.
“Coward.”
“Definitely.”
He tugged gently at her hair until she faced him. “When my political allies told me to avoid London until the family name smelled a little sweeter, I thought I’d been banished to the lowest circle of hell. I’ve always enjoyed the hurly-burly of power. Now I had nothing to look forward to except cattle and crops and early nights.”
She didn’t interrupt. She was no fool. There was a “but” in this tale.
His voice lowered until the baritone stroked her skin like warm silk. “Instead I discovered a woman who lodged herself in my soul and wouldn’t shift, no matter how often I reminded myself that I never bother the servants.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “You bothered this particular servant quite a lot.”
He didn’t smile back. “And while I’d been a diligent landlord, my estates always came second to my political hopes.” He paused. “Then I found that living at Alloway Chase, managing my lands, arguing with that intriguing woman, proved a thousand times more fulfilling than anything I’d known before.”
A Scoundrel by Moonlight Page 28