by Anna Randol
“He was fortunately out of the picture by the time I was born.”
Two quick stitches robbed her of the ability to speak. The embarrassing squeak wasn’t feigned. “He passed away?”
He hurried on, his voice gruff. “No, he was never . . . married to my mother. He seduced her, then refused to do the right thing after he’d . . . done what he did.”
His words were awkwardly chosen for so well-spoken a man. He hadn’t told this story often, if ever, before. She’d found that once a person told a story, he called on the same words again and again without having to search for them. In fact, the more emotional the memory, the more he relied on his memorized phrases to get through it. Like the lieutenant in Corunna who’d had a leg blown off by a cannon. He kept referring to a resounding blast, first to her when he thought her a tavern wench. Then later as he begged for mercy before he was hanged for selling secrets to the French.
Her hands gripped the sheets until the taut wrinkles imprinted on her palms. “Who was your father?”
He dabbed a warm trickle of blood off her stomach. “The brother of her employer.”
She wanted more of the story so she moaned.
“He was already promised to another woman.” Gabriel’s eyes swept her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever related this story before.”
An unwelcome sensation gnawed at her chest. He wouldn’t have shared the story with her if she hadn’t manipulated it out of him. The pain in her stomach was preferable to her guilt, so she focused on that. Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d asked to be stabbed. And the agony of his ministrations was far too real. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe. Did you . . .” Have any brothers or sisters had been what she was going to ask, but the words stuck in her throat. Curse it all. Madeline wasn’t without a conscience, but she normally did a far better job of quieting it. For some reason she couldn’t ask him about his sister. At least not like this. Shame flickered in the corner of her thoughts.
Why? the cold, logical voice in her head asked. She’d done far worse as a spy. She had pried men’s most private truths from them. Gabriel was no different. He was hiding information from her. That was unacceptable at best and life-threatening at worst.
The ill-timed pause in her scheming left her with no distraction. The next poke of the needle sent the hot tears she’d been willing into nonexistence dribbling down her cheeks. She pressed her eyes tightly closed, hoping Gabriel was too involved with his task to take note of her humiliation.
A soft, smooth cloth skimmed over her cheek, drying it. “We’re almost done.”
She turned her face away from his hand. She didn’t need her tears dried. Ian and Clayton had never tried. They’d given her food when they were starving, saving back none for themselves. Once Clayton had waited for her at a rendezvous point to warn her they’d been compromised even though that had allowed the French to capture and torture him for two days before she’d been able to free him.
But they hadn’t dried her tears.
Not that she’d cried much after the first year. She would’ve gone mad.
“I’ve told you one of my secrets, you tell me one of yours,” Gabriel said, clearing the tears from her other cheek.
She would have done anything to avoid the feelings stirred by his simple touch. Trapped by her own machinations, she spoke. “What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from?”
“London.”
“Then where were you six months ago?”
The pointed question cleared the weakness from her mind. Apparently, she shouldn’t have felt guilty over her interrogation. “I only agreed to give you one secret.” And she was a fool for giving him that.
“Yours hardly equals the one you were given.”
“But it does. You told me something that no one else knows and I have done the same—” She sucked in a sharp breath at the jab of the needle.
“Done.” Gabriel knotted the thread and pulled back from her with a weary sigh. He rubbed his hands over his face, then picked up the glass of brandy. “Just once more. It will help keep infection from the wound.”
She nodded. As the cool amber liquid ignited her skin, she writhed in pain, her fingers locking around his forearm as if she could stop what he’d already done.
With his free hand, he brushed strands of hair from her face. “It’s almost over. Almost,” he whispered.
She clung to the deep murmur of his voice to maintain her sanity.
Gradually, the burning began to fade, ebbing back to the bearable agony of the wound itself. As it did, she became aware of the weight of his arm where she clutched it to her naked breasts. The hard masculine strength of it. How the dark hair sprinkled over the back tickled her with each breath.
She loosed her hold on his arm, wincing at the red crescents imprinted by her nails. “Sorry.”
He glanced down. “After what you endured, you expect me to complain about those?”
She managed a smile, but then his gaze focused on the breasts on either side of his arm. The smile faltered on her lips. Eager for his attention, her nipples contracted into hard nubs.
His eyes darkened until the pale green was nearly obliterated by the black of his pupils.
The muscles in his arm contracted, and even that small shift stole the air from the room. For a moment, she thought he’d lower his hand and caress her. Thought. Hoped. Prayed.
Instead, he jerked toward the supplies beside him, retrieving another cloth.
The air became breathable again, and Madeline exhaled. She must’ve lost more blood than she thought.
She’d wanted him to touch her.
Oh, she’d desired men before, but she’d never allowed it to go further than that. She’d enjoyed the novelty of the sensation but then she’d noted her body’s reaction for future use and moved on.
It was past time she moved on. She would get the information she sought about Gabriel, and then if satisfied, allow him to continue working on the auction. If not, she’d be rid of him.
Using her pain as an excuse, she closed her eyes, blocking Gabriel and his accursed jade eyes from her sight. Guilt was no longer the most effective tool. She’d wasted that.
He hadn’t taken advantage of her when he had the chance. But not only hadn’t he taken advantage, he’d turned away. He was trying to resist her. A man didn’t need to resist something he didn’t want.
He’d handed her a weapon just as potent as the one she’d thrown away.
Desire.
She’d relished not having to entice Gabriel. She no longer had that luxury.
She would do what she did best—seduce the truth from him.
Chapter Eleven
Keeping his hand light, Gabriel dabbed the wound dry again.
Madeline lifted her head a few inches and peered at his work, the row of thin, black lines, fifteen in all, that held the edges of the knife wound together. “If you ever desire to cease being a Runner, you have a chance at making a tolerable tailor.”
He unclenched his aching jaw. “For a moment I feared you were going to say surgeon. If this ever happens again, I’m sending for a doctor.”
“Don’t worry. It’s my intent to avoid all knife attacks in the future.”
The question remained why this attack had occurred in the first place, but he’d finish dressing her wound before addressing that. Gabriel pressed a square of cloth against her stomach. “I need to bandage the wound. Can you hold this?”
She kept the pad of fabric in place as he removed the wet towels, cut off her bloody bodice, then draped a long strip of cloth over her stomach. When he slid his hand under her back, his palm skimmed over the satiny skin at the base of her spine. As he worked, he kept his eyes on the bandage, refusing to note that it only highlighted the round, firm contours of her breasts.
His hand dipped under her again, and she gave a small moan. Pain, no doubt. But the luxurious delicacy of her skin tried to lull his exhausted brain into thinking otherwise.
&nbs
p; He needed something to keep him sane. “Who was behind the attack?”
“I don’t know.”
He circled the bandage several more times until she was securely wrapped. “Who was near when you were stabbed?”
Her voice was weak and breathy. “Everyone. I didn’t even know I’d been stabbed at first. It just felt like someone had struck me. When I realized what had happened, I tried to identify my attacker, but there were too many people.”
“No one in particular struck you as odd? Someone badly dressed? Walking too fast?”
Her brows pleated together. “I keep running through the situation in my mind, but cannot think of anyone.”
The furrow remained on her face. Without thinking, Gabriel reached out and smoothed it with his thumb. “You have an excuse. I, on the other hand, deserve to be flogged.”
Her breath misted over his wrist, alerting him his hand had meandered to her cheek. “Hmm . . . If that is what you enjoy.” Her eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief, but then grew serious. Turning her head, she touched her lips to the inside of his wrist. “Thank you for helping me.” Her lips brushed against him as she spoke, then settled more firmly for a lingering caress. Her tongue flicked out and traced the vein on his wrist. “I should think of a way to reward you.”
Although her mouth touched only a tiny portion of his skin, the resulting heat was more than enough to burn him alive.
Her eyes rested on the bulge his breeches were unable to hide, then with a slight smile, she laved a slow circle on his wrist.
As if either of them doubted where he was imagining those lips.
With a throaty breath, she turned her head slightly, catching the tip of his thumb in her mouth. She suckled it gently, letting the flat of her tongue rasp over the end. His groin throbbed with each pulse of her tongue.
Then she moaned, the low, gasping sound of a woman enjoying herself.
Liar.
He’d heard that moan before when she’d allowed one of her suitors a lingering kiss of her hand. Despite the temptation to allow her erotically skilled lips to continue on to every other part of his anatomy, he pulled away. “Why do you do that?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Reward men that please me?”
“Play the seductress.” He pulled the sheet over her torso.
Only a heartbeat’s pause betrayed her surprise. She traced his lips with her finger, the movement dislodging the cover he’d placed over her and revealing the pale edges of her breasts. “I like to play, and I imagine you’d like some of my games.”
His body agreed, but his mind took note of the exhaustion that lurked in her eyes and the wan cast of her complexion. Not to mention the pile of bloody towels and clothing next to them. He caught her wrist and lowered her arm back to her side.
“Don’t you want me?” Confusion warred with shock in her eyes.
Hell, yes.
“I want you to sleep. You need to rest if you’re to recover.” He lifted the sheet up again, this time adding a coverlet from the foot of the bed for good measure.
She studied him through slightly narrowed eyes as if she didn’t know what to make of him. As he suspected, her eyes started to drift closed.
But then she blinked them open. “What did you mean, play the seductress?” Sleepiness slurred her words.
He frowned. “It’s as if you decide to become the courtesan, like an actress playing a role.”
Her head rocked side to side. “No. I’m afraid it’s who I am.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Then you’re doubly a fool.” She grabbed the top of her blanket and pulled it all the way to her chin.
“You hide behind the façade of seduction.”
“What if that’s because I’m hiding something worse?”
His role as a Runner couldn’t let a question like that go unaddressed. “Are you?”
She closed her eyes. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
“I told you I mean to discover who you really are.”
“You say that as if there’s something to find.” Only the smallest slivers of her eyes were visible, so it was impossible to read the dark emotion that lurked in them. “I’m tired. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for our drive in the park.”
Perhaps he should have taken her to Bedlam rather than home. “No. You need to allow your wound time to heal.”
Her eyes snapped back open. “Impossible. I don’t have time to waste lying abed.”
“I’ll use the time to further investigate your bidders. You’ll hardly impress your suitors if you faint at their feet.”
She sighed. “I’ll rest one day, and I expect to hear your report tomorrow evening.”
“Two.”
“One, but I will only go on my morning outing on the second. I heal quickly.”
“You’ve been stabbed before?”
She shrugged. “Once or twice.”
The devil! “When?”
She settled into her pillow. “You don’t think I’m serious, do you? You must be as exhausted as I.”
He didn’t know what to believe about her anymore. But her refusal to rest concerned him. “Why does your life mean so little to you?”
“Why does it mean so much to you?”
Gabriel didn’t have an answer, so he smoothed a strand of dark hair from her forehead. “I don’t get paid if you’re dead.”
She chuckled weakly at that. “Trying to appeal to me in a language I understand? I’m touched.”
He folded his hands behind his back to keep them from wandering again. “Go to sleep, Madeline.”
She huffed at his order, but after a few moments she lost the fight with her weariness, and her breathing settled into slow, even whispers.
The candlelight cast a warm, golden glow over her face, revealing a vulnerability she tried so hard to obliterate while she was awake. Who was she really?
With a grimace, Gabriel stood, pulling his jacket on over his bloody shirt. The coat was undoubtedly stained as well, but at least the black fabric disguised it. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never be able to divest himself of the agony on her face as he’d closed the wound.
But he had many such memories.
Madeline gave a quiet whimper in her sleep.
Gabriel hesitated, then continued to the door. He’d done his duty by her. Yet his hand refused to grasp the tarnished brass handle.
She wriggled in her sleep.
Damnation, she might reopen the wound. The thought carried him back to her side. Trailing his fingers down her cheek, he soothed her back to stillness. Perhaps he should stay tonight in case she needed him.
The satin softness of her skin entranced him, and he traced the delicate features of her face. The arched wings of her brows. The high, delicate cheekbones. The lush, rosy mouth.
Enough.
Gabriel wrenched his hand away. He didn’t want to be entranced, especially by her. He wanted to solve the puzzle that she presented. The puzzle was what captivated him. Why his every other thought lingered on her. There were too many things about her that didn’t add up.
He glanced again at her sleeping form tucked neatly under the blankets, then around the dark room. If he wanted information, she’d provided him with the perfect opportunity.
Chapter Twelve
What type of woman had no personal effects at all? Gabriel closed the dressing room door as silently as he’d opened it. The room contained her clothing and shoes but nothing more. No love letters poked out from among her stockings. No small keepsakes or mementos rested in her jewelry box. Her toilette table held only a wooden comb and a box of pins. No ornate silver brushes or expensive perfume.
Perhaps she kept those things locked away elsewhere.
He paused, listening to ensure no one was about, before he stole into the adjoining bedroom.
The light from his candle illuminated pale blue wallpaper, but holland covers shrouded everything else in the room. If she had a secret hideaway
, this wasn’t it.
Gabriel moved back into Madeline’s room. He would have searched further into the house, but he suspected her butler lurked nearby in case he needed to be of assistance.
Gabriel set the candle on the side table. He knew no more than when he’d started, although that shouldn’t come as a surprise—
The thin, cool blade of a knife rested at his throat. Sharp. Short.
His muscles tensed in unison. The bastard had come to finish the job on Madeline.
With an explosive movement his arm shot up, tucking under the wrist holding the knife to his throat and wrenching it away while simultaneously throwing his head back into the face of his attacker.
Gabriel spun away while holding the man’s wrist, maintaining control of the knife. A quick blow to the man’s armpit sent the knife clattering by Madeline’s bed.
But his assailant had already compensated. A powerful fist connected with Gabriel’s kidney. He sucked in a breath as he darted back, kicking the assailant’s knife into the corner of the room. By his next breath, Gabriel had pulled his own dagger from his boot and balanced the familiar weight.
His eyes adjusted to the dim glow cast by the fireplace.
The other man waited where Gabriel had left him, a new knife brandished in his hand. His placement between Gabriel and the fireplace ensured Gabriel couldn’t discern his face, just a hard, lean outline.
“Well done. You held up far better than I anticipated.” The man’s voice was deep and cultured, but Gabriel didn’t recognize it.
“Drop your knife.”
The man shrugged. “I just honed this one. I’d rather not chip the blade. But I will put it away.” True to his word, he sheathed the knife at his waist in a smooth motion.
The man’s lack of weapon didn’t lull Gabriel into following suit. He’d seen how comfortably the man controlled his blade. “Who are you?”
“A friend of Madeline’s. Canterbury sent for me.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
“I would be disgusted if you did.”
Gabriel sidled to his left, and as he hoped, the other man turned as well. The reddish light from the coals slid across his face, illuminating a dark, rugged countenance. A crescent scar marked his right cheekbone.