by Shirl Anders
“We don’t need sight,” Nia gasped, then their lips meshed.
Chapter Eleven
Kit woke to a loud pounding on her hotel room door. Her mind immediately tripped to the two burly men that had assaulted her the day before. Her heartbeat thudded to the repeated forceful knocks as she stood, and then she stumbled, reaching for the gas lamp on the wall by the bed. Her shaking fingers managed to turn the light up as she gathered her senses. It would not be her earlier assailants. Certainly not! Not knocking at her door.
Kit heard a muffled voice saying, “Miss Montoya.” She cautiously walked to the door as though its locked presence could somehow burst open at any moment.
“Who is it?” Kit called loudly, stepping up to the door and leaning close, expecting an answer. Instead, more loud raps sounded, reverberating through the solid wood and causing her to jerk backward.
But then, she heard quite clearly, “Bloody hell, woman, you dinna send for a man with an urgent message that we must meet, then not open your bloody door!”
Mr. Duneagan! Kit gasped and leaped back to the door, turning the key and tugging it open. “Why did you not answer me when I asked who you were?”
“Sorry, lass. I dinna hear you.”
Kit barely had a chance to take in Lord Duneagan’s appearance before he was past her, stalking into the room, leaving scents of wind, rain, leather, and clove, but mostly male.
“Why the hell are you not packed and gone by now? Do you really want worse to happen to you than already has?”
Kit sputtered as she shut the door haphazardly. “Are you threatening me, Lord Duneagan?”
She now knew that he was an English Baron and a Scottish Laird, by the note she’d received from him. His first name was Brynmore, and the note had said very tersely that she was in danger. It said he would find her brother, and she was in danger and should go home. He had signed it with his full name and titles, either to impress her or to assure her that he could back up his high-handedness.
Brynmore Duneagan was quite large and very hairy, with a bushy brown-red beard, longer hair, and when he turned his body, his vivid green eyes flashed over her. Kit’s fingers clutched for the edges of her robe. Then, she realized that she’d forgotten to put it on as Brynmore Duneagan’s dynamic green eyes assessed that fact. They traveled over the too-revealing gauzy material of her long flowing nightgown. She realized that one loose shoulder had fallen down as her cheeks heated, and she was held suspended with a feeling of embarrassment, but also something else that she had no wish to examine closely. She finally broke the spell, crossing her arms over the dots of her perked nipples, and then she moved quickly, going for her robe.
The electric alertness of Brynmore’s gaze, the part that made him a male, watched the feminine outline of Kit Montoya’s heart-shaped ass as she turned, reaching for her robe. All his senses were wide awake to the fact that Kit Montoya was nude beneath the sheer nightgown she wore. From the urgent message that she’d sent to him, he now knew her first name and the false name she used to register at the hotel.
However, all that was meaningless beneath his first unadulterated look at the woman. No hat and veil to hide her short wavy blond hair the color of white gold, with smoky blue eyes, and light freckles over sun-kissed skin. No voluminous skirts to hide a lithe shape that undulated with curves over slender hips, cup-shaped buttocks, and shapely legs. No cloak to hide the swell of firm breasts with dark pointed nipples. The lass was exquisite, with a feminine, yet athletic aura that suggested his frame could lift her with one well-padded arm, but that she could quite agilely challenge him.
Nevertheless, she looked at him as if he was a large woolly bear invading her space, and he supposed that was true. He was a hairy brute at the moment. “Not a threat, lass.” His voice boomed overly loud, perhaps to hide the effect she had on him as a man. “But I see you are not packed, and that is as daft as a pixie poking a dangerous beast!”
Miss Montoya’s dusky blue eyes darkened at his pronouncement, and he watched every speck of her, until she had her robe pulled on and tied closed. She was a wee bit of feminine feast to his gaze, and he was perturbed that he let her know he liked what he was seeing . . . and that he was looking. Looking until her high cheek bones turned pink again. Then, belatedly he remembered that he barely knew the lass, and he remembered what had happened to her. They could have raped her for all he knew. Bloody hell, he was a pig!
Brynmore turned his gaze far too late to be considered a gentleman as he heard Kit’s clear Americanized accent. “I-I appreciate your concern Mister, or Lord, or Laird... What do I call you?”
“Brynmore will do, otherwise, Duneagan,” he answered gruffly, staring strategically at the gas lamp above and behind her head.
“Fine then, Mister Duneagan.” Brynmore winced slightly. “Your concern is noted. I easily could have been r-raped today. That was their partial intent after I came upon them.”
Brynmore felt a surge of relief as his gaze dropped to her. “They did not then?” The words leaped from his mouth.
Kit’s blue eyes were large with her lips pressed together as if she were trying to still their trembling, while she hugged both her arms across her waist, shaking her head slowly. His chest lifted and the urge to step forward and embrace her was unreasonable. He countered it with irritation that she had not left yet, after what had happened, combined with his subsequent warning for her to leave. It was only by chance that he was back in Paris to receive her message. The probable players of Baco, Cernno, and Dame Baset, at least, had set sail for England and right into the rest of the Archangels surveillance, leaving him free to follow any further clues here. That left the two primary hedonists, and as far as he was concerned, the true villains, yet to be found in all of this, Hellion and Incubus.
“But I stayed, and then I searched Remior’s apartment and found something very important,” Kit said.
Brynmore felt a very large urge to throttle the woman. Of all the bloody foolishness, no matter what tidbit she’d unearthed, it could not be worth the added or addlebrained danger she invited. She was no demure and shrinking violet this one, scared into returning to her country. He was about ready to blast her foolishness when, several thumps, rattles, and scraping sounds issued from behind another door in Miss Montoya’s room.
A whirling dervish could not have moved as fast as he did heading toward that door.
“No! No! That is what I need to tell you,” Kit exclaimed.
“Stay back,” he ordered, grabbing the door handle. He shoved the door open with his gaze searching the dark interior. From the light of one room into the darkness of another bedchamber, his sight did not adjust quickly enough as he advanced into the room.
“Mr. Duneagan, wait please! Let me tell you!”
What Kit was saying finally started to register through the adrenalin rush of Brynmore’s instincts as his eyes adjusted to the sight of a dark shape that seemed to bounce on top of the bed. Brynmore’s gaze followed the half-sized shape as its shadow dropped from the bed to the floor. His first thought was that it could be a dog, but then he heard the distinct clomping of feet as it rushed past him. He turned with his eyes following the stocky form into the light. A midget!
“This is who I found,” Kit exclaimed, as the small man wailed.
“No hurt me! No hurt!”
“Yojo!” Brynmore expelled.
“You know him?” Kit asked in surprise, while Yojo scampered to the door.
Brynmore waylaid Yojo before he could get the door open, using his large hand over the top of the agitated man’s head to shove the door closed. Yojo turned away from the door, waddling hastily to the bed, where he climbed the bedpost like a half-pint acrobat. “No hurt, Yojo!”
Yojo was bald with dark saucer eyes. He had a flat nose and his mouth was slightly off-centered. He stood less than four feet tall and his stocky build was as though he carried no waist. He looked just like Joelle had described him. But now his clothing was dirt-smudged and tor
n in places. He looked as though he’d been in a few tumbles. It seemed Yojo was not having a very easy time of it. Brynmore raised his hands with a calming gesture as he stepped slowly toward the only irrefutable link he’d found to The Order of the Satyr. A positive link!
Brynmore Duneagan was certainly imperious, Kit thought. He never listened to a thing she said, like, “Stop! Wait! Listen to me!” Instead, he ordered her about as though he had the authority to do so. Confidently, he propelled forward in any direction he thought he had a right to pursue, not listening and on the way ordering her about. It sorely reminded her of her husband.
Kit stomped forward into the theatrics. It seemed while Brynmore Duneagan did nothing but order her to go back home, as if it were his arrogant male right over any woman he barely knew, she had done something very right! She reached the edge of the bed, and Yojo bounced forward to her, stopping and clutching her waist. The small man had tremors wracking him, as she put her arms around him.
“No hurt, Yojo!”
“We won’t. We won’t,” Kit soothed him.
It had been basically impossible to get anything coherent out of Yojo since she’d discovered him cowering under the gowns in Remior’s closet. However, the one thing that obviously terrified Yojo was that Lord Incubus had deserted him. It became apparent that the strangely named Lord Incubus, Yojo’s master, was in fact Marco Remior. She was interested in Remior and his link to her brother. Furthermore, Yojo was obviously abandoned and not capable of fending on his own. Kit had convinced Yojo to come with her, to which he excitedly agreed to do, but since that time she’d not been able to untangle the mysterious bits of information Yojo babbled.
Kit looked accusingly at Brynmore for frightening Yojo as she patted Yojo’s back, and he bobbed with irrepressible energy in her arms. Brynmore’s hands fell to his side as he grimaced and stopped a few paces from them. She raised her eyebrow as if to say, see what a mere woman can find while you are so busy and high-handedly ordering her to go home. She saw his muscular chest rise and fall in a sigh, then he nodded to her, accepting her reproving look. She held back the quick smile of victory and empowerment that she felt. It appeared that Brynmore knew Yojo, and she was going to start finding some things out now.
“I’m a friend of Joelle’s,” Duneagan said quietly.
Brynmore watched Yojo bounce, and then fall with a slight thump against Kit. Yojo’s bald head turned with his black eyes wider than ever. Yojo looked up at him and mumbled one word that he could not catch, but Kit turned her gaze up to him, nodding. Brynmore assumed the little man had acknowledged Joelle’s name, and it bothered him that Kit had so quickly picked up the fact he had trouble hearing. He could not remember the last person who studied him intimately enough to figure it out.
Brynmore slowly lowered to crouch with his forearms resting casually on his knees. “Aye, Sir Yojo, Joelle told me all about you. She misses you and was worried about you. She asked that I find you.”
“Joelle!” Yojo chirped. “Pretty, pretty Joelle!”
“Aye,” Brynmore nodded. His tactic was working. Stooping and using more softly spoken words brought Yojo away from Kit to stand in front of him on the bed, swaying from side to side.
“Lady Joelle, likes me.” Yojo nodded. Then he grew excited again clapping his hands. “Can I see her? Can I see her?”
“She is not in France, Yojo,” Brynmore said. “But I might be able to take you to her, if you and I can talk a bit.”
Brynmore was unsure of Yojo’s degree of intelligence. Joelle thought he was as smart as any adult, while Saxon disagreed. Judging him now, Brynmore felt that Yojo used his childlike excitement and way of talking to placate other people into believing he was harmless. Brynmore’s reasoning was the example of Joelle’s championing of him and Kit’s maternal instincts with him. He needed Yojo’s information, not riddles. Brynmore wondered for an instant whether it would be wiser to let Kit gather information from the little man. Yojo certainly leaned toward the affection of women.
“I see that you like my friend, Kit, too, Yojo. It seems we have good deal of friends together.”
“Kit, nice!” Yojo exclaimed, waddling to Kit to grasp her robe with a small tug as she patted his head.
Brynmore looked upward at Kit’s smoky blue eyes. His gaze caught movements near her mouth, and his eyes lowered to see her mouth, voicelessly, “He has only babbled so far, making no sense.”
Brynmore rocked back on his heels with his gaze narrowing. Bloody hell, the woman knew he could read lips. How could she know that of him? He felt the irritation of being exposed, and he tried shrugging aside the odd feeling. He was momentarily distracted, so he might have spoken lacking calculation, his tone changing the outcome of his words, when he blurted, “Yojo, you and I both know about, Incubus and Hellion, but only you know where to find them.”
Yojo screeched in babbling fright, before Brynmore finished his last word. Then, in the blinking of an eyelash, Yojo dropped down to the floor and scrambled under the bed. “Yojo does not know, Lord Incubus or Lord Hellion! Yojo knows nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”
“Bloody Hell!” Brynmore cursed.
“So tactful,” Kit’s husky voice pronounced as Brynmore raised his gaze to her, standing as he did so. He saw her hands planted on the swell of her hips, after the fashion his mother used to do when disappointed and set to scold him. Yojo kept babbling under the bed, and he had no hope of understanding what he said, although he wagered that Kit couldn’t either.
“And you could do bloody well better, woman?” Brynmore asked.
“If I knew half of what is going on, which is my right, yes I believe I could!”
Balls. He’d walked right into that one. A spy never gave away his information, especially to unknown quantities. Of course, Kit was not such an unknown quantity anymore, now that appeared irrefutable. She was exactly what she seemed to be, a sister trying to find her brother with novice investigations. Any information he gave her would just feed her attempts.
“If you are thinking of taking, Yojo, and trying to leave, I will follow you wherever you go. I will make such a nuisance of myself that-,”
Brynmore held up his hand stopping Kit’s words, while his shocked mind flipped. What was it with this woman that she could read his very mind?! “You canna know what I’m thinking, woman!”
“Canna I?” she responded tartly. “You will not deter me, Mr. Duneagan! And if you do not tell me what you know now, two things will happen. First, the men I hired to help me investigate this will have your name on the top of the list. And second, you will never get Yojo to talk before you take him all the way back to, Joelle, and then you might miss this, Incubus, because he could be here, right now, in Paris!”
“Incubus left, Yojo! Left Paris!” Yojo screeched from under the bed.
Brynmore heard that! He lifted his upper lip to Kit with a male sneer. “Where did Incubus go?” Brynmore asked the bed.
“No! No! No! Yojo, never heard of Incubus!”
Kit’s pretty lips smirked back at him and her cheeks seemed to glow with challenge. Brynmore did not want to admit what a fine-looking woman she was as he stalked toward her. He grasped her arm lightly, but with purpose, guiding her further away from the bed, crossing the room.
His voice lowered. “I would explain, but you have to promise to go home and let me handle this. I give you my word on that-,”
“No,” Kit interrupted him. “I am in this all the way, Mr. Duneagan, with or without your help. Without, I am sure we will be stumbling across each other as it seems what we are both searching for might lead us in the same direction.”
“Are you daft?” he retorted, with a sharp edge to his voice. “This is dangerous. We are not playing parlor games here, Miss Montoya.”
“I’m now aware of that,” she said, lifting her arm from his grasp. “I’m afraid to think about what all this means to where my brother might be.” Brynmore had a tragic feeling of where her brother might be. However, he would n
ever voice it. “Tell me, would you stop if it were your family?” she asked him in a fierce whisper.
Chapter Twelve
Brynmore curled his fingers into fists on both his hands. He was vehemently against involving Kit further ... ever, if at all. But he needed the information Yojo could provide. Now! Not days from now. The main villains could be getting away. Something was off somewhere. He could not trust that all the evil players were going to England. Otherwise, why would the German brothers have been ransacking Remior’s residence? Remior, who was likely Incubus. The fact that Incubus left Yojo behind did not sit well either. It appeared the group was breaking up their partnerships and not in a friendly way. Damn it, the woman had him by the balls, and some inner intuitiveness she had about him told her so. He was going to regret this.
Kit watched Brynmore’s large hand rise, and then he grasped her arm again, this time nearly dragging her behind the curtains. He began to tell her the tale in a low and intense voice. Kit could barely believe the things he told her about the macabre names, Hellion, Incubus, Dame Baset, and the others. All members in The Order of the Satyr. Her heart grew cold when she realized that Clay had gotten a love letter from Remior, the supposed Lord Incubus. Brynmore explained about his friends, Saxon and Joelle, and their kidnapping. He told her about his combined friends and their intentions to stop the cult and its leaders.
Friends indeed. Kit wagered that the male friends Brynmore spoke of were more than friends. What they were, she could not imagine, but Brynmore’s every reaction and movement told her that he was no novice at hunting down criminals. She knew without doubt that Brynmore left out large pieces. However, the parts he told her about were horrible enough, and she shuddered away from hearing the worst, glad that he did not say it. Kidnapping, raping, sexual depravity, cult worshipers. It was all so bazaar. So unthinkable!