Your Wicked Heart

by Meredith Duran

“We’ll find a different ship in Malta,” he said.

  “The boy will not be able to do so.”

  God above! “I’ll give the boy some money,” he snapped. “He can make his own decisions once in port.”

  She blinked and then smiled at him—such a smile as he’d never received from her, a wide, full, warm smile displaying tiny, pearly teeth.

  A knock to the head could not have delivered a more unpleasant jolt. She was not pretty, after all. No common English rose, but something much rarer. Petite, lush, vibrant, her wild blond curls begging for his hands. Indisputably, she was beautiful.

  And also stupid.

  And . . . brave.

  “Perhaps,” she said, still beaming, “you are not so much a villain, after all.”

  “Oh, thank you very much.” His sardonic tone made a fine cover for the ridiculous gratification washing through him.

  He was losing his mind. Falling under the spell of a woman who was, more likely than not, a criminal—and an expert at making men lose their minds for her.

  She shifted a little on the bed. “Would you like to sit down?” she asked shyly.

  The bed was not large. She still smelled of roses.

  “No,” he said—too abruptly. “That is, I must go to speak to the captain.” And purchase whatever alcohol the man might have. Enough to ensure that Spence would fall asleep the moment he lay down beside this woman tonight.

  He yanked open the door. “A different ship, yes,” he said. “With separate cabins for the each of us.”

  Very, very separate, indeed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  La Valletta, Malta

  It did not take Amanda long, while wandering through La Valetta, to decide that the port town was more far picturesque when viewed from afar. Aboard a ship anchored off the coast, one could admire how the pale stone buildings rose in elegant tiers around the azure waters of the harbor. On foot, one grew rapidly more conscious of the searing heat, the lack of shade-giving trees, the inescapable stench of rotting fish, and the curiously abundant and loose movements of the animals that roamed freely through the steep cobblestone lanes.

  “Watch out there,” said Ripton, his well-aimed nod sparing her the indignity of ruining a boot.

  She quickly sidestepped. “I begin to believe the abundance of fruits does not suit the animals’ stomachs.”

  His low laugh sent a flush of pleasure through her, which she immediately squelched. It unnerved her, what pleasant company he made when his mood was light; and since depositing their luggage at Morrell’s, a handsome hotel by the quay, he had been very cheerful indeed. Time to put this mystery to rest, he’d said, as though the prospect of catching a criminal seemed as merry to him as a Christmas morning.

  For herself, she felt increasingly nervous. Before disembarking, she had given her fiancé’s ring to the cabin boy. Bile had risen in her throat as she handed it over. The boy had looked at her as though she were a lunatic.

  Perhaps he was right. With that ring, she’d also surrendered her future welfare, for its sale would have kept her comfortable while she looked for a new position in London. But her conscience would not allow her to rely on Ripton’s promise to help the boy. She understood what it meant to be trapped in the employ of a monster. She had to know, beyond doubt, that the boy had the wherewithal to seek his own freedom.

  Besides, the boy was young and innocent of the world, while she was a grown woman, with knowledge, experience, friends . . . and an expensive wedding gown covered in seed pearls. She would survive without the ring. She would pull herself up by her bootstraps. She would find the loveliest employer. It would not take above a fortnight’s search, surely!

  Yet, with that matter settled, her anxiety wandered onward, latching onto the notion of confronting her former fiancé—for the more often Ripton described him to new acquaintances (first at Morrell’s, where they had not seen any man of that description, then at Durnsford’s, and Grand Hotel, and so on and so forth, through the entire list of likely hotels), the more convinced she became that her Ripton was this Ripton’s object of interest. All the details were correct—save one.

  “He doesn’t stutter,” she said as they departed the Hôtel d’Angleterre.

  Ripton cast her a blank look, which all at once narrowed into sharp interest. “No?”

  She shook her head. “He does have dimples, and a mole on his left cheek. But he speaks very fluently.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured.

  “How do you know so well what he looks like, anyway? Did you encounter him before? Why didn’t you catch him then?”

  His hesitation struck her as odd. But then he shrugged and said, “I had several very good descriptions from the bankers in Constantinople and Smyrna. He was using my letters of credit, you see. They remembered him quite clearly.”

  “Oh.” That made sense.

  At the Hôtel d’Australie, a very dingy-looking place, they found their first solid clue: the man behind the desk had seen a gentleman matching such a description, but not as a guest. “You will want to try the taverna on the corner,” he smirked. “But best you go before sundown, if you take my meaning.”

  The taverna was not difficult to find, marked as it was by an old-fashioned swinging sign emblazoned with a bottle of spirits. As they approached, a swarthy sailor emerged, scratching at his hair in a manner that suggested vermin considerably less pleasant than fleas.

  Amanda felt a stir of alarm and excitement. She had never set foot in a sailor’s den.

  “Perhaps I should take you back to the hotel first,” Ripton said.

  The suggestion astonished her. “You mean to say you kidnapped me for nothing?”

  He pulled a face. “Only that—”

  “Or that, having kidnapped me, you now think to shield my delicate sensibilities?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Very well, then. On we go.”

  The taverna’s door opened to reveal thick clouds of pipe smoke and the muted, gruff tones of masculine conversation. The low-beamed ceiling required Ripton to duck at regular intervals; he guided her to a trestle table that promised splinters for the carelessly placed elbow, then went to the bar to make inquiries.

  Squinting against the irritation of smoke, Amanda tried to appear like the sort of woman who would frequent such environs. Such a woman would no doubt place her chin in her hand and slump a little.

  Or perhaps not. Her own mother had been possessed of excellent posture, and Mama, in her youth, had served food at a pub in Little Darby—an accomplishment that Papa had found a source of endless amusement. “Imagine her,” he’d liked to say over the dining table as Mama thumped down a pot of stew or a juicy Sunday roast. “Slinging ale for sporters!”

  “Country gentlemen,” Mama had sniffed. “I’ll beg you not to speak of it to those bound to think otherwise.”

  But certainly this crowd could not be considered gentlemen. Clothed in ragged, patched coats, their hands reddened and their mouths tight, they bent over tankards and scowled at hands of cards. Amanda felt grateful that they ignored her, for she constitutionally lacked, so Papa had put it, Mama’s “disciplinary airs.”

  Ripton returned, two glasses of wine in his hands—disgusting stuff, full of sediment. “The publican says a man of our description has come in three afternoons in a row, generally around half past five. We’ll wait, if you don’t mind.”

  That was suspiciously polite of him. Indeed, now that she thought on it, he’d been oddly courteous ever since the incident with that poor boy.

  Perhaps the devil was developing a conscience!

  She rewarded him for it with her kindest smile. “I must say, it doesn’t seem a likely haunt for my . . . former betrothed. He preferred a more hygienic ambience.”

  “Yes, I imagine he did,” Ripton muttered. “Always one for gloss.”

  The remark made Amanda frown. “Did the bankers tell you that?” It seemed an odd detail for them to know.

  He took a large sip of his wine, then
shuddered. “My God. It’s thick enough to chew. I thought the Italians knew their grapes.”

  Noting the evasion, she eyed him narrowly. Now that she did not feel constantly on guard against his accusations, it was dawning on her that something did not add up here. “I thought you passed through Malta before. Didn’t you try the wine then?”

  “I didn’t have time for sightseeing on the way out.”

  He spoke with marked reluctance, almost as though the statement were an admission of some kind.

  Cautiously she said, “You were in a hurry?”

  His eyes fell to his cup, which he turned slowly in his hands. “There was some urgency to it, yes. And I’ve been ailing recently, so I was more interested in sleep than sightseeing.”

  The notion startled her. He seemed so vital that it was difficult to imagine him being sick. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “Only exhaustion.”

  “I thought you were a viscount,” she said cynically. “Surely lords do not labor themselves to exhaustion.”

  He gave her a fleeting smile. “It’s true, managing estates does not tax the body. But I’ve a very large and very troublesome family. Managing them could exhaust anyone.”

  Behind them, someone slammed his chair against the floor and snarled. She glanced over her shoulder. It seemed that such gestures were endemic to the local culture, for nobody else at the man’s table looked at all startled by his vehemence. With a smile, he took his seat again and retrieved his hand of cards.

  She turned back. “What was the cause of the urgency?”

  He lifted a brow. “What is the cause of your curiosity?”

  Ah, yes, here came his ill temper again. “I’m making polite talk, to pass the time. We could talk about your family instead, if you like.”

  “Let’s not,” he muttered.

  She felt a stir of irritation. “You’re very lucky to have a family, you know. Some of us are not so fortunate.”

  “Ah.” He studied her. “An orphan?”

  She did not like that word. It suggested a life barren of love, when hers had been the opposite, until recently. “My parents died three years ago.”

  “No siblings?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “My parents passed when I was very young. But my aunt and my cousins never let me feel their lack. For all that they drive me mad, I’m grateful for every one of them. Most of the time,” he added in an undertone.

  “Do they trouble you so terribly, then?” She liked tales of family mischief. As a child, she’d been full of envy when her friends spoke of quarrels with siblings, brawls over dolls and cakes.

  He hesitated. “Well, one of them ran off recently. A cousin. I was chasing him down when I came across this . . . business of the impostor.”

  “Oh!” How shocking! “Missing?”

  “Yes. His mother—my aunt—is out of her mind with worry.”

  “And did you find him?”

  He shook his head, and looked so troubled that she could not resist placing a hand over his where it lay on the table. This news put his urgency to find the impostor in a new and far more sympathetic light. “But why are you looking for the impostor, then? Shouldn’t your attention be for your cousin?”

  His eyes had fallen to her fingers over his. “He somehow got hold of my letters of credit. So financing the search has become difficult.”

  “Oh! The rascal!” Horrified, she retrieved her hand. “But surely others are looking for him, too! For your cousin, I mean. Perhaps they’ve already found him, and you just haven’t learned of it . . .”

  “No,” he said. “That is, he has a gift for getting into . . . scrapes. His mother wanted the news kept close, lest the gossip start anew.”

  “Then somebody else from the family should be looking!”

  He laughed. “God help me. You would have to know my family to understand how absurd that notion is. Set one of them loose on the road to Turkey, and they’ll end up by accident in China. No, if it must be done, I’ll be the one to do it—else I’ll have a new set of troubles on my hands.”

  His exhaustion began to make sense. “So everything lands on your shoulders,” she said.

  “By my choice.” He shrugged. “You may call it a vice, if you like—but if something needs to be done, I vastly prefer to do it myself. Besides, I am the head of the family. For seven years now. So my vice is also my duty.” His smile was wry. “A convenient coincidence.”

  His duty, she gathered, being to protect those he loved.

  Something inside her softened and warmed at the idea. What had her father always said? A man who puts his family first is a man you can trust.

  She wondered if he would have revised his opinion, upon learning that his daughter’s kidnapper fell into this category.

  But the crime could no longer raise any righteous indignation in her. Now she understood his desperation to catch the impostor, for the man stood in his way of finding his cousin. “I think it very good of you,” she said. “Not all men take their responsibilities so gravely.” Why, some of them claimed to love a woman, and then jilted her in a foreign country.

  He tilted his head in a gesture of puzzlement. “As I said, my aunt raised me. I have no choice in it.”

  “But it must be wearing at times.”

  He blew out a breath. “Oh, indeed. I’ll not argue that.”

  Her heart fairly ached for him. No wonder he’d been prickly and impatient! This dreadful hunt—her wretched former fiancé, the rotter—was preventing Ripton from saving his loved one!

  She put her hand back on his. “Well, you mustn’t feel alone,” she said. “We are partners in this task. I want to find the rat as much as you do.”

  He smiled at her, and she felt a curious swoop in her stomach. He had a beautiful smile. “Partners, you say.”

  She could not read his tone. Perhaps he found the idea ludicrous. A blush prickled her face. “That is, I believe I can be of some use, and surely you do as well, or else you wouldn’t have—”

  “Miss Thomas.” His hand turned, his fingers linking through hers, and she went quite still. “Having seen you face down a sea captain twice or thrice your weight, I have every confidence that you are a formidable ally.”

  To her amazement, there was no mockery in his voice. His palm against hers felt hot and slightly rough, and he held her gaze steadily, his own look unmistakably approving.

  “I thought you said it was a stupid thing to do,” she whispered.

  “Stupid, assuredly. But also, I will admit, courageous.”

  Courageous! A heady feeling swept through her. Yes, it had been courageous of her. Even he thought so—he, who had no cause to look on her charitably!

  A lump came into her throat. After so many months spent enduring Mrs. Pennypacker’s abuse—cringing like a beaten dog; desperate to leave but with nowhere to go; despising her own fear and helplessness—Ripton’s praise felt like a balm to her soul. She fought the sting of oncoming tears, for he would never understand it if she wept.

  Instead, she tightened her grip over his and lifted their joined palms into a handshake. “Partners, then.” He would not find her a wanting helpmeet.

  He laughed, a soft and mystified sound. “So formal, Miss Thomas.”

  She felt a silly smile curve her mouth. “Yes,” she said, “I incline to it.”

  But he returned her handshake. Why not? It was wise for a man to wish to be partners with a woman who was brave.

  “Very well,” he said, “partners in this matter, officially and formally. And if he doesn’t appear here within a quarter hour—” And then his gaze moved over her shoulder, and his eyes widened. “Duck!” he cried, and pushed her off her seat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ripton’s shove knocked her to the floor. Then came a terrible crash as a stool landed where she’d just been sitting.

  Amanda scrambled to her feet. A brawl was spreading from the table behind them—men raving,
cards scattering. Ripton, who had risen to shout a reprimand, became a target. One brawler smashed a chair into his knee; he staggered backward, directly into the path of another man who hoisted aloft a stool that—it became clear to Amanda in an instant—was going to bash Ripton’s skull.

  With a cry, she seized her toppled stool and smacked the miscreant in the back. Caught off guard, he stumbled, then wheeled toward her to seize her by the arm. She clawed at his grip. “Let go! Let—”

  Ripton tore the man off her and threw him across a table. Turning back, he said breathlessly, “What rubbish. Shall we go?”

  Wood splintered behind her. “Yes, please!”

  Together they hustled toward the door. Four paces from their freedom, the publican vaulted the bar and landed in front of them, his teeth bared in a ferocious grin. His come-hither gesture did not look friendly.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” said Ripton, and let go of her. One neat punch and the man went down.

  The quickness of it dazed her. She was staring at the publican’s slumped body when Ripton grabbed her arm and hauled her onward toward the door.

  When it slammed behind them, the sudden silence seemed jarring. How quickly that fight had started! She realized that her legs were shaking. The police!

  The door flew open, men stumbling out. With a curse, Ripton dragged her a step down the lane, then abruptly reversed course as a fresh gang of men came pounding from that direction. The police!

  “Quick,” she said, pushing Ripton down the narrow cobblestone lane, away from the authorities. Hand in hand they ran, around one corner and then another, until her breath became a dagger in her throat and she stumbled, gasping, to a stop.

  Running. Best done as a child, before one donned a corset.

  Ripton turned back, a curious lurch in his movement. “Are you all right?”

  She fell against a sunbaked wall. “Just—a moment—”

  “Gladly.” Wincing, he leaned down to palm his knee. “Haven’t brawled since university. Bit out of practice, I fear.”

  He had done well enough by her account. “Is your knee injured?” He had taken quite a blow.