My Irresistible Earl

by Gaelen Foley

  This done, he put it gently into her hands. “Just like that. Good. I’ll be right back. In the meanwhile, if he moves a muscle, you have the Order’s blessing to finish him off. He’s useful alive, but we all know the world’s better off with this filth dead.”

  Mara said nothing as they changed places. Both hands on his pistol, she held Bloodwell at bay as she waited for Jordan to return.

  Jordan stalked into the cramped, moldy shed where the boy and the two servants had spent the day. He found Jack in a bad state but was able to lift him to his feet.

  The groaning driver leaned heavily on him, barely aware of what was happening, as Jordan half carried him out to the coach.

  He smirked when he saw that Bloodwell had taken off his neck cloth and tied it around his leg for a tourniquet. The Promethean assassin was struggling back up onto his feet with a look of hatred.

  “Jordan!”

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t worry.”

  His back was turned only for a moment as he helped the wounded Jack settle into the squabs, then he nodded to Mrs. Busby. “Hold on, ma’am. We’re going to get you out of here.” Jordan laid his hand gently on the screaming toddler’s head. “Shh, little man, you’re all right now—”

  And suddenly Mara shrieked from several feet behind him. The gun went off.

  Jordan spun around to see Bloodwell charge, ramming her with a hard shoulder that would have knocked a man twice her size to the ground.

  Mara went flying. Though she had pulled the trigger, the bullet had gone skyward; Bloodwell raced toward the carriage at a limping run, hellfire in his eyes. It was the only means of transportation out of here, and Jordan saw he meant to commandeer it.

  Not bloody likely.

  Eyes narrowed, he reached for his dagger as Bloodwell leaped for the driver’s box with a grunt of pain. Jordan hurled it at him.

  The knife bit deep into Bloodwell’s thigh—same leg, above the gunshot wound at his knee. The Promethean roared, and Jordan launched himself toward the driver’s box behind the man.

  Ignoring the knife in his leg, Bloodwell used the advantage of height to kick Jordan in the chest with his good leg. The blow set him back but did not dislodge him.

  Bloodwell grabbed the carriage reins, but before he could disengage the brake, Jordan attacked again. They brawled atop the driver’s box, Thomas wailing at the top of his lungs all the while.

  Somehow, Bloodwell managed to get a length of the leather reins around Jordan’s neck and began choking him.

  Snarling and gasping for air, Jordan struggled against him.

  Then Bloodwell reached down, pulled the knife out of his own leg, and stabbed Jordan in the side with it.

  Jordan barely felt the wound at first in his heightened state of battle; reacting automatically, he flipped Bloodwell forward over his head with a roar.

  The Promethean assassin slammed down onto the dusty road flat on his back. Unfortunately, as Jordan leaped off the driver’s box to crush him under his weight, Bloodwell rolled out of the way.

  Jordan cursed, landing on all fours in the dusty road; he held his side for a second as blood flowed through his fingers. Nearby, Bloodwell stumbled to his feet and hobbled off at top speed into the woods. “Damn it!”

  Mara had regained her senses and was climbing dazedly to her feet. “Thomas?” she started.

  “He’s safe,” he cut her off with a nod toward the carriage.

  “Mama!”

  She ran toward her child. “Where’s Bloodwell? He hit me so hard, I think I lost my senses for a moment. What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just get out of here before he comes back.” Jordan pushed to his feet and saw her blanch when he swayed a bit unsteadily.

  “You’re hurt!” she said in horror.

  “I’m fine. Listen to me—are you listening?”

  She nodded frantically.

  “Go to Dante House. It’s on the Strand. Do you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The old Highlander, Virgil—tell him I sent you to bring my team here, now. The Order’s surgeons will attend to Jack.”

  “What are you going to do?” She paled. “Jordan, we’ll go together! You’re bleeding!”

  “I’ve got to finish this. He can’t live. He knows who we all are.”

  “It’s all my fault,” she whispered, staring at his side. “I’m so sorry. Sorry for the things I said to you this morning and—”

  “Shh.” He did not move closer because he did not want the blood to scare her. Instead, he just gazed at her with an ocean of feeling that there was no longer time to make her understand. “Just know I love you,” he whispered, “and I always have. Ask the men at Dante House if I ever forgot you, and you’ll know. Now, go. Get Thomas out of here.”

  “Jordan, I cannot possibly leave you—”

  “You must. I’m hurt, all right?” he admitted quietly. “I need reinforcements. Go and get my team and bring them here. I’ll keep Bloodwell contained until they get here. He won’t get far with that hurt leg.”

  Mara stared at him, reading his face as though she understood that this was a lie, one told because he loved her. In truth, he had a strong premonition of his own impending death once he followed his nemesis into that dark wood, and he didn’t want her to be there to have to watch him die.

  He nodded at her.

  He had always been willing to give his life in the Order’s endless struggle against evil; if that was required of him now, then so be it. But one thing was certain. He was taking that bastard down with him.

  Bloodwell could not be allowed to survive. Not when he knew Mara. Not when he knew names. If it cost him his last breath, Jordan vowed to finish this.

  Then she and Thomas and his brother warriors would be safe. “Go,” he ordered fiercely.

  He turned around and began jogging into the wooded path by which Bloodwell had escaped.

  Mara stood there, staring after him in shock, utterly at a loss. He had vanished into the shadows, but her gaze sank to the small pool of blood on the ground where Jordan had been standing.

  She stared at it, hearing the echo of his words, “I love you,” with their undertone of terrible finality.

  And she knew there was no way that she could leave.

  She had ordered him out of her life and out of her home this morning—it seemed like years ago—but now the real possibility of losing him permanently was unacceptable.

  His life was in danger. The evidence of it lay there in a pool of crimson slowly seeping into the dust.

  He was losing too much blood. If she took the carriage, how would he get to a doctor himself once he had finished Dresden Bloodwell?

  He would never survive the wait for her to reach the Strand and find her way back here with his friends. He’d bleed to death first. Either he didn’t know how badly he was hurt or had simply hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  Either way, Mara realized, it was up to her to help him. He needed her, even if the stubborn man refused to admit it.

  Marching over to her carriage, she swept the surrounding woods with an uneasy glance, her jaw still aching from where that madman’s shoulder had rammed her. With Dresden Bloodwell still in the area, she knew she was risking everyone’s safety by lingering here, even Thomas’s. Too much delay could possibly cost Jack his life, but if he had lasted this many hours, she prayed he would be all right a little longer.

  Mrs. Busby looked at her in dread as Mara reached under the carriage bench and pulled out the musket Jordan had given her after the attack on her carriage in Hyde Park.

  “Oh, no, my lady,” the old woman whispered, holding Thomas on her lap. “His Lordship said that we should go!”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t abandon him. Just a few more minutes,” she pleaded. “I know you’ve been through far too much already, but I can’t leave him to die. Pray for us, Mrs. Busby.”

  She nodded with a pained look. “I’ve been doin’ that all day.”

  “Thomas, yo
u stay quiet.” Mara caressed her son, not knowing where she got the strength to walk away from him again.

  With a grim nod, she closed the carriage door, made sure the musket was loaded, then rallied every ounce of courage she had in her, and marched into the woods.

  The gun felt so strange in her hands, almost as dangerous to her as it might be to her enemy.

  But inside the woods, amid the leafy shadows, the birds had gone still. Not even the breeze stirred.

  As she advanced, her swollen jaw thumping in time with her pounding pulse, she heard male voices somewhere up ahead.

  “Come out, Bloodwell! You know it’s over.”

  “Yes, but not for me. Falconridge, isn’t it? Your wench betrayed your name, I’m sorry to report.”

  “Only because you terrorized her, and for that, I will make you pay.”

  “With what? That pistol? You’re dying even now, and we both know it. How’s your side feeling? Did I hit your lung?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Too bad I missed your heart. Come a little deeper into the woods, so I can finish you off.”

  “Show yourself!” Jordan roared into the brambles. “You’re a damned coward! You and all your kind.”

  Cold laughter was the only answer that came back to him. Mara looked all around her, trying to figure out where it was coming from, where Bloodwell was hiding.

  “You’d better make it a good shot, my lord! All that boyhood training for the Order…all for naught. It all comes down to this. You’ve only got one bullet in that pistol.”

  “Don’t worry, Bloodwell. I have plenty more tricks up my sleeve. So, where did you leave Holyfield’s body?”

  She glimpsed Jordan through the trees some distance ahead, moving deeper into the woods, hunting Bloodwell. She realized the reason he was keeping him talking was so he could track him by the sound of his voice.

  “What, Falconridge, just tell you and ruin the fun of leaving you to find him for yourselves?”

  “You can address me as Your Lordship.”

  Bloodwell scoffed. “You might be interested to know that once I’m done with you,” Bloodwell called from his hiding place, “I’m going straight back to that whore to finish what you so rudely interrupted—Your Lordship. I’m going to use her like a shilling whore. And when I’ve cut her throat, I’ll dump her naked in the Thames. What do you say to that, my fine Order Knight?”

  “Well, it’s not very original, is it?” he replied crisply.

  Mara shuddered, but she told herself that Bloodwell was only trying to taunt Jordan into making a mistake.

  He, in turn, refused to rise to the bait, staying calm and fully in control. “You should never have gone near Lady Pierson or the child.”

  “Well, I—”

  Boom!

  Mara was not ready for the pistol’s report when it went off. But Jordan had spotted him and taken his best shot. Bloodwell cursed, but when he stepped into view through the trees across from Jordan, the flesh along the top edge of his left shoulder was ripped open.

  But even that was not enough to stop the likes of him.

  Bloodwell charged at Jordan, wielding the knife he had pulled out of his own leg after Jordan had thrown it.

  Mara trained the musket on him but hesitated. There were too many leaves and branches in the way. She could not see what she was doing.

  She, too, only had one bullet in the musket. More ammunition waited back in the carriage, she was only just learning how to reload the stupid thing.

  Then Bloodwell struck at Jordan with the knife, slashing him across his chest. She was too terrified to scream. Jordan ignored the fresh wound as though he did not even feel it, his icy, single-minded purpose: taking back his knife.

  As Jordan struggled to wrestle the weapon out of Bloodwell’s hand, Mara grimaced, debating, trying to aim among the trees, but she did not dare pull the trigger.

  The men were too close together. Then her heart soared when Jordan came out of their clash brandishing the dagger.

  Bloodwell took one look at him and ran.

  Jordan did not make the mistake of throwing it at him again. He chased with eyes that glittered like the hardest, coldest diamond, surely giving everything he had left to go racing down the wooded path after Bloodwell.

  He was unstoppable, leaping fallen logs, dashing past overgrown bushes, a warrior driven by divine forces, heedless of the fact that he was losing blood from both his side and the slash across his chest.

  Mara trailed them and saw that just when Jordan was closing in on his quarry, Bloodwell came to an old woodpile, logs and kindling stacked waist high; he suddenly gripped an old axe that had been left there to rust.

  He chopped wildly at Jordan, the longer-handled weapon nullifying the reach of the knife.

  Mara gasped; Jordan ducked back; Bloodwell swung again and missed.

  Coming up behind them, her heart banging behind her ribs, Mara brought the musket to her shoulder, praying for one clear shot. She did not yell to Jordan to move out of the way, for fear of distracting him.

  She just got herself into position down on one knee some yards behind him on the path and waited for the moment when he would not be blocking her aim at Dresden Bloodwell.

  Her pulse slammed as she held the musket at the ready like a good English soldier, waiting in the firing line for the commander’s call.

  Jordan bent and grabbed a hefty fallen branch, bringing it up to ward off Bloodwell’s next crazed chop of the axe.

  The heaving blow broke the branch in two pieces, but the wood saved him, absorbing the strike.

  Mara saw Jordan look at the splintered spear that he was left holding. As Bloodwell lifted the axe high with both hands to split his skull, Jordan hurled it. The makeshift javelin plunged into Dresden Bloodwell’s midriff.

  He dropped the axe as he fell back against the woodpile.

  Mara stared in shock as the assassin looked down at the lance that had impaled him. Blood gurgled from his mouth.

  A few seconds later, he was in Hell.

  Jordan suddenly sank to his knees, his back to her, still unaware she was there. She could now see him shaking. Mara set the musket down and ran to him.

  “Jordan!” At once she reached for him, holding him around the shoulders and the waist. She kissed his sweating temple and saw that he was covered in blood.

  “What are you doing here?” he forced out.

  “I couldn’t leave you. I told you I’d always be here for you. Oh, my love,” she whispered, appalled by all the blood.

  “Help me.”

  Somehow she found her faltering courage and nodded. “That’s what I’m here for. Come on. Let’s get you back to the carriage. I’ll take you to Dante House. You said they have surgeons there.”

  “I think—it’s too late, Mara.”

  “No! You have to get up, Jordan, please! You have to try for me.”

  “I can’t believe you stayed,” he whispered. “Help me lie down.”

  “No. Get to your feet! You have to come to the carriage. Thomas needs you, Jordan. And I need you, too. I can’t live without you.” A sob escaped her as she strained to pull him up. “Come on. I told you, I’m not ever letting you get away from me again. Come on, Jordan, stand up. You can do it. You have to. For me. For us.”

  He set his jaw grimly, intense pain in his eyes, but he nodded, leaning heavily on her as she helped him to his feet.

  “Hang on, now. Walk with me. It’s not far. I’m going to get you straightaway to a doctor.” She could not say more, for fear and grief suddenly swallowed up her voice.

  But perhaps he heard her heart’s plea by some other means, for he swallowed hard, nodded tautly to himself, and somehow found the strength to make it back into the carriage.

  Mara closed the door, went to the horses’ leader, and grabbed its bridle, pulling the team around until her carriage had rolled back out onto the main road.

  She ran to the driver’s box, climbed up, and took the reins, then
drove hell-for-leather back to Town. Soon she was thundering down the Strand as though she had the devil at her heels.

  She made straight for Dante House.

  Chapter 21

  Dreamy images filtered through Jordan’s mind, a country house…he heard mischievous laughter, then he saw Mara at seventeen, as she had appeared to him in the ballroom so long ago.

  He saw her making a quick little twirl to show off her rose-colored ball gown, her dark eyes sparkling more brightly than the chandelier above her.

  Her silky sable curls brushed the tops of her white shoulders as she tossed her head, as though inviting his lips there. She was all scintillating charm, her hidden depths and sorrows veiled by playful flirtation. His heart clenched as he watched her.

  Flawed she was, oh, yes, but her imperfections only made her more lovable to him. They meant she needed him, and Jordan had always been someone who longed to be needed. With all her lights and shadows, no wonder she had enthralled him from the start. A ravishing beauty on the cusp of womanhood, the object of all his desires…

  As the past shimmered away into the painful present, he became aware of something squeezing him—bandages, wrapped around his chest and tightly hugging his waist where he had been…oh, yes. Stabbed.

  Pleasant.

  “Good morning,” said a gentle voice. “Or rather, afternoon.”

  As his vision cleared, the blurry ovals above him turned into the concerned faces of those who knew him best.

  Mara sat on the edge of his bed, studying him in tender anxiety.

  He smiled faintly, warmed by the sight of her. “Am I going to live, then?” he mumbled.

  “More than that.” She took his left hand gently, tears in her eyes. “You are going to flourish. I intend to see to it personally. Though I’m afraid you’re going have quite an impressive scar across your chest,” she added, her soft voice soothing him like a healing balm.

  “Hmm, really? More impressive than Warrington’s?” With a groggy half smile, Jordan glanced at the towering duke, who was standing nearby, staring down worriedly at him.

  But at his low-toned reminder of their usual boyish rivalry, Rohan flashed a grin and clasped his hand. “Welcome back, brother. Nice work,” he said in a low tone. “You finally put that bastard in the ground. Couldn’t have done better myself.”