Buy a man’s services? Was the woman utterly mad or was he?
“Yes, I want a big man. A hard, notorious criminal.” She looked at Blackwood. He swore he could feel her eyes narrow speculatively.
He felt his lower anatomy tighten. “And just what do you need this man for?” Maybe she would confess it was all a joke. Or maybe she’d vanish in a puff of smoke and he would realize this was all some sort of dream.
But she didn’t confess and she certainly didn’t vanish. She only studied him, her shoulders high and proud. “I need a man to ruin me, of course. And I came after you, Lord Blackwood, because you seemed the very best candidate for the job.”
~ 8 ~
Blackwood cursed.
Very fluently.
And then he cursed some more.
His head was throbbing and he felt distinctly unsteady on his feet. The pleasant haze he’d been cultivating all evening vanished.
“Ruin you? You are mad, woman!” He turned away. Shaking his head, he concentrated on relighting a candle. “And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going. There must be a coach to rob somewhere in this town,” he finished grimly.
“No, you can’t go,” Silver said desperately, blocking his way.
“I can’t? Somehow our lines seemed to have gotten mixed, my dear. I’m supposed to say that while you scream and struggle.”
“Well, I’m not screaming and struggling. As you can very well see,” she added crossly.
“So I can. But I’m still going. A very good night to you.”
She put out her hand then. He felt a tremor go through her fingers. That single small movement made him curse. And that damned black veil she was wearing…
He couldn’t stand the sight of it another second. He peeled it back, hungry for a look at her face. Just so he could be certain she was listening, Blackwood assured himself. “Understand me, woman. That is quite possibly the most outrageous, the most ridiculous—”
He stopped. Fury pounded through him as he saw the angry black bruise at her temple. “Who did it? I told you places like this were dangerous. By God, if it was that brute Sherringvale, I’ll—”
Silver shook her head. “No, not Sherringvale. It was someone else.”
Blackwood’s mouth hardened. “Tell me his name and I’ll kill the fellow.”
“That’s just it, I don’t know his name. And I don’t know why he did it.” Silver turned away and sank down on one of the thick feather beds. She tested it carefully, then lay back.
Blackwood could see her fertile little brain at work. Wondering. Imagining. He strode across the room, caught her wrist, and pulled her back to her feet. “No, you don’t. Not there. You can rest over here in this chair.” He pushed her into the seat, scowling. Scowling because it was his self-control in shreds.
Silver looked up at him curiously. “Aren’t you going to remove your mask now? No one can see you in here.”
“You can.”
“Oh, of course. I forgot about your disfigurement.”
Blackwood choked. “My what?”
“You needn’t conceal it from me. I’ve heard all about how it happened. I can understand how a thing like that would make you uneasy.”
Definitely too much brandy, Blackwood thought savagely. “And exactly where is this disfigurement of mine to be found?”
Silver gave him a sympathetic look. “You still don’t care to think about it, do you? Even after all these years. Well, it’s common knowledge. Your musket exploded in your face on the night you stopped your first carriage, burning you terribly.” She gnawed at her lip. “It must have been ghastly. I can see why you would be afraid to unveil yourself to other people after that. But I’m not missish, I assure you. You need have no fear of my fainting.” She stiffened her shoulders.
Blackwood saw that she was preparing herself for the worst.
Disfigurement? What was the daft female talking about now? “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how it happened, are you?”
“Your pistol ball jammed,” Silver explained patiently. “But talking might be the very thing. It would ease the painful memories.”
Her solicitousness was making Blackwood more and more irritated. He had a perfectly good face beneath his mask, but he was not about to correct her mistake. It might be just the thing to make her keep her distance.
But Silver St. Clair had different ideas. She reached up to tug his mask free. “I’m sure it can’t be so bad. Maybe if I—”
Blackwood slapped her fingers away. Her closeness was making his head hammer. She was standing next to him in a bawdy house, for God’s sake. He could hear drunken laughter down the hall. Next door a bed was creaking loudly. The thought of what was happening on it made his pulse kick up uncomfortably. “No, thank you,” he growled.
Silver looked disappointed. Then her head cocked. “Whatever is that odd noise?”
“What noise?” Blackwood’s voice was strangled. Next door wood creaked violently against wood and the wall began to shake.
“That noise. I’ve never experienced an earthquake here in Norfolk before.”
“Must be mice,” Blackwood muttered.
“Mice? But surely—”
“But nothing.” Sweat was beading his brow. “You are leaving. Right now.”
Silver sighed. She brushed back her hair, which had tumbled down about her shoulders.
It was thick and lustrous. Blackwood wondered how it would feel to catch a handful to his lips. He knew exactly what it would smell like. It would be all lavender and spring violets. Her mouth would feel like satin and taste like—
Now he knew he was losing his mind!
Silver looked up, studying the mirror that hung on the ceiling over the bed. “What a curious place for a mirror.” She pulled off her gloves and cloak, staring interestedly about her. “So this is what a house of ill fame looks like…”
Blackwood stared, hard pressed to believe she had actually come here. And in search of him. “Why are you in a place like this, woman?”
“For the same reason you are, I should imagine.”
Blackwood choked for a moment.
Silver’s brow rose. “Are you feeling well?”
“No, I’m not.” He hadn’t been since the moment he’d met her! “What in the devil is that supposed to mean?”
“That I’m here to transact business, just the way you are.”
“In a place like this? You risk life, limb, and honor!”
“I’ve managed perfectly well so far.”
That was the irritating part, Blackwood admitted. She had managed just fine. She’d even dispatched Sherringvale. The man ought to be horsewhipped. Thinking about how he’d grabbed Silver and dragged her upstairs made Blackwood decide he might just tend to that task himself.
But first he had to remove her safely and quickly.
Silver, meanwhile, had turned away. She picked up a crystal decanter from the mantel, tipped its amber spirits into a glass, and drank deeply. The drink made her head swim for a moment, but the heat was actually rather pleasant. After a second sip she felt a warm glow curl through her. She took a third, then turned back to Blackwood. “The whole thing is very simple. I need to be ruined.”
“That’s utterly ridiculous.” The highwayman began to pace, thinking furiously about how he would spirit her away without being discovered.
Silver, meanwhile, frowned down at her empty glass, then turned away to refill it. She wasn’t certain what the liquid was, but it was tasting better all the time. “It’s perfectly logical. I’ve received a threat from people who insist that I leave my lavender farm. But I can’t leave, not now.”
“I’d say you came to the wrong side of the law for a problem like that. Try the magistrate. That’s his sort of work.”
“I can’t. Lord Carlisle has gone to London for three weeks.”
“Then wait until he returns.”
“There’s no time!” Silver dug into her reticule and pulled out the note that had come wrapp
ed around the brick.
Her fingers trembled as she held it out. “Here.”
Blackwood skimmed the sheet, then sat down abruptly.
Silver sank down beside him, which just about shot his only chance of finding a clear head amid the brandy haze. Damn it, how could a man think with a woman like her only a few inches away, her face flushed, her hair a wild russet cloud around her shoulders?
It wasn’t right. She looked like an angel. Hell, she even smelled, like an angel. But Blackwood knew she was a hellion through and through.
“You see?” Silver said urgently.
He saw enough to know it meant trouble. “Who’s the boy?”
“My younger brother, Bram. They’re going to harm him if I don’t leave.”
Blackwood’s eyes narrowed. “So you are Silver St. Clair, not the overworked serving drudge I mistook you for.”
“I am.” A dimple played at Silver’s cheek. “But I am also overworked and many days I feel like a serving drudge.”
“Very sorry to hear it, but I can’t help you.”
Silver stamped the floor. “I won’t go. Not until I have your promise.”
Blackwood fingered the edge of his mask. “I won’t help you. It doesn’t even bear thinking about. And you’ll thank me for it in the morning, when you regain your sense. You’ll thank me devoutly.”
“Of course you can help me, you insufferable man! I’ve thought this all out most carefully. Those villains are not going to give up. For some reason they seem dead set on having my lavender farm. So the only thing to do is to outsmart them at their own game.”
Blackwood didn’t want to hear this.
Silver went on relentlessly. “They wish to frighten me off? Very well, then I find someone who has gotten to the job first. Someone even more villainous than they, someone vile and treacherous and cold blooded—”
The picture became clear. “Thank you for the compliment,” he said tightly.
“That was no compliment, sir. Because you’re the perfect one to frighten them off, don’t you see? They won’t dare set a foot on my fields if the notorious Lord Blackwood has already staked his claim. Then, once the whole business dies down, I’ll set the story about that you forced me into an illicit connection. That way after I’ve dispensed with your services, no one can hold it against me. I’ll just say it was out of my power to stop you.” Her eyes gleamed with triumph at the perfection of this plan.
What was their exact color? Blackwood wondered distractedly. And what was that scent she wore?
“Well,” Silver said impatiently, “what do you think?”
“Think? It’s perfectly logical, all right. Except for one small problem. If you’re seen with me at all, you’ll be ruined beyond any hope of redemption. No matter how many clever stories you make up, you’ll never be able to go back. They’ll always hold it against you.”
“Truly?” Her eyes widened. “I had no idea you were so bad as that.”
“Now you do know,” the highwayman said grimly. “So let’s hear no more about this foolishness.”
“But that’s perfect! Your reputation is so black that it will answer beautifully to frighten those villains off.”
He was definitely three sheets to the wind, Blackwood decided. This wild scheme of hers was actually starting to sound halfway sane. And that thought frightened him more than anything else that had happened all night.
Scowling, he pushed to his feet. Anything to get away from those glowing cheeks and changeable eyes. Away from that sweet clear lavender scent and the full lips that left him yearning to pull her close and—
“Enough!”
“You agree, then?”
“Of course I don’t! The idea is mad. And I must be mad for listening!”
Silver stared at him for a moment, then her hands clapped together. “I have it now. You’re worried about me. You think I won’t be able to take care of myself. But, you’re wrong. I have a great deal of experience with men, I assure you.”
Her words were slurred, he noticed. What had she been drinking in that bloody glass? “I see. And that’s how you know about these — er, manly passions you spoke of earlier.”
“Certainly.”
“These urges you spoke of. All men have them?”
“I believe so.”
“Myself included?”
She had the grace to flush. “I don’t see why not.”
“In that case,” Blackwood said, smiling darkly as she walked right into his trap, “how do you know I won’t follow those dark inclinations and ruin you in truth?”
For the merest instant something sad and haunted slipped through her eyes. “I don’t know, not for certain. But last night on the heath, you could have hurt me or robbed me and yet you didn’t.”
Blackwood’s throat tightened. She had no idea what she was dealing with. He was cold and ruthless and the sooner she knew it the better. “And you think that makes me reliable or kind?” Blackwood’s face was hard and shadowed in the light of the dancing candles. “You’ve known a lot of men, have you?”
“Oh, hundreds of them,” Silver said airily.
“And I suppose you allowed them free rein.” His face was going harder by the second. “To kiss you — and take other kinds of liberties…”
“Only the ones I liked,” she said scrupulously.
“What about me?”
“Oh, I don’t like you,” Silver said frankly. “I simply need you.”
“There’s plain speaking.” The highwayman strode closer, his lips hard. “But you’ve asked me to ruin you. To do that a man needs—”
Those damnably luminous eyes widened. “A man needs what?”
It was too much.
The next moment she was crushed against him, and his hands were buried in her burnished hair. Blackwood thought she would stiffen or scream or pull away. Hell, he was praying that she would.
But she didn’t. She just stared up at him, her eyes questioning, her lips parted. Soft with wonder.
It was a devastating combination for a man who hadn’t known softness or wonder in a very long time.
“Don’t look at me that way,” he growled.
“But I owe you my life. I believe I would accord you anything you asked of me,” the woman in his arms said softly.
There was a frankness about her that robbed him of breath. Sweet Lord, she really meant it. The door was locked. They were in a place where no one would question her screams. In short, he could do anything he cared to with her.
And there she stood, offering him just that. Blackwood could think of roughly a hundred places where he’d like to start.
For one, he’d strip off that ugly black gown so he could see the skin he knew would be as soft as her scent. Then he’d taste the dimple at her cheek. After that, he’d slide lower, running his tongue over the full breasts that thrust against the black fabric and made him so hot that he—
He pulled back, his jaw tense. “It’s impossible. Forget it.”
“I’m sorry I kicked you. Damnable temper, y’ see. Got it from my father,” Silver whispered.
“I daresay I’ll survive.”
She swayed slightly and gave a faint hiccup. “I’m sorry about your accident with the musket too. Must have been terrible. I can understand how it would make you lose your trust in people.”
She meant it, the innocent fool.
Blackwood stared down at her, a pulse hammering at his jaw. She was standing in the most notorious house of vice in Kingsdon Cross, captive in the arms of the county’s most nefarious criminal, and she was worrying about him! Hadn’t the woman any idea what risks she was running?
She blinked. “Feel … strange.”
Before Blackwood could start hammering the sense she needed into that lovely, stubborn head of hers, Silver gave a little sigh and collapsed. Straight into his arms. The brandy she’d drunk had finally taken effect.
Cursing, Blackwood caught her up and carried her toward the door. At least now he knew wh
at had been in that glass of hers.
He surveyed the hall, which was blessedly empty for once. There was nothing for it but to take her back to her farm. He certainly couldn’t leave her here. She’d be perfect prey for some drunken sot on the prowl for a night’s pleasure.
Like you? a cynical voice whispered.
“Hell no, not like me!” Blackwood muttered guiltily.
This was the end, the absolute end of his involvement with the woman. He’d dump her at the foot of her lane and wash his hands of her. And after that he was going to put Silver St. Clair out of his mind forever.
~ 9 ~
Silver awoke with a lurch.
Cold air washed over her face, making her head spin. She sat up groggily, wondering why her throat felt like it was full of Cromwell’s hair.
Cracking one eye open, she saw the outline of a carriage. Dark earth raced past beneath the wheels.
With a groan she shut her eyes. If feeling like this was part of a life of ill fame, she wanted none of it!
Blackwood must have carried her out to her gig. Silver knew she ought to thank him, but she refused to. She didn’t want to be beholden to him or to anyone else!
“Stop this minute! Where are you taking me?”
“Home,” Blackwood growled. “Where you belong. Maybe someone will have sense enough to make you stay there.”
“I can’t go home. Not yet.” Silver winced as the sound of her voice made her head throb. “Ohhh…”
“Sit back,” Blackwood said gruffly. “You drank nearly half a bottle of brandy. Your head is going to hurt like the very devil in the morning.”
“It already does,” Silver said irritably.
“Serves you right.” Blackwood turned around from the front seat. His eyes were measuring as he brushed a strand of hair from her face.
A queer heat invaded Silver’s chest. When he looked at her that way, when he touched her so carefully…
She frowned, belatedly realizing what he’d said. “Brandy? That was brandy I drank?” Her eyes narrowed. “Just how long was I out? And what did you do while I slept?”
Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) Page 8