Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1)

by Skye, Christina

“You — shouldn’t have come.”

  “Of course I shouldn’t. But I wanted to come. And Blackwood never denies himself anything that he wants,” he added harshly.

  Too harshly? To convince her or himself? Silver thought. “But it’s too dangerous.”

  “So it is. You’d better take that pistol on the table and use it.”

  Silver made an impatient sound. “Not dangerous for me, but for you. Millbank might have someone out there watching.”

  The amber eyes went bottomless beneath the mask. “Little fool,” he whispered. “The danger is for you, don’t you understand? From me. From what I’m feeling — and all the things I’m thinking of doing. Doesn’t that frighten you?”

  Silver felt her throat grow hot and hollow. “Yes.”

  “And so I should frighten you.”

  Her hand rose, a pale line of denial. “Not, not you. It’s the way you make me feel that frightens me. I don’t understand it, not any of it.” She swallowed, forcing out the words. “It’s all — very strange.”

  The highwayman cursed. “How have you grown up without anyone teaching you that you can’t be honest? You have to be cold and hard and hide the important things away in your heart.”

  “Did that happen to you?”

  “It happens to everyone,” the man in black said harshly. “But not to you.” His hand trailed over an auburn curl. “Somehow you have escaped that hard tutelage.”

  Silver swallowed, trying to clear her dizzy thoughts. “You’d — better go. Someone might come. They’ll catch you and—” She fought down a small, lost sound.

  “Ah, Sunbeam, they’ll have a hard time catching me, that I assure you.”

  Her hands clenched at her chest, which seemed weighted down by cold, heavy stones. “Don’t joke about it!” Her voice broke and she covered it with anger. “I hate it, do you hear? And I hate you.”

  “Of course,” he said slowly, his fingers moving through her hair, velvet over velvet. “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

  “No, you don’t! You ride off at your ease and come back the same way. I don’t know who you are or anything about you! And all the while I can’t help thinking. Wondering. Worrying that they — that you—”

  His arm went around her waist. His lips were in her hair. Silver shivered, assailed by emotions she’d never known before.

  “No,” he said roughly. “They’ll never catch me. Have no fear of that. Murder me, perhaps, but never catch me,” he added, with a sardonic laugh.

  “You think it’s all a joke?” Her throat tightened at the thought. “And what makes you think I’d care if they did catch you? I wouldn’t, you know! N-not even if they dragged you off in chains. Not even if they threw you into N-Norwich gaol.” She spun about. Her open hand struck his chest. “So go away. Go away and never come back!”

  “If that’s what you want.” But he didn’t move.

  “It is.” Her hand brushed crossly at her cheeks. “Just leave.”

  He frowned down at her damp face.

  “Go on! I’m not crying, you know!” She gave a defiant sniff. “This is not crying and these are not tears. I hate you, do you hear? You’re a common thief. A highway felon. A man with no scruples and n-no sense of honor.” The words tumbled out, ragged with pain. “You d-deserve to hang, just as they say!”

  “All too true.”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  The silver scar gleamed at Luc’s mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Sunbeam.”

  A shudder went through her. “Don’t agree with me either. I don’t want your charm or your promises or your smiles. And don’t joke. Never joke about death. It comes when you least expect it,” she said fiercely.

  “You’re right. I’ll watch my words more carefully in the future.”

  “You’ve got to go. It’s not safe here.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t.”

  “Then go. What if they followed you? What if they—”

  “Soon.” His fingers searched her cheek and feathered over the full mouth he yearned to kiss. “Very soon…”

  He tried not to look lower, where thin cambric hugged full, lush nipples.

  He closed his eyes and drew in the delicate scent of lavender and roses, a scent uniquely her own. “You smell like a sweet, endless summer afternoon, Sunbeam. I can think of nothing else, damn it. All I see is your skin, your eyes. All I hear is your voice, low and breathless.” His fingers tightened in her hair. “Those things make me dream. And for a man like myself dreams are very dangerous things.”

  He stared at their reflection in the cheval glass. His, hard and angry. Hers, pale and questioning.

  And young. By all his oaths, far too young.

  He had never been so young or innocent, Luc thought grimly. Not even as a mewling infant of two days.

  So what was he to do about her? About the dangerous way she made him feel right now?

  “Come away with me.” The words shocked him as much as her.

  Her eyes widened, green flecks amid shimmering gold. “Why?”

  Luc smiled faintly. Not where or when. All she asked was why, this volatile, vulnerable girl-woman with eyes of green and gold. She sliced through every bit of trivia right to the very heart of things.

  For her, motive was all that mattered. The meaning. The long, sharp probe right into his heart.

  Oh, she was rare, this woman. And somehow he had to protect her.

  Even from himself.

  “Why?” He traced the heartbreaking arch of her lower lip, feeling his muscles harden fiercely at the contact. “Because it matters. Because you matter. And it’s been far too long since anyone mattered to me like this.”

  “Not good enough, highwayman.” Her eyes shimmered, changeable as the sea that washed over the Norfolk coast.

  “Damn it, woman, don’t you see your danger? Can’t you see what I am?”

  Danger jumped and pulsed around the man like marsh fire. It wrapped itself about the hard shoulders and danced in his amber eyes.

  And Silver didn’t care.

  She was lost. Maybe she’d been lost ever since that first moment when she’d stared deep into his eyes and fallen, body and soul, just as her old nanny had warned she would.

  Don’t look into his eyes, my girl. One look into his eyes and you’ll be lost forever.

  Maybe, just maybe, all those dark tales were true…

  “Show me, highwayman. Show me what your danger is made of. Or is this more of your boasting?”

  The scar at his lips danced. His eyes seemed to grow darker, pulling all light from the room. “You’re not afraid of me?”

  She shook her head.

  Luc laughed harshly. “Then you should be, innocent. And now I’ll show you why.”

  ~ 14 ~

  It was madness and folly.

  Temptation and utter recklessness.

  But Silver tilted her head back and stared into that hard, chiseled face, feeling her world tilt irrevocably.

  Letting herself fall. Down, down so deep…

  “You don’t know what sort of danger you’re courting, woman. It’s been too long. And what I’m feeling is too—” The black silk stretched taut as his jaw hardened. “You’re just a girl. And I — dear God, I’m too much a man. Too many hard dawns a man. You would do far better to forget you’d ever met me.”

  His shoulders locked. Carefully he touched the curve of her cheek. “But, oh, you make me feel young again. I never thought I could. For that I’ll always thank you.” His touch was gentle as the moonlight spilling through the window.

  “Thank me now.” Her words slid out in a tumble.

  His fingers tightened, just as his whole body tightened at her answer. Desire slammed through him, hard and hot as an African sirocco.

  Passion. The desire he’d thought he could bend to his will. But now he found he couldn’t.

  How could he with her hair an auburn cloud beneath his fingers? With her body silver poetry against his chest? “You still don’t
believe me, do you?” His eyes darkened. With a hard curse he pressed her back against the wall.

  “Afraid I don’t.”

  “Then you will,” he said grimly. He found her wrists and anchored them beside her head. Bone by bone he made their bodies lock, muscle to hungry muscle. “You’ll soon hate me.”

  “Never,” she whispered.

  Luc tried to ignore the hunger in her eyes. He ran his thumb over her wanting lips, watching desire haze her glorious green-gold eyes. “Do you want this, Sunbeam?”

  She only shivered, her lips parting slightly. Her fingers shoved off his hat and combed through his dark hair.

  Then Luc was the one who groaned as desire blurred his own gaze. His head bent. He tongued her lower lip, felt her quiver. His teeth scored her gently, then pulled the soft flesh into his mouth.

  She was sweet ripe fruit. He could have her, then and there. He knew it. She would meet him with rare fire, her passion as swift and sharp as his own.

  His hands tangled in the storm of her hair. His body found hers, all softness and warmth, her thin cambric gown no more than cobwebs between them. How much he wanted her!

  He tugged her head back and let her feel his hunger, praying she would tense and pull away.

  But she didn’t. And he was left to groan when she opened to him, every movement honest, untutored, rich with innocence.

  In that moment seducer became seduced. Luc drowned in her textures, in her giving, barely able to rein in his need.

  Her fingers dug into his shoulders. A moan broke from her mouth, locked against his.

  More heat. Luc thought he would die of it. He had to stop. Right now. Before he did something they’d both regret.

  She wasn’t made for mindless rutting. She wouldn’t be able to face herself after something cold and impersonal like that.

  He had to stop before—

  Very gently her tongue touched his.

  His body screamed. He cursed the tide of desire that her touch aroused.

  He wanted her now. Hard and fast, right against the wall, with her white thighs spread and wrapped around his waist. With her unbound hair spilling through his fingers and his name the only thing on her lips.

  He was shoving up her gown before he knew it, filling his hands with her soft, ripe breasts. She gasped softly, then pushed against him.

  Her nipples were already hard, tight and sweet like cherries against his callused palms.

  He wondered how they would taste and knew he had to find out.

  Because he was dying and only she could save him.

  Only the feel of her, only the heat of her locked around him.

  He arched her backward and slowly took one crimson peak between his teeth.

  She moaned.

  At the ragged sound Luc looked down, madness pounding in his head. His breath caught as he saw her silver thighs, the shadowed tangle, the pale curve of her breasts anchored in his hard hands.

  In the end it was only that which saved her. Only the sight of her softness against his rough fingers.

  His hands that had known too much cruelty and had meted out too much cruelty of their own.

  He didn’t want that for her, Luc thought dimly, fighting his way up through the madness and the heat. For her he wanted only summer lavender and cool Norfolk nights. Only hot desire that built and built and built until—

  “I can’t do this. Sunbeam. Not — to you.” He slid the fine cambric over her trembling curves, his eyes hard. “I’m the last man in the world who should be touching you like this.”

  She blinked, hardly hearing.

  “You don’t understand, do you?”

  Her eyes were hazed, uncomprehending. She was too innocent to understand what fires he’d kindled.

  But her body knew. And it screamed for a release.

  Luc saw her tension, her blind wanting.

  And he knew there was only one way to finish it. Cursing himself, cursing what he’d begun, he found her silken curls and pushed higher, into the tight wet sheath beyond.

  Her breath caught in a soft, husky moan.

  He laid his brow against her forehead, fighting his desire. “So sweet, Sunbeam. Tightness and heat everywhere I touch. Open to me. Let me feel all that sweetness.”

  “I — I don’t understand.”

  His fingers drove deeper, claiming and possessing, giving her the thing she hadn’t yet learned she needed.

  And Luc was a master at passion — even if he was a wretched failure at love. His fingers shifted. He nudged past damp silk to tease the tight, hidden bud of her sensation.

  Her head fell back. Her body arched. “Oh, no, I can’t! It’s too—”

  Abruptly her eyes widened. Her hands dug into his back.

  He saw her breath catch. Her eyes seemed to glow. He watched her shudder as passion crested through her like a bright flashing wave. Most of all he felt the sleek tremors where she sheathed his hard fingers.

  Pain. He was certain he would die of it. But his triumph saved him.

  He’d done it. Now she would understand. Now he could walk away and leave her, certain that next time she’d be more careful about making reckless offers to unknown men.

  Yet the thought of her like this, yielding and beautiful, open to any other man, left Luc hard faced and scowling.

  He was still trying to understand why when her eyes opened. He’d expected uncertainty and regret. Pain — even anger.

  But nothing like the joy and unblinking honesty he saw. “Oh, Sunbeam, don’t. Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I shouldn’t? Is it wrong?”

  She slid her hands around his neck and sighed, moving closer. Luc frowned, fighting his way through a wracking wave of tenderness. “Not wrong. But dangerous, too dangerous for words.”

  Cursing, he pressed his lips to her forehead and went very still, fighting his desire, fighting to stay sensible and responsible.

  For once in his wretched life.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, I can see you don’t.” He sighed and tried to ignore the desire that still tightened his body. His chest was aching again and he propped one elbow against the wall, hoping the pain would ease.

  Abruptly, she went stiff. “You’re in pain. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There it was again, that honesty that reached inside him and made him feel eighteen instead of the thousand years old that he was, gray and stooped with bitter experience.

  “There was no need. Besides, I can barely feel it,” he lied coolly.

  “You still should have told me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I could look at it. I have oils. Lavender, rosemary…” Her voice was raw with worry.

  The sound sent a devastating trail of warmth sneaking up through Luc.

  Go now. Get away before you hurt her more.

  “No need. I’ll be fine, I assure you.”

  He was interrupted by a flutter at the curtains. Two sleek forms appeared, ears high, tails twitching. “What is it, beauties?”

  The furry shapes skittered across the floor and raced up into his arms.

  “W-what are those?”

  “My ferrets. Beautiful, aren’t they? Smarter than most men I know.”

  “F-ferrets?” Silver echoed breathlessly.

  “Oh, not just any ferrets, Sunbeam. I make you the acquaintance of the two finest thieves this side of Newgate. Here is my lady Stand.” He pointed to a finely furred gray female. “And here you have my lord Deliver.” The second animal was black with piercing green eyes.

  “Stand … and Deliver.” Silver laughed softly at the highwayman’s utter impudence.

  “Alas, yes. I fear I am a weak man and the temptation was too hard to resist.”

  And then Luc’s eyes narrowed as his pets began to squeak. He peered through the window. “It seems that my two friends have come to warn me we have company.”

  “Out there?”

  Luc nodded grimly.

  “But who—
”

  “That, my sweet, is exactly what I mean to find out.”

  She reached out, caught his hand. “It’s not safe. You cannot go out there!”

  A faint smile curved his lips. “A few minutes ago that was exactly what you wanted me to do.”

  Her lip trembled. “Not when you might find yourself walking into a trap.”

  He touched her cheek, something dark and fleeting in his eyes. “I can take care of myself. It’s you you’d better think of.” He turned to the window and carefully pulled aside the curtain. His two small pets clung to his shoulder, silent and intent. “And I do believe I see our visitor. He looks to be alone.”

  “But how will you get down?”

  “By the good offices of your linden tree. The same way I got up.” He studied her for a moment, his jaw hard in the moonlight. “Don’t trust me, Silver St. Clair. Until this business of the threats is done, don’t trust anyone.”

  “Wait! The seeds — you brought them back and I never thanked you.”

  But he was already gone, swinging over the sill and dropping effortlessly to an overhanging branch.

  Silver watched, forcing herself to stand stiff, to wait until his head disappeared. Finally the leaves stopped moving.

  Outside all was silence.

  And the hot tears spilled down against her checks at the knowledge of all she had gained — and all she had lost.

  I called your mother Silver, too, did you know that, Susannah? There was a reason for it, but it was our secret. It may hold true for you as well, but I cannot know that. Someday you will discover it, if your heart is given to a man who loves you. I pray that it will be so.

  Until then, choose carefully and well.

  They are hidden here at Lavender Close, all the secrets that you need. I can write no more. You must find them for yourself.

  ~ 15 ~

  Sir Charles Millbank studied his mistress’s lush form, swathed in a cloud of diaphanous silk. “Come here to me, temptress.”

  The Frenchwoman battered her kohl-rimmed eyelids and giggled. “Not yet, anglais. Me, I wish to drink more wine.”

  The baronet frowned, red with exasperation, but turned to fill a glass for his unpredictable companion.