A Dangerous Courtship (To Woo an Heiress, Book 3)

by Randall, Lindsay

  With that, Shelton let himself out, reluctantly shutting the door behind him.

  "Moody, ugly brute of a fellow, isn't he?" Julian commented.

  Veronica clicked her tongue, her gaze taking in Julian's bruised and battered face as she got to her feet. "And what did you expect? You look like the wrath of God. Indeed, it appears as though someone made a boxing bag of your face."

  "How perceptive of you. Someone, in fact, did just that, my lady. And the rest of my body, to boot."

  Veronica winced, both at his intended sarcasm and at the thought of the pain he must have been in, at the very thought of him being beaten.

  "Please, have a seat," she insisted.

  "Afraid I might swoon at your feet?"

  "What I am afraid of is that you might bleed a river if you don't soon sit down and let your heart still to a normal beat," Veronica said pragmatically. "Gracious, what happened? Your lip looks as though it was split open by a hammer—and your eye... it is swelling and turning purple even as we speak."

  Julian, not a little incensed, forcefully placed the bundle he held down atop the deal table. "What happened," he said darkly, "is this."

  Veronica swallowed past the sudden lump of dread in her throat as she looked down at the sheepskin-wrapped bundled. "My package?"

  "Aye."

  Veronica returned her gaze to his. "Julian, you—you were beaten because of this? But why... why would anyone do such a thing?"

  "You tell me," he said. "I was nearly beaten to a pulp because I held that thing in my hand."

  Veronica felt pure fear flutter in her breast. For the first time since beginning her Venus Mission she was truly frightened at what she might have gotten herself into—and Julian, as well—by intercepting Lord Rathbone's delivery.

  She stared at Julian, at his cut and bruised face. "Are—are you saying that whoever left this at Fountains did this to you?"

  He shook his head, and a small wave of relief washed through Veronica. It was quickly swept away, however, when he said, "It was but a lad who left the package, my lady. He tucked it into a crevice of the stones and then ran. It was the two hulking brutes who'd followed him that did the deed."

  There had been someone following the messenger? Oh, dear. She and Pamela had never considered such a possibility when they'd hatched their wild scheme. Come to think of it, they had not considered much of anything other than getting Veronica to Fountains to look for a package to be placed there at the height of Midsummer's Eve. All in all, their Venus Mission lacked a great deal of forethought, Veronica decided miserably.

  And now this.

  Veronica looked again at Julian. A miserable feeling spread through the pit of her stomach at the sight of his battered features. She watched as he swayed once—a clue that he was not bearing up as well to his punishing beating as he'd like to think he was.

  Veronica instantly moved into action. "I must insist that you sit down, sir. In another moment, I fear you're going to topple like a fallen tree." She turned her chair about and indicated for him to sit.

  "The deuce I will," he muttered, glowering at her. "I want some answers, Lady Veronica. I want them now."

  "Yes, yes, of course you do. As do I," she said, trying her best to soothe his ire. "And we shall muddle through all the facts that we have, sir, in just a moment. But first you must sit down and tend to your cuts."

  "The devil I must! What I will do is—"

  He stopped his spate of words as Veronica, both hands against his shoulders, bodily forced him down atop the chair. "Sit down, Julian."

  He went down with a solid thud, the wood of the hard chair creaking beneath his weight.

  "I am not one of your hired hands to be ordered about," he muttered, glaring at her with his uninjured eye.

  "Of course you are not, sir," Veronica said. "And by the bye, I do not order my servants about." If anything, she thought to herself, it is surely the other way around.

  She'd already turned to the deal table. She picked up a napkin, then opened the pot of hot water that the waiter had brought earlier with the tea tray. The steam had long since gone, but the water had been boiled and so would be suitable to clean Julian's cuts. Having dipped the linen napkin into the pot, she turned back toward him.

  "May I?" she asked.

  He was still glaring at her with his uninjured eye, but some of the fight, it seemed, had drained out of him now that he'd sat down.

  "I've come to the conclusion, my lady, that you do as you please. Always."

  Veronica ignored the rub. She dabbed gingerly at his cut lip. He jerked a bit, no doubt from the sting. "I hear there is a doctor from Edinburgh on the premises," she said quietly.

  "Not interested," he muttered around the square of moistened linen.

  Veronica went on doggedly. "I received a bottle of antiseptic from him for my injury."

  He lifted one brow, the light in his good eye softening. "How is your wound?"

  "Not nearly as bad as yours and pray, sir, do not try and change the subject."

  "I'm not."

  "I can send someone to find this doctor, Julian," Veronica went on. "He could tend to you, could have a look at these cuts and—"

  "No."

  She could tell by the tone of his voice there was little sense in arguing the point. Still, however, Veronica decided she'd try one last tactic.

  "And what about your hearing?" she demanded, not pausing in her ministrations, not even when she felt his lean, whipcord body stiffen. "'Tis obvious you've suffered several blows to your head, Julian. Are you so foolish as to believe they might not have affected your sense of hearing?"

  He reached up with his right arm, capturing her finely-shaped hand in his large, roughened one. "What about my hearing?" he demanded. "Just exactly what do you know, my lady?"

  Veronica tamped down a gasp at his manhandling of her. She would not react to him with fear, she told herself sternly, for clearly that was his ploy: to startle and subdue her by his sheer strength.

  "Relax, sir. The truth of the matter is, I know very little." Letting out a breath, Veronica jerked her hand from his, turned the napkin about. Then she placed a clean edge of it into the teakettle and began again to clear the blood from his lip. "The man who led my coachman to the abbey told me a bit about you—or rather, the legend of you."

  "Legend? What the deuce does that mean?"

  "You've become known as 'The Riverkeep,' sir. It... it appears you have frightened all of the locals, and they've decided you are something betwixt a demon and a specter, what with your lurking about that ruinous abbey and coming out only in the depths of night. It is also claimed you are deaf—if indeed a demon or a specter can be such a thing." She dabbed at the last of the blood on his mouth, then straightened. "I believe only in the part about your deafness, if you must know."

  He was silent as he gazed up at her.

  Veronica forced herself to continue, to say what was on her mind. "You couldn't hear a thing when you first met me at Fountains, could you, Julian? It was only when you thrust us over that ledge, and hit your head during our fall, that your hearing was restored. That's why, when you first opened your eyes, there were tears in them—and that is why you whispered to me that I was your 'hope and need answered,' isn't it?"

  He obviously did not like the train of her words, but Veronica refused to stop.

  "Tell me, Julian," she said, "have you lived at Fountains for these past many months because you felt as ruined as her walls, as empty and as void as her once-rich lands?"

  He sucked in a harsh breath, frowning. "Please. Don't ask me these things."

  "Why not? What are you hiding, Julian? Or should I ask from whom are you hiding?"

  It was the wrong question. Like a bolt of lightning, Julian shot up from the chair, took her gently by her upper arms, his battered face just inches from her own.

  "You ask a lot of questions for someone who seems to have her own secrets to keep hidden, my lady." His face twisting with anger, he nodded
to the package still on the table—one Veronica hadn't even bothered to open. "Care to explain to me why you haven't unwrapped that bundle, the one you were so bloody intent on finding?"

  Veronica, tears of fear smarting behind her eyes, reacted to his brutality in the only way she knew how: with anger. In fact, a lifetime of being verbally and sometimes physically abused by her father came rushing to the forefront, overwhelming her with such a heated frenzy that she pushed the man away. "No, I'll not be telling you," she spat, "because it is not your affair, and I'll not be bullied by the likes of you, sir!"

  To Veronica's amazement, he did not reach for her again. Instead, he stared at her hard, his good eye full of dark portent and his ravaged eye looking twice as menacing.

  "By the likes of me?" he repeated. "Does that mean you find me beneath you, my lady—beneath even the coachman and maid you order about with such little feeling?"

  "Blast you," Veronica replied. She was surprised at the rancor of her voice, at the pure fury now beating in her breast. "You know nothing about me. Nothing about my life, sir!"

  "No, I don't, but I can guess. For the most part, you're a pampered belle, living a queen's existence, and you obviously think the world should bow at your feet, allowing you your every wish and whim."

  How very wrong he was! Veronica would have liked to give him a scathing set down—indeed, she'd have reveled in slapping him soundly for such crude words.

  But Veronica had had enough of physical violence to last a lifetime, thanks to her father. And in truth, she could never, ever raise her hand to another human being—and certainly not to this man.

  Taking a deep breath, and praying for some composure, Veronica took the bundle off the deal table, and then looked the man straight in the face.

  "Regardless of what you think of me, sir, do know I am sorry for whatever happened at Fountains this night. I-I had asked you to help locate this package for me, promising employment in return. You have done just that. I appreciate your help and I wish you Godspeed. I don't care what you're running from and I don't care to find out. Trust me when I say I shall not utter a word about any of this to anyone. And now if you'll excuse me, I think it is time I take my leave."

  He remained silent, simply watching her.

  Veronica felt ill at ease beneath his scrutiny. In her mind, a tumble of scenarios played themselves out. She'd promised him payment in the form of employment. Dare she do just that? Her father would question her mercilessly—and no doubt just as mercilessly reject her request of hiring on some man she'd met in Yorkshire. Gad, how would she even broach the subject to the earl?

  In the next instant, Veronica knew she would never dare do such a thing. If she could, she would simply arrange the man's employment on her own, at one of her father's most far-flung estates. And then she would pray mightily that the earl would not be visiting that estate any time soon.

  Gad, what had she gotten herself into? She'd never really meant to betray this stranger with an empty promise—she'd simply been desperate to have Rathbone's package. And since Julian had appeared so down and out of luck and in need of employment, like a ninny had dangled the carrot of a job and a roof over his head to lure him into helping her.

  And now, unfortunately, it was time to pay....

  Veronica inwardly winced. She felt as though she was stuck fast betwixt a rock and a hard place. To actually find employment for him would lead, eventually, to Earl Wrothram learning the full of her sojourn to Yorkshire and her meeting with Julian.

  In a rash, reckless moment, Veronica made her decision. "If you give me an address, I'll post word to you of where and what your employment will be in payment of your services this night," she announced.

  The truth of it was, Veronica had no intention of doing any such thing. She would, however, she decided, sell some of her jewels. She would ensure that a tidy sum of money was given to Julian for his deeds this night, no matter the cost to her own future security.

  It would have to serve as balm enough.

  Julian, though, seemed to have a sixth sense where her thoughts were concerned.

  With alarming speed, he reached out and then carefully but with purpose plopped her down atop the chair he'd just vacated. That done, he fastened his fists about the tall back of the chair, leaned down, and met her startled gaze with his own fierce one.

  His face nearly touching hers, he said, lowly, darkly, "The position I desire is not at some far-flung estate of your father's, Veronica, but at the very one where you reside. And the job I will be employed to do will not be in any Town garden or some crowded mews, but acting as your personal guard, whether you like it or not."

  Veronica blinked in dismay.

  Julian was not about to be hampered in his speech. Ignoring her reaction, he said, "That package you left me to find is something akin to a bloody Pandora's box. Because of it... and because of your plea for me to find it, I was nearly beaten to death. And I've no doubt, my lady, but the two river rats who accosted me this night might soon be in pursuit of you... unless, of course," he added, his voice going low, accusatory in tone, "you are the one who employed them."

  Veronica sucked in a gasp. "Do not be absurd!"

  "I am not. If anything, I am being careful."

  "But I know nothing of the men who accosted you! Indeed, if you must know the truth, I-I know very little about the package you found, other than the fact it is destined for a well-heeled lord in Town."

  The look in his ravaged face told her he believed that much. "And is this lord in Town a friend of yours?"

  No, Veronica thought, thinking of the blond-haired Rathbone with his silky smile and empty phrases.

  But in the next instant, she thought of Pamela, and of how much the pretty and true Pam had helped her during that first year in London when Veronica had been at sixes and nines in worrying over the too-lovely Lily and her sister's penchant to fall in love and give her all to every rake who came her way.

  For Pamela, Veronica would do anything. Even lie to this dangerous stranger who had been a help.

  "Yes," she heard herself whisper, "this person is a dear, dear friend of mine."

  Her words seemed to seal Julian's resolve. "The matter is settled then," he said.

  "What?" Veronica asked. "Nothing is settled, sir, other than that I will pay you for your trouble and—"

  "You heard me," he cut in, then motioned with a slight nod of his head toward the door. "Tell your man you'll be leaving this inn at dawn. Explain to him I will be accompanying you, will now be your personal guard. Do not allow him to overstay your rule. Is that clear, my lady?"

  Veronica was aghast. "No! None of this is clear," she gasped. "It's absurd and preposterous and—"

  "Do it," Julian cut in. "No matter what it takes, no matter how firm you need to be, you tell your man that I am joining you on your trip back to London and that I will be your shadow even beyond the moment you are tucked securely back in your bed there."

  Veronica gaped at him, fighting hard to keep her composure. She was more than just a little affected by his mention of her bed... and that he'd be lingering near her at all times. "He—he will never allow it," she whispered.

  "For whom does the man work?" Julian demanded. "Himself or your family?"

  He works for my father only, Veronica thought, but did not say the words. "Wh-what you are proposing is outrageous. I'll be perfectly safe in my family's home in London. I—"

  Roughly, he cut in, "Devil take it, my lady. You seem not to understand. Your choice in this matter is none. I will go with you to London, I will shadow your every step... and as God as my witness, lady, I will put you abed myself every night if I deem it necessary."

  Veronica gaped at him, shocked. Heaven help her, but she believed him. "You are mad," she whispered.

  "Aye. A specter raised from Fountains, brought out of her depths by your own hand, my lady. I'm involved now, up to my eyeteeth in this Venus Mission of yours, and not you or your coachman or the hounds of hell wil
l stop me from doing what I vow. Now go. Tell your coachman."

  Veronica knew a terror beating in her breast. What had she unleashed this night? Drat that package, and blast this—this riverkeep!

  "I'll inform him," she ground out, "but once we are in London, sir, you can rest assured I'll not be heeling to your word."

  "We'll see about that," he replied. "Now go upstairs and see that your things are packed. I'll be back within the hour."

  "Wh-what do you mean, you'll be 'back?'" she asked warily.

  "Just what I said. My duties as your personal guard begin this night. Do leave a light lit for me in your room."

  "The devil I will!" she blasted.

  But he wasn't listening. Before she could stop him he swiped the bundle from her hands and headed for the door.

  "Wait!" she cried. "Where are you going with that?"

  He glanced at her over one shoulder, his battered eye looking frightful. "I'm taking it with me."

  "But I need that!"

  "Aye," he muttered. "So I've noted."

  "Stop. You cannot just take it with you!"

  "I can and will, my lady. Call it insurance."

  "Insurance for what, blast it all," Veronica demanded.

  "Insurance that you won't be leaving this inn without me." He reached for the handle of the coffee room door. "I'll see you within the hour. Go straight to your room. Talk to no one other than your own servants."

  With that, he thrust open the portal, ignored Shelton's huge bulk of a frame turning on him, and then was gone.

  Veronica let out a furious breath. What an insufferable, arrogant, rude beast of a man!

  Shelton glowered at her from the doorway.

  Veronica glowered right back. Gad, but she'd had enough of men this night! "We leave for London in the morning," she snapped. "At dawn. Have everything ready. I'm going to my room."

  "My lady," he began in a dark tone.

  "Not a word, Shelton," she said, cutting him off.

  And before the man could question or gainsay her, Veronica swept past him, her mind in turmoil.

  Julian intended to be her bodyguard. What a notion!

  If he hadn't taken the packet with him, she'd have sighed in relief and then hurried away from Yorkshire with no qualms.