by Lois Greiman
He poured tea carefully into a ridiculously small cup and lifted it to his lips. It was hotter than Hades, so he set it gently onto its matching saucer to eye his so-called friend. “She must have been something special,” Bain rumbled.
Connelly gave him an arch look as he retrieved a walnut from the basket on the table and tossed it in his hand. “Who?”
“Someone else’s wife,” Bain guessed. Although Connelly was happy enough to share the town house’s rent, he rarely spent a full night in his own bed. But neither did he generally linger elsewhere, even when there wasn’t an angry husband involved. Which was, most probably, a rare occasion.
“Ahh, yes, well, Marguerite is a unique…and very umm energetic…woman. But…” He smiled at Bain’s battered eye. “Don’t distract me. Tell me the tale.”
Nonplussed, Bain poured water from a pitcher into a basin, then squeezed the excess from a saturated rag. He had no desire to discuss the previous night, but before he could apply the cloth to his eye, Connelly had snatched it from his fingers.
“Dare I hope you were involved with an angry husband?” he asked.
Bain increased the intensity of his glower. “Hand over the rag, Connelly, or be gone from my sight,” he growled. Introspection—who needed it?
“Sight!” Connelly laughed and waved a well-manicured hand in front of Bain’s face. “Are you saying you can still see, old man?”
“Give me that,” Bain said, and, snatching the rag back, put the cloth to his eye. It felt wet and cool and soothing against his heated flesh as he lowered himself into a chair, which groaned beneath his weight.
“So honestly…” Connelly settled his lean hips against the table, crossed his long, booted legs, and grinned happily. He was a champion at playing the dandy to the posh London crowds. “Who struck you?”
“Go sleep it off,” Bain suggested, and tilted his head back against the wall behind him with a sigh.
“Or perhaps it was a what,” mused the other tapping his cheek. He had a long face and long fingers. In fact, according to Connelly himself, everything about him was long. He stroked his chin, making a show of looking thoughtful. Generally, it was his second-most-irritating expression, the first being happiness. “But I thought trolls were just a thing of old tales.”
“Why are you not yet absent?” Bain gave Connelly the evil eye from his left orb and spoke past the cloth now draped across most of his face.
“Or maybe it was an inanimate object. Might a house have struck you, my friend?”
Bain didn’t respond. It was usually best not to encourage the vociferous bastard.
“Well, whatever the case, I can see that apologies are in order. It seems I should have stayed at Mrs. Tell’s and looked after you, but the lovely Marguerite was not only energetic. She was impatient as well.” He shrugged. “Still, I would have sworn it would be safe to leave you unchaperoned. None of the fashionable pinks there looked especially fearsome. But wait…” His voice was musing again as if he’d come upon some great insight. Bain refrained from rolling his eyes lest the right one pop from its socket and roll across the floor. He had no wish to do anything to cause Connelly that much unfettered glee. “Perhaps the culprit was the gaffer with the cane. True, he was older than the Almighty Himself. But he did look decidedly grumpy.”
Bain clenched his jaw and wished to hell he’d never met Thayer Connelly, but it was damned hard to turn back the clock. Besides, the cocky Irishman had come in handy on more than one occasion. Not that Connelly didn’t owe Bain. Indeed, he did, for when they’d first met, a cuckolded little Italian had been threatening to castrate the other with a hot poker. Bain might well have let the irate husband have him, but at that precise moment Bain’s brigade had been a few men short, and rumor was that Connelly was fair to middlin’ with a blunderbuss. The rumors had been true. Had Connelly not joined their ranks, Bain’s corpse would still be rotting on some distant field. Although, at that precise instant, that possibility didn’t seem to be the worst of all options. Once the mouthy Irishman learned Bain had been bested by a lass no bigger than a wood sprite, death might well seem preferable.
And how the hell had that transpired anyway? One minute Bain had been minding his own affairs, glaring out at the dance floor and the next, he’d been staggering across the garden like an inebriated Spaniard.
Memories tingled through his brain. Very well then, perhaps a little something had happened between the glaring and the staggering. Perhaps there had been a woman.
Breath caught tight in Bain’s throat at the memory. For she had been more than a woman. She had been a golden-haired angel with silken-sand cheeks and eyes like an amber promise, or so it had seemed at the time.
“But no. Hold up,” Connelly was saying. “I do believe that old man was knocked flat by an onerous draft of wind. Last I saw of him he was trying, rather valiantly I might add, to rise to his feet. Hmmm.” He canted his head to the side, eyes narrowed. “Might he have trounced you after he gained his balance?”
Bain steadied his breathing. He was acting like an infatuated dolt. And why? She had hardly been a woman at all. Just a slip of a lass, really. Except she hadn’t seemed like a lass either, for her eyes spoke of things only the ancients should have seen.
A shiver coursed through his body.
“Or might it have been the wee lad what took the ladies’ wraps?” Connelly continued. “Might you and he have had an altercation?”
“It appears as if I might have been wrong,” Bain rumbled past the cloth, keeping his body carefully relaxed.
“About the fact that you could best the wrap boy?”
“About the fact that you were judicious enough to know when to be reticent.”
Connelly laughed, uncrossed his legs, and stepped forward. “Well, I’d be worried about inciting your wrath, big as you are, but knowing you were felled by a girl little bigger than a spring hare…” He paused, letting his words fall into silence.
Bain sat up slowly, allowing the rag to drop from his face as he found the Irishman with his eyes. “I should have let him have you,” he said.
Connelly raised a mercurial brow. “The Italian?” he guessed.
“Perhaps you would be less irritating as a gelding,” Bain explained, and Connelly howled with laughter.
“So I’m right!” he said, and slapped his leg as if no greater news had ever been shared. “You were bested by a maid.”
McBain refrained from gritting his teeth and rose slowly to his feet, careful to keep his movements casual, to remain cool. So Connelly had only been guessing. He should have known. The Irishman thrived on these foolish mind games, and though there may be proper circumstances for such cerebral sport, there was, from time to time, nothing more fun than putting Connelly’s head through a wall.
“I thought you had learned your lesson about drinking to excess,” Bain said, and Connelly laughed again, ignoring him.
“I, too, saw the lass,” he admitted, still grinning. “A tempting armful, I’ll grant. But she was already taken by the fair-haired fop, or so I thought. Rogan McBain, however…” Drawing an imaginary hat from his head, Connelly swept it in front of his too-tight breeches to bow dramatically. “Far be it from that great warrior to leave a bonny lass to a lesser swain.”
“Now might be a fortuitous time to learn to shut your mouth,” Bain suggested, but to no avail, for Connelly’s eyes were as bright as a zealot’s on a binge.
“I could barely believe my eyes when I saw you follow them into the gardens.”
He shouldn’t have, of course. That much was now obvious. Surely he’d learned better years ago. But beneath the maid’s polished veneer he had thought he’d sensed something else. Something fearful and fragile. He’d had little choice but to follow them. Or so he’d thought at the time. Though he’d know better from this point forward. Next time he saw a damsel in distress, he’d hie himself in the opposite direction as fast as his timber-sized legs could carry him. He was fair fast for his size.
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br /> “I admit I meant to go out myself just to watch the action, but by the time I extricated myself from the charming Marguerite, the girl was already fleeing past the front door. And I thought to myself, Thayer, you winsome devil, you should go see to matters in the gardens. Your good Scottish friend might once again be in need of assist. But when I arrived out of doors, Goldie was laid out flat, and you were gone. Which got me to thinking—”
“It seems unlikely,” Bain said, and, rising, pushed his way past Connelly to the pantry.
“Thinking…” Connelly added, turning to watch him, “that perhaps you made some sort of advance toward the lass.”
Bain gave him a glare over his shoulder. Connelly raised his brows.
“Though, I’ll admit,” he said slowly, “you’ve not been much of a ladies’ man in the past.”
Retrieving a loaf of oat bread and a pot of honey, Bain pushed his way past Connelly as he moved toward the table.
“And why might that be, I wonder.” He was musing again. The bastard. “I mean, true, you’ve not the good looks and charm of myself, but then, you’re not Irish.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So that is surely to be expected. Still…” He canted his head quizzically. Bain stared balefully in return. “You’re not half-ugly. Well…” he corrected ruefully. “You’re half-ugly. But some maids will trade good looks…” He motioned toward himself, then stepped closer to Bain. “For sheer”—he trailed his right hand through the air—“freakish size.”
Bending, Bain pulled a long-handled knife from the top of his boot. “If you’re wanting to retain that hand, you’ll be keeping it out of my face,” he warned, then sliced a chunk of bread thick enough to use as a discus before sitting to drizzle honey carefully on top and take a good-sized bite.
Connelly grinned ecstatically. “Which brings me to wondering…might my giant Scottish friend be an even better friend than I realize?”
Bain swallowed, put his bread down, and settled against the back of his chair, motionless as he waited for new foolery. “And what might you be meaning by that, laddie?” Sometimes when his ire was up, his brogue deepened, and he forgot all the fine words he had learned while reading through the eve of battle.
Connelly was grinning like a Syrian monkey. “Tell me true, McBain, have you been coveting your neighbor’s arse?”
Bain’s chair scraped ominously against the floor as he rose to his full height. He curled up his right fist. It still ached from the time he’d spent in Ceylon, but that hardly mattered. “Spoiling for a bit of sport, are you, lad?”
“Not your sort.” Connelly laughed and backed away.
“And what kind of sport might you be thinking that would be?” he asked.
“Two men, one bed, and—” he began, but in that moment, McBain reached for him.
Connelly tried to dodge away, but McBain had already curled his fingers into the Irishman’s shirtfront.
They stood face-to-face.
“Demmed, you’re ungodly fast for such a big freak of a man,” Connelly rasped.
“You should have deduced that before now if you’ve a wish to live out the day,” Bain rumbled.
“Oh, I’ll survive the day.”
“Aye? And how do you plan to do that?”
“I’m thinking a knee to the groin.”
“Perhaps ye shouldn’t have preceded the action with a warning, then.”
“I always forget that,” Connelly quipped, and, grabbing the pitcher’s handle, swung with a good deal of force. Had the blow landed, it would have rattled the Scot’s head like an empty gourd.
Instead, Bain caught Connelly’s wrist in his broad palm.
“Oh hell,” Connelly breathed.
“You were ever a dirty fighter,” Bain rumbled.
“But I saved your hide on more than one occasion.”
“Mayhap you should be more concerned about saving yours,” Bain retorted, and drew back his other fist.
“What was that?” Connelly rasped, and turned his head as if listening intently.
“That,” Bain said, not bothering to listen, “is you acting like an imbecile.”
“Not that.” He paused, then, “That,” he explained, when a scratch of noise came from the front door.
Bain scowled.
Connelly grinned. “I believe we have visitors.”
“At dawn?”
“Maybe Marguerite told her friends of my charms.”
“Maybe Marguerite came to complain about some unexplained itching.”
Connelly laughed. “A problem you’ll never have if you continue to live like a demmed—”
The noise came again, a little louder now and definitely issuing from the front door.
Releasing Connelly’s shirtfront, Bain pushed the Irishman backward with a scowl and strode toward the entry hall. His boots sounded heavy against the hardwood. The door handle felt small in his hand.
He opened it with a snap and stopped abruptly, for a pixie-sized angel graced his stoop.
Chapter 4
The door creaked open like the cover to a crypt, then he was there, Lucifer, stepping from the snarling shadows of her childhood. His eyes were gray, his sable hair unruly, his cheeks stubbled. He was dressed in an open-necked tunic and dark tartan. It crossed at his shoulder, was pinned in place with the miniature sword that passed through his pewter brooch and belted snugly about his waist, but she dared not look lower. Indeed, she dare not speak, for he looked too formidable. Too large and powerful and angry. But she had made a vow to Madeline. And that she would keep.
“Good morning,” she said, though even those simple words were all but impossible to force from her lips, for he was staring at her with those grim-reaper eyes, the left of which was rimed in magenta turning to puce. “Mr. McBain, isn’t it?”
His brows lowered even farther, though she would have sworn they could not.
Faerie Faye tightened her grip on the little paper-wrapped item in her hand and tried not to vomit. She would do what she must. Would keep her secrets while ferreting out others’. For her cover. For the sisters of her heart.
“Who is it?” someone called, then the door opened farther, and another man stepped into view.
It was then that Faye tried to turn and run, but her legs refused to do her bidding. Refused to do so much as budge.
“Good God, McBain,” said the smaller fellow, and banged his companion on the back with a hearty whack. “Look who we’ve got here. Lady…” He turned to her expectantly, but her breath was caught fast in her throat, and she was wrong about her legs. They were moving, trembling like chimes in a windstorm. “Lady…” He canted his head a little and tried again.
“Mrs.,” she corrected, and raised her brows in haughty challenge as she’d seen others do.
“Ahh well…” He shrugged, grinned, as charming as a serpent. “I’ve no prejudices, Mrs….”
It took everything she had to remember her supposed name. “Nettles.”
“Mrs. Nettles. How very nice to meet you. I’m Thayer Connelly, and this is…Well…” he chuckled. “I believe the two of you became acquainted last night. Did you not?” he asked, and glanced from one to the other.
Faye could feel his attention shift from her to the giant, but she dare not turn her own gaze from the brooding Scotsman. She’d wounded him, injured him, a seasoned warrior, a celebrated soldier. Until this moment, she’d not thought of the humiliation that might cause him.
“Oh, where are my manners?” Connelly asked. “’Tis all but a crime to leave such beauty languishing on our doorstep, is it not, McBain?”
The giant remained mute.
“Please, Mrs. Nettles…” Connelly straightened. “We were just about to…have some tea,” he said, and skipped his merry gaze to his companion as if they shared some jolly secret that had nothing to do with tea at all. “Won’t you join us?” he asked, and motioned toward the interior of their home.
The ironbound door yawned like a dark maw ready to devour her.
“I just stopped by for a moment,” she said, and managed to keep from leaping into the surrounding topiary.
“Then we must surely enjoy every moment with you even more,” Connelly said, and reached for her hand.
She remembered to breathe though it was a close thing.
The Scotsman turned his attention to his friend, brows lowering still farther.
“Well…” said the Irishman, and, raising her hand, pressed a slow kiss to her knuckles. It was all she could do to refrain from launching herself from the stoop and bolting for the carriage Joseph kept waiting by the curb. “Tell us, please…” He straightened, then cupped her palm with his own. It felt large and cool, like manacles against her skin. The Scotsman was standing perfectly still, staring at their hands. Just as Lucifer had watched from the darkness of her window, silent, looming, waiting until she could tolerate no more. Until she fled the house and Tenning’s toxic care. “To what do we owe this unusual pleasure?”
She searched for her voice, but memories were crowding in, crushing her larynx.
“Perhaps you had some unfinished business with the oversized Scotsman here. Or…” He smoothed his thumb over hers. “Maybe—”
“Irish.” The giant’s voice was no more than a rumble.
“Yes, my friend?” Connelly looked as happy as a puppy. As merry as a songbird.
Their gazes met like sunlight on steel.
“Mayhap your new whip has arrived at Master Balmick’s.”
“I only ordered it a few days past.”
“But you insist on going there each day regardless.”
“I am certain I can miss one—” he began, but McBain interrupted.
“Might you be prepared to mend that wall?”
A moment of understanding seemed to stream between them. Connelly remained absolutely still for an instant, then grinned, dropped her hand, and backed away. “My lady,” he said, and bowed. “It has been a rare pleasure meeting the lass who can—”
McBain cleared his throat. The sound rumbled like thunder in the morning air.
Connelly laughed out loud. “Until next we meet,” he said, and grinned as he disappeared into the house.