Anne Stuart

by To Love a Dark Lord

  But no one had come for her. The children had left on an outing to their grandmother’s home in the country. This was, perforce, to have been her day off. If she had any sense at all, she would make a run for it.

  But two dead men in less than a month were her limit. She would sit, and wait, and take her punishment. There would be no decadent, elegant rescuer like the Earl of Killoran this time. This time she would die. And her cousin Miriam would likely be there, to read religious tracts of vengeance and then do a stately gavotte on her grave. Except that Miriam never danced.

  In the distance she could hear the noise. The Variennes had no plans for entertaining that evening, so there could be only one reason for the sudden influx of people. They had come to arrest her. Frederick’s body had been discovered, and it was now simply a matter of time.

  She rose, squaring her shoulders. She would sit here cowering no more, waiting for vengeance to come and drag her down, screaming and fighting.

  The hallway was dark and warm, the heat rising through the four floors. She descended slowly, her mind in a fog, her hands clasped tightly beneath the heavy linsey-woolsey apron Mrs. Varienne insisted she wear when there were no guests to impress. She could hear the sound of a woman’s laughter, light, lilting, drifting upward, a voice she’d never heard before. It made no sense to her, but then, she was beyond the point of understanding.

  She moved in a fog toward the main salon. Mrs. Varienne’s deep voice boomed outward, coy and arch, flirtatious. Another voice replied, too low for Emma to hear the words, but there was a strange, disorienting familiarity to the sound. It was a voice she’d heard in her dreams, in her nightmares, drawling, masculine, with a faint lilt.

  She pushed open the door without knocking. Mrs. Varienne, seated on a brocade sofa like a fat black spider, looked up at her and glared. Beside her stood quite the most beautiful woman Emma had ever seen, a fairy-tale creature dressed in some diaphanous, gauzy creation.

  She turned, and to her horror she looked into the face of Frederick Varienne, not dead at all. He appeared most aggrieved, and the thick white bandage on his forehead, set at a deliberately rakish angle, covered some of his worst spots.

  The sight of the man she thought she’d killed should have been horror enough. But he was a mere bagatelle compared with the dark figure that moved out of the shadows into the bright candlelight.

  Dressed in stark black and white trimmed with silver stood her rescuer from the Pear and Partridge. His thin mouth curved in a mocking smile, his green eyes glinting with amusement, he looked at her, and then his gaze slid knowingly to the bandage on Frederick’s forehead.

  Emma opened her mouth to say something, anything. She had wits, strength, self-possession. She could carry off this impossible situation; she could say something cool and polite and then absent herself. She could move into the room as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t tried to kill the young heir to the household, as if she hadn’t been caught bloody-handed by the malicious rake who had suddenly reentered her life.

  She could do all this with ease. She made a tiny, choking sound. And then slid to the floor in a dead faint.

  Chapter 4

  The room was dark, and much too warm. An unusual circumstance—ever since Emma had left the dubious safety of the DeWinters’ household, she’d been abominably cold.

  She didn’t move. She could hear the faint hiss and pop of the fire at the far end of the room, the flames dancing up the darkened walls. She was in the back parlor, Mrs. Varienne’s private retreating room. And she wasn’t alone.

  She’d fainted, she remembered that much, which was odd in itself. She’d never given in to a crise de nerfs. But Mrs. Varienne wasn’t a great one for either feeding her servants or keeping them warm, and the stresses of the day had taken their toll.

  Emma sat up, a little too swiftly, and a fresh wave of dizziness washed over her. She hadn’t killed him. She hadn’t even damaged him badly. Frederick Varienne’s pale eyes had looked at her with acute dislike, but he hadn’t denounced her, hadn’t had her hauled away from the house on a charge of attempted murder. Perhaps he was simply going to overlook it.

  She didn’t think so. Frederick was a bully, a young man prone to grudges as well as to spots. And she didn’t care to consider the price he might exact for keeping his mouth shut.

  She would have to leave. Though exactly where she could go was another problem—she doubted the estimable Mrs. Withersedge would approve of the botch she’d made of her first position.

  She lay back down again, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was humiliatingly close to tears, she who seldom cried. If only she could remember what had happened just before she’d toppled into her ignominious fate. And who in the less-than-friendly Varienne household would have seen to her comfort and brought her to this warm, quiet place to recover herself, who would have loosened her clothing and—

  She sat up again, horror filling her as the memory came flooding back. “Oh, no,” she said out loud, quite distinctly.

  And out of the darkness his voice, the low, cool drawl with the faint trace of a lilt, said, “Oh, yes.”

  Emma slid her legs around, putting her feet on the thick French carpet. Her dress was tumbling down around her shoulders, and she knew whom to thank for that service. “You,” she said, not bothering to disguise the horror in her voice.

  “Me,” he agreed. “Come to your rescue once more, my sweet. You do seem to have a talent for running into trouble.”

  She digested this seemingly innocent statement carefully, trying not to let panic swamp her. “I wasn’t aware that I was in trouble,” she said.

  “Then why did you faint when you saw young Master Frederick?”

  There was no way he could know. But then, the devil knew everything. She couldn’t see where he was in the room—his dark clothes hid him in the shadows—but she knew he was watching her.

  Emma had spent the past seven years of her life with Cousin Miriam. She wasn’t about to let the likes of Killoran shake her concentration. “I fainted at the sight of you, my lord,” she said coolly. “That night at the Pear and Partridge has haunted me.”

  “Haunted you, has it? Not enough to stop you from taking a fire poker and coshing young Frederick over the head, obviously. Such a very violent young lady, it quite astonishes me,” he said lazily. “Are you certain it wasn’t the sight of your second victim, risen from the dead, that sent you into that dramatic faint?”

  “He told you,” she said in a horrified voice.

  “Actually, he didn’t. I rather fancy he’s too embarrassed. That mother of his is a tartar as well—I suspect she wouldn’t be any too pleased with him.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  “I have a spy.” He moved then, materializing out of the shadows like a ghost taking shape, and she could see the whiteness of his lace and linen, the somber black of his coat and smallclothes. His hair was un-powdered, midnight black, and his pale face was unreadable. He was as dark, as handsome, as mesmerizing as she had remembered and tried so hard to forget. “He is, however, not about to let you get away with rebuffing his advances. He’s been talking about a diamond-and-gold stickpin that appears to have turned up missing from his room. And he told his mother he saw you leaving his room this morning looking guilty.”

  “I didn’t touch his stickpin!” she said furiously. “Though it’s true enough I did leave his room, and I felt very guilty indeed. However, he wasn’t in any shape to see me.”

  “I imagine his mother is about to call in the Bow Street runners, if she hasn’t already. Either that, or young Master Frederick will find a way to exact penance. It doesn’t appear that your sojourn at the house of Varienne will continue as comfortably as it has.”

  “I wish I had killed him.” She made no effort to keep the bitterness from her voice.

  “I had noticed that you have a bloodthirsty streak,” Killoran remarked appreciatively. “There’s
a small matter that interests me. If you thought he was dead, why didn’t you make a run for it? Do you have a sudden desire to end your own existence?”

  ‘To kill one man is a great deal unfortunate,” Emma replied flatly. “To kill a second is criminal.”

  “Some might argue that fact with you. The law would say the first death was just as criminal. Personally, I think anyone who would rid this world of that spotty, tedious young creature should be accorded all honors. So, my dear young lady, what is your desire?”

  She peered at him through the darkness. She wished she could see his expression, but then, upon remembering, decided she was better off in the dark. He was far too handsome, far too cool and malicious-looking. There would be no light of concern or kindness in his dark green eyes, no gentle smile on his thin, mobile mouth.

  “My desire, sir?”

  “Will you stay here and await your punishment? Or will you escape? You have only to say the word.”

  “I don’t trust you,” she told him. “I’ve heard of your reputation, and it’s beyond unsavory.”

  “So it is. A fitting companion to a murderess, don’t you think?” he said gently.

  “I’m not…,” she protested, and then the words failed her as she remembered that indeed, yes, she was a murderess. Uncle Horace lay dead, and Cousin Miriam would doubtless be in deep, furious mourning. Plotting revenge.

  Killoran was a dangerously patient man—it was one of the many things about him that made her uneasy. He waited while she considered all the ramifications and possibilities, none of them pleasant.

  She finally spoke. “I think, given the alternatives, that I would rather escape,” she said quietly.

  He nodded politely, passing no judgment on her decision. “My carriage awaits.”

  She just looked at him. Doubtfully. “You’ll help me?”

  “I told you, I have once more come to your rescue. Like a deus ex machina, I appear where I’m most needed.”

  “You don’t seem the slightest bit godlike to me,” she observed. “Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.”

  She’d finally managed to startle him. He laughed, a sudden, surprised sound. “I’m no envoy of Satan,” he said softly. “It only seems that way.”

  She looked up at him, for a moment totally lost and completely gullible. He held out his hand to her. It was an elegant hand, pale-skinned, with long, deft fingers and a narrow, graceful palm. He wore a quantity of gold rings, and the foaming white lace brushed his knuckles. They were beautiful hands, deceptively strong. And Emma was afraid to touch him.

  She rose carefully, making certain she was able to maintain her balance. The loosened dress hung around her, and she clutched it against her, holding her tangled hair away from her face. She didn’t dare ask who had carried her into this room, who had loosened her clothing. She knew she wouldn’t care for the answer.

  “Won’t they try to stop us?” she asked, staring up at him. She was a tall woman, used to looking most men directly in the eye. This man’s height only added to her unease.

  “I imagine they will. Lady Barbara will keep them occupied while we leave through the garden.” He had dropped his hand, no longer commanding her, but she knew her reprieve wouldn’t last. Sooner or later she would have to touch him, and she had the oddest notion he would make her pay for her cowardice.

  “There’s no gate in the garden wall,” she pointed out.

  “Then we’ll have to climb over it, won’t we?”

  She looked askance at his silks and satins, his dripping laces. And then she looked at his calm, enigmatic face, and didn’t say a word.

  The night was cold, and there was the promise of snow on the air. Emma shivered, wishing she’d brought a shawl. She’d already made one escape with little more than what she could carry in a capacious carpetbag. This time she’d leave with even less.

  She glanced up at the man beside her, moving through the frost-deadened moonlit garden like a ghost, and for a moment she considered whether she might not be better off with a Bow Street runner. Or the hangman.

  But she’d never been one to turn coward. She’d stood up to adversity time and time again, and now wasn’t the moment to cave in like a whimpering ninny. She’d gone from a safe, cosseted childhood as her indulgent father’s only child to the stern and unbending asylum of Miriam DeWinter’s house in Crouch End. She had adapted, grown strong, and never surrendered her spirit, her hope. She wouldn’t start now. Squaring her shoulders against the bitter night, she started after him, keeping well out of sight of the windows and Mrs. Varienne’s distressing eagle eye.

  Either he had preternatural knowledge, or he’d already canvassed Mrs. Varienne’s back garden for the low point in the wall. He moved toward it unerringly, turning to wait for her.

  Her courage almost failed her. He stood watching her, silent, still, as she came to him, and through the scudding clouds the moonlight shone down all around him. He was a man of moonlight, she thought fancifully. Cold and silvered, a creature of the night and shadows. And she was putting herself at his mercy, though she sincerely doubted he was possessed of that particular commodity.

  He held out his hand, and this time she knew she would have no choice but to accept it. “Someone’s waiting on the other side of the wall,” he said. “Go with him, and he’ll take you to my house on Curzon Street.”

  “You aren’t coming?”

  His smile was as cold and dormant as the winter garden. “I’ll be along soon enough. Possess yourself in patience, my child.”

  She looked at him, wondering whether the hangman’s noose might not be preferable. And then she put her hand in his.

  His flesh was cold to the touch. The lace that dripped from his sleeve covered their entwined hands, hiding them from sight, and for a moment she stood motionless, unnerved.

  He moved forward smoothly and lifted her up, up, over the wall, his body strong and hard beneath the silk and satin and lace, his arms like bands of steel, entrapping her.

  And then he released her, and she slid down in a heap on the other side, landing in another pair of strong arms.

  “Got her, Killoran,” her second rescuer announced from the darkness.

  “Go with Nathaniel, my love.” His voice floated over the wall. “And I pray you, don’t try to murder him. He’s the champion of the poor and misguided. And he’s your only protection against me.”

  Emma gazed at the handsome, uncomfortable-looking young man staring at her. She pulled away from him, yanking her dress down around her hips. She didn’t remember him, but he seemed to know her.

  Nathaniel moved swiftly, stripping off his sober wool jacket and wrapping it around her. “She’ll be perfectly safe with me, Killoran,” he declared firmly, putting a protective arm around her shoulders, which were almost even with his.

  A distant laugh, faint and mocking, echoed from the other side of the stone wall. “I know.”

  “Come with me, miss,” Nathaniel said, pulling her away from the wall.

  She let herself be moved along to the carriage, allowing herself to be cossetted for the first time in what seemed like her entire life.

  He helped her up, followed her inside, and by the time she was safely settled, wrapped in a fur robe that covered her up to her neck, the carriage had started forward along the dark London streets.

  She looked across the carriage to the man opposite her. “Do I know you?” she asked in a low voice.

  She half suspected the boy of blushing. Not that he was truly a boy—he was perhaps three or four years older than she was—but compared with his unlikely companion, he seemed boyish indeed.

  He cleared his throat. “I was at the Pear and Partridge,” he said hesitantly. “You were too overset to notice me, of course, but I was most distressed for you. Killoran is a monster.”

  In the name of fairness, Emma felt called upon to disagree. “He saved my life.”

  “I suppose so. Doubtless out of no noble motive. You’ve been through a great deal,
but I promise you, as long as you’re under Killoran’s roof, no harm will come to you. I’ll see to it.”

  “What about Killoran?” She managed a faint trace of wryness.

  “He won’t touch you.” Nathaniel was very stern for such a young man.

  He couldn’t see her doubtful smile in the darkness, and for that Emma was glad. She didn’t want to hurt this innocent champion, but she knew that if a man like Killoran took it into his head to have her, then no fierce, noble young hero was likely to be able to stop him.

  However, she doubted that Killoran would be bothered. She wasn’t the sort to appeal to men of his lordship’s jaded interests; she was the stuff of spotty adolescent urges and old men’s dreams. For the time being, she’d be safe. Long enough to catch her breath and decide what to do next.

  “I’m certain Killoran’s motives toward you are of the purest,” Nathaniel added.

  “I doubt there’s anything pure at all about my lord Killoran,” she said. “And I have no illusions about his reason for coming to my aid this time, any more than I mistook his actions last month. He’s bored. And he finds me entertaining.”

  She waited for Nathaniel to refute her theory. He said not a word for a long moment, and it wasn’t until the carriage had come to a stop that he spoke. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said slowly. “But it wouldn’t do to underestimate Killoran. There’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  “Of that,” said Emma, “I have no doubt.”

  She barely noticed her surroundings as Nathaniel ushered her into the house, the fur lap robe still wrapped tightly around her. She had the vague sensation of candlelight and elegance, impassive servants and warmth. The oversized and surprisingly soft settee next to the blazing fire in what must have been a library was much more comfortable than she would have expected, and she had the errant, distracting notion that Killoran might have stretched his elegant body out on its length and slept there. The idea made her extremely uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to leap up.