No. That had been taken from him a long time ago.
And it seemed that God was just cruel enough to save his life when he wanted more than anything to be dead. Yes. God was cruel, for Ash had been saved a quick death, and, in turn, given a slow one.
One that made him think back on every decision, every job, and every moment he’d pulled that trigger.
With a sigh, he pulled off his gloves and touched the skin just below his chin. A nervous habit — something he did when he needed to be reminded of why he was being punished.
A life for a life.
And he was still living.
Which meant it was only a matter of time before he breathed his last breath. Then, and only then, could he atone for his sins.
Then, and only then, would he find peace.
CHAPTER SIX
If I have to spend more than one more day with this woman, she will break everything I’ve worked hard to build. I lack the strength to admit my weakness aloud, but in my journal I can state the truth. She makes me want. And want is a very dangerous emotion indeed, because where there is want, there is desire; where there is desire, there is lust, and, God forbid, love. —The Grimm Reaper
WIDE-EYED AND UNABLE TO sleep, Sofia stared up at the ceiling of the small cottage. In just a few hours she would be on her way to London.
The start of a new life. She turned to her side, trying a different position to gain comfort. But the type of comfort she needed wasn’t going to come easily by simply tossing and turning in bed. It was more than a new life or fresh start. It was life or death.
Her stomach rumbled as if to agree. She truly should have eaten more at dinner, but her blasted nerves were getting the best of her. Unable to do anything but attempt to stab Ash with a fork, she’d all but ignored her food.
“Well, this is just ridiculous,” she mumbled aloud, throwing the covers off her body and grabbing a wrapper.
Sofia lit a candle and opened her door.
“Princess.” Dunlin nodded. “Do you need aid?” Pistol raised, his eyes narrowed as he looked from right to left before elbowing her in the side. “Shh. I think I hear a noise.”
“Breathing. I’m breathing.”
“Well done, Princess. Stay alive, that’s what I always say.”
“Dunlin.” Truly, he would try the patience of a saint. “I do not need aid, and the noise is my breathing. See?” She demonstrated inhaling and exhaling.
His eyes narrowed into tiny slits before he finally answered. “Must you do it so loudly?”
“Yes,” she ground out.
“Carry on, then.” He straightened to his height of six feet and stood near her door, on guard for would-be assassins and, apparently, anyone who breathed too loudly.
She rolled her eyes and continued down the hall, nearly bumping into Cornelius.
“Princess? Are you harmed?” He braced her shoulders with both hands and peered closely into her eyes.
“Cornelius!” Dunlin called out from behind her in what she assumed was his inside voice. All things considered, she’d be surprised if he didn’t wake those in England. “The princess is fine. She is merely breathing!”
“Breathing,” Cornelius repeated, his smile nearly taking over his entire face. “What a relief, and here I thought you were a ghost.” With a sly smile, he let her pass and then whispered behind her, “Will you not take one of the guards with you on your walk about the cottage?”
Sofia paused and answered without turning around. “Afraid I’ll fall into a crack in the floor, Cornelius?”
His silence was answer enough as she made her way into the kitchen.
Sometimes it was difficult to remember how much danger she was in, especially with seven of the most ridiculous types of men around her. Most of them were outcasts, just as she. All, at one point, had worked for the Crown before her stepmother had gone insane. And all were loyal to Sofia.
However, that did not mean she wasn’t hanging on to her sanity by a thread.
“Princess?”
Groaning into her hands, she muffled out a, “Yes?”
“Cornelius sent me.”
She peeked through her fingers to see Serafano standing near the door, pistol in hand, ready to shoot… what? She didn’t know. Perhaps an escaped rat. Lucky bastard.
“Fine.” She pointed to the seat.
Serafano yawned and sat.
With a wicked smile, she yawned along with him. “I am finally feeling sleepy. What about you?”
Serafano was the eldest of all the guard and known to fall asleep at the without warning. He raised his arms above his head and yawned along with her. “I could sleep.”
“Warm milk?” She went to the stove and began heating up what was left of their milk.
“Oh, I shouldn’t.” Serafano rubbed his white beard in thought. “It is the last of our milk, purchased just this morning. Surely you need it more than I.”
“We’ll share.” She fought to keep the patience in her voice.
“Right, well…” Serafano peeked behind his shoulder. “…just one taste then.”
Minutes later, she was happily sipping her warm milk while Serafano was snoring on the table.
“I’m torn between applauding your brilliance and notifying your cousin of the lack of ability your guard brings to the table,” came a male voice from behind her.
Startled, Sofia dropped the cup of warm milk. It hit the floor with a clatter and scattered sharp pieces of china across the hard stone. She took a step to clean it and yelped in pain as something sliced through her bare foot.
“Stay still,” Ash said in a commanding voice. With ease, he walked across the glass and knelt before her. He pulled her foot onto his knee.
She tried to jerk away but he held her firm.
“If you wish to fall on your bum, by all means, keep pulling. It will only mean I’ll have to pull porcelain from your backside. Your choice.”
She stilled.
“Good girl.”
After nineteen years of being a princess and training under only the best instructors, and she was ready to throw everything she had ever learned out of the window and smack the man across his chiseled jaw.
“It’s deep.” His brows furrowed for a second, and then his mouth was on her foot.
Sofia gasped and gripped the table behind her as Ash’s hot mouth worked over the flesh of her foot.
“I do not think that—”
He interrupted her by putting his finger up. Had he just silenced her with his hand?
Crossing her arms, she fought with desperation to keep the tingling sensation his tongue was bringing in the lower part of her body. It was irritation. Nothing more.
And then he sucked.
Her hands slipped on the table just slightly as she exhaled a breath and focused on the pain, rather than the man relieving her of it.
She clenched her eyes shut, but when he sucked a second time, she cursed him fluently in her mind and then watched his bent head.
Too angry to truly look at the man earlier in the evening, and embarrassed that she’d been looking in the first place, she hadn’t a chance to admire him fully. Until now.
His dark hair was cut quite short, shorter than what was fashionable. A small black marking was visible behind his ear. His skin was dark, but every inch of him was covered in muscle, even his tongue.
Not that she was paying attention to his tongue.
He sucked again.
She whimpered.
“Sorry, Princess,” Ash’s lips mumbled against her foot. “Almost finished.”
Did he have to be?
Where had that errant thought come from?
Sofia, he is merely a hired man!
Not even a titled gentleman or anyone of importance! If anyone found out she was alone with her guard, she would be ruined, let alone that she had allowed a strange man to suck glass from her foot.
“Done.” He gently pulled away and gazed up at her, slowly placing the shard of glass ont
o the table.
Sucking in a breath, she stared right back. His eyes were a deep green, with yellow outlining his pupils. They hypnotized her in a way that made her stomach clench.
Or maybe she was still hungry.
Yes, that was it.
“My thanks,” she said, forcing her most detached voice.
With a smile, he rose to his full height and then gave her a mocking bow. “My pleasure, Princess.”
“Do not call me that,” she snapped, irritated that he’d brought out foreign feelings and thoughts she had no right to have about a man who was merely a messenger, a bridge to her new life in London.
Ash leaned in, placing his hands on either side of the table so her body was trapped by his. “And what, pray tell, would you like me to call you, Princess? Is that not your name?”
Her eyes fell to his full lips. On instinct, she licked hers and answered in a whisper, “Sofia, my name is… Sofia.”
His lips pulled tight over straight, white teeth as his blinding smile made itself known. Good heavens! No man should be that attractive.
“Sorry, Princess. But I cannot find the heart to call you by your Christian name when our acquaintance will be so short. Besides, I have it on good authority your cousin would rip my throat directly from my body should I disrespect you in such a manner.”
Irritated and perhaps a bit rejected, Sofia lifted her eyes to his. “I take it he won’t like the fact that your desire was for me to aid you in your bathing.”
His eyes went cold. The yellow around his pupils all but disappeared as he leaned in, his breathing ragged. “I would like your aid in all sorts of things, Princess. That doesn’t mean you have to give it.”
“Then don’t ask.”
“Don’t tempt me to,” he countered. His eyes had gone nearly black.
Ash gripped the table so hard he was certain it was going to snap in two. The woman had no sense whatsoever! The ton was going to eat her alive. He had to warn Maskylov, after all. Ash could wash his hands of the princess once he’d delivered her.
If he made it that far.
He heard a noise in the kitchen and had half-a-mind to throw the girl over his shoulder when he noticed her state of undress. Had she no care for the seven men guarding her? Or the other two strangers roaming through the small cottage?
And then she’d drugged him.
Literally.
Had given the old man some warm milk and sung him a lullaby. The very devil possessed that woman. What? Was her plan to sweet-talk every single man under her employ?
Not him.
Never him.
He would deliver her if it was the last thing he did. He owed his brother, Hunter, Duke of Haverstone, that much. Guilt nestled comfortably onto his shoulders. As long as he felt the guilt, he would not get sidetracked with a beautiful princess who walked around barefoot and sang to her protectors.
“I tempt you?” she answered back, snapping him out of his fury.
How to answer?
She leaned forward.
Her second lesson of the night would soon be learned. “It appears I am going to have to do some teaching as well as delivering.”
“Teaching?” she repeated. “What could you possibly teach me?”
Ash licked his lips and smiled, as the princess’s gaze went exactly where he had commanded it to: his mouth.
“Princess.”
“Yes?” She sighed.
“I am going to teach you how to fight off a man’s advances.”
“A man’s advances—”
His mouth claimed hers before his brain registered that it was most likely the worst idea he’d ever had in his lifetime. Kissing someone who did not belong to him. Apparently, he had made a terrible habit of doing that in his existence. Wanting what was not his.
Her mouth opened in shock. Ash lifted her onto the table so he could step between her legs. His lips slid across hers. She did not fight him. Why was she not fighting him?
Searing pain hit him in the hand before he had time to react.
He jerked back to see a fork poking into his skin.
“Clever. Tell me, have you had that this whole time?” Blood trickled down from the holes she had created. He eyed it appraisingly. “Well done.”
“You, you, you…”
“Spit it out.” He grinned, pulling the fork from his hand and tossing it onto the wooden table.
“Rogue!”
He winced and laughed; really, he could not help himself.
Her chest heaved with the exertion of their kiss.
“You wound me.”
She glared.
He winced and pointed to his hand. “Both emotionally and physically, I assure you.”
“I hate you.”
Tempting fate, he cornered her against the table again. “I don’t care.”
“You’re just a — a horrible man! How dare you touch me! I’m—”
“A princess,” he finished for her. “I think that has been established. You’re also one of the most naïve women I’ve ever had the grand misfortune of meeting. If you think, for one second, I kissed you because I desire you…” He shrugged. “…then you have made a grievous error.” Lies, all lies. “I said I meant to teach you a lesson. Never allow a man to get close to you without having a way to escape. But, more importantly, when you are gallivanting around London, have a care for your reputation.”
“But—”
“I am not finished,” he ground out, holding his fingers to her lush lips. “Men will want you for your money. They will desire you for your body. They will fight over you. They will dedicate poetry to you. And it will all seem wonderful, like a dream, I am sure of it. But if you allow any of those men alone with you, you will find ruin. You will bring shame upon your family. And you will be labeled a princess no more. You will be nothing more than a whore.” He stepped back.
Sofia’s face went pale.
“Off to bed, Princess. I tire of these childish games. And have a care to next time finish the food on your plate. If I discover you making a habit of walking around in nothing except an easily-seen-through night rail, tempting any male that breathes, I’ll toss you over my knee without a second thought.”
Sofia stood to her full height. “Do not scold me as you would a child.”
“Don’t ask for it, and I won’t.”
“Goodnight.” She pushed past him, walked around the glass, and out the door.
It was only when he knew she was truly gone that he sank into the seat and threw the fork across the room.
Lust pounded so wildly through his body he was having a hard time seeing straight. He hadn’t shared a kiss with a woman since Lucy’s death. Guilt had plagued him any time a woman had even gotten close. So he’d vowed to keep himself away from sins of the carnal flesh until they had all been atoned.
But that was the rub.
His sins would not be atoned until his death.
Which meant he was going to lose his blasted mind if he had to be around the princess any longer than necessary.
Five seconds.
He had been exactly five seconds away from tossing her against the wall and taking her.
Five seconds, and everything he’d worked for, for the past nine years, would have been gone. And all because he was having a difficult time controlling his lust for a spoiled princess who did not have enough common sense to wear shoes!
He slammed his fist against the table.
The old man awoke with a snort and fell backward out of his chair. “Where is the princess?”
“Hell. I’m in hell,” Ash muttered, covering his face with his hands.
“Shell? She’s in a shell! What the devil was she doing with a shell?” The old man seemed truly unhinged.
“Well…” Ash sighed. “…the princess is well and on her way to her room as we speak.”
“Oh.” The man scratched his head. “I could have sworn you said shell, and then I was confused because you know how the North Sea is a good wa
lk from here and—”
Ash held up his hand, immediately stopping the man from continuing what was sure to be a painfully long dissertation on shells. “That will be all.”
“Oh.” The man looked down. “Right. I should probably check on the princess.”
“Do that.” Yes. Plague her. By all means.
The man scurried out of his chair and walked briskly out the door, nearly running into it. Perhaps he was sleep-talking? Would explain why he felt the need to drive Ash mad.
Groaning into his hands, he swore fluently as the room stilled around him. All he could hear was the gargantuan effort it took for his lungs to take in air while he sat in that crowded kitchen.
Breathing in and out should not be so difficult. But it was the only thing he could concentrate on — especially considering the air was still permeated with her.
Leaning back in the chair, Ash closed his eyes and concentrated. He counted to twenty in French, recited a monk’s prayer, and then, when he felt fully able to face the darkened evening again, he rose and made a vow — never to allow himself to be alone with the girl again.
Lest she lose her purity.
And he his soul.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Does it not say somewhere that if your eyes are causing you to sin, it would be better for you to pluck them from your head? What if it is not your eyes, but your hands, your feet, your entire body? Should I then finish what I started long ago? —The Grimm Reaper
BLASTED HERO WORSHIP.
Sofia should have nipped that in the bud the very second Ash and Pierce had opened their mouths. Silver-tongued stories of escapades and rescuing fair damsels nearly dripped from their mouths as they loaded the rest of her trunks onto the waiting carriage.
Pierce thrust a fake sword into the air. “And then Ash cried, ‘I will seek my revenge in this life or the next!’”
Wasn’t that from a play?
“What did he do?” Dunlan had gone pale as he dropped the trunk onto the ground and sat on it.
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