A Hint of Wicked

by Jennifer Haymore

  “No?” Fisk tsked. “Now that is a pity.”

  “It is,” she breathed.

  He took another small step forward. Sophie’s breath whooshed from her chest, and she stilled her trembling hands. Her muscles screamed in protest at maintaining the position. The pistol felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

  Fisk’s upper lip curled. “I just want you to know one thing, duchess. For the past eight years, I was the one with the power to bring the Duke of Calton home. I knew exactly where he was, who he was with. I went to Belgium every year, watched him from afar, and gloated at his poverty and hopelessness.” Fisk smiled faintly. “It was the most beautiful revenge I could ever hope for. It was really too bad he finally saw me and recognized me.”

  His smile widened, and his teeth, glistening white, appeared from behind his pale, thin lips.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Your Grace. Even if you had tried to shoot, I would’ve been faster.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he reached into a pocket of his robe and drew out a tiny silver pistol. Sophie whimpered as the barrel rose toward her chest, but she still couldn’t squeeze her own trigger. Her legs collapsed beneath her as some instinct compelled her to dive to the floor.

  But it was too late. The retort of the pistol shook the walls of the small room, and red, fiery pain consumed her.

  The boom of a gunshot echoed through the night, startling Tristan’s horse, who leaped into a gallop. Even as he tried to calm the animal, Tristan focused on the light shining from the open, second-story window above him and swung his leg over the horse’s back to dismount. He left the animal to languish in the street, or run. It didn’t matter. He knew Sophie was up there, and she was in danger.

  Please, God. Please. Don’t let her be hurt.

  Garrett was on his heels as he bounded up the stairs, heedless of the wide-eyed people in their nightclothes peeking at him from behind partially opened doors. In seconds, they reached the top of the second flight of stairs. He spun to the right, seeing a lone open door and light spilling from a room at the end of the corridor.

  “Sophie!” he shouted, sprinting for the doorway.

  The loud crack of a pistol sounded from behind him, and then, almost instantly, another. Tristan flung a look back toward the stairs. Garrett had turned, and though a bullet had torn a ragged hole in his thigh and blood seeped down the sides of his buff breeches, he wasn’t down. Garrett’s shot had apparently gone wild, because the man who had attacked from behind was racing for him, fists upraised. Garrett threw his pistol down and lunged at him. Tristan spun back toward the door just as a dark figure slammed into him, dragging him to the floor and knocking the gun out of his hand. The weapon skittered across the wood planks and came to rest at the opposite wall.

  Tristan moved his focus from his gun, now out of arm’s reach, to the man above him. William Fisk.

  His lips were bared into a snarl behind the fist aiming for Tristan’s mouth. Tristan whipped his head to the side just in time, and the blow glanced off his jaw. Pain jolted through his skull.

  He pounded at Fisk’s sides, but didn’t have the leverage to toss him off. Fisk pinned Tristan’s arms beneath his legs and leveled punch after punch at his face. Tristan bucked, trying to throw Fisk off, but the man clung to him like a parasite. And then Fisk’s gleaming brown eyes caught sight of the pistol just above Tristan’s head. Tristan felt the other man’s muscles tense as he prepared to leap for it. The instant he began to move, Tristan jerked his arms free, grasped Fisk’s shoulders, and thrust him backward. Off balance, Fisk landed hard on his backside, then scrambled to his feet. Tristan was closer to the gun now, though. He turned over and lunged for it. He grabbed it and flipped his body, raising himself on his elbows to aim at Fisk.

  Just beyond Fisk, Sophie stood in the doorway holding Garrett’s pistol. God. Blood stained her white bodice and sleeve in a bright, garish wash of red. She swayed on her feet, her face pale as death.

  She didn’t even cast a glance at Tristan; she focused solely on Fisk. She narrowed her eyes, aiming, then the loud crack of gunfire echoed down the hall. The recoil sent her stumbling backward, and she crumpled to the ground. Fisk dropped to his knees, red blooming on his shoulder.

  Tristan didn’t give a damn about Fisk.

  “Sophie!” His heart beating like a drum in his ears, he scrambled through the doorway. Still holding the pistol, he gathered Sophie’s still form to him, rocking her in his arms. She was warm, but there was blood everywhere, seeping onto his coat. Her chest rose and fell with light, rapid breaths.

  “Sophie.” Garrett sank to his knees across from Tristan, his blue eyes wild.

  “Fetch a doctor,” Tristan shouted to anyone, everyone. He held her closer, cupping her beautiful, warm cheek in his hands.

  There was movement outside the door, but Tristan didn’t bother to look. It was Fisk escaping. He just didn’t give a damn.

  He wouldn’t give Sophie up, not to Garrett or anyone.

  “Let me see her chest,” Garrett said softly.

  Tristan’s instinct was to pull her even deeper into his embrace, but Garrett set his hand over his forearm. “Lay her down,” he said gently. “We must see where the bullet hit her. We must stop the bleeding.”

  Trying to control his wild panic, Tristan nodded. Carefully, he returned Sophie to the floor. There was blood everywhere. He was drenched in it.

  Garrett pulled a dagger from his coat. “We’ll have to cut her dress off.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Garrett stared at him for a moment, then gave a short jerk of a nod and offered him the blade hilt-first.

  Garrett’s leg wound still oozed, and raw, red flesh showed through his torn breeches. The injury didn’t seem to stop him from rattling off orders to the people surrounding them. Hot water, torn cloths, blankets. Someone to go after Fisk, to find Becky. All the activity faded to a drone as Tristan sliced Sophie’s bodice down the front, exposing her pale chest. Her skin was damp and growing clammy to the touch, but he couldn’t find the source of the blood.

  Please, God. Please let her be all right.

  “Don’t die, love,” he whispered. Her chest barely moved now, her breaths were so shallow. He searched more frantically for the source of the blood, tearing her gown, petticoats, and stays to her waist.

  “Try her arm,” Garrett said.

  Tristan nodded. Her sleeve was drenched with blood. Then he saw the tear in the fabric. With shaking hands, he used the dagger to extend the opening up and down the length of her arm.

  “That’s it.”

  “Goddamn,” Tristan breathed as he revealed the hole in the underside of her arm between her armpit and elbow. Red liquid spurted sluggishly from it with every beat of her heart.

  “She’s bleeding to death.”

  “We’ll stop it,” Garrett said, his voice grim. “Hold her arm out.”

  Tristan carefully raised her hand, letting her sleeve fall away. Garrett wrapped a strip of cloth tightly around her arm, tying its ends together as Tristan mopped away the excess blood.

  “The bullet went clean through her flesh,” Garrett said. “It must’ve opened an artery.”

  Sophie took a deep, gasping breath, and her eyelids fluttered.

  “That’s right, love,” Tristan whispered. “Breathe. Breathe deep. Don’t leave me— ” He glanced at Garrett, who was applying pressure to her injury. “Don’t leave us, Sophie. We love you. Miranda and Gary love you.”

  He hoped some part of her could hear him, could hear the desperation in his voice, could understand.

  He bent over her, pulling the jagged edges of her bodice together for modesty’s sake, whispering words of love and hope into her ear. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, kissing her, talking to her, giving comfort to her the only way he knew how. At one point, Garrett murmured, “I think the bleeding has stopped.”

  Tristan prayed she hadn’t lost too much blood. “Where’s the doctor?” he asked without looking up fr
om her pallid face.

  “Someone’s gone to fetch ’im.”

  Tristan didn’t acknowledge the unfamiliar voice. “Did you hear that, Soph? Doctor’s on his way.”

  In a few more moments, the doctor arrived, and Tristan and Garrett grudgingly gave up their places at her side. Tristan stood, and Garrett stumbled up beside him, favoring his injured leg. Together, they scanned the crowd gathered round. All strangers, with concerned expressions on their faces. No sign of Fisk or the henchman. They’d probably escaped. Nobody had brought Becky, either.

  Another stranger appeared at the threshold. “We’ve found another injured ’un out ’ere, doctor. Says ’is name’s Tom,” he said in a thick Yorkshire drawl. Tristan and Garrett exchanged a glance.

  “Is he breathing?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Strong pulse?”

  “Aye, sir. Looks like someone hit ’im over and again with a cricket bat. He’s complaining loud as can be, so I’d wager he ain’t too bad off.”

  “I’ll be there in a moment.” After a rapid assessment of Sophie’s limp form, the doctor looked up. “Who wrapped her arm?”

  Garrett placed a heavy hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “We did.”

  The man nodded, then took her pulse a second time. “She’s lost a lot of blood, but if you hadn’t wrapped it as tightly as you did, she’d have bled to death. You saved her life.”

  “She’ll live?” Garrett asked.

  “She’ll need several days of rest, to regain her strength. But yes, if the wound heals properly, she’ll live.”

  Garrett gave Tristan’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Thank God,” Tristan said breathlessly.

  Sophie’s eyes fluttered. “Tristan?”

  Tristan sank to his knees beside her and gathered her into his arms. “Yes, love. I’m here.”

  He bowed his head, blinking back tears of relief.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Good morning.” Sophie smiled up at Tristan and stretched her body, pointing her toes toward the foot of the bed but keeping her left arm unmoving at her side. They’d remained at the inn in Brough since they’d clashed with Fisk five nights ago. Her wound was healing well, but it was still sore and she tended to favor it. She felt strong, now, though. Ready to go home.Even though it wouldn’t be with Becky. Sophie had injured Fisk, but her shaking hands had gotten the best of her, and she hadn’t killed him. He’d managed to slink away while Garrett and Tristan had worked to save her, and he’d taken Becky with him.

  “Good morning, love.” Tristan stood over her, dressed in gray trousers and a loose shirt. The bruises on his jaw from his fight with Fisk were healing rapidly thanks to an ointment prescribed by the doctor. She reached for him, and he tangled his fingers with hers. Lord, she loved the feel of his hands. She tugged on his fingers, drawing him to sit on the edge of the bed.

  Sophie had taken to sleeping late the past few days, and Tristan came to wake her so they could spend some time alone before they joined Garrett for breakfast.

  “I missed you.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. She infused everything she meant into the inflection of her words. She missed being beside him, talking to him, knowing he’d come home to her at the end of the day. She missed touching him, kissing him. She missed his tall body curled up against hers in bed. She missed his companionship, his ready smile, his possessive, loving nature. She missed him. All of him.

  And she needed him beside her.

  Looking down at her with his intense dark eyes, he stroked a knuckle over her cheek, then touched the white scar above her left eye. The wound Fisk had inflicted with the lamp had healed, but it had left her with a twin of Garrett’s scar. The doctor had told her it would never completely vanish.

  She took a deep breath. “Please, Tristan… lie beside me.”

  After staring at her for a long, assessing moment, he nodded. He kicked off his shoes and stretched his long body next to hers. She lay on her back, unable to roll to her side because of her arm, but still she reveled in his sheer masculine strength pressed to her side.

  “How’s Tom?”

  Tristan smiled. “Better. His fever stayed down all night.”

  She breathed a deep sigh of relief. The day after the fight, Tom had developed an infection in one of his wounds, and his fever had run dangerously high. But the fever broke early in the day yesterday, and they had been optimistic. “Thank the Lord. He tried so hard to protect me.”

  “Yes. He is a good man.”

  “Why, Tristan?” She snuggled deeper against him. “Why would someone try so hard to ruin all of our lives? Hurt an innocent bystander like Tom?”

  “Fisk hated Garrett. And by association, he hated every-one who was close to him.”

  “But surely he must’ve known the ruse couldn’t go on forever.”

  Tristan shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps he planned to run off with Becky from the beginning.”

  Sophie released a shallow breath. The mention of Becky still sent sharp pain slicing through her.

  His fingers traveled from her cheek down to her nightgown, and a single digit rounded the lacy edge of her neckline, caressing the delicate flesh of her collarbone. She turned her head to watch him. The single-minded intensity of his gaze sent tremors running beneath her skin.

  His fingers slipped down the front of her linen nightgown, between her breasts and toward her bellybutton, a light, fluttering touch that made her think of the dichotomy of Tristan, at once the gentle lover and the hard, commanding master of her body. The easy, unassuming man everyone loved, and the determined pursuer of what he most desired. Her.

  “I’ve missed you, too, Soph.”

  Emotion rolled through her, but she couldn’t get the words out. She gazed at his handsome face.

  He smoothed his free hand over her hair, and the calm expression on his face faltered.

  “You are so precious to me, love.”

  His fingers traveled over her hip and down the outside of her thigh. “When you aren’t with me, I feel like a part of me is missing. When I’m beside you, I feel like I might overflow

  —” He shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know. All these feelings well up within me. Love, affection, happiness. They fill me completely. You—you make me feel worthwhile.”

  “You are worthwhile to so many people, Tristan,” she murmured. Then she looked him in the eye. “Most of all to me.”

  He released a long, slow breath. His fingers caught the hem of her nightgown and inched it upward.

  “I want you, Sophie.”

  “Garrett will be expecting us soon.”

  She closed her eyes as his palm flattened over her thigh. His warmth traveled through her leg and poured like honey through her, settling warm and smooth in her core. One corner of Tristan’s mouth crooked upward in a smile. “He’s been a bear, hasn’t he?”

  “He’s worried about his sister. And he hates being trapped in that bed.” His leg was healing, but the bullet had taken a large chunk of flesh with it, and the doctor had forbidden him from leaving the bed until he decreed otherwise. Sophie hoped, for all of their sanity, that would happen today.

  Tristan squeezed her thigh gently. “Yes. He’ll be up and about soon, and his temper will improve.”

  She relaxed completely, content beside the man she loved.

  The man she loved.

  She never felt so comfortable with anyone. Not even with Garrett. As much as she’d struggled against it in the past weeks, she’d chosen between them. The truth settled in her heart, and instead of tearing her apart as she thought it would, it healed her.

  She opened her eyes, watching Tristan as she spoke. “I—I have to tell you something, Tristan.”

  “What is it, love?”

  “Perhaps it will make you hate me. But I have to tell you. I have to know—” She broke off, unable to finish the sentence.

  He met her gaze. “You can tell me anything. You know that, Soph.”

  Yes, bu
t this?

  “Before you left London, I had a thought. An imagining. It came from the deepest, most secret part of me.”

  She stared at him, knowing he would remember those nights they shared fantasies in the dark, knowing he would understand the carnal nature of her imagining. He went very still.

  “What was it, Soph?”

  “I need to tell you, because I’ve never kept anything from you, and I don’t want to start now. But this… this was wicked. I fear you will hate me.”

  His lips curled into a soft smile. “Nothing could make me hate you.”

  She took a deep breath and told him her secret, cringing inside with every word. “I imagined you and Garrett and I sharing a bed. Both of you—” She gulped in another breath. “—making love to me at the same time.”

  Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. Tristan was silent for a long moment. Emotion clogged her throat. They had always been honest with each other, but this—this surpassed the bounds of acceptability.

  She had finally disgusted him. Now he would reject her.

  Finally, he spoke. “Is that all?”

  She opened her eyes. “What?”

  His dark eyebrows had drawn together, and his gaze was questioning. “There’s nothing more?”

  She shook her head. “No. That—that was all.”

  His smile returned. “God, Sophie. The way you were talking. Hell, I thought it was something terrible.”

  “But… isn’t that terrible? Don’t I betray you both by thinking such things?”

  “It’s not a betrayal, Soph. I understand you love him, too. I know you wanted him—

  wanted us both.”

  “You don’t despise me for it?”

  “God, no.” He paused, and then he spoke softly. Sadly. “It will never happen. You know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded. He cupped her chin, angling her head so she faced him.

  “I’d do anything for you.” His smile deepened until his dimple appeared. She raised her hand, stroking a fingertip over the tiny cleft. “Anything but that.”