“Neil . . .” She regarded him with a little trouble in her eyes.
“Go on to bed, Beth. We’ll sort the rest out on the morrow.”
He walked past her to the fire then and crouched in front of it, threw another log on the glowing embers, and prodded it with the poker. All the while, firelight played over the broad planes of his bare back. By the time the fire was settled to his apparent satisfaction, she was dressed in the night rail again and tucked up in bed with her eyes tight shut, because she really was very tired, and because her emotions were muddled and she thought that sorting the rest out tomorrow, after they’d both slept and their heads had cooled, was probably the wisest course. But even after he slid under the covers beside her and almost instantly gave every indication of having fallen deep asleep, she remained awake, despite being so tired she ached with it. Though she stayed carefully on her edge—not side; sprawled on his stomach, he took up too much room for that—of the mattress, she could not but be acutely aware of him. To begin with, his stertorous breathing fell just short of snoring. His weight caused the mattress to sink toward him in such a way that if she moved just a little bit out of her spot, she would roll willy-nilly toward him. The heat of him, the force of his presence, an occasional slight movement all made it impossible for her to pretend that he wasn’t there, even though she lay on her side with her face resolutely turned away from him and willed sleep to come to her.
Dear Lord, what have I done? was the panicky thought that, try though she would, she couldn’t get out of her head.
Exhaustion finally claimed her. She knew it did, because she had to have fallen asleep to be subsequently awakened. And she was awakened, though by what she knew not: a sound, probably. An especially loud pop from the fire? The wind rattling the window? Opening her eyes, blinking bemusedly into a thick gloom rife with shadows cast by the dying fire, she was stunned to see one of the shadows move.
At first she could hardly credit her own eyes. But it moved again, stirring from its position near the door and seeming to creep toward the bed. Heart pounding, watching it with widening eyes, afraid to move or reveal that she was awake lest she provoke she knew not what, she realized something even as the shape drew nearer and solidified into a crouching man: she could no longer hear Neil’s harsh breathing.
Just about the time she registered that, a violent shove sent her flying from the bed to fall tumbling to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-seven
THE ENSUING BATTLE was fast and furious and absolutely, unmistakably lethal in intent on both sides. Beth had no sooner hit the floor than she heard the sounds of it, and realized to her horror that Neil had leaped from the bed the instant that he shoved her from it and was from that moment engaged in a deadly fight with an unknown assailant.
“Beth, get out of the room,” Neil roared, but she was already screaming like a banshee and on her feet and diving for the poker, because she was not about to let him face this threat alone. Grabbing it up, fueled by a rush of adrenaline, snatching her night rail out of the way of her flying feet so that the too-long hem would not trip her up, she darted back toward the grappling men, thankful for the firelight that let her tell them apart. They were much of a size, but Neil was naked and the man he fought so closely was not only fully clothed but armed with a wicked-looking knife that gleamed as the light struck it, and so she had no trouble knowing where to aim her blows.
“Goddamn it, Beth!”
Ignoring Neil’s groaning curse—he must have seen her flying approach over the attacker’s shoulder—she brought the poker down with a satisfying thud on the fellow’s back, having aimed for his head but been thwarted when he dodged just in time. She then commenced to whacking him frenziedly when at the first blow he did no more than curse and flinch and try more ferociously than ever to spit Neil on the end of his knife.
The end came as quickly as the beginning. A flurry of movement sent the knife flying. There was a soft crack, and then the assailant crumpled silently to the floor at Neil’s feet.
“Dear God!” Panting with exertion, Beth stood over the inert man, the poker poised ready to strike as Neil bent to check his pulse. His head lay at an odd angle in relationship to his body, and she guessed that his neck had been broken.
“Is he . . . dead?” she asked as Neil straightened.
The face Neil turned on her was as tightly furious as anything she had ever seen. He was once again in predator guise, and as she realized that, she felt her heart skip a beat. This was the part of him she scarcely knew, and didn’t want to know.
“You may thank your lucky stars that he is.” He growled the words at her. “What the bloody hell do you think would have happened to you if he’d killed me instead?”
Before he could say more, there was a loud knock on the door.
“What’s to do in there?” It was the innkeeper, calling through the panel.
“Thank God.” Beth felt some of the tension leave her body at this timely arrival of reinforcements.
“Stay,” Neil hissed when she would have hurried to open the door. “A thousand pardons. My wife had a nightmare,” he called back, and shot Beth a speaking glance.
“A nightmare?” Disbelief was plain in the innkeeper’s voice. “I never heard of no nightmare sounded like that!”
So they were to lie, were they? Beth didn’t understand it, but she was willing to follow Neil’s lead.
“Indeed, I’m very sorry,” she chimed in, trying to keep the breathlessness out of her voice. “It must have been something in the dinner that disagreed with me. It was a most terrible dream.”
“Hmmph. This is a decent establishment, I’ll have you know, where decent people expect to be able to get a good night’s rest. If I hear any more noise out of the pair of you, I’ll cast you out of doors no matter what hour it is.”
“There’ll be no more noise,” Neil promised.
“I’m very sorry,” Beth called again.
With another unhappy “hmmph,” the innkeeper took himself off. For a moment they both stood unmoving, listening to the faint sounds of the innkeeper’s retreating footsteps.
“Well played.” Neil’s voice was low.
“Is there a reason we don’t want anyone to know someone broke into this room and tried to kill you?” she asked, her tone a shade too polite despite her hushed voice, her gaze swinging from the door to him.
“It makes for far too many unpleasant questions.”
Beth looked down at the man at her feet. He was, indisputably, dead.
“Who is he?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“He’s known as the Butcher. His name is Hector Bunn.” Neil was searching the dead man as he spoke.
“Why ‘the butcher’?” Beth couldn’t believe she was speaking so calmly about a corpse that lay newly murdered almost at her feet. Shock, she expected.
“Because he likes to use his knife to carve people up. It’s quick and silent, I grant you, but messy, and there’s always risk involved when you work in close with a knife. For myself, I prefer a clean pistol shot when I can, and when I can’t I’ll use my hands.”
Beth caught her breath. “Dear Lord, he is what you are, isn’t he? An assassin.”
“One of the best,” Neil agreed. He straightened, and Beth saw that he was holding a pistol and a wad of cash he had taken from the dead man.
“What do we do with him?” she asked, looking down at the corpse again, the practical problem posed by having a dead man in their chamber having just occurred to her.
Neil made a sound that was almost a snarl. As she glanced up in surprise she discovered that he was walking—no, stalking—toward her, having disposed of the pistol and cash by tossing them on the end of the bed. Now that she was no longer in fear of either of their lives, his nakedness caught her notice, but she was still too agitated by the situation to pay much attention beyond registering that his private region was as large and impressive as the rest of him, and that he seemed totally unconcerned with his stat
e of undress. What was more to the point was that he was looking angry again, and was bearing down with evident purpose on her. Tension and an almost tangible field of dark energy seemed to emanate from him like rays from the sun, electrifying the air around him. Her instinctive response was a tiny little frisson of unease (never say fear!), but this was Neil, she reminded herself stoutly, and stood her ground.
“Most females would be having hysterics about now.” He didn’t sound like he was complimenting her on her fortitude. His eyes were once again as shiny black as pieces of jet as they held hers. “They would be terrified at what they had just witnessed, and shrinking away from me, and they for damned certain wouldn’t have started walloping a professional killer who could slice them open with one swipe of his knife with a damned ridiculous poker, which, by the way and for future reference, makes for a piss-poor weapon.”
Having delivered himself of that speech, he took the poker, which she had tucked up under one arm, from her and threw it on the bed, where it landed with a bounce. Then he caught her arms just above the elbows in a strong grip that stopped just short of hurting her. When she raised her brows at him with what she meant to be quelling hauteur, he pinioned her with a look that should, by rights, have made her cower.
She put up her chin at him.
“You say that as if you wished I was such a puling creature.”
His face tightened dangerously. “What I wish is that you had enough sense to recognize that you would be better off far away from me. Bunn came after me, but he would have killed you without a qualm. And I—I’m no better than he. This whole situation—you, me, married—is nothing short of utter folly. I’m a killer, damn it, by inclination as well as training, as ruthless as they come, with no conscience at all. You think I’m sorry for all the lives I’ve taken? I’m not. This is what I am. This is what I do. Underneath this thin layer of civilization I’ve shown you, I’m a savage, a vicious animal who’s no longer fit for any but the lowest of human company. You may rest assured the devil has a special place reserved in hell for those of my breed.”
Beth felt her heart lurch as she realized that he truly believed what he was saying.
“Oh, pooh!” she said. “What nonsense.”
For the merest instant something flickered in his eyes—disbelief? admiration?—and then he pulled her up onto her toes and took her mouth in a kiss that was as savage as he claimed to be. The sheer force of his mouth on hers caused her lips to part instantly beneath the onslaught; his tongue took fierce possession of her mouth. Lips hard and cruel, he kissed her as if he wished to reinforce his words, to frighten her, to cause her to pull away from him, but instead she kissed him back just as fiercely, her lips clinging to his, her tongue clashing with his in a war that she was afraid, for his life, to lose, because if she did she was as certain as she’d ever been of anything that he would thrust her away from him and vanish into the night, to take his chances on his own.
When he lifted his head at last to glare down at her, she matched him furious look for furious look.
“You may try as you will. You can’t scare me,” she said, though her heart pounded and her breathing came way too fast.
His eyes flamed down at her. She held his gaze without flinching.
“Oh, can’t I just?”
Lips twisting, he released one arm at last—his grip was hurting her now, though she would be boiled in oil before she would give him a sign of it—and then, before she guessed what he would be about, he locked his fingers over the neck of her night rail and yanked downward. The sound of ripping material was as shocking to her ears as the sudden breath of night air on her skin.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” It took her a second to recover from the shock, and then she glanced down at herself, aghast. The night rail, ripped past her navel, was already falling from her shoulders. Her breasts, her waist, the curve of her hips and belly, were all laid bare to his view. Only his grip on her arm kept it from dropping away entirely.
“Teaching you the truth about what I am.” Reaching inside the edges of the ruined garment, he fondled her breasts, not gently but crudely, handling her as if she had no say in this at all and he could do with her as he would. To her surprise, her nipples responded to his roughness with shocking eagerness, hardening and thrusting against his palm. Her knees grew weak. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Glancing down at herself, at the full pale slopes of her breasts from which her nipples thrust, now quiveringly erect, feeling the heated tightening in the pit of her stomach that was becoming almost familiar to her now, she knew that there was no mistaking the desire he had roused her to, and that he recognized it as well as she did. One look at the expression on his lean, handsome face as his eyes raked over her told her that.
“I know what you are.” Embarrassed at the physical evidence of her own response, she yanked her arm from his hold and whisked out of his reach, grabbing for the edges of the ruined night rail before it slithered to her feet and pulling them together. His unfamiliar aggression had ignited her temper—ordinarily, no man, not even he, would use her so and live to tell the tale!—but for once in her life she tamped it down. The stakes were too high. She was determined to keep him with her, to keep him safe, no matter the cost. “A gentleman. A kind man. And a good one. Though you try to hide it, that’s what you are at heart.”
He laughed, the sound harsh and grating, with no amusement in it at all.
“You won’t long think so,” he promised.
Then he came after her, his face hard, moving as swiftly and silently as a panther, catching her around the waist and lifting her clean up off her feet when she disdained to retreat before him, then stripping away in a single ruthless stroke the ruined night rail, which fluttered down to land on the carpet, white as a flag of surrender in the darkness. Suddenly as naked as he was himself, shocked to feel his arm curling beneath her bare bottom as he lifted her up against his solid, muscular warmth, she gave a squeak of surprise. Grabbing his wide shoulders for balance, her eyes locked to his, which burned into hers, Beth found her back pushed up against the cool plaster wall near the door. He crowded against her, both hands on her bottom now, forcing her legs to open as he positioned himself between them, pulling her hard against the cradle of his hips. Even as her thighs obediently parted to straddle him he thrust inside her, impaling her without warning, hot and turgid and every inch the conquering male as he filled her to capacity and beyond.
“Oh!” She cried out at the shock of it, at the sense of sudden harsh violation, at the force of his penetration. Giving her no chance to do anything but capitulate, he clamped his mouth down over hers to stifle the sound, kissing her with a deep, almost barbaric intensity that made her instantly weak and dizzy. Then he took her there against the wall with a single-minded ferocity that she would have resisted with every fiber of her being had it been turned on her by anyone else. Clinging to him, legs wrapped at his silent direction around his waist, she endured the hard thrust of his hips crushing her into the wall, the carnality of his hot, wet mouth on her lips and neck and breasts, the fierce possession of his hands cupping her bottom and holding her captive for his pleasure, until suddenly shocked endurance no longer described what she was experiencing at all. This lovemaking was rough, it was atavistic, it was as far removed from the gentle caresses she imagined she desired as anything could possibly be, but all at once she found herself melting inside, on fire with need, moving with him, wanting, wanting . . . more.
“This is sex, my girl,” he whispered into her ear as he rocked himself inside her. “It’s dark and dirty, nothing like that pretty parlor game we’ve been playing up ’til now. How do you like it?”
“Doubtless—I shall become accustomed.” Her voice was ragged, but her tone was defiant.
Her answer seemed to drive him wild. He made a harsh sound under his breath and drove into her, pinioning her against the wall with deep, hard thrusts that seemed to reach to her very core. Trembling, back arching, holding on
to him now for all she was worth, kissing him as if she would die if she didn’t, she felt him come into the hot liquid center of her again and again and again. Eyes closed, breathing erratically, heart pounding, in the grip of an urgent throbbing tension that seemed to be winding ever tighter, she realized that she would not free herself even if she could. She didn’t want him to stop. Not now. Not yet. Oh, God, not ever. There was no sound except for the harsh rasp of his breathing and the frantic coupling of their bodies. The scent of what they were doing was all around them. His skin was smooth and slick with sweat and so hot it seemed to burn her everywhere they touched. They were joined together, one flesh, and he took her as thoroughly and as furiously as if he had every right, which, she realized with the tiny part of her mind that wasn’t dazzled with heat and shock and a tide of rising passion, he did, because she had given it to him.
Married past redemption. Instead of regret, the thought was accompanied by a quaking wave of heat.
“God in heaven,” he groaned at last, his voice thick and tormented. He ground into her one more time, holding himself inside, spilling his seed in a scalding burst that liquefied her bones.
“Neil,” she whispered in shaken answer, but he was kissing her again and the sound of her voice was swallowed up by his mouth, so she knew he didn’t hear.
Just as suddenly as it had begun, the onslaught was over. He held her captive for only a moment longer before disengaging their bodies and allowing her to slide to her feet. She still breathed like she was dying, though his breathing was already under control. Her arms still wrapped around his neck, although he was already putting her away from him. Her body still burned and yearned and ached for him, for something that she sensed still eluded her that he could give her, although his passion had clearly been spent.
It was over. She had survived.
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