Reckless Desire

by Rebecca King

  Their eyes met. She could see the hardness in his eyes that was faintly alarming. Still, she refused to be accused of being wanton enough to have an affair with someone like the Count, not least because she suspected that to do so would draw her invariably into whatever differences this man and the Count had.

  She took his silence as confirmation of his guilt and decided to prod him some more. “You were. You were standing in that room watching us like some sneak thief.”

  “I was merely observing you plastered against him like a common whore,” Joe replied blandly.

  Marguerite’s cheeks flushed. She was briefly, but only briefly, glad that the carriage was dark, and he couldn’t see the fiery blush on her face, or the guilt she knew was written in her eyes.

  “I was not. The man has more hands than an octopus. I didn’t invite him to accost me,” she protested quietly.

  Joe snorted. “So you just happened to be in the only quiet room in the house at the same time that one of the most sought after gentlemen in London was in attendance, and just happened to find yourself wrapped in his arms whilst there. But, of course, none of it was your fault. You were merely an innocent in all of this. You were just kissing him for the heck of it.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not ask him to kiss me, and I did not encourage his affections; yours either for that matter.” She snorted disparagingly. “Why, you will be suggesting we are lovers next.”

  As soon as she had uttered the words, she wished the carriage beneath her would open up and swallow her. Her cheeks flamed again, but she refused to lift her gaze and look at him. She expected a stern put-down, or maybe an insult or two. What fell was a thickening tension she couldn’t understand.

  Joe mentally swore. There wasn’t much he could say to that. He knew that kiss would come back to haunt him, and it had. It left him on the back hoof as it were to explain his way out of his own behaviour.

  Was it right that he kept pushing her to confirm a connection with Sayers that might not be there? She was certainly vehement enough in her stringent denials. Besides, he had kissed her in much the same way as the Count had, and he wasn’t her lover. He had been doing it for more altruistic reasons.

  Liar, a snide voice whispered, but he quickly closed it out and refocused his attention on the woman seated opposite.

  “I shall ask you for one final time, are you and the Count lovers?”

  “No, we are not,” she replied firmly.

  “Are you connected with Sayers or any of his activities in any way?”

  Marguerite opened her mouth to issue him with a stern rebuke but, at the last minute, stopped herself. She suspected she could spend the next hour in this carriage with him and they would do nothing but trade insults that would get them nowhere. Determined to get rid of him the first chance she got, she decided to be as honest with him as she could so he had no reason not to let her go.

  “No, I am not.”

  “Are you engaged to the Count?” Joe demanded.

  “No, I am not,” Marguerite bit out, her voice cold and uncharacteristically hard.

  She opened her mouth to say more but then closed it again. Until she had spoken to her father about this arrangement he was supposed to have entered her into, she couldn’t really say anything else. From the scorn on his face, she didn’t think he would believe her, anyway.

  Besides, it is none of his business, she thought as she studied the ground at her feet.

  “Whatever I have done, I have not asked for,” she replied dully. “I don’t see that wanting some peace for a few minutes is wrong. That was the reason, the only reason, I was in the study. Trying to evade the attentions of someone like the Count is not wrong, and that was what I was doing and had been doing from the moment we were first introduced by the hostess. There is no acquaintance, physical or otherwise, with the Count or anyone else.”

  Joe knew from the finality in her voice that if he asked anything else he was going to be met with a wall of silence.

  “I warn you now that there isn’t much the Count touches that isn’t illegal in some way,” Joe warned.

  “I suspected that someone like you would know that,” she mused spitefully.

  Joe scowled. “How so?”

  “Well, I know that kidnapping someone is wrong, and likely to get you put behind bars, yet you do it, even when you have fought to stop me from being kidnapped. It wasn’t that at all, was it? You just wanted to be the first to ask me questions about him.” She snorted inelegantly but didn’t care what the man thought. “It makes me wonder what the Count, or this Sayers person, would say about you if I was with him.”

  “The Count has no information on me whatsoever,” Joe replied confidently.

  “I don’t care,” Marguerite shouted. “I am more concerned about the fact that you have kidnapped me and are now holding me against my will.”

  She tried to open the door beside her, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “See? Its kidnap because you don’t have my permission to take me anywhere.”

  “I don’t need your permission,” Joe snapped. He warned himself to shut up. He didn’t want to frighten her but if he had to he would, especially if it meant she was a little afraid of him.

  “I shall have you arrested for this,” she assured him.

  Joe shrugged unconcernedly but inside knew he had some explaining to do to his boss if she was an innocent bystander. He had already pushed her far harder than he had any of the other witnesses the Star Elite had under their protection. Although he had no idea why her being connected to Sayers irked him, Joe knew that it did and that made him uncharacteristically grumpy.

  Oh, why can’t I sound just as cold and hard-hearted as he does, she thought with a sigh as she settled back against the seat.

  “Stop this carriage. I am going home.”

  When he made no attempt to move, she slid across the seat to the door he had used to shoot from and pushed at it. To her shock and horror, it swung open easily. Her forward motion propelled her out of the swiftly moving carriage, down toward the road below. Her scream was stifled by the panic that suffused her. She grabbed wildly for the door and clung on only to find that gravity, and the corner the carriage was taking, thrust her into the open air.

  “Damn it, grab my hand,” Joe shouted.

  He leaned toward her as far as he dared without falling out himself, but she was clinging desperately to the end of the door which took her as far away from him as it was possible to get.

  “Help me,” she cried.

  “Grab my hand. Marcus!” Joe bellowed. “Stop!”

  Marcus leaned over the side to take a look at what was going on. He cursed when he saw her, but the height of the carriage prevented him from reaching her. The carriage immediately rumbled to a stop.

  Once it had stopped, Marguerite released the door. She quivered in fright while she absorbed the enormity of what had just happened, and how close she had come to disaster.

  “Are you alright?” Joe asked as he jumped down.

  She stared at him, pale and shaken, and unable to speak.

  Joe reached out to comfort her but then reminded himself who she might still be connected to. There was just something deep inside that refused to relinquish the possibility that she did have a connection to London’s worst thug, but he had no idea why. While he didn’t want to believe it, he had to keep it in mind that she could quite conceivably be the doxy of one of the Star Elite’s most wanted men. Until he had some physical proof to say otherwise, he had to consider her guilty.

  He couldn’t allow any softness to invade the work he did, no matter how beautiful and spirited she was. Whatever physical attraction he had to her could go nowhere, not even if he found out she had no connections to Sayers, mostly because she didn’t belong in his world. She was an innocent bystander; someone who was used to the social whirl of the ton, and inhabited a lifestyle completely alien world to his. As far as he could see, whether Marguerite was guilty or not,
they were a world apart and would always be that way. Because of this, the ridiculous connection he felt toward her had to be ignored-for his own sanity if nothing else.

  With that, he snatched his hand away and glared at her dispassionately. Inside, though, he felt hideously cruel for being so harsh and felt the heavy weight of guilt settle over him when he saw the hurt in the gaze she turned upon him.

  “It will teach you not to open doors in moving carriages, won’t it?” he bit out with a huff.

  Marguerite stared at him while she battled tears.

  “Well, if you hadn’t kidnapped me in the first place, I wouldn’t have done it,” she whispered, horribly hurt by his callousness.

  Joe stood beside the open doorway and motioned to the interior. “Get in.”

  “Go to Hell,” she snapped.

  While she stood there, she cursed herself for being a fool for having believed, even for a little while, that this man was someone she could rely on. He had saved her from the Count’s ruthless determination, but in doing so had thrust her cruelly into a world of subterfuge and lies she just couldn’t understand. The wild accusations he kept levelling at her were just too surreal to be considered realistic. While she had once, stupidly and naively, believed him to be her handsome hero, she knew now he was nothing but a cad, and a liar who was as much of a fraudster as the Count, whoever the hell he was.

  “Everything alright?” Marcus called with a frown.

  “Fine,” Joe replied with a sigh.

  He studied the road behind him. Although he could hear the clatter of hooves on the cobbles, he had yet to see their pursuant but knew it wouldn’t be long before they made an appearance. “Let’s-”

  Marguerite took the opportunity he gifted her when he turned his back. While both men had their attention focused on something further down the narrow street, she whirled around and raced away. Panic left her struggling to work out what to do, which way to go. The only avenue of escape nearby was a narrow mews beside them. It was barely more than a narrow alley between two houses really, but it was too small for the carriage to follow, and led through to another road that would take her away from here; far, far, away. It was enough.

  Although curvy, she wasn’t as large as the men and raced around the various boxes and debris littering the confined space without issue. She stopped only briefly to knock over a tower of crates to prevent either man from following her. With her heart pounding in her ears, she raced for freedom. She had no idea where she was, or where she should go, or what she was running into, but she daren’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She suspected that her life was in danger, and she most probably wouldn’t see daylight again if either Jeremy, or whatever he truly called himself, or the Count, managed to catch her again. What either of them wanted with her was anyone’s guess, but she couldn’t worry that now. She needed to go home so she could speak to her father and find out once and for all what was truly going on. She would then have to face whatever he told her.

  Tears were on her lashes when she eventually raced out of the alley and out onto what appeared to be a market square. All was quiet and still in the darkness of the night. The only sound that could be heard was the tapping of her feet on the cobbles, but she daren’t stop. Instead, she stuck to the shadows and tried to stay hidden as much as she could while she ran toward the only main road she could see, and help. She had no idea where it would take her, but it was the only place she could go.

  Joe cursed as he threw boxes out of his way so he could forge a path through the wood and follow her. He had Marcus at his back, but the alley wasn’t big enough for Marcus to squeeze round him. Both men knew that with each minute that passed, the woman was getting away.

  “Keep after her,” Marcus snapped, once they were clear of the mess. “I’ll get the carriage and try to find a way around to cut her off up ahead.”

  While Marcus raced for the carriage, Joe left the alley but had to stop. He paused to listen. The faint echo of the footsteps rang hollowly around the empty square of buildings, warning him that he was far too late to catch her up. Marcus wasn’t going to be able to reach the area in time to forestall her somewhere up ahead either.

  “Damn it,” Joe snarled. “I’ve lost her.”

  Suddenly, a brief flicker of movement to his right captured his attention. His gaze sharpened as he studied the slight figure scurrying away. He knew immediately who it was. With his gaze locked firmly on her defiant backside, Joe took off after her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dawn started to creep over the horizon, but it brought Marguerite little solace. Over the course of the night, the horribly notorious London fog had descended leaving everything encased in a thick gloom which made seeing anything virtually impossible. In her haste to get home, she had gotten lost. As a result, finding a route back to the house she shared with her father had taken her far out of her way. So much so that she had started to doubt she would ever manage to find her way back.

  Now, she was beyond cold. She was frozen. Her toes had long since gone numb. Her fingers were painful, and her arms, bared to the cold night air, were rippled with goose bumps. She was tired, exhausted even. But all of that was of little consequence right now. What worried her more than anything was what might have happened to her father.

  Throughout the night, the closer she had become to finding her house, the more she realised that the house she had once considered a refuge of safety and sanctuary, was actually none of those things now. Instead, it was a harbinger of bad tidings she had yet to learn. If her father had reached an agreement with the Count, or Sayers, or whatever he called himself, she had no idea what she was going to do. What could she do? Where could she go?

  A deep sense of betrayal had grown with each hour that had passed, especially when she thought about how her father had just abandoned her. She sternly reminded herself that she mustn’t condemn her father until she learned from him why he had left, and heard from him what agreement he had reached with Sayers, if there was one. However, while she tried not to worry, she knew it was wise to consider the actions she could take if the Count’s declaration last night turned out to be true.

  “I cannot ever marry him,” she whispered as she thought over her conversation with her father when he had insisted on them attending the recital in the first place.

  Was that why he had wanted them to go? It wasn’t because he wanted me to meet the Count, it was because of this agreement he had entered me into. He hadn’t even bothered to tell me about it so decided to let the Count do it for him.

  “At least it explains his rather odd behaviour of late. He was the one who insisted we go to the ridiculous recital in the first place,” she added.

  She shivered when a cold blast of icy air swept over her. It was difficult not to cry as she contemplated the cross-roads up ahead. It rather felt like a parody of her life because she rather suspected that after today, her life was going to take a completely different direction, and it wouldn’t altogether completely be of her choosing. She took a moment to look around. She had no idea if she had managed to lose the men who had tried to kidnap her, or whether they were following in the fog somewhere waiting to pounce on her the first time she took a wrong turn. Right now, she was too tired to care. She was exhausted beyond belief, soaking wet, and frozen. Sometime during the night, an age-old weariness had settled over her that threatened to overshadow her fight for survival. Right now, she didn’t care if she had to crawl into a corner of the garden somewhere just to get some sleep. As long as she just had to lay her head down and close her eyes so she could block everything out for a while.

  If only I could, she thought dolefully.

  The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end the closer she got to the house. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not, but a rather heavy, expectant feeling settled over her as she drew closer to the driveway. She had no idea why she felt the way she did, but she knew instinctively that something was not right. It was almost as though the hous
e, indeed the entire area, was too still, too quiet.

  Sensing danger, rather than cross the garden to the back door she paused beneath the long branches of a willow tree and studied the house. The tall, colonnade house stood like a huge beast waiting to devour anyone who ventured near it. All was still and silent-just as it should be for a cold and dank morning. But it was almost too quiet, even on a foggy morning when sounds were muted, anyway.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Marguerite,” she whispered but then glanced furtively around when she realised how foolish she had been by talking to herself aloud. If anybody was nearby, they would know where she was.

  When a cool blast of air swept over her shoulders, she shivered and wished, not for the first time, that she had kept her shawl on at the recital last night. As it was she had left it with the doorman, and hadn’t had the time, or opportunity, to go back to fetch it. Her gown, while beautiful, was not designed for the inclement weather and had provided very little protection from the elements that had battered her all night.

  She touched the hair on the side of her head. It hung in damp ringlets around her face and chilled her already frozen flesh more. Shoving it away from her cheeks, she studied what she could see of the windows of the house when they emerged out of the fog. Some of the shutters were open, just like they had been last night. There weren’t any lights flickering a welcome. The house was devoid of life. Had her father had gone to bed?

  That’s what it is, she thought, her heart pounding with increasing fear. That’s what’s wrong. My father hasn’t stayed up to wait for me. There is no light on in his study, or in his bedroom.

  Wondering if he had fallen asleep at his study desk again, she took a hesitant step forward but then stopped to check her surroundings once more before she left the sheltered protection of the tree. She sternly reminded herself that this was her home and she shouldn’t be afraid. She still found herself tiptoeing cautiously around to the back door, though. She felt ridiculous. There was no reason for her to be tiptoeing anywhere, but she did. Not least because of the niggling worry that someone was going to appear out of the fog and try to cart her off again.