The Duke of Holburn had the power to banish her darkest fears. She wanted to kiss him. Almost craved it. It was the strength of her will pitted against the powerful lure of lust.
Her arms around his neck, she twisted the stopper from the vial. Her hand was a foot above his wine glass.
His hands cupped her face as he broke the kiss. He looked up at her, his eyes black with desire. “I like you, Fiona,” he whispered. “I like you very much. I’ve not met one who has attracted me the way you do.”
He drew a finger across her bottom lip, his smile so wickedly tender, it made her dizzy. He knew his impact on her. Her reaction pleased him. He turned her, bringing one leg over his so that she straddled his body. She could feel the heat and length of his arousal.
For a second, panic threatened. Her breathing grew shallow. She couldn’t control herself. Memories of the rape competed with a yearning, a desire she’d never known before.
The duke frowned, noticing the change in her. His hold loosened. “What is the matter?”
Half embarrassed and half relieved, she said, “Nothing,” as she tilted her hand behind him and poured the contents of the vial into his wine. She let the small bottle drop to the table. The duke never noticed, or so she thought.
He drew back, looking up at her. “You aren’t easy about this.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m nervous.” She couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Don’t be,” he said, rubbing the small of her back in the most comforting way possible. “I’m not a man who hurts women or doesn’t give a care to their feelings.”
She looked to him. “Do you think I’m afraid?”
“I know you are,” he answered. “But at the same time, Fiona, you must feel the connection between us, too. I was meant to meet you. We were supposed to be here at this time and place. I’ll not lie. I want you.” He moved her closer so she was sitting atop the hardness of his body. “But I’ll not force myself upon you. I won’t have to.”
She knew he was right. Just looking at him quickened the beat of her heart.
“Here,” he said. “Have a drink of this.” He turned and picked up his wine glass from the table to offer her.
“Mine is the other glass,” Fiona hurriedly corrected him.
He didn’t make comment but reached for her glass and handed it to her. He picked up his own. Facing her, he clinked the rim of their glasses together.
“To you, Fiona…and to what I anticipate being a very enjoyable association between us.”
She took a sip, watching with a sense of horror as he drained most of what was in his glass. He set it aside and reached for hers.
“Better?” he asked. He turned his attention to her hair, pulling out two of the pins that kept it from falling down her back. He spread it out over her shoulders, combing it with his fingers.
As he leaned in to give a kiss at the very sensitive point where her jaw met her neck, Fiona stopped him with a palm against his shoulder. Her conscience couldn’t let her keep quiet.
“I should tell you something.”
Annoyance crossed his face. “Later,” he murmured, moving to kiss her again.
Fiona placed her fingers across his mouth.
He opened his eyes.
She drew a breath for courage and then let the words spill out, “I am very sorry but I’ve given you a potion that Hester Bowen said will make you violently ill. I was supposed to give it to Lord Belkins but then he sent you in his place to meet that mysterious Spaniard and, well, I’m sorry I’m not him but you must understand, I can’t do this.” She said the last as she rose from his lap.
“Can’t do what?” he repeated as if she’d been speaking gibberish. “And what potion?”
“It’s something Hester gave to me,” she said as she swept up the coveted coin purse from the table. “I earned this,” she informed him, more to assuage her own conscience than in stating her rights.
“I poured the vial in your wine,” she continued as she moved toward the door, backing away so she could keep her eye on him. She’d lost her shawl. It was on the floor by the bed. She wasn’t going to walk back by him to retrieve it. “I didn’t want to do it but you are too—” She paused, needing the right word. “—Overpowering for me. You just scoop me up and I bend to your will. I can’t do that. I can’t let anyone ever do that to me.”
He’d risen to his feet, his expression one of confusion. “You poisoned me—?”
“No,” she quickly said. “Hester said it isn’t poison but you will be ill.” Fiona wasn’t about to tell him Hester’s exact words about what it would do to his “guts.” “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her body still hummed with the need he’d aroused. She tightened her grip on the leather coin purse. “But in this life, we all must do what we can to survive.” It didn’t help her conscience to see him place his hand against his abdomen as if feeling some distress.
“Good-bye,” she said, hating herself for what she’d done, yet having no other choice but to leave. The duke was not going to be happy when Hester’s potion took full effect.
However, before she could reach for the door, it came crashing open, forcing her to jump back in alarm.
A pock-faced man with shaggy hair and dark clothing entered the room, followed by two equally disreputable-looking characters. In the man’s hand was a pistol, and he aimed it straight at the Duke of Holburn.
Chapter Three
Fiona stepped in front the duke. “Who are you? Did Hester send you—”
The duke grabbed her arm and pulled her to stand behind him. Sweat marred his forehead as he battled the potion’s effects, but his voice was strong. “What do you want? Did Ramigio send you?”
The leader of the group closed the door. They were a foul-smelling lot. The scent of them sucked up all the air in the room’s close confines. “I don’t know a Hester,” he said, the sound of Ireland in his voice, “and if Ramigio is a man who wants you removed, then I suppose we are from him. That is, unless you have other enemies, Your Grace?” He didn’t wait for an answer but said, “Now kindly take off your clothes and your boots and climb into that bed.”
“What makes you think I’ll do anything you say?” the duke countered.
“Because I will put a hole in the lass if you don’t,” the Irishman answered. “And you will still end up dead. My boys and I are a determined lot.”
“What of the lass, Thomas?” the henchman on the left asked the leader. “Do we kill her, too?”
Thomas grinned. He was missing two of his front teeth. “We’ll see what we feel like doing once we have taken care of the duke. We want it to look as if she murdered him and not us so I suppose we’d best not leave her behind.”
Fiona wasn’t about to let the likes of them touch her, let alone have the opportunity to rape her. She reached back and wrapped her hand around the top of the wine bottle sitting on the table. So far, only one of them had a gun. He couldn’t shoot at two targets at once. She prayed Hester still waited with the coach out in the inn yard.
“Come along, Your Grace,” Thomas said, waving the barrel of his gun toward the bed even as his fellows rolled up their sleeves, preparing to use force. “We can make this easy or hard. Either way, it’s going to happen. Someone has paid us a lot of money to see you gone.”
“Then he’ll be disappointed,” Holburn promised, aping Thomas’s cheerfulness and in one smooth movement lifted the chair he’d just been sitting in and threw it at the gunman.
After that, everything began to happen fast. The chair hit the gunman against the side of his head. He lost his balance, falling back into his mates.
“Run,” Holburn ordered Fiona.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She charged toward the door, one hand still gripping the coin purse, her other hand holding the wine bottle. The duke was right at her heels.
Thomas made a grab to stop her. The duke grabbed the wine bottle from Fiona and threw it at him, while smashing his elbow in the face of the third henchman. The
man had been caught off guard by the sudden turn of events and had been blocking their way to the door. He fell back into the other two, sending them sprawling again.
From the corner of her eye, Fiona caught a glimpse of a gun. She yanked open the door, practically falling out into the hallway.
The duke took her arm, pulling her with him as he ran down the narrow corridor for the front door. He was breathing heavily. When he stumbled, she realized he struggled with the effects of Hester’s potion and she threw her arm around his waist to help him. Their footsteps echoed on the hard wood floor and in seconds Fiona could hear the sound of the Irishmen following.
The jovial Mr. Denby must have heard the noise. He came out into the hallway from a side room to see what was the matter, stepping right into their path. “I say, what’s happening here.”
“Out of the way,” the duke ordered, shoving him aside.
“Who are you men?” Fiona heard Mr. Denby say to the Irishmen. “What are you doing in my place—?”
His voice broke off with the sound of fists hitting flesh.
Fiona started to turn. “Don’t look back,” Holburn growled in her ear. His hand reached past her, grabbing the handle of the front door and yanking it open. He gave her a hard shove forward just as the pistol was fired.
Wood splintered off the door. Fiona couldn’t help but give a cry. The duke’s arm came around her waist, propelling them both out into the inn yard. The Irishman had missed. He’d have to reload to fire again and now was their chance to escape.
She heard a string of Gaelic curses and then a shout, “Stop them!”
“This way,” Fiona said, grabbing his coat sleeve. Hester’s coach was still waiting. Hester had been anxiously pacing beside the hired coach as she waited for Fiona. She now stopped in the circle of light around the coach lamps. “What took you so long?” she started and then seeing the duke said, “Who is he? Where is Belkie?”
“Climb in the coach,” Fiona shouted.
The driver had been standing by his horse’s head. He summed up the situation and, without hesitation, swung up on the box. Picking up the reins, he said to Hester, “You’d best climb in.”
The Irish henchmen were outside. The duke was leaning over, one hand on his side as if in pain. Fiona pushed him toward the open coach door first but he held back, motioning her to go forward.
“Please, Hester, into the coach,” Fiona begged.
But Hester didn’t move. “What’s happening?” she demanded. “Why is he with you? Did you give Belkie the potion?”
“It’s a long story,” Fiona started, taking Hester’s arm and attempting to direct her up the step into the coach. “I’ll tell you inside.”
Hester stepped back. “What is going on?” she demanded enunciating each syllable. She was a woman accustomed to having her way. She stepped toward the duke, blocking his way to the inside of the coach. Her pigheadedness gave one of the Irishmen the chance to grab the duke.
It was that moment the potion went to work.
The duke doubled over and lost his dinner with such force it startled the Irishman enough to fall back.
Hester screamed in horror. She moved away. “That’s not Belkie,” she said. “It’s not him.”
The Irish were backing away from the duke’s obvious illness. Now was their chance to escape.
Fiona grabbed the duke’s arm and steered him up into the coach. “Hester, we can discuss this later.” She climbed into the coach after the duke.
Hester didn’t budge. She faced them, her hands on her hips, “This coach isn’t going anywhere until I have answers.”
The duke leaned out of the coach to hold a hand out to Hester. “Come.” That one word had cost him considerable strength.
She recoiled with disgust. “I don’t think so,” she said, backing away from him. He grabbed the front of her coat and attempted to yank her into the coach just as a pistol shot filled the air.
Thomas had come out of the inn and stood ten feet away.
The duke came back into the coach, his hand losing its hold on Hester. But it wasn’t him the shot had hit. It was the courtesan. Thomas had missed, again.
Hester’s eyes widened. “What is going on?” she repeated and then fell to the ground.
“Drive,” the duke shouted at the coachman as the Irishman cursed his bad aim. He threw the pistol at the coach and shouted to his mates. “If you want your money, stop them.”
Fiona tried to go to Hester. The duke blocked her with his arm. “It’s too late.”
And he was right. She had more important problems like the Irishman who followed their leader’s order by trying to climb inside the coach with them.
With a scream, Fiona leaned back as the duke came forward. Another shot rang out but it wasn’t from the Irish. The fire had come from Holburn’s hand.
Their attacker dropped to the ground with a grunt and started hollering in pain.
The duke shouted at the coachman who appeared frozen in fright, “Drive, damn you.” His words brought the man to his senses. They took off as the duke slammed the coach door shut.
Thomas and his remaining comrade attempted to chase after them, but tripped over Hester’s still body.
Fiona couldn’t move. “They killed her,” she said, shocked by how quickly everything had happened and not believing any of it.
The duke fell back into the corner of the cab’s close confines. His breathing was shallow. Deep lines etched his face and his hair across his brow was damp with sweat. “They wanted us,” he reminded her.
“No, they wanted you.”
The driver drove like a madman in the night fog. He let the horse have his lead and the beast was as frightened as Fiona. The coach swayed crazily all over the road. It was all Fiona could do to keep her balance. The duke was a silent, still figure in the corner of the coach, his arms hugging his sides.
At last the driver gained control of his horse and the ride grew smoother. Resettling herself, Fiona shivered from fear and the weather. “I left my shawl back in the room,” she said, the complaint sounding inane considering the circumstances. She was surprised she still held the duke’s coin purse. She dropped it on the seat as if blaming it for all that had happened this night.
The duke had closed his eyes. He didn’t speak. The corners of his mouth were white with pain.
A knock on the roof signaled the driver wanted to talk to them. Fiona lowered the window. “I think we lost them,” he shouted at them as if he needed confirmation that they were all right.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you know where you want me to take you?” he asked.
Fiona glanced at the duke. He had placed one hand on the seat between them, the fingers curled into a tight fist. “Take us where you picked me up,” she instructed and raised the window.
She sat back in her seat, her arms crossed against the cold. Several minutes of silence ticked by, allowing a hundred questions to fill Fiona’s brain. The duke had his eyes closed but she sensed he didn’t sleep.
At last she could contain her curiosity no longer. “You had a gun. Were you expecting to be attacked this evening?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, his arm crossed his belly to hold off a cramping pain. Just when she thought he would ignore her, he said, “I had it for when I met the Spaniard.”
“Those men weren’t Spanish,” she whispered.
“I know that,” he said, irritation in his clipped tone.
“Do you know who they were?” she had to ask. She had to make sense of what had happened.
His brows came together, his eyes still closed. “No. Do you?”
It was a fair question but it offended her all the same. “Of course not. I don’t consort with murderers.”
“How comforting,” was his dry reply.
Fiona frowned at his sarcasm. “Perhaps you deserved that bellyache,” she muttered.
That comment brought a reaction out in him. He sat up, his eyes opened and his face contorted
in fury. “Bellyache? Do you believe that’s all this is? You poisoned me.”
“I didn’t poison you exactly,” she hurried to say. “Hester said it wasn’t poison but an elixir that would make you wish it had been.”
“And what is that if not poison?” he bit out.
“A potion that would make you heartily sick,” she answered. “And it has. But it is what you deserved,” she couldn’t help adding under her breath.
He heard her.
“Deserved? For what? I’d not harmed you. I’d not threatened you—”
“You did threaten me,” she fired back, guilt making her angry. “You kissed me—”
“There’s a dangerous action for you,” he flared back. “Heaven forbid a man should kiss a woman.” He threw himself back in his corner. “Especially when the woman is of Hester Bowen’s ilk and approaches the man in a private room designed for seduction and that is let by the hour.”
“Let by the hour?” Fiona frowned. She’d never heard of such a thing and then realization dawned. She hated being so naïve. She hated that she’d placed herself in these circumstances. “I should have known better than to kiss you. I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
“On that, we can both agree,” the duke informed her. “When I saw you weren’t the Spaniard, I should have tossed your skirted rump out the door. But no-o-o,” he continued, drawing out the word, “you caught me. You slipped right past my guard.” He punctuated the words by doubling his fist and hitting it against the side of the coach in his fury.
Fiona drew back, but she had nothing to fear because his abrupt, forceful action upset his fragile hold on his body. He doubled over. “Stop the coach,” he muttered. “Stop the coach.”
She came up out of her seat and pounded on the roof. The driver either didn’t hear or ignored her. Holburn’s shoulders were heaving. He was holding it back but he was about to erupt and, having witnessed his sickness once, Fiona didn’t want to be closed in with him. She threw down the window.
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