Dead Handsome

by Laura Strickland

  “Very well, then.”

  He felt her fingers work at the straps and looked down. Four straps—two across the top half of his body and two below, with his cock trapped between. They looked precisely like leather belts and had buckles, with which she now fumbled. When the first across his chest came loose, he drew a big breath. The second had cut into his stomach muscles, very tight.

  Play at being weak and fool them, the deceptive part of his brain urged. So he lay meekly until Clara put both her hands behind his shoulders to urge him up.

  “There now. All right?”

  Truly, no. His head swam, and he hurt all over, likely from all the thrashing about he’d done after that box got kicked away. But he blinked and nodded.

  “Water,” he pleaded.

  She reached for the cup. The tiny lass—Georgina—stood at the other side of the table on which he lay, still frowning.

  Clara raised the cup to his lips, and the sweet water burned a path down his throat. He drank greedily—all of it—and begged, “More.”

  She turned away again, and he flexed his fingers surreptitiously, and then his hands. God, how he hurt! But he felt greater strength begin to seep through him.

  When Clara turned back he moved, quick as a snake, reaching out and seizing her by the shoulders. She felt fragile beneath his hands, beautiful as a bird, and desire struck him hard again. He fought it down somehow, even as her curious, greenish eyes flew to his, and held.

  “There now, little lass,” he addressed Georgina, even though he did not look at her. “Unfasten those last two straps, unless you wish to see me strangle your mistress where she stands.”

  Chapter Four

  Clara caught her breath hard when the subject’s hands closed on her shoulders in a bruising grip. Who would have thought he could move so quickly in his debilitated state? She cursed herself for a fool—how could she have trusted his intentions?

  And he made no idle threat. If his hands could move that swiftly, there was nothing to keep them from sliding up around her throat.

  She stared into his eyes, and by all the stars in heaven, what eyes they were! From the look of him—the tanned skin and the slightly Spanish features—she’d expected dark eyes, but his were clear-water blue, uncanny and intent, fringed by black lashes. They screamed aloud of his Irish blood.

  “Georgina, wee lass,” he said, the lilt in his voice almost overriding the gravel left by the noose, “unfasten those straps, I tell you—now.” His eyes never left Clara’s as he spoke. And oh, she could feel him, a backlash of the power she’d poured into him only moments ago, striking wild at her and then sliding through her blood from the contact points of his hands.

  Like arousal, hot and sweet.

  She held his gaze without wavering and said, “Georgina, do as he asks.” Would he kill her? She didn’t know, but this felt akin to bringing a wolf to life on her table.

  “I don’t think so.”

  That captured Clara’s attention, and his as well. Georgina’s voice quivered, but her hands remained steady as she clutched the small pistol Clara’s father had always insisted Clara keep handy.

  “Let go of her now, big Irishman.”

  He froze but didn’t comply. He seemed to measure Georgina where she stood, and Clara almost wanted to warn him, Don’t underestimate her. Georgina was one of the toughest individuals Clara knew.

  “Well now,” the subject said, “is this not interesting?”

  “I will shoot you if you harm a hair on her head.” Georgina’s nostrils flared.

  Still he did not release Clara. The imprint of his fingers seemed to penetrate through her flesh.

  Georgina stepped closer. Something flickered in the man’s eyes, and Clara parted her lips—to warn Georgina this time. But he moved before she could speak, in a rapid blur, and had the pistol out of Georgina’s hands before anyone could blink.

  Clara, released suddenly, staggered back. The pistol looked absurdly small in the subject’s hands.

  Georgina threw Clara a look of agonized apology.

  A half smile crooked one corner of the subject’s mouth. “Now, let’s try this again. You unfasten those straps, wee lass, and we’ll all sit down and talk like the civilized people we are.”

  ****

  “You will need some clothes.” Clara barely knew where to look. With the man upright—at well over six feet in height—he made an impressive sight. No matter where she turned her gaze, it seemed somehow to glimpse his genitals. “My father’s clothes will never fit. And yours, from the jail, are fit only for burning.”

  He tipped his head to one side, and the dark hair, very nearly black, slid against his bruised neck like silk. He wore it long, and it held a gleam like the wing of a blackbird. More dark hair clustered on his chest and trailed downward to the nest of curls at his—

  Blast, she’d looked there again.

  Georgina suggested, “Your father’s old robe, maybe? Something—something to cover—”

  Was Georgina’s gaze drawn there too? Almost impossible to avoid it. He had an impressive set of equipment.

  At least the appendage in question no longer stood at attention like a battle weapon.

  “Yes,” Clara said gratefully, “go and fetch the robe, Georgina, if you will.”

  Georgina fled, and silence fell. The subject still held the pistol casually, dangling from one finger, and they faced each other with the worktable between.

  “So you’ve a father, then,” he said abruptly. He raised his hand to rub at his throat, exploring the abrasions there. “Does he know what you get up to?”

  Clara shook her head. “He’s deceased.”

  Again something flickered in his eyes. It was as if she could sense his emotions on some visceral level.

  “What, you couldn’t resurrect him?”

  “No.” He was sharp, this one, with quick wits, even hampered by what he’d just endured. She wondered suddenly, sickeningly, if she was in over her head. How was she to control him? She’d expected him to be weak as a child, confused, debilitated. But there he stood, dangerous as a whetted knife.

  “When my father died, his body was riddled by disease, ruined. Not—” She waved a hand at him, pointing out his vigorous condition. “I could not bring him back only to let him suffer more.”

  “Ah.” His gaze moved over her, head to toe, in a minute examination. “And how is it you can bring anyone back to life at all? What are you? Angel? Demon?”

  What are you? That question had prevented her, always, from revealing this ability she harbored. Only Georgina knew, and Ruella. Her father had known, but no one else. Now this man held the knowledge that would allow him to judge her, condemn her, brand her a freak.

  She shook her head. “Neither angel nor demon. Just a woman with a very ancient talent, one usually kept well hidden.”

  “I can see why. Could get you burnt at the stake, that, in bygone days.”

  What did he remember? He shouldn’t recall the past at all, should be a clean slate upon which she might write her demands and requirements.

  The workroom door whispered open, and Georgina came in carrying a brocade robe. The garment had always been overly large on Anson Allen, but when the subject struggled into it, shifting the pistol between his hands as he did so, it barely covered his wrists and gaped across his chest. At least it covered the pertinent area below.

  Clara strove desperately, perilously, for calm. “Please sit down.” She nudged a bench out from the wall, and he flinched. “What is it?”

  “Wooden bench,” he said cryptically. “Last thing I heard was the scrape of wood. I could use a drink. Any liquor in the house?”

  “Georgina, go and get a glass of my father’s brandy.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Georgina bent a hard look on Clara. “He’s only just—you know.”

  “A drink cannot harm me, lass.” The man smiled at Georgina with devastating effect. Ruella had not lied: he was dead handsome, this one, something on which Cl
ara certainly hadn’t bargained. “Especially brandy. Run and do your mistress’s bidding now, there’s a love.”

  Deliberately, he laid the pistol on the table. “I’ll not harm her whilst you’re gone.”

  Georgina shot another agonized look at Clara before darting out of the room once more. The subject sat down; Clara remained standing, her fingers resting lightly on her worktable.

  “So, now.” His eyes met hers. Despite the roughness lent his voice by the punishment of the noose, his accent sounded smooth as warm honey. “We’ve a great deal to discuss, Miss Clara.”

  “You’re sure you don’t remember your name?”

  He appeared to think about it, and then shook his head. “Nay. ’Tis as if I should be able to remember, as if ’tis all waiting for me, but I can’t quite get through this damned black wall and grasp it. How do I come to be here?”

  Clara drew a breath. How much to tell him? When planning this she had prepared a speech of explanation: you have been through a long illness that stole your memory. You are to take up a new life here, with me. I will look after you, and you will reciprocate as I request—

  That would never do, now. He knew he’d been hanged and that she had resurrected him.

  “Do you know what sort of life you led?”

  He raised both his hands and examined them. “Laborer, I should say. I know I boozed. And brawled. I don’t know how I know.”

  “You’ve been held in the county jail.” Probably for brawling; a common enough offense on Buffalo’s waterfront, where taverns were endemic. He might have killed someone in a fight. “The jail warden is corrupt. He accepts a stipend to support those incarcerated there, but some of those in his charge disappear and are never seen again.”

  Georgina reentered the room, a brandy snifter in her hands. “Should you be telling him all this?” she asked at once.

  “He needs an explanation. I thought the truth best.”

  The subject reached out and snagged the glass from Georgina’s hands. The poor girl started like a frightened pony.

  “This is what I’m after needing, lass.”

  Both women watched while he drank deep, and Clara questioned herself anew. This might be like giving a bulldog red meat. She did not want to admit the situation had got away from her, or that she might indeed be in over her head. But she could feel the water lapping around her ears.

  “Easy,” she bade. “No telling how that will affect you after having been—”

  “Dead?” The crooked smile curled his lips again. Definitely devastating. Oh, what had Ruella brought her? “Water of life, this. Your mistress, Clara,” he addressed Georgina directly, “was just getting to the interesting part, I believe—how I came to be here.”

  Georgina wrapped her arms about herself and held tight.

  “How do you know all this,” he asked Clara, “about the crooked warden?”

  “I have a friend who works at the jail. She has suspected for some time what’s going on there. This evening you were taken into the prison yard and hanged. You were then supposed to be dumped in the river, but my friend intervened, bribed the prison sexton, and brought you here instead.”

  “Ah.” He buried his face in the snifter again. Clara could sense his thoughts teeming. Unexpectedly, she felt it all again—his mouth on hers, his tongue invading her, indescribably intimate. How would he taste now? Like brandy, heady and hot? “Now we come to the truly interesting bit. Why? Why should a slip of a lass want her friend to bring her a corpse on the sly? ’Tis on the sly, isn’t it? No one knows.”

  “No one knows.” He was too sharp by half. “Only my friend and the sexton, who was drunk at the time.”

  “So these others that murdered me think me safe in the river?”

  “They do.”

  “Aye, so.” His gaze took on a faraway look as he contemplated it. Georgina shot Clara another doubtful glance. They had not bargained for this when they formed their plan. They’d been fighting for their survival, and that of those dependent on them. They’d thought he would become a participant by necessity, but not an active one.

  Suddenly his gaze sharpened and captured Clara’s; his eyes burned bright and clear as sapphires. “And so, lass, it comes back to the grand question: why? Why would you want a corpse brought to your home and why bring him back to life?”

  Chapter Five

  The bedroom had clearly belonged to the witch-lass’s father. It still contained his things, including clothing and a set of razors. A fine, large room it was, far better than any he had ever before inhabited.

  Curious how he did not know how he knew that; he just did. It was as if knowing rather than specific knowledge had come back to life with him. He knew he came from Ireland, but he did not remember the place. He knew—or sensed—what kind of life he’d led, though he remembered none of the particulars.

  The explanation Clara had given him made no fit explanation. She must have a powerful reason for resurrecting him, if indeed it was what she’d done, but she refused to disclose it. Did he believe anything she’d said? Cursed, but he did. He sensed an honesty about her, and he had this great, painful wound about his neck.

  He walked to the dresser on the other side of the room and regarded himself in the mirror. The image shocked him even as it teased him with familiarity. So, he thought, that’s me, is it? The me who had swung from a makeshift gallows at some bugger’s bidding—he needed to settle that score, sure—the me who had been dead for how long? An hour? More?

  Handsome blighter he was, fine and tall, with a crop of black hair and wicked eyes. The women would like such a face.

  Clara would.

  Now, why had that thought come to him? Again he remembered her kissing him. If she could be believed, it had been no ordinary kiss but a resurrection. He knew he’d never imagined being kissed like that. The effects of it still flowed through him, and he wanted more.

  He ached for her mouth on his again.

  But he wasn’t stupid. He had waked from some mad, terrible dream and now found himself walking a tightrope.

  She had fed him some line of bull about bringing him back in the interest of justice and requiring his assistance in return. She would not say what sort of help. Did she require a servant? An assassin? A stud for her bed?

  He realized he was up and hard again, just thinking about her. Another curious thing, that, for she was not the type who usually tripped that wire. He didn’t know how he knew that either, but he did. He tended to choose buxom women generous with their favors and with some experience behind them, not girl-child pixies innocent as the day was long. Then why did just picturing those uncanny gray-green eyes of hers affect him this way?

  He stared into his own eyes and wondered about his name, which of all things seemed an awful belonging for a man to lose. He wondered if there might be a record of it at the jail from which Clara said he had come.

  Clara.

  Or if, given his ending, all such evidence had been destroyed. He must ask the witch girl about his clothes. They might contain a scrap of paper or other clue to his identity.

  When the wee lass, Georgina, had showed him to this room, she’d told him to rest, and he did feel the need for it. The brandy had taken the edge off and relaxed him, and he was weary to his bones. But his neck and throat hurt too much to let him sleep.

  Curse it, he wanted a name.

  He walked to the window and looked out. The light from the wall fixture reflected back at him, and he saw himself again in the glass, wearing the foolish robe. Outside lay pure darkness; he glimpsed no clue to his surroundings. Irritation seized him. He went to the door and flung it open.

  At least they had not locked him in, which would have annoyed him further. The broad, carpeted hallway met his gaze. The house slept—no, not quite. Far distant he could hear high-pitched voices. Children?

  He frowned, swept the skirt of the robe about him like an emperor, and sallied forth.

  A great, well-established house, this, if a bit
fallen into ruin. The hallway led to a landing and a broad set of stairs. He could no longer hear the voices, making him think they came from a different part of the house.

  The wee lass, Georgina, had brought him up these stairs from yet another corridor that led from the back of the house. Now he descended to a marble floor and hesitated, listening to some inner instinct.

  Closed doors lay to his right and left, the outer door directly ahead—freedom, presumably. But he could not seize that freedom wearing only a borrowed robe.

  Clara had told Georgina to find him some clothes come morning. “Miller’s will have something.” A shop, presumably.

  Clara.

  Unerringly, he chose the right hand door, opened it, and leaned in.

  And she sat there alone before a smoldering fire that did little to warm the room. She turned, startled, when she heard him, and then froze, hands gripping the arms of her chair.

  “I was just after wondering about my clothes. I know you say they are fit only for burning, but I would like to look through them first if you have not yet disposed of them.”

  “They are in the workroom.”

  He entered and shut the door behind him, and she got to her feet. Ah, but she was a curious wee thing—not as tiny as Georgina, but scarcely taller than a girl of thirteen. He felt, again, her mouth on his. No child, this.

  “I was hoping to discover me name. ’Tis not a good feeling, being without.”

  “I can imagine. But you know you would no longer be able to use your real name anyway. The man you were is dead.”

  “Nay, but I would have it to hold to me, even if in secret. My father’s name, like. Happen you would not understand.”

  She eyed him up and down, her gaze personal as a touch. Aye, well, and she’d already seen all of him. She said, “I might. Georgina already went through your pockets.”

  “I would like to do that myself, or have I not the right?” With an aggressive edge, he asked, “Have I given up all me rights to whatever magic you’ve wrought upon me?”

  Emotions stirred in her curious eyes. He took a step closer and lowered his voice; it hurt to speak, damn it. “Do you suppose you own me now that you’ve planted that kiss of life on me?”