by Kresley Cole
Weyland, that bloody bastard, didn't even send Hugh to kill me.
That galled Grey more than anything, scalding him inside.
Soon Grey would deliver his retribution. Weyland treasured only one thing in this world—his daughter, Jane. MacCarrick had loved her from afar for years. Take away Jane, and two men would be destroyed, forever.
A little work had ensured that Weyland and his informants knew Grey was stirring. Cunning and two deaths had ensured that they thought Grey was still on the Continent. Weyland would already have sent for his best gunman to protect his precious daughter.
Good. Hugh should be there to see Grey end her life. Both MacCarrick and Weyland should know the searing purity of grief.
There was power innate in having nothing left to lose.
Years ago, Weyland had said that Grey was suited for his occupation because he possessed no mercy, but he'd been wrong then. Years ago, Grey wouldn't have been able to happily slit Jane's pretty throat. Weyland wasn't wrong now.
With a shriek, Jane rolled out of the way just as a corner of the mural hammered into the floor directly beside her. She didn't have time to gape at how close it had been because more charging people overwhelmed her. She couldn't breathe. With a cry, she ducked her head down, raising an arm over her face.
Seconds later, Jane lowered her arm, brows drawn in confusion.
The crowd was parting around her instead of treading over her.
At last, she had room to maneuver, a fighting chance….
She'd be damned if she'd be killed by the very spectacle she'd come to leer at! Finally able to gather her skirts, she made another wobbling attempt to rise, and lurched to her feet. Whirling around, she lunged forward.Free!
No!Brought up short, she dropped to her front with a thud. She crawled on her forearms, but realized she was crawling in place. Something still anchored her. More people coming in a rush—
The middle-aged roué she'd seen earlier dropped bodily to the ground beside her, holding his bleeding nose, staring up horrified at something behind them. Before she could even react, another man went flying over her, landing flat on his back.
Suddenly, her skirts were tossed up to the backs of her legs, and a hot, calloused hand clamped onto her thigh. Her eyes went wide in shock. Another hand pawed at her petticoats, ripping them.
"Wh-what are you doing?" she screeched, her head whipping around. With her mask askew and her hair tumbling into her face, she could barely see the man through the shadows of a jungle of legs all around them. "Unhand me this instant!" She jostled the leg he held firmly.
With the back of her hand, she shoved her hair away, and spied another flash of her attacker. Grim lips pulled back from white teeth as if in a snarl. Three gashes ran down his cheek, and his face was dirty.
His eyes held a murderous rage.
The visage disappeared as her attacker bolted to his feet and felled another oncoming patron, before dropping down beside her once more. His fist shot up at intervals as he ripped again at her petticoats.
She realized he'd finally stopped—when he swooped her up onto his shoulder.
"H-how dare you!" she cried, pummeling his broad back. She vaguely noted that this was a bear of a man who'd lifted her with the ease of plucking lint from a lapel. The body she was looped over was massive, the arm over her heavy and unyielding. His fingers were splayed, it seemed, over the entire width of her bottom.
"Don't go this way! Put me down!" she demanded. "How dare you paw at me, ripping at my undergarments!" As soon as she'd said the last, she spotted the remains of her petticoats pinned beneath a mural with a jaunty satyr covering a nymph. Her face flamed.
With his free arm, the man sent patrons careening. "Lass, it's nothing you have no' shown me before."
"What?" Her jaw dropped.Hugh MacCarrick? This murderous-looking fiend was her gentle giant of a Scot?
Returned after ten years.
"You doona remember me?"
Oh, yes, she did. And remembering how she'd fared the last time the Highlander had drifted into her life, she wondered if she mightn't have been better off trampled by a drunken horde.
Chapter Five
Outside, instead of following the general flight down Haymarket, Hugh immediately ducked down a back alley behind a gin palace, then set her on her feet.
Before she could say a word, he began pawing her again. "Were you injured?" he barked. While she could only sputter, he pulled up her skirts again to check her legs, then rose to fist his hands around her arms, dragging his palms down them from her elbows to wrists to fingers, checking for breaks, sprains. Amazingly, she felt herself to be unharmed.
"Jane, say something."
"I…Hugh?" Somehow he was here for her, though she scarcely recognized him. It was Hugh, but itwasn't . "I-I'm all right." Soon, yes,soon , she would catch her breath and stop gazing up at him.
How many times had she imagined their first time meeting after so long? She'd envisioned herself coldly sighing and spurning him as he begged her to marry him. He would plead for forgiveness for abandoning her without a word.
How different reality was proving.Of course , Jane would be quite foxed and capable of little more than dumbly staring. Oh, yes, and fresh from a police raid and near death by stampeding.
As he lightly tweaked her crooked mask, he exhaled a long breath. "Ah, lass, what in the hell were you thinking, coming here?" Though his looks were altered, his voice was the same—that deep, rumbling brogue that used to make her melt.
Buying time to collect herself, she drew back and brushed off her torn skirts. "This would have been perfectly safe if the proper bribes had been paid."
"Is that so?"
"Quite." She nodded earnestly. "I'm writing a letter to management." She could tell he couldn't decide if she was serious or not. Jane did have a tendency to joke at inappropriate times.
When she began untying her mask, he said, "Keep that on for now. Till I get you in a cab—"
More whistles sounded, and a harsh horn trumpeted the arrival of a police wagon. Hugh took her hand and strode forward, quickly putting distance between them and the warehouse—and her group.
"Hugh, you must stop. I have to go back!"
He ignored her.
When she tried to dig in her heels, he easily pulled her along. "Hugh! My cousins and my friend are still back there."
"They're fine. But if you go back in your condition, you'll get arrested."
"In my condition?"
"Drunk."
"Well, since you've addressed it, I will tell you that, in mycondition , the idea of going back to save my friends feels imperative and quite achievable."
"Will no' happen."
The alley finally ended, and they reached a cabstand. So Hugh was sending her home for the night? Perfect. She'd let the cabbie go a block, and then she'd get out and return.
As ever, a score of drivers geared up to jockey and wrangle for the fare. But Hugh held up one finger with a look that subdued even this lively bunch, then pointed to the nicest-looking cab. The chosen cabbie eased his vehicle over, all obliging.
Hugh tossed Jane inside, then turned to direct the driver to his mount on the next street over. When she realized Hugh was accompanying her, Jane opened the opposite door and heedlessly climbed out.
"Damn it, Jane." He loped around the carriage after her, swooping her to his side with his arm around her waist.
She was being carried again and could do little more than drunkenly blink behind her mask.
"Your friends are safe," he repeated as he tossed her back in, keeping a fist in her skirts as he joined her. He slammed one door, then reached over her to slam the other. Once they'd begun to roll along, he finally relaxed a fraction.
He'd never forget catching sight of her inside, then seeing her disappear in that swarm of people. Never, not as long as he lived.
"How do you know they're safe?" she demanded.
"I saw Quin go in, no' five minutes before me. A
nd trust me, Quin will no' let his sisters stay to look for you."
Jane's eyes narrowed. "What was he doing there?"
"He suspected his sisters would attend."
She quirked an eyebrow, glancing out the window in the direction of the warehouse. "Really?" When she said the word slowly like that with her proper English accent, it always sounded like "raaaally."
Oh, yes, she was very suspicious. She hadn't climbed out her window tonight for no good reason.
She suddenly gasped, facing him. "B-but we were separated from Maddy!"
"Is she the blonde in the blue dress?"
"You noticed her?" Jane stilled. "I didn't think blondes were your type."
He frowned at her tone. "Apparently, they're my brother's. Ethan is intent on the lass and went in to…talk to her." Even after Hugh had followed him inside and warned him yet again not to seek out the girl, Ethan was undeterred. "Your friend Maddy—"
"Madeleine. Madeleine Van Rowen."
Van Rowen. The name hit him. His brother could not be lusting after that one. What in the hell would Ethan do when he discovered whose daughter she was?
"Your friend will be fine."At least from the crowd and the police. "Ethan will no' let her be hurt."By anyone else . "But when you see her again, you might want to warn her about Ethan. He's no' the most honorable of men."
Another understatement. Hugh would like to say Ethan had changed after he'd received the injury to his face. Or when his fiancée had died the night before their wedding. But Ethan had always been a rough, roguish sort, showing a marked indifference to feelings and forming few attachments even as a young man.
"Oh." Then she frowned. "Actually, Hugh, you might want to warn your brother about that one. Little Maddy's not as sweet and helpless as she looks. I'd worry more about Ethan." He cast her a doubting expression, but she ignored it and said, "So, both Quin and your brother were there. I wonder, what wereyou doing in a place like that?" When Hugh simply shrugged, her lips thinned. "No need to answer, I can imagine. Curious, though, that you're not scandalized thatI was there."
Did she want him to be? Of course, he hated it, hated that she was in a place so rife with danger. "Nothing you do could shock me, Jane."
"No comments on my behavior?"
"You're a woman grown, are you no'?"
"Hugh, you don't have to interrupt your night's revelry just to take me home." Her tone was almost cutting. "And there's another establishment very like the Hive, not too far away. I could give you directions. Much amusement for a man to have inside."
"I dinna go for that," he answered quietly.
"Then why on earth were you there?"
He studied the window beside her as he muttered, "Heard you might be." He glanced back at her. Her sudden smile was as baffling as it was devastating to him. Never taking her eyes from his, she untied her mask. Somehow she made that small movement sensual—as if she were undressing her body for him alone.
Want tightened his every muscle, and he leaned closer to her, even as instinct screamed for him to ease away.
She dropped the mask; he stifled a curse. Goddamn it, how could she have grownmore beautiful? He'd hoped he might have imagined how lovely she'd been. He'd thought she would have lost the first blush of youth, the fire in her personality diminishing. Seeing her again now, he knew these qualities wouldnever fade.
An old question arose for the thousandth time: Would he have been better off never having met her?
Right now, he believed so, yet he was still greedy for the sight of her, studying her face at leisure, savoring.
Her eyes were that changeable, intoxicating green. Her cheekbones were high, her nose slim and pert. In the cab's flickering lamplight, her loosened hair appeared dark, nearly black, as it curled all around her face and shoulders, but it was actually a deep auburn. Her lips were plump, and on the one occasion he'd dared stroke his thumb over them, he'd been amazed at how soft and giving they'd been—
"Do I pass muster?" she murmured breathlessly with a slow, easy grin that made his heart punch the insides of his chest.
"As ever." He fought not to touch a curl that teased her cheek, taunting him.
"You, however, are quite dirty," she said with a disapproving glance at his clothes. "And your face is cut up." Were her words slurring worse? "Hugh, whatever have you gotten into?"
"I've ridden for days on end." He hadn't taken time to heal and sure as hell hadn't stopped for ablutions when he'd believed she was in danger. But how badly he wished he looked successful, as wealthy as he'd finally become. Any man would want to appear rich and powerful to the woman he desired. Instead, Hugh was injured, his clothing covered in road grime.
Appearsuccessful ? Right now, he'd accept clean.
"And what brings you to London?" she asked.
You. Finally, I've permission to see you.Hugh had never lied to her before. Yet the last time he saw her, he'd been a decade younger and still concerned with honor. No longer.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the facile lie he'd prepared refused to escape his lips. So, he told her the truth. "Your father sent for me."
"Important business?" she asked, gazing over at him with an understanding expression.
Staring at her, he searched for his voice, finally grating, "You canna imagine."
Jane had been quaking with jealousy at the thought of Hugh sampling the pleasures of the Hive—and at the possibility of his interest in Maddy. Jane had no objection to Maddy snagging her cousin Quin, the only male in Jane's entire Weyland generation, solely for his money.
But the idea of Hugh together with Maddy had made Jane want to claw her eyes out.
Then came Hugh's quiet admission. His words had softened her, undermining her guard.
"How do you feel, Sìne?" he asked.
Sìnewas the Gaelic form of Jane—he pronounced itShee-ah-na and had never seemed to realize that he always said it as if it were an endearment. Her eyes nearly fluttered closed with pleasure at the name rolling from his tongue. That brogue would be the death of her.
"Lass, are you shivering?"
"Too much excitement," she said, though she knew that wasn't why she shook. Even if the crush hadn't scared her witless, even if seeing him once more hadn't stunned her, she'd still be reduced to shivers by the way he said her name in his language.
"Hugh, someone really ought to see about these." Before thinking better of it, she lightly touched the backs of her fingers to the three marks on his face, but he flinched as if burned.
"Did I hurt you?" She laid her hand on his arm, but he slowly shrugged away. "I'm sorry."
"No bother."
Then why had he shifted as far away from her as possible on the bench and turned away without a word? As he stared out the window, eyes subtly darting over the street as though searching for something, she took the opportunity to study him.
She couldn't decide whether the years had been kind or unkind to Hugh. He'd grown larger than he'd been at twenty-two, which was saying something, considering his strapping build even then. He was perhaps six and a half feet tall, still towering over her own five and a half feet, but now his body seemed packed with even more muscle. He was a man in his prime, and the years had honed the strength of his body.
Virile, masculine, rough.All the qualities she'd loved about him before had now become magnified—his heroic actions tonight were proof of that.
Yet if his body had benefited by the years, his face had not. Those three long gashes carved his cheek, and a furrow was etched between his brows. A raised scar marred the side of his neck. And his brown eyes seemed darker, as if the flecks of warm amber that she'd loved to stare at had been extinguished.
As she'd discovered tonight in the melee, Hugh looked…dangerous. The steady, grave Hugh she'd known had become an intense man—analarming man.
But he also looked markedly unhappy. Wherever he'd been without her for all this time, he hadn't been content. She could have made the brooding Highlander happy these p
ast years. That was all she'd ever wanted. Just achance to—
"DoI pass muster?" he asked quietly, facing her.
Striving for politeness, she replied, "The years have been kind."
"No, they have no'. And we both know it." His gaze flickered over her. "At least they have for one of us."
Her hot blush of pleasure flustered her. Luckily, she was saved from having to reply when the cab stopped for Hugh's horse. The poor animal looked as road-weary and fatigued as Hugh, but Jane could tell that under the layer of dust the animal was exceptionally fine with an unusual build and markings.
After Hugh had tethered the horse to the back of the hansom, and he'd rejoined her, she said, "You're lucky someone didn't steal a horse like that. Why didn't you take it to the city stables a block away?"
"I dinna have t—" He broke off, seeming irritated. "I just dinna."
"Oh. I see," she said with a frown. After several moments of silence, she ventured to make conversation with him. Her home was only fifteen minutes away, but as the ride was filled with clipped, awkward exchanges—between two who used to be so at ease with each other—it seemed the longest of her life.
Mercifully, they arrived at last. When Hugh put his hands to her waist to help her down, he seemed to linger, then kept his palm across her back as he escorted her to the front door.
"I don't have a key." Jane patted her skirts as if she had pockets. "I lost my reticule tonight."
"Rolley will be awake," Hugh said, but he didn't make a move to knock. He looked like he was about to say something, but whatever he saw in her eyes made him fall silent.
There they stood at the door facing each other, each seeming to await something. Could he see how much she yearned for an apology, or, at the very least, an explanation? The moment stretched out interminably.
Hugh, if you were ever going to make things right between us, now would be the time.But he didn't. Instead, his eyes grew intent, and his brows drew together.
He's going to kiss me!she vaguely comprehended, her breaths growing shallow.For the first time? Now?
Anger simmered inside her. He didn't deserve her kisses. He could have had them freely for the last ten years.
