She shouldn’t have invited him in. Perhaps he’d think she’d some other reason than simple human kindness for doing so. She had no idea what sort of man he was, what he did, or what he had done.
Roars from the tavern room below shook the thin floorboards further, bearing in upon her the potential danger she was in. If she was to cry out, no one would hear her. She glanced furtively at the closed door and edged nearer it.
“Do you have a towel?” He straightened, and she started, but handed him a cloth before darting nervously back. He regarded her a moment before turning his back to her.
“I assume you are acting like a scared rabbit because you are afraid of me. I am not going to rape you, Mrs. Blackburn,” he said, toweling off his face, as if accusations of rape were a daily and tiresome occurrence.
Her cheeks burned, and she felt sheepish.
He turned back to the basin and the mirror hanging above it, leaning forward and studying the cut on his temple. She relaxed a bit as he ignored her and wrung out the cloth, wiping the blood from his hands.
Even his eyes had changed, she noted, watching him in the mirror. Once they had been doors leading to a savaged interior; now they gave nothing away, not even a glimpse of the man they served. The only thing familiar about them was their beauty—long eyes, frosted green between thick gold-tipped lashes. He pitched the stained towel aside. Fresh blood oozed from the cut at his temple.
“You’re still bleeding,” she murmured.
He touched the wound and looked at his blood-tipped fingers in annoyance. He stood uncertainly. There were no other towels in sight. She hesitated a moment, then impulsively reached under the bed for her deceased cousin’s luggage, an ornately tooled leather trunk with brass fittings.
As well as Grace Murdoch’s belongings, it contained the sum total of Kate’s own wardrobe: three of her mother’s best gowns, made up so that when she arrived at Castle Parnell, she wouldn’t look like the beggar she was. Carefully, she lifted the tissue wrapped dresses onto the bed. At the bottom, she’d carefully folded her undergarments.
Once they’d been a new bride’s treasure, made from the sheerest batiste, embroidered in silk, and edged in Brussels lace. The finest had worn out long ago, the lace having been stripped to adorn Charlotte’s school dresses. What were left were thin from washings and repaired more times than Kate could remember. There were bandages in the hospitals with more thread in them.
“What are you doing?” MacNeill asked.
“You can’t go about bleeding like that.” She ripped an ancient chemise at its seam. “It isn’t decent. Sit down.”
He tilted his head, regarding her with surprise, but came to her side and sat down on the room’s only chair. She moved behind him, tearing her chemise into thin strips. Then, making a thick pad, she pressed it over the cut on his temple. “Hold this.”
He clamped his hand over hers. Like the rest of him, it was large and rough and scarred but with unexpected notes of elegance, the fingers slender and long, his wrists broad but lean. Hastily, she slipped her hand free from under his and began wrapping his head.
His breath checked at her touch.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No.” He probably had other wounds hidden beneath the thick, disheveled red-gold hair. With gentle fingers, she explored his scalp, moving closer. He stayed very still, his hands upon his knees, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
Standing over him, she glanced down and through the rent in his shirt glimpsed the heavy plane of his chest, glinting with dark hairs. A man’s body. She’d forgotten the contours a masculine form—
“It’s low you’ve fallen, darlin’,” he said.
She jumped guiltily, but he only said, “I doubt you would have bandaged my head three years ago.”
“Oh?”
“You were very much a fashionable young lady. Perfect. Clean.” His voice dropped to a musing whisper. “The cleanest thing I had ever seen.”
She straightened, stung by his implication. “If I am less than immaculate now it is because I have been traveling,” she said.
He laughed, a sound of amusement that utterly disconcerted her. She searched his words for some underlying meaning. Was he trying to gauge whether her reduced circumstances led to reduced morals? More than one man had made that mistake and had been given an ear-blistering lecture in reply; for all that they’d been low, lousy creatures, they had still been ruled by some social considerations. Kit MacNeill didn’t look as if he was ruled by anything. He certainly didn’t look as if he’d be deterred by a tongue-lashing.
She cleared her throat. “You’re quite correct, three years ago I would have sent you to the kitchen and had the housekeeper attend you. I may no longer have a housekeeper or a kitchen, but I have not fallen so low that I do not understand the concept of obligation and gratitude, particularly on behalf of one less fortunate than myself. I hope I always shall.”
Another flash of amusement lightened his harsh visage. “I stand corrected, then. You would have, of course, acted properly. How fortunate for me that you have not abandoned your manners. “
“You say that as if there was something fundamentally suspect about proper behavior, Mr. MacNeill,” she replied haughtily, tearing off another strip of batiste with her teeth. “From what I have seen of the world, behaving in a manner prescribed by polite society is an agreeable alternative to acting on base impulses and violent tendencies.”
She did not look at him as she said it. She did not need to. Her meaning was quite clear.
Her temerity amazed her. She should have clung to her earlier fear. Her unquestioning belief in her invulnerability was yet another vestige of a way of life long ago ended. And another entry for her book: As one of the genteel poor, a lady need be constantly mindful that she is no longer a part of society where a lady’s safety, if not welfare, was once guaranteed.
“I do not mean to sound ungrateful,” she added nervously.
“Not at all,” he replied. “I am indebted to you for your tutelage.”
She didn’t want his thanks. She wanted him gone. He disturbed her. He frightened her. But long ago, riding lessons had taught her that one must never allow a dangerous animal to sense one’s fear.
“The bleeding should stop now,” she said. “Thank you for what you did for that boy.” She stepped aside, clearly indicating that he should leave. He didn’t. “And now, allow me to bid you good-bye.”
Still, he didn’t move. “I fear my actions have left you stranded.”
“You were entirely courageous.” She wadded up the cloth scraps, facing him with a smile she hoped looked calm and dismissive. “Any inconvenience must be weighed against the greater good.”
“I didn’t risk much,” he said.
“I disagree. Dougal had a knife. I saw it. You were most heroic.” This time she took a step toward the door and placed her hand on the latch, preparing to open it.
“And you, if I recall, have no use for heroes,” he murmured.
At her silence, he shrugged, effectively dismissing both Dougal’s knife and the potential outcome as equally unimportant. Why was he still sitting there?
“At the very least I owe you coach fare to”—his brow lifted inquiringly—“York?”
“No.”
“Surely ‘proper behavior’ doesn’t prevent you from accepting money from me?”
“I’m not going to York. I am headed in the opposite direction.”
She meant it. True, she had no money, but certainly Grace’s brother-in-law, the marquis, would pay whatever price a driver demanded. He’d already sent one coach for her. And she was making this journey on his behalf. Well, somewhat on his behalf. Ostensibly on his behalf—
MacNeill’s gaze raked her from top to bottom, missing nothing from the telltale rust of her gown’s thrice-turned seams to the worn leather of her oftresoled boots. “And having no driver, you believe you can make other arrangements?”
“Yes. I am certain of it.”
“I am afraid you are going to be disappointed,” he said. “This is not a coaching inn, Mrs. Blackburn. It’s a haunt for thieves and highwaymen.”
“You sound as if you are well acquainted with it,” she clipped out.
“And a hundred just like it,” he replied agreeably.
She didn’t care how many dens of iniquity he’d frequented. He did not know her situation. He did not know what was risked and what stood to be gained. He did not understand that she might, if she managed everything perfectly, win back her life. As well as her sisters’.
“Your welfare is at risk,” he said. “I cannot, in good conscience, leave you, especially as it is my actions that have marooned you.”
“It is none of your concern.” She carefully iced each syllable with all the hauteur at her command.
Satisfaction licked his slow smile. “But, my dear Mrs. Blackburn, moments ago you lectured me on how important proper behavior was in separating civilized man from the likes of, oh, say, heathen Scotsmen. You can’t permit yourself proper behavior and deny me the same.”
She flushed. He’d maneuvered her most adroitly. “You are wasting your time trying to convince me to turn back. I am going north, to Clyth and from there to Castle Parnell. That is, unless you intend to physically remove me from here, Mr. MacNeill,” she threw out recklessly.
His smile became gentle, as if she’d said something profoundly quaint. “My dear woman, look at me.”
With lethal grace, he uncoiled from the chair and spread his long arms out at his sides. Muscle rippled beneath tanned flesh. Blood stained his damp shirt. Sweat still shimmered at the base of his throat. Everything about him was uncivilized and torn and dangerous. “Do you doubt for a moment that I’m capable of doing just that?”
“I think,” she said in a small voice, “that because of that debt you once insisted you owed my family, you would not like to cause me any distress.”
He tensed as if struck. A sharp smiled cleaved his face. “A palpable hit, ma’am. I commend you. But now you’ve put me in the difficult position of either importuning you or allowing you to endanger yourself.”
“This has nothing to do with you. Forget we met if it troubles your conscience.”
“I am cursed with an excellent memory. I told you once being in debt was a burden. I pay my debts, ma’am, that I might be beholden to no one,” he said. “So, tell me, my dark little instructress, what does polite society dictate I do?”
She wrenched open the door. “Without question you must not importune a lady—no matter what pricks of conscience you endure. Now, I would like to retire. Again, thank you for championing that boy. Again, good-bye.”
He followed her with suspect obedience. But at her side, he reached beyond her and shoved the door shut, bracing it closed with his palm flat on the panel. The muscles of his exposed biceps bunched beside her cheek, but she refused to back away. “Where will you find another driver?”
“I shall inquire of the innkeeper,” she answered in exasperation. “He’s bound to know of someone willing to drive me.”
“You’ll have to flash a handful of gold to get anyone to head north at this time of year.” He studied her carefully. “You don’t have a handful of gold, do you?”
There was no use denying it. “No.”
“So. This driver that you haven’t met is supposed to take you to northern Scotland on the basis of what? Your pretty face?”
“You needn’t sneer,” she said. “I shall assure him that the marquis of Parnell will compensate him upon our arrival.”
“And you think that will prove enough to persuade this unnamed gallant?”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t.”
“It won’t, because these people have been promised things all their lives, Mrs. Blackburn. Lower rents by absent landlords, laws to protect what little they have by politicians, a higher day’s wage by estate managers, and justice by the courts. None of those promises have been kept.
“We Scots are wary of promises, Mrs. Blackburn. Even from such a comely lass as yourself. Or maybe especially from such a comely lass.”
“But I am not lying!”
“It doesn’t matter. No one here knows you. Except me.”
For some reason, his self-assured claim drove the breath from her lungs. “You don’t know me. You know nothing about me.” She ducked beneath his arm, but he caught her wrist, swinging her around to face him.
He jerked her closer, and she pulled back frantically. No one had ever laid hands on her in such a way before, a way that expressed violence in check and effortlessly demonstrated a complete physical control. Helplessness bloomed within her, full and terrifying, closing her throat and pulsing in her temples.
“Listen to me,” he said, oblivious to her distress. “Even if you found some man who would accept your terms, have you thought about what sort he must be? What happens two days out, alone on the road? Your last driver was vouched for by an agency, and look at his sterling character. Any man you find willing to drive you won’t come with a recommendation.”
She finally yanked free, or rather, he let her go so quickly that she fell back, her shoulders banging against the wall. He followed her in swiftly, looming over her, cutting her off from the rest of the room.
“Say you were to just disappear.” His beautiful eyes rested on her like some sated predator still capable of being roused for a bit of sport. Her heart leapt in her chest. “Who’ll find you? Who’ll even look for you?”
He leaned over her, bracing a brawny forearm on the wall above her head, his body caging her in. She twisted, pressing her cheek hard against the wall. His fingertips dangled near her temple. If she moved, he’d touch her. Panic swirled in her blood like some potent drug. His gaze slipped languidly over her face, falling to ponder on her lips. She shut her eyes, trembling. “Who’ll know where to ask or who to ask it of?”
He could do whatever he wanted to her right here, right now, and no one would interfere. But that was his point: If she was vulnerable here, how much greater were her risks on the open road? She understood. She agreed. It still didn’t matter.
For years, she’d searched for a way out of their present circumstance. This was the first meager opening she’d found. Fear and risk, no matter how great, weren’t enough to make her turn back. Not now.
She opened her eyes. “I have to go.”
“Why?” She’d thought he was done with his instruction, but apparently the lesson was not yet over, for he continued watching her mouth, as though the manner in which she formed words fascinated him.
“Do you remember my cousin Grace?”
“Aye?”
“She married the marquis of Parnell’s younger brother, Charles. They lived in his family’s castle near Clyth.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “A few months ago Grace wrote that she and Charles were relocating to London.” She hazarded a glance at MacNeill’s lean face.
“She sent a trunk filled with personal items, things of little monetary value, which she asked me to keep until their arrival.” She gestured to the open trunk. A brass telescope, several books, and a flat traveling writing case filled the top layer. “Shortly afterward, we learned that Grace and Charles had died in a boating accident.
“The marquis is grief-stricken and has written asking that, for sentimental reasons, I return their effects. I promised that I would bring them myself.”
“Why, Mrs. Blackburn, you are a veritable font of tender feelings,” MacNeill said wryly. He brushed away a strand of hair that caught at the corner of her mouth. “But I am sure his lordship can struggle through one winter without his brother’s bric-a-brac.”
He was forcing confessions she did not want to make. She looked away. “The marquis and I… we met some years ago. I believe he remembers me kindly,” she said, abdicating pride to necessity. “I hope that in his sorrow, and by way of his onetime… regard, I can encourage him to become my family’s benefactor. We are Grace’s last living relations.”
&nb
sp; MacNeill laughed. “The poor relation? It doesn’t suit you, Mrs. Blackburn.”
“Starvation suits me even less!” Her head snapped around. How dare he judge her? Many lived on the sufferance of family members luckier than themselves. She and her sisters wouldn’t be the first.
He held her gaze a short moment before his mouth twisted, wordlessly conceding her the point. “The spring will serve as good a time as any for your mission.”
“I will not have the wherewithal to make this journey come spring.”
“I have the ready.” Abruptly, he pushed himself away from the wall, his hand dropping to his side, no longer interested in toying with her. She’d been dismissed. To his mind, the matter had been dealt with. He would send her back to York and give her a purse with enough coin to hire a coach come spring and then ride off, having finally satisfied his debt to her family. Only spring would be too late. She needed the marquis’s help now.
“And have you the ready to support us through the winter? To pay the tuition at Charlotte’s school? To buy her dresses?” She had too much pride to let him know that dresses were hardly the most pressing of their problems. Her gaze trailed tellingly over his ragged hair, torn shirt, and scuffed boots.
He returned her regard with hard, sardonic eyes. “Had I realized that the situation was so dire—”
“Mr. MacNeill,” she said, “I would not be here, in this place tonight, if I did not consider my situation ‘dire.’ Few opportunities have come our way these past years. I cannot afford to delay in acting on any that do.
“By spring the marquis’s sorrow will have subsided, practicality will have returned, and my heroic efforts to return his brother’s things to him will no longer seem so impressive. Or worthy of reward.”
“You are a calculating creature. Tell me, is that, too, a characteristic of the… better classes?”
“I am whatever circumstances demand,” she said. How could he understand? He had health and strength and no obligations—except this one that he was desperate to fulfill. “Right now circumstances demand action. I must trust to the innkeeper’s judgment and find a driver. I have no choice.”
My Seduction Page 4
