She would do anything if he kept talking to her in that velvety brogue. “You did.”
“What should your punishment be?” he inquired almost idly. The spank he gave was soft but unexpected. She jolted away from his hand. “More of that, like a disobedient child, or perhaps something more befitting a woman?”
Even more unexpected, he trailed a finger through her core. He hummed and rubbed the spot where every nerve ending in her body was focused. She rotated her hips against his fingers. If he stopped, she might die.
He stopped.
She twisted around and grabbed his wrist, flicking her hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you dare tease me now, Drake.”
His gaze was combustible and darted down to her breasts. The corners of his mouth curved up as he leaned in and surprised her again. Instead of kissing her, he rotated his wrist in her hand and sucked the fingers that had been stroking her.
He closed his eyes like he’d tasted something truly delicious. Her grip loosened, her senses adrift. The only thing that mattered was riding this wave to completion. She was an animal, her craving primal.
She leaned on her elbows and pushed her bottom into him. Cloth impeded her single-minded focus. He curled his body over her, his breath hot in her ear. “Are you ready to be ridden hard?”
She was ready for everything and anything he could give her. “Yes. Do it.”
His knuckles brushed her bare bottom. At the realization he was freeing himself, her anticipation ratcheted up tenfold. She spread her feet apart as far as her breeches would allow and canted her hips up. The head of his heavy erection glided through her folds and pushed inside her.
With one strong thrust, he buried himself fully, wrenching a cry of pleasure from her. For a moment he held himself inside her, his fingers biting into her hips. She wiggled. A cross between a groan and husky laughter accompanied his first thrust.
She didn’t care. All she cared about was the pleasure he promised with each drive forward. The tension that had festered between them culminated like a storm ready to break. He held her down with one hand as he fulfilled his promise and rode her hard. Yet what coursed through her was power.
His thrusts slowed, and the pressure on her back eased. His heat curled around her, and he snaked a hand to where they were joined. “I don’t want to fall alone, Brynmore.”
She undulated against his fingers and splintered into pure light. As she pulsed around him, the wet rush of his spend released deep inside her.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight pressing her into the sagging mattress, the quilt soft on her cheek. She wanted to crawl on top of the bed and entwine herself with him.
“Tell me I didn’t hurt you.” Although it was a command, his voice was pure anguish.
“If that was your idea of a punishment, I’m returning all those dresses you bought me for breeches.” Her voice was muffled in the quilt.
Maxwell erupted in a deep, resonant laugh. Her stomach fluttered. The man needed to laugh and smile more. Or maybe he didn’t. These moments were rare like shooting stars, and selfishly she wanted to reserve them all for her.
Still inside her, he nuzzled the side of her face. “Are you sure you aren’t a fairy, for you surely have bewitched me.”
Unexpectedly tender and whimsical, his words wound around her heart. “I’m merely a woman.”
“There’s no ‘merely’ to it. You enchant everyone who crosses your path.”
“Do I?” Her tongue felt clumsy. What was he saying? Did he find her enchanting?
“Here now, we’d best not linger as we’re not paying customers.” He levered himself up, leaving chilly air to snake between her legs. She snapped her knees together, stood, and yanked her breeches up.
Her surroundings registered like a devil’s finger tracing her spine. A whore’s room. What did that make her?
Her shirt hung open, and she turned her back to him while she fastened her breeches. Her shirt and waistcoat were ruined. The two buttons left did a poor job disguising exactly what had happened. She prayed her jacket hadn’t walked off with someone downstairs. Of course, after their indecorous exit, anyone with half an eye and sliver of a brain would know exactly what they’d been up to. The abject embarrassment her desire had dampened roared to life, and she covered her face.
Maxwell slipped his jacket over her shoulders. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
She slipped her arms in the sleeves, her pathetic gratefulness warring with a lick of anger. He couldn’t accuse her of deception this go around. “What are you sorry about exactly?”
“Dragging you upstairs. My rough treatment. I’ve never lost control like that. No matter what’s passed between us before now, I shouldn’t have taken advantage.”
She dipped her head and deftly buttoned his jacket over her ruined shirt. As if Maxwell returning had fundamentally changed her, instead of cowering or retreating, fury sent strength coursing through her body. Yet there was something familiar in the fury. It had flared at Mary, at Dugan, at her own perceived weakness many times. But now it caught hold like a tenacious weed.
“I’ll not feel shamed for this night. I wanted it. As did you.” She raised her gaze to his and set her chin.
“Marry me, Bryn, and we can set this right.”
“I’ll not trap you into marriage. You’ll resent me, and I won’t be responsible for making us both miserable.”
“You’d be miserable?” His voice took on an icy edge.
A selfish part of her wanted to marry him. Yet it would hurt her too much to be the cause of his unhappiness. Any answer she gave would reveal too much. She remained silent.
“If you’re with child, you’ll have no choice but to marry me.”
“I know.” The words emerged on the merest whisper. Her strength ebbed. All she wanted now was to curl up in her bed and have a good cry. She pushed past him to the door.
The music had stopped, and the common room was sparsely occupied by men interested in continuing the evening with one of Molly’s girls. She stepped to the left to allow a buxom redhead and a grinning middle-aged man to pass them on their way up the stairs.
Bryn glanced over her shoulder. The couple entered the room she and Maxwell had vacated. The woman’s giggle was cut off by the door closing.
“I’ll see to acquiring transportation,” Maxwell muttered.
Thomas sat at the bar in the common room, talking to Molly who was polishing glasses behind it. Bryn gathered her jacket and approached the couple at the bar, unable to quash a burgeoning shame faced with Thomas’s knowing half grin.
Thomas quirked an eyebrow. “That was quite a dramatic exit. Is Drake the marrying kind?”
“It’s complicated. Are there any hacks about this time of night?”
“I’ve got the wagon out back waiting if you don’t mind a little hay.” Thomas exchanged a secretive, serious look with Molly. “If you need help of any kind, you only have to ask for Black Crag or Molly. You could stay with us a spell if you wanted.”
She swallowed, his kind offer pushing her closer to an outburst of emotion she could hardly afford. “I appreciate the offer, but Maxwell and I have business to finish.”
Molly burst out laughing. “I’d say you finished right proper upstairs.”
“Ach, Molly, quit teasing the lass. She’s naught like you and me. The offer stands for as long as you need. It’s little enough to repay your kindness over the years.”
“Thank you, Thomas. Molly.” She nodded at them each in turn. “I’ll remember.”
Drake returned, shaking his head. “Nothing out.”
“I promised to see you both home safely. I’ll pull the wagon around.” Thomas disappeared out the back.
The three of them sat across the seat. Bryn was sandwiched between the two men, grateful for the warmth they provided. She had offered Maxwell his jacket back, but he refused, probably not wanting Thomas to bear witness to the devastation he’d wrought on her clothes.
Thomas gave a
low whistle of appreciation, eyeing Maxwell speculatively as they pulled onto Barrow Street. “Mayhap I should have taken a little donation from your purse after all, Drake. Seems as though you have some to spare.”
“At your own risk, Thomas.” Under the tease in Maxwell’s voice was the hint of a real threat. Maxwell offered a hand, and Bryn clambered out of the wagon, cold and exhaustion seeping into her limbs.
She called out her thanks and waved as Thomas drove away. Once he was out of sight, she turned and trudged up the stairs. Maxwell waited on the stoop. A loud crack echoed through the streets. She froze. The hairs on her neck rose as her body sensed what her mind was slow to comprehend.
Danger.
“Bloody hell, not again.” Maxwell grabbed her wrist and yanked her the rest of the way up the steps, protecting her with his body as he struggled to unlatch the door. Another report sounded. Maxwell grunted and stumbled against her, but his arm was strong around her waist as he shoved her in the house.
Panic infused her bones and turned them as weak as a stalk of grass. She leaned against the wall for support. Maxwell strode into his study and emerged with a pistol. She clung to his arm, but he shrugged her off.
“No! What are you doing? Someone is shooting at us.” Hysteria crept into her voice.
“I came to the same conclusion,” Maxwell said drily. “This has got to stop. I’m going to find the bastard.”
He ducked out the door and was lost to the shadows.
Chapter Twenty
Maxwell was furious. This was the second time they’d been shot at, not to mention the incident in the alley. Him dying was one thing, but he wouldn’t allow Bryn to be hurt. His move to the stone wall was swift and silent. The clash of boots in retreat reverberated out of the nearest alley. He edged along the wall in darkness untouched by moonlight.
Based on the report and where both bullets hit, one next to the door buried in the stone and one grazing his arm, his would-be assassin had lain in wait across the street and retreated down the alley.
He slowed and took a quick look around. Deserted. A glow on the ground to his right drew his eye. He dropped to his haunches. A half-smoked cigar. The stubs of two others had been discarded close by. He sniffed. He had never enjoyed cigars, but several of the officers and his comrades partook to pass the idle hours or to calm their nerves before battle.
Sniffing again, he closed his eyes. This brand was favored by the officers, mild and expensive. Interesting. After stubbing out the cigar and slipping it into his pocket, he followed the alley and stopped at the mouth, a wider street stretching to either side.
He cocked his head, listening. The man was close. Now to flush him out. Maxwell picked up a rock and pelted it across the street. It hit a shutter, the clang echoing. His prey got spooked.
Movement blurred on his left. Maxwell pursued as quickly as his damnable leg would allow. The man moved fast, and the distance between them grew, a greatcoat concealing his build. They moved inexorably toward the richest part of the city. Finally the man outpaced him, and Maxwell stopped giving chase, winded but satisfied.
He’d gathered valuable information. The man was well-off. He wore quality garments and smoked fine cigars. Subterfuge did not come naturally to him. When scared, the man had headed toward home, which was not Thomas’s neck of the woods. Also, although not as prominent or inhibiting as Maxwell’s, the man had a limp, suggesting he was the man who’d ransacked Pickett’s office.
Maxwell meandered back to the alley and recreated the shots. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the door to the town house, as good as drawing a bull’s-eye. Either the man missed on purpose, he didn’t have the stomach for killing, or he was an abysmal shot. That alley was no more than twenty feet from their front door.
As he limped across the street, the door swung open, framing Bryn. She would have made a terrible spy. Emotions flit across her face and reflected in her body language. Artifice was her sister’s strength; Bryn’s was honesty.
And right now she was mad as hell.
As he gained the entrance, she launched herself at him, punching him on his grazed arm and again in the belly.
“What the devil, woman?”
“Don’t you ever. Do. That. Again!” She punctuated each word with a slap or jab.
They scuffled a moment in the entry until Maxwell corralled her wrists in one of his hands. Rousing the household would lead to awkward questions.
Frog marching her into the study, he closed the door with his foot and pinned her against it. It seemed incongruous that not even an hour ago, they had been in a similar position under entirely different circumstances.
“You are a total and complete dolt. Why did you run after an armed man? You could have been killed.” At least she had the good sense to keep her voice down.
“For the love… Stop kicking me. You’re hurting my leg.”
She stopped kicking but twisted and bucked against him. Her lithe body aroused a physical response. One he was sure would earn him a knee in a very sensitive area. He let her go and stepped away.
“I wasn’t in any real danger.” While ultimately true, that fact had been less clear when he’d set off after the man. “The man had fired twice, and odds were he didn’t have any shots left. Anyway, he made his escape before I gave chase.”
The man’s noisy retreat added to the mounting evidence pointing to a layman. An experienced criminal would have been quieter and more careful not to leave anything behind.
“What if he’d had friends waiting and led you into a trap? What if he’d skewered you as you came out of the alley?” The tremulous quality of her voice told him more of her worries than her words.
“You have a bloodthirsty imagination.” He rubbed a piece of her hair between his fingers and was gratified she didn’t pull away. “I’m fine.”
“I can see you’re not fine, Drake.” She touched his elbow.
Between the cold and the energy that had pumped through him at the first gunshot, he’d forgotten about his arm. Now that she’d reminded him, it throbbed in punishment. Not only his arm but his leg as well. He’d pushed himself beyond his limits this evening. Before his injury, he would have caught his would-be assassin. It was frustrating.
“I would appreciate some help cleaning my wound.” When she crossed her arms in response, he added, “Please? I’ll make a muck of it.”
Her eyes softened even though her stance remained rigid. “I suppose I can’t let you die of fever. Go pour yourself a tot of liquor.”
She left, and he did as he was told. After downing his more-than-a-tot of brandy in two swallows, he pulled off his shirt, wincing at the sting on his arm. Another shirt ruined. A few more attempts on his life and a shirt order from the tailor would be required. He laughed softly to himself, a sure sign the brandy was taking effect.
Time passed. Bryn returned with a basin of water and clean linens and knelt at his feet.
“Are you still mad at me, lass?” All he needed was an angry, impassioned woman with her hands on his wound.
“Yes,” she said shortly.
But he needn’t have worried. She was gentle, her ministrations almost soothing.
“It’s shallow and clean. No need for stitches.” She sat back on her heels and looked up at him.
The brandy had warmed him from the inside. His hand, disconnected from any conscious thought, caressed her cheek, and her lashes dropped as she leaned into his touch. The same hand made a trek to her hair, sifting through the silk.
He stretched his bad leg out straight, muffling a groan.
She tilted her head. “Your leg pains you.”
It was a statement and not a question, so he didn’t feel obliged to answer. He closed his eyes, wanting to ask—beg was more like—her to ease the pain, but he was unable to get the words out. Asking for help exposed his weakness.
But it seemed she was a mind reader. She kneaded his leg around the old wound. He watched through barely open eyes. Her bottom lip was caught b
etween her teeth as she concentrated on healing him. Her hands were magic. She was magic.
No, if tonight proved anything, she was flesh and blood. He’d taken her like a man possessed in the whorehouse. She should have been furious with him. And she had been. But not about the act itself. It had been his bumbling, pompousness afterward. His insistence on marriage.
Now that pain wasn’t his companion, a wave of exhaustion swamped him. Why didn’t she want to bear his name and children? Was he not good enough? The question circled his head, finding no answer, until he drifted to sleep.
* * * * *
The next day dawned gray and ominous. After the long, harrowing night, Bryn didn’t awake until early afternoon. The gloom kept her abed. The old Bryn would have never lolled in bed so late. Of course, the old Bryn would have never done many of the things she’d done over the past weeks.
Preparations for Sutherland’s dinner party would begin in earnest in a few hours. Part of her wanted to seek out Maxwell, wondering how deep his regrets had grown after their passionate encounter. But there was no use trying to ferret out his feelings. He buried them so deeply she wasn’t even sure he understood them.
So she avoided him and concentrated on writing a letter to her grandmother, worrying over every word. How much should she reveal to a woman she didn’t know? Bryn wanted to believe the best of her grandmother, but recent events had taught her to question everyone’s motivations.
Moreover, she didn’t want to increase any guilt her grandmother carried. What could Bryn say about her mother and father? Her father had been detached but not cruel. Her mother had seemed content with her lot, although what did a five-year-old understand about marital contentment?
As she sealed the envelope with wax, Mrs. Winslow gave a perfunctory knock and strolled through her door, Gertie on her heels.
“It’s time to get dressed and coiffed, my dear.”
“Already?” Their departure for Sutherland’s was a good two hours away.
“There’s much work to be done.” Mrs. Winslow eyed her critically.
Her eyes wide with questions, Gertie whispered, “Elspeth?”
A Reckless Redemption Page 21
