A Much Compromised Lady

by Shannon Donnelly

  Could she slip to the window and slam the sill down? Her locked door effectively held her prisoner, for she could not imagine finding the key and turning the bolt while this intruder waited for her.

  Heart hammering, she rose and softly padded to her bed, her stare fixed on the moonlit window. Her hand fumbled in the bed linens and her fingers brushed the cool, hard touch of the pistol that St. Albans had given her, which she kept with her.

  Slipping it out, she pointed it with both hands towards the open window. If it was someone sent after her, she would soon find out. And she would discover as well if she had the fortitude to shoot a man.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A man’s hand, pale-skinned in the moonlight, clamped onto the window sill. Arms aching, Glynis swallowed the tightness in her throat and wet her lips.

  “Hold there! I have a pistol,” she called out, grimly determined to shoot if she must.

  A muffled voice answered, strained with the effort of clinging to the stone. “Nais tuke, phen. Your hand would be of more help.”

  “Christo?” Lowering the pistol, she stared at the window a moment. How had he found her? What was he even doing here, climbing into her window? With questions buzzing and her blood still racing, she set the pistol on the bed, went to the window and glared down at him.

  “Why can you not ever use a door like the rest of the world?”

  His grin flashed in the darkness. Hatless, he dangled from her window, his booted feet tucked into the grooves between the stone facing. “You want your gaujo lord to lock me up in this house as well?”

  Her eyes widened, and her fists clenched. Ah, but she ought to have known that it was St. Albans’s idea that Christo stay in London.

  Grabbing his arm, she pulled.

  He lifted himself up and swung a leg over the window sill. Letting out a deep breath, he rested there, one leg still dangling outside. “This wall is easier than that house in London, or perhaps it is just that I am getting better at this.”

  “That, I do not care about. Tell me about London. What happened? How did you find me?”

  He grinned again. Lifting a soft bag from his shoulder, he swung into the room. Glynis moved to lay wood on the dying fire. She lit a split of wood and moved to touch the flame to the candles that had been snuffed earlier.

  “Find you? How could I not? The gaujo’s servant—the one who dresses so pretty—could not wait to tell me everything after I sliced the buttons off his waistcoat.”

  Turning, she frowned at her brother, a faint guilt worming loose inside her. “Ah, poor Gascoyne. He must wish his master had never seen us. I took a pistol to him when he tried to burn my dress.”

  Christo gave a low chuckle. He sprawled in the chair nearest the fire as if bone-weary. Dust coated his soft boots and his dark clothing. Firelight glinted in his windblown hair, and the dark stubble of his beard shadowed his lean cheeks. However, an inner fire lit his eyes with bright excitement.

  “Poor Gascoyne! Poor nothing. That one thought he could keep me caged like a tame bear—as if locks and I are not old friends. But I will say this for that gaujo of yours—his horse is one a man should never sell. That one has wings.”

  She tossed the split of wood onto the crackling fire, and turned to Christo. “You stole the Earl of St. Albans’s horse? You really do want to hang.”

  “Just borrowed. After all, he is in his master’s stable again.” Sitting up, he held out the bag he’d brought. “But do you not want to know what else I have with me from London?”

  He grinned. Reaching into the cloth bag, he pulled out an oblong box. Glynis’s heart skipped as she recognized the Dawes dragon carved into the rosewood. Iron hinges and an iron lock gleamed dully in the firelight.

  Her jaw slackened. She had seen the box but once, at the Red Lion Inn, although her mother had described it in detail. It was her father’s treasure box.

  * * *

  St. Albans tossed back his third brandy and moved to the decanter in his bed chamber to pour a fourth. He could not please himself tonight. Nothing attracted—not books, not letters with estate business, not anything in his bed chamber.

  A silk paisley dressing gown lay over his open-necked shirt, and he still wore his black pantaloons. He did not want to undress for his own empty bed. He had discarded his waistcoat and cravat onto the floor, and his black slippers made no sound as he paced back to the window.

  Was it the full moon that made everything but restlessness impossible?

  Damn, but he ought to have taken his Gypsy when she had offered herself. However, even in that dimly lit room, he had known that she had on that martyr’s resignation. That was not the emotion he wanted from her.

  And then tonight! Tonight her mind had been any place but with him. He had charmed. He had offered understanding for her silence. He had taken her to a bloody rectory, for love of heaven, and had looked through appallingly dusty records.

  For what!

  For a polite good night, with her stare absent and frowning as she turned and left him in his own hall.

  Blazes, but he ought to leave her to her virtue. She was a stubborn, willfully independent Gypsy. She asked too many questions, mistrusted his flattery, and tackled her meals with an unladylike gusto.

  He frowned into his brandy.

  And everything he knew of her spoke of a passion for life he envied. Far more than he wanted her body, he wanted to wrap himself in that passion of hers with a near desperate longing.

  He sipped his brandy, savoring the complex aroma and the oak-flavored tang, hoping it would numb these insistent urges. They did not serve his plan, and so they really had to be subdued.

  If only those wretched records had shown clearly that no marriage had taken place. If only there had been no evidence of tampering. But odd circumstances had cast damming suspicion that someone wanted a legal marriage obliterated from the records.

  What would he do with her if she proved she was indeed a lady born? Such a detail had never before stopped him from his pleasure. But those ladies had all been willing victims—even the ones who’d protested. Some—such as Alaine’s sister—had thought to trade virtue for marriage, and they had learned better than to try to bargain with a devil such as him. Some had thought only of the delightful sin to be had from a man who had made a career of it.

  But his Gypsy wanted only a peaceful cottage in a respectable village.

  He let out a breath, disgusted with such an idea. He would give her a month—no, a fortnight—before she found herself bored into purgatory. She was not made for such a pastoral setting, no matter what she thought she wanted.

  And it all came back again to the need to prove to her that what she wanted was not what she needed. She needed him, damn all. And he was going to get her to admit it.

  He began to smile.

  Yes, he would have her admit it. He would have her surrender that pride of hers to him. He would coax her, and please her, and make it impossible for her to leave.

  In fact, he would start tonight. He would give into these soft urges to go to her, to gather her in his arms and simply hold her. His instincts had never failed him before. Why should he question and doubt them now? Except there had been that one time when he’d listed to these urges and had let one beauty escape him. But that was not the same as this situation. No, the more he thought on it, the more he realized that he needed a novel approach to get what he wanted from his most novel Gypsy.

  A kind word, a shoulder to lean upon tonight—-that would weave subtle ties between them before his Glynis even knew he had spun his web.

  Yes, he liked this new plan—for that’s what it was. It was a plan, not an aching need.

  Putting down his brandy glass, he set out for her room.

  No doubt she had locked herself in. His smile twisted. He would wager she had also scrutinized every inch of her room as well for other entrances. But he had an ace. His hand slipped into his pocket and tightened around the iron key. In each of his houses, he had a mas
ter key, one that would open any door.

  He would give her five minutes to be angry with him, and he would tell her how he could not sleep. They would talk of the missing page in the Register, he would express new belief in her story, and she would soften.

  And before this week was out, he would posses her heart as well as her body. By all that was unholy he would.

  * * *

  Glynis had to sit down. She did so, her knees almost buckling as if someone had struck the back of her legs with a wooden beam. Her hand rose to her throat. She looked up and into her brother’s eyes.

  “How did...if you broke into Nevin House without me, I shall—”

  “As if I cannot do anything without my big sister to guide me. You may be three years older, phen, but there are some things that are a man’s work.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but he grinned at that, looking pleased to have gotten the best of her.

  “If you do not tell me what you did, I shall curse you with boils that will keep you forever off any horse’s back!”

  His grin widened. “Keep your curses. I told you I knew another way in—through the servants’ door.”

  He began to talk, boyishly eager, proud of himself, and the knot in Glynis’s chest began to unwind. She had thought herself so vital to this task, but it had obviously proven easier for Christo when he was not burdened with her.

  The story he gave told quickly. As soon as he was free of St. Albans’s house, he made his way to the stables in the mews behind, looking for a mount to liberate. Before he reached them, he met up with one of Nevin’s servants.

  “What was he doing at Winters House?” Glynis asked, frowning.

  Christo’s smile hardened. “Watching. So he could take back word of when you returned. I have no love for that gaujo-earl, but he was not wrong to take you from London when he did.”

  She wrinkled her nose and waved away such a concern, but the thought of someone watching for her return left her uneasy.

  Pushing the feeling away, she folded her hands and leaned forward. “But never tell me this servant just let you into Nevin House?”

  Christo leaned back in his chair, the box balanced on his lap. He seemed so casual about it, but Glynis could sense his possessive satisfaction in having it within easy reach.

  “He did after I told him I had been dismissed by St. Albans, and that if I could pay him back with any harm, I would. It works well to speak the truth, you see. The fellow told me he could arrange my revenge. But, of course, I made him dangle some coins to get me to go with him.”

  “And he took you to Lord Nevin himself?”

  Christo’s face twisted with scorn. “As if the great man would see me. No, he took me to some grim-faced fellow. A butler, I think. But they liked my stories well enough.” He grinned again. “I made you a hired actress who has a terrible temper. They carried my tale to their master, and that left me alone just long enough.”

  He spread his hand over the box. “He had it in his study, with his own papers stuffed in the top, as if it were as rightfully his as everything he holds!”

  Glynis’s stare lowered to the box. For nearly four months now they had plotted how to get this prize. Handed down from father to eldest son for five hundred years, this box had kept their father’s treasures. Or so their mother had said that he had told her. They had gone to the village of Nevin, to the Dawes country estate, and there they had learned from the servants—a superstitious lot who liked to have their fortunes told—that Francis Dawes always kept this box with him.

  Almost as if he knew what it held.

  Or as if, for him, it gave him a rightful claim to the title that was not his.

  She looked up at Christo, her skin tingling and her pulse beating faster. “Well? Where are the marriage papers?”

  He shook his head, his expression turning sullen. “I picked the lock, but there’s only our uncle’s papers and some stray bits he kept there—a miniature of some woman with a Welsh name inscribed on the back. And I cannot find the trick to the secret bottom that Dej said it had.”

  “Well, it must be—”

  A grating sound of metal on metal interrupted. Glynis glanced at the door, puzzled, and realized someone was unlocking the door from the other side.

  She glanced at Christo. He shrugged as if resigned, and climbed to his feet. She rose as well. And the Earl of St. Albans stepped into the room. Folding her arms, Glynis pressed her lips into a tight line.

  He checked at once on the threshold, one eyebrow flying up and his expression momentarily startled as his glance shifted from Glynis to her brother and back again. The corner of his mouth quirked, and his eyelids drooped. “An uninvited guest. How delightfully informal.”

  Glynis flung her arms wide. “Who is uninvited here, my lord? You do not even bother with a polite knock, do you? You simply come in because you are the Earl of St. Albans and it is your house, and you have only yourself to please!”

  His expression did not change, but it seemed to her that the corner of his mouth tightened.

  “Why, yes. That more or less sums it up,” he said. And then, as if to prove her opinion of him correct, he strolled into the room, his robe billowing around him.

  He looked faintly amused by her outburst—and arrogantly assured of himself. Ah, but she hated that smug smile of his, as if he found a secret joke in all of this. She did not want him to think of her as a diversion, and as a...

  Looking away from him, she stopped her thoughts. Ah, but what was she doing? She did not want this gaujo to think of her as anything. It must not matter to her if he chose to regard her as a Gypsy, a thing for his sport—and not a woman with feelings that could be wounded.

  Taking a deep breath, she glanced back at him, chin lowered, mouth set with the determination not to care.

  He stood unnaturally still, his expression unreadable, and Glynis clenched her fists, as if she could hold back the hurt that welled in her. This man thought of her as a chase to enjoy. She must remember that.

  St. Albans’s stare remained on her a moment longer before he turned to her brother. “I do hope that you at least did not leave your...what was it, ah, yes, your tshuri stuck into any of my staff. It is the very devil to train them into their place, and such a bother to replace them.”

  Christo shifted, tucking the box under his arm. “Don’t worry, gaujo. I saved my knife in case we met.”

  “How thoughtful of you.” He glanced at the box, and shifted his glittering, hard stare to Glynis. “The infamous box? I begin to understand now. This means your use for me is at an end, does it not?”

  She lifted her chin. “Yes, I suppose it does, gaujo.”

  He came towards her, something hot lurking in his eyes, his movements sinfully graceful. Mouth drying, her arms fell to her sides and she just stopped herself from falling back a step. He would not intimidate her.

  But what did he plot now?

  His smile twisted. He took her hand, his own so much warmer than hers, his touch certain and strong. “You may relax, my dear. I merely wish to tell you that I have enjoyed our association, and I shall bid you goodbye.”

  Her jaw slackened. Goodbye? What did he mean by that?

  He kissed her hand, his breath warm and his lips soft. She studied his face for some sign of devilment, some indication of his thoughts, but she saw nothing other than a dark glimmer in his eyes which meant that that too quick mind of his was turning.

  He let go of her and then strode for the door.

  A knot clenched around her throat.

  Ah, but he was not really going. This was just a trick of his. Was it not?

  At the door, he paused, and Glynis’s eyes narrowed. She had known it. This one did not have it in him to think of others before he thought of himself. This was just some plan of his.

  But the knot tightened, and she hugged herself.

  What if she was wrong?

  He smiled and said, “You Gypsies believe in luck a great deal, do you not?”

  S
till watching him, she nodded. “Bok is bad luck. Good luck is kushti bok.”

  “Well, kushti bok, my dear.” And with his crooked smile, he swept a bow, turned and walked out.

  “Wait!”

  Glynis stopped, horrified at the word that had burst from her. She had even moved forward a step, and she only just stopped the impulse to reach out as if to stay him.

  Christo stared at her, looking as if he wanted to slap a hand over her mouth. She almost wished he had. But that awful moment dragged on and she thought, a sick feeling in her stomach, St. Albans had not heard.

  This was no trick.

  He would not return.

  But he did. He stood again in the doorway, his expression disinterested, those green eyes sparkling in such a way that it reminded Glynis of childhood tales of dragons who guarded treasure hoards—and who liked to dine on maidens.

  “I...I...” Swallowing hard, she let her stuttering fade. Ah, but she wanted him to go away. She had since the beginning. Christo had their father’s box, so why not allow this gaujo to go, so they could leave his house?

  She glanced around, desperate for the reason why she had called out. There had to be a reason!

  Scowling now, Christo shifted and tucked the box under his other arm.

  Glynis let out a breath. Ah, of course. There was a puzzle yet to work through. That was why she did not want him to go. Her momentary panic came from a need she had almost not even recognized. That was all. It was just that they still had a use for this clever gaujo earl.

  Turning to St. Albans, she said, “There is one thing, yet. Since you are so good with finding your way into any place...” She gestured to the box.

  Christo pulled back, twisting slightly as if to hold the box away.

  And so she told him in a silent, glowering stare, Well, why not ask him? Can you open it?

  Christo’s mouth pulled deeper. He glanced at St. Albans, suspicion in his narrowed eyes. Turning back to Glynis, his body stiffened and he held the box away from her as well.