What was he going to do—drag her into Bicester at knifepoint? Into the woods? There was no reasonable end here.
His toes itching, Evan shuffled forward. Closer. Closer.
“Stop—stop or her blood will spill,” the man spat out through the black cloth covering the lower half of his face.
Just as Evan was about to lunge forward and knock the blade away from Juliet’s neck, a rock blasted across his left temple. A big rock.
Swaying, he dropped heavy down onto his knees. The ground rushing at him.
His body flat on the road, dirt seeped into his mouth. Arms and legs not working.
Enough to knock him down, not enough to knock him into oblivion.
The man that had just smashed a rock into his temple stepped over him, walking toward Juliet and the other brute.
Hell—he’d been too damned worried about Juliet to bother to look around him. Imbecile move.
A chuckle came from the man that had hit him. “Too easy.” He didn’t even look back over his shoulder at Evan. He pointed at Juliet. “His lordship will want her brought to him.”
The knife dropped from Juliet’s neck and the first man dragged her into the woods. She didn’t scream. She didn’t fight.
The second man went to the edge of the woods, digging through a pile of stones, searching. Searching for a bigger rock. A twisted smile crossed his face as he worked a head-sized rock out of the earth with both hands.
Evan’s left fingers twitched. His hand was working.
With a grunt, the brute yanked the rock up and over his head.
Evan willed his arm to move. Good. Now down to the dagger tucked along his boot.
His fingers wrapped around the handle and he pulled the blade free, keeping his arm down low by his side. Now he just had to get the rest of his body to follow orders.
The brute advanced on him, his stare on Evan’s head. The exact spot he was going to smash the rock down.
Evan’s knee bent. Then the other. His vision only swaying a bit.
Two steps closer and the brute lifted the rock even higher. His toes stopped in front of Evan’s face.
No time to test his muscles.
Evan rolled toward the man, landing on the front of his boots as his arm swung up, plunging his dagger into the man’s belly.
The rock dropped, skimming the side of Evan’s ear, and he yanked the blade free from flesh, gained solid footing for his right foot and lifted himself, slicing his dagger across the brute’s neck.
A gargled scream squeaked from the man’s mouth and the other brute whipped around, shoving Juliet away. He ran, lunging toward Evan with his blade swinging.
His blade caught Evan’s left arm before Evan could untangle himself from the first man and jump away. Pain from the slice seared into his body, but it didn’t matter. The other ruffian was away from Juliet and that was most important.
Another wild swing of the brute’s blade and Evan ducked. Just as Evan switched his grip on his dagger to attack, the brute screamed, dropping his blade and grasping at his shoulder.
He spun in a circle, his wild eyes darting from Evan to Juliet. His feet slipping in the dirt of the forest’s edge, he ran. Dodging trees and brush, he sprinted away as fast as the forest allowed.
Evan glanced at Juliet. She stood perfectly still, staring at her right hand raised and holding a small dagger in the air. Blood dripping from the silver blade.
Hell. She’d stabbed him in the back.
Evan took a step toward her. “Well done.”
Her look jerked to him, then to the trees where the man that had grabbed her had disappeared. “Should—should we follow him?”
He wedged the blade out of her outstretched hand and bent to the ground, plunging both her blade and his into the dirt to clean them. “He’d still be here if he thought he stood a chance against us.”
Evan took a moment to inspect her blade—the steel had a scrolling gold overlay centered along the length of it and it had a dark jade handle, smaller, to fit her delicate hand. A weapon of beauty, not just function. If she was going to slice someone, she was going to do it in style. He sheathed his own dagger and looked up at her.
Bloody hell, she was shaking, her arms wrapped around her belly. Her face pale even in the shade of the trees.
He tucked her dagger into his boot and stood, blocking her view of the man that was splayed on the ground three feet from her, and ushered her to the road. He lifted her onto the horse, then mounted behind her and set the mare hard along the last stretch to Bicester.
He stopped at the first coaching inn, alighted, then grabbed her about the waist and lifted her down to the ground. He set his arm along her shoulders and maneuvered her into the building.
“A room, now,” he barked at the innkeeper quick to approach him.
The man glanced at Juliet and nodded, quickly turning and showing them up the stairs.
Into a room, and Evan left her in the middle of the chamber to lock the door behind the innkeeper. He paused at the door for a long second, staring at the grain of the dark wood. With held breath, he turned back to Juliet.
She still shook, her body quivering in wave after wave, her smashed blue hat dangling limply in front of her.
He’d felt the quake in her the entire way into the town and he’d been helpless to stop it, only thinking of getting them to the true safety of a room at the inn.
She’d assessed him correctly. He wasn’t accustomed to being around women. He’d bloody well congratulated her for stabbing a man.
He knew even less what to do in a situation like this. But he wanted, desperately, for her shaking to stop.
At a loss for how to proceed, he took three strides to her and wrapped his arms around her, encapsulating her hard against his chest.
She didn’t resist, tucking her head down and into the bulk of him.
He held her there. Minute after minute after minute until the shudders eased. Then stopped.
She pulled her face free from his chest, her head swinging back and forth, her voice a whisper. “I never—I never expected him to go this far.”
“What?”
Her head wouldn’t stop shaking. “I never thought he would do such a thing. I thought…I thought if I just went with them they would let you go—not try to kill you.”
“Who did what?” Instant rage swept through Evan and he jerked a step backward, his arms abandoning her and leaving her to sway atop her own two feet. “What in the bloody hell have you got me into, woman?”
{ Chapter 5 }
“It’s—nothing—it’s nothing.” Juliet looked up at Evan, rattled at the lightning quick change in his demeanor. One second he had his arms wrapped about her, protecting her from the world, the next he was set to throw her to the wolves.
“The wound on my head begs to differ with your assessment,” he growled.
She tried to still her body, the quaking that had overtaken her threatening to return. She was stronger than this. She’d used a knife on a man before. But she’d never been near dragged off into the woods by two blackguards. For as harsh as the rookeries could be, she’d enjoyed a modicum of safety under Hoppler’s watch.
This…this was different. She was adrift and there was no feeling she despised more.
Adrift and staring up at a man that looked like he wanted to pick her up, shake her, and toss her out the window.
Her lips pulled inward, her teeth grinding into the inner flesh as she stared up at him. The long gash along his left temple looked wicked, dirt and tiny rocks from the road embedded into the quickly drying blood that would turn into a nasty scab.
She pointed to her right where two wingback chairs sat by a fire. “Sit—sit and let me clean the wound.”
He didn’t move, the only response a flair of his nostrils.
“Please. Please just sit.”
She could see it in him, the bitter decision rattling in his brain—toss her out or sit as requested.
To her surprise, he opted
for the kinder option and moved to the chair at the right of the fire.
Juliet took it as a pittance of mercy and turned from him, stepping quickly to the chest of drawers with a pitcher of water and washing bowl atop. She poured the water and dunked a linen washcloth into the bowl, then squeezed the excess water from it.
Turning back to him, she approached him tentatively, her motions smooth. That was always how she approached the drunks at the Den. Smoothly so as to not startle them. Evan wasn’t a drunk, but he was ready to jump at her if given a chance.
The wet linen wrapped around her fingers, she set the cloth to the upper edge of the cut splitting his skin open. She dabbed at it, ignoring his glare.
He only let her take five swipes at it before grabbing her wrist. “Ye don’t have to do this.”
“I do.”
He shook his head. “No. I can tend to my own wounds. I always have.”
“But this.” Her head tilted toward his temple. “This was my fault. I will clean the mess of it.”
His fingers dropped from her wrist and she resumed gently pressing the cloth against the dried blood and dirt, soaking it free from his skin.
Another minute passed before his stormy eyes lifted, pinning her. “You’ll not say more?”
“Do I need to?”
His eyes narrowed at her, his mouth set in a hard line. “Tell me. Truth—you said it yourself, it is the only thing to live by. Who did this?”
Her chest lifted in a sigh as she kept her attention on blotting the wound—better than to have to meet his stare head-on. “It’s the real reason I agreed to help you, to come with you. There’s a man at the Den. His visits have become increasingly frequent—and I have always passed him off onto one of the other women when the time has come for the bedroom.” She flecked off a tiny, jagged rock in a stubborn clump of blood. “But it has taken more and more cajoling to make that happen. More brandy, more talking. Yet he has become more and more insistent that he have me in his bed.”
“He hurt you?”
She paused for only a second in her motions. Damn that she paused at all.
She forced a smile onto her lips. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. But it was why I was at the Willows. I had thought to escape London for a fortnight to let him cool.”
“Because he was so insistent that you felt the need to flee London?”
“I didn’t think he would go this far. That he would send men after me.” Her shoulders lifted. “He was obsessed, yes. But I’ve had men before like him, men that fixate on me and cannot let go. This one…this one is different, though. He doesn’t know bounds. The core of him is…evil. I feel it every time I am near him.”
“Then why is he allowed into the Den?”
“Lord Vontmour has yet to do anything grave. It doesn’t help that the man is privileged to his bones, knows it, and is an ass to all around him because of it. And the one person with the power to kick him out of the Den for good was otherwise engaged this past month.”
“Mr. Hoppler?”
She nodded. “Hoppler had been taking care of his personal affairs and then trying to find Pen after she disappeared. His mind has only been on her, as it should have been. I thought I could handle Lord Vontmour.”
Most of the blood cleared from his temple, Juliet bent over farther to look closely at the slice of the wound separating his flesh. “I was wrong, and you paid the price. I apologize. I never should have gotten you involved. I never imagined he would have us followed. Never imagined he would have you nearly killed in order to abduct me.”
“You mean ye should have just gone back to the Den and let him do whatever he damn well pleased with you?” His head turned and he looked at her directly. “Tell me you don’t think that was an option.”
Standing up straight, she sighed with her lips pursed. “I do not care for it when the truth of the matter needs to be pointed out to me.”
He chuckled. “I am happy to serve the purpose.”
“I imagine you are.”
With the gash on his temple cleaned, Juliet looked down to the wound on his upper arm that had sliced through both his tailcoat and his shirt. She couldn’t discern how bad it was for the black of his coat, but along the rip of fabric there was the telltale matting of blood soaked into the wool.
She reached out with her left hand, her fingers tracing along the tear on his upper arm. “I’ll need to look at this one as well. You need to take your coat and shirt off.”
Turning from him, she went to the bowl of water and dunked the cloth to rinse the blood from it. Dunk, swish, squeeze, over and over. She kept her gaze on the water tingeing pink in front of her, ignoring the rustling of clothes leaving Evan’s body behind her.
Damn, but she was beginning to like the man.
Against all her ingrained instincts, she liked him. She could count on one hand the men she liked. Hoppler, Jasper, Talen Blackstone, and Egbert—though Egbert she liked for the goofiness that would escape him when he wasn’t busy doing the dirty work of the business they were in.
She couldn’t afford to like this Scot.
And as much as she wanted to escape north with Evan for a spell, he’d been hurt because of her. Unacceptable.
She needed to go back to the Den and face Lord Vontmour head-on, come what may.
Juliet turned around to find Evan still sitting in the chair, but now he was naked from the waist up.
She hadn’t been wrong about the build of his body.
Wide and thick and solid muscle. Haphazard scars about his skin. Her mouth went dry. Still not conventionally handsome, but pure, virile man. Strong and brutal and yet kind. His damn kind eyes.
No.
Since when did she look at a half-naked man and actually note the shape of his arms? The cut of muscles against his abdomen? The harsh line down the center of him that sliced between mounds of strength?
Never. She didn’t do it. Ever.
Resolve stiffened her spine. She needed to go back to London and never think on Evander Docherty again.
Gripping the rinsed washcloth in her hand, she stepped across the room to him, purpose thudding in her chest.
She dropped down onto her knees next to his chair, her stare refusing to veer off the cut along his upper arm. Longer and deeper than she had hoped. She cleared her throat. “All that said, my problems shouldn’t have affected you and I was wrong to come with you on this journey. I need to go back—go back to the Den of Diablo and face it like I should have. I will figure out what to do—I have Jasper and Egbert and if I need to, I can involve Talen Blackstone.”
“Mr. Blackstone? Didn’t Jasper say he was a rival of Mr. Hoppler’s?”
“He is, and he isn’t. He’s useful when Hoppler isn’t available, as he’s just as powerful.” She dragged a long swipe of the wet cloth against the cut on his arm. “It doesn’t matter. I will go back and deal with it. I never should have gotten you entangled.”
His head bobbed slightly up and down. “A bold plan, yes, but you made a deal with me, lass, and I need you to uphold it.”
Her eyes lifted to his face. “Your grandfather?”
“Aye.”
Not what she wanted to hear. “But what if Lord Vontmour sends more men after me? I cannot have you hurt again because of me.”
“Ye think I’m afraid of a wee bit of danger?”
She rocked back onto her heels, looking him up and down as her arms landed on the top of her thighs. “No. I suppose you are not. You are a wall. A very solid wall. By all rights that blade should have never breached your iron skin.” She pointed to his arm. “But it did. And if the steel had been deeper? Or across your neck?”
“It wasn’t. So I put no importance on it.” He grabbed her raised hand. “For the record, I think you should make other plans for when our ruse ends. I don’t think you should ever step foot back into the Den again.”
Juliet forced a smile. So like a man. Not understanding there were so few choices for women like her. She pulled her hand f
rom his grip and lifted herself off her heels to continue dabbing at the wound along his arm. “I do apologize to the woman you will marry someday.”
“Why?”
“The cut on your temple may not, but this wound will surely scar. She’ll ask you about this scar and you’ll have to tell her the tale of your fake betrothal.”
He chuckled with a smile, but then his hand flicked into the air. “It’s not a concern.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “I will never marry.”
Her head jerked back slightly. “Never?”
“No.” The short-lived smile drifted from his face.
“Why not?”
His mouth clamped closed and his face shifted away from her, his gaze on the fire.
She studied his profile. Hard-set, closed off. Whatever his reason, he wasn’t about to let her be privy to it.
She pushed herself up onto her toes, stood, then bent over to get a close look at the slice across his arm. If she knew how to stitch a wound closed, this would probably be a good time to do so. Tying a tight bandage about it would have to do. Or did they need to call for a surgeon?
Her fingers went onto the skin along the top of the wound, prodding at the flesh. What did Jasper always say? If you could see deep into the muscle in a wound, it needed to be closed by stitches? But Evan was all muscle. Muscles twitching constantly under her fingertips as she poked along him. Skin that reacted to her slightest touch. So hard. Strong.
Her eyes drifted onto his chest and the most peculiar thing happened. A pang, deep within her, sparked into a blaze.
She froze, her fingers on his skin beside the wound stilling.
Hell. She hadn’t felt that in years—six, not that she was counting. Pure wanton spikes shooting through her core, her body wanting what was in front of her.
The slightest gasp parted her lips and her gaze lifted. He’d turned back to her, his grey eyes locked on hers, their breath between them heating until it scorched the very air.
Saints to hell. She was going to kiss the man.
She moved up, her lips meeting his by their own idiotic force.
Not even a heartbeat and he responded, his right hand lifting, sinking into the hair at the back of her head. His mouth instantly took over, his lips parting, tongue tasting, the carnal instinct in him spinning into a firestorm.
Wicked Exile (An Exile Novel Book 2) Page 4
