A Much Compromised Lady (17 page)

A dream. A nightmare. That was all.

But still her heart raced, and her stomach
quivered.

Could it really have happened?

“Oh, God,” Glynis murmured, shivering, unable
to stop the trembling, and ashamed that she could not control
herself.

Thankfully, the arms tightened around her,
and she clung to them, not caring who held her, but only needing to
feel safe. Tears coursed down her cheeks, wild as a flooding
river.

“What is it?” St. Albans said, his voice low
and harsh, and the now familiar tone of it soothed her.

Glynis shook her head and simply clung to
him, pulling in deep breaths between the sobs.

Impotent fury swept St. Albans, replacing the
blind panic that a moment ago had propelled him into her room. He
had been awake—as he often was at this hour—nursing a brandy in his
own rooms when he had heard that muted cry of utter terror. He had
not even paused to fetch his pistol, but went to the secret
connecting door between their chambers, cursing himself for
misjudging Nevin, certain the fellow had sent someone after
her.

Only when he stepped into her dark room, he
saw nothing but her white face, and heard nothing but her sobs.

He shifted on her bed, uncomfortable and with
his arms full of weeping woman. What in blazes was he to do with
that?

The rain had stopped and moonlight streamed
into the room, bathing it in silver light that turned the world
bleak silver. She smelled of lavender and an intoxicating musky
woman’s scent that stirred his body, but he hardly could seduce a
woman who quivered in his arms like a wounded bird.

Taking her shoulders, he held her away from
him. “What in blazes is wrong?”

She blinked, and glanced around her as if she
had been lost somewhere else and had just returned. Back
stiffening, she brushed at the wetness on her cheeks and said, her
voice gruff, “Nothing is wrong. Or everything. I don’t know.”

Her voice quavered on the last words, and he
heard the rest of the tears she fought to stem.

Irritation with her swept away the last of
his fear. He did not like weeping woman. And he hated to be
clutched at so desperately. That conjured all too unpleasant
memories of Alaine. How she had clutched at him, and wept after he
had bedded her, and then he had told her that that was all he had
ever wanted from her.

That had been such a lie.

But, God help him, Alaine had lied to him.
She had said she loved him. And she had smiled as she married a
duke, as her family wished.

Revulsion sickened him. He had acted an idiot
to fancy himself in love with Alaine, and then he damned himself by
seducing her. He got what he wanted from her. He had his revenge.
And he paid for it with the memory of how she had wept in his arms
afterwards—her tears and anger and begging mixing into a miserable
mess. Much later, she’d given him her cold hatred, after he’d
seduced her far more willing sister.

But those damnable feelings he had thought
long buried stirred in their graves again. And he could almost hate
his Gypsy for reminding him of the shameful sense that had forever
haunted him that he was missing some vital part which everyone else
seemed to have. He did not know how to care for others.

And his arms quivered with the desire to
strike out at something. Because he did not know what else to
do.

She wept in his arms, and he did not know how
to give comfort, or whatever else it would take to stop her tears.
He knew far better, in fact, how to make her cry again. He knew how
to look after himself, and that was all he knew.

He had already proven to himself, time and
again, he was heartless. He might as well prove it to his
Gypsy.

Releasing her, he rose from her bed, and
stood there, staring down at her. Lord, but she was lovely by
moonlight, her skin made pale, her shift slipping off one round
shoulder. If he were a gentleman, he would ignore those stirrings
of lust that she roused in him. He would leave and allow her time
to reassemble her armor. She looked so vulnerable.

Thank Hades and Heaven, he was no
gentleman.

Bending down, he kissed her. Kissed her long
and hard, and thank everything that stopped the flow of tears. Her
lips moved under his, opened to his touch, and he cupped a hand
around her neck, and deepened the kiss. He explored her mouth, set
himself on fire with that touch of his lips to hers. And only a
hiccupped sniff from her interrupted.

Pulling back, and not wanting to in the
least, but he was at least above bedding a woman still shaking, and
not from his touch, he asked, “Would you care for a brandy?”

Biting her lower lip, she hesitated. He could
not see her expression clearly, but her eyes glimmered in the
moonlight as she stared up at him. At last, she nodded.

He was back in a moment with the decanter and
two glasses. She sat up in her bed, her dressing gown now wrapped
around her shoulders, but the room bathed only in moonlight. She
sat very still, her sobs slowed to occasional sniffs as he poured
the brandy. She took the glass he offered and held it between both
of her own.

“To fewer dreams,” he said, lifting his
glass. The crystal rang as he touched the rim of his glass to
hers.

She tipped back the brandy in one swallow and
held out her glass for more. This devil’s spawn was one of his own
kind. Smiling, he obliged.

With another sniff, she gestured with her
glass to the secret door that stood exposed against the room’s
paneling. “I should have expected that.”

“And I should have expected this. You dreamed
of Nevin, didn’t you, after seeing him tonight.”

She nodded again, the darkness of her hair
catching a faint glimmer of moonlight. St. Albans stretched himself
across her bed, his brandy glass in one hand. “I thought you
Gypsies could foretell the future by reading dreams? One of my
aunts swears by such nonsense.”

“There are those with such a gift. But I
dreamed of the past. Of my father’s murder.”

St. Albans straightened, every muscle tensing
and his anger stirring. “Murder? By heavens, if your soul is not as
black as my own from your lies, then—”

“What lie?”

“Lies of omission, my dear. You neglected to
cover this detail in your earlier renditions of this tale.”

“Well, I can hardly tell you the truth when I
am not certain of it myself. But what else can anyone think when a
young man goes back to a family that hated him, and then is dead
within a fortnight’s time?”

St. Albans’s mouth thinned. He knew quite
well what he would think, but he had a naturally suspicious nature.
“Tell me about this dream,” he ordered.

She told him. She stumbled through the story,
tripping over her words in a way he had never heard before. That
alone left him uneasy.

What in blazes had happened to Edward
Dawes?

What she did not tell him stood out like a
light in the room. Her voice quivered at points, and he could
imagine what she must have felt. He had had similar dreams as a
child, when he had first started to ride, of his own father’s fatal
fall.

“But it was just a dream,” Glynis said, as
she finished. She twisted her fingers into the bedsheets, for it
had not felt like a dream.

St. Albans’s stare remained on her. Even in
the darkness, its intensity lay on her almost as if he had his
hands on her. She knew she should not welcome his presence here, in
her room. And in her bed. But his wide shoulders silhouetted
against the pale linens seemed too comforting a reality. She did
not want him to go away.

He cursed softly, and said, his voice as hard
as icy ground. “What exactly did your mother tell of your father’s
death? Did she ever actually accuse Nevin of murder?”

Glynis lifted one shoulder. “For years she
said nothing. But I had memories of that night when those men came
for us. Something—someone—hunted us. Four of them found our fire
and came at us with clubs, and Bado—we would not be here if Bado
had not been there with us and mother. This year, when Christo came
of age, she had us sit beside the fire and she told us a
swato
of our father.”

Pausing, Glynis took a long swallow of the
brandy, letting its fire burn away the aching cold left by the
dream. Somehow it felt right to tell him this. Sitting in the
darkness, she knew that she needed to tell someone. Not Christo,
for he knew this story already and it troubled him. She needed to
talk to someone who had no interest in how her story ended. She
needed just to talk.

“My mother said that when my father heard
that his father lay dying, he had to go home. She begged him not
to. He had fought with his family, and left them to live like a
Gypsy. My mother, too, defied her parents, and they never forgave
her for marrying a
gaujo
. So they had only each other—and
us. But my father would not listen to her. He had to go.

“For a week, my mother waited, each night
dreaming of him. And then the dreams stopped, and she could wait no
more. Bado had been her friend, so she went to him and left us in
his care, and she went to find her husband.”

Pausing, she wet her lips. The old ache rose
inside her. The ache for her mother’s loss, for her own. Swallowing
the tightness in her throat, she went on.

“She found his grave, and servants who talked
of how the young lord fell down the stairs the night after his
father died. And she heard whispers of an argument. So she went to
see his family, to ask them how her husband came to lay in his
grave.”

“That was not very wise.”

“Most likely not. But all she knew was that
her husband lay dead, and she did not know why or how. So she went
to his family, and she saw his brother, laughing with some guests
on the drive before Nevin House. Laughing. He was actually
laughing. So she went up to him and cursed him.”

Glynis sipped her brandy again, remembering
too well how she and Christo had sat silent beside the crackling
fire, listening to their mother. She had stared into the fire, her
eyes sightless. But Glynis had pictured her mother wild-eyed with
grief, cursing Francis Dawes, accusing him of murder before
others.

No wonder Dawes had sent men to hunt her down
and kill her. He must have feared her as much as he hated her, and
her children.

Cloth rustled, and pale hands lifted her
empty glass from her grip. She looked up to find St. Albans
standing next to the bed. He set the glasses down on the side
table. Taking her shoulders, he easily lifted her so that she knelt
on the bed before him, her muscles liquid from the brandy.

“I ought to bloody well throttle you!”

She squirmed, but his fingers dug into her,
holding her tight, setting her heart pounding. “What? What did I
do?”

“You and that imbecile brother! What in
blazes were you thinking not to mention to me that you suspected
Dawes of bloody murder before you allowed me to parade you before
him like a dove set loose before a hawk?”

Annoyed by his anger, she stopped struggling
and gave a derisive snort. “A dove, am I? Yes, I am so helpless, I
could not talk you out of your clothes, and could not leave Francis
Dawes looking a fool for chasing a phantom gypsy! I look after
myself,
gaujo
!”

He pushed her onto her back. She tried to
roll away, but he loomed over her. His hands found her shoulders
again and pinned her to the feather mattress. Its softness cocooned
her, making it impossible to do more than writhe under his
grip.

Teeth clenched she glared at him, her
breathing rapid. She wished she had kept his pistol closer. It did
little good laid under the bed where she had left it.

He lowered his face to hers. In the
moonlight, she could see the glimmer in his eyes, and the hard set
to his mouth. Brandy fumes, and his own male scent, left her head
spinning. Fear fluttered in her stomach—and something else as
well.

Ah, but she had gotten too comfortable with
this one. One might tame a wolf, but that did not make it stop
wanting to eat rabbits.

“You are a clever girl, I grant. But
desperate men take desperate measures, my sweets. And I would
regret loosing you before we have a chance to finish what is
between us. From this point on, you will have a touch more care for
this skin of yours.”

She glared at him, wishing he could better
see the defiance that simmered inside her.
Go ahead, kiss me
again, gaujo
, she thought, arms tensing to fight him.
You
will learn this time that even a rabbit has teeth!

As she expected, he lowered his mouth to
hers. His breath brushed warm on her lips. But his head bent and he
pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat where her pulse
hammered.

Liquid heat pooled inside her. Her breath
caught in her chest. Her fists tightened as she fought that
treacherous ache of desire. She bit down on her own lip, fighting
to hold within the sigh that ached for release. Twisting underneath
him only made it worse, for it turned that burning touch into a
teasing caress of lips and teeth and tongue.

Her muscles slackened. She shut her eyes
tight and tried to pretend this was not happening to her, but still
her body betrayed her as it sang with joy at his touch.

Lifting his head, he shadowed her again as he
rose over her. She braced herself for worse. Ah, but she should not
have trusted this one.

He released her and stood.

She sat up, rubbing her wrists, glaring at
him, wondering if she could reach his pistol before he could grab
her again. Ah, but what would that solve? He would smile at her in
that infuriating way he did, as if he knew her every thought. And
he would go away, only to come back to torment her again.

Scrambling for the edge of the bed, she
thumped her bare feet onto the thick carpet and dragged off the
dressing gown from her body. She stood shivering in moonlight and
in her thin nightdress.