A Much Compromised Lady (20 page)

Tomorrow.

A scrabbling outside her window roused her.
Someone was climbing the walls. For a moment, she could only fear
that somehow she had betrayed herself with Bryn Dawes, and that,
like his father, he had sent someone after her. An instant’s fear
ran through her, cold as winter.

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.

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 master 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.