A Much Compromised Lady (3 page)

Still smiling, she shook her head, her eyes
wide and staring up at him with such trust that he started to feel
not only annoyed with her, but with himself. Be damned, but was
this a seduction or an argument about his black soul? Oh, he had
had enough of this.

Before he could move, she spoke, sealing his
fate. “But do you wish to hear the whole of how I came to choose
you to protect me?”

No, I don’t want to hear this
, he told
himself. Only the truth was that he rather did want to hear it. The
very idea that anyone could view him as a savior amused him no end,
for he always had been on the opposite side of such protection,
from gentlemen looking after their daughters, their wives, and even
their mistresses. Curiosity itched inside him, meaning that he
could not simply sweep her into his arms and kiss her silent.

She will only lie again
, he told
himself.

However, he wanted to hear the next invention
that would come from those delectable lips.

With a sigh of resignation, he crossed his
arms again, hoping that would seem less threatening to her, but
ready to pounce should she try to slip past. He leaned his shoulder
against the wall. She must be playing for time. But he was a good
enough angler to know that the real sport lay in the art of
allowing the fish to run when it would. For now, it amused him
enough to watch her play his line.

“Why do I have the feeling this is a long
story?” he asked.

She gave a small shrug. “Your part in it is
not, which is all that would interest you.”

His mouth quirked. “What, did the maids also
fill your ears with stories of my being a vain fellow, attentive
only to myself?”

“No. That I have seen for myself
tonight.”

“Oh, you do have a sharp edge to your tongue.
But I assure you that I can actually manage to be engaged by a
number of things outside myself. But, my own ease does come first,
so if this is going to be a very long—”

“Only long enough.”

“We still ought to be comfortable.” He swept
his arm around the barren room. “I would offer you a chair, only it
is otherwise occupied, so you shall have to make do with the bed.
Oh, you may save your suspicious glances. My bite is generally
regarded by ladies as considerably nicer than my bark.”

St. Albans allowed his smile to warm,
calculating the exact amount of charm to exert. It always amazed
him that people were so easily disarmed by a mere curving of the
lips.

She, however, did not seem inclined to be
easy. With a scornful glance at the bed, she threw wide her arms,
her face expressive and her eyes bright with indignation. “How can
I sit and tell you my
swato
—my story? Bah! That is no good.
I need to show you as much as tell you!”

She was up to something, right enough. She
wanted out of her corner, and this was but an excuse to get past
him. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. Despite his
certainty that she was plotting something, he wanted to hear this
swato
of hers. Besides, she could not get past that door
without moving the chair. And he rather liked how those gestures
did interesting things with those lush curves of hers.

Uncrossing his arms, he gave her a courtly
bow and offered room for her to step past him. She gave him a
sidelong glance, and he decided if she gave him many more of those
looks from under those thick, dark lashes, he would not be able to
allow her to finish her story without ravishing her. But she
scooted past him, her fast step betraying her nervousness, and he
thought this was far more entertaining than an ordinary
seduction.

He followed her around the foot of the bed,
and seated himself on the rumpled linens. After sliding his pistol
back to its place under the pillow, he shifted on the bed to face
her.

She had pulled up the sleeves of her shift so
that the thin fabric covered her shoulders, but in her underclothes
and with her hair rumpled she looked as if she had already been
deliciously tumbled. The firelight warmed her face, casting a glow
onto her high cheekbones and that round chin of hers.

St. Albans lay back, propping himself up on
one elbow. “So what is this...this
swato
of yours?”

Glynis settled her hands on her hips, and
forced her smile back in place. She had the door to her back, and
everything inside her screamed to turn and run. But the chair under
the doorknob would slow her too much. And her dress and cloak still
lay underneath this
gaujo’s
bed, where she had stuffed them
after slipping into his room. What a mistake she had made there,
but no use came of regret. She needed a new plan now, and time
enough to think of it.

Wetting her lips, she began talking.

As with any good
swato
there was some
truth. She owed him that much for not betraying her earlier. But a
swato
needed a little fantasy, too. And she had Christo and
Dej
to protect. She could not risk betraying their presence
nearby.

She told him how she came to the inn after
hearing that a man who went by the title Lord Nevin was staying
there. Happy to have their fortunes told, the maids had let her
into the kitchen, but they told her more than she ever revealed to
them. That was the usual way of it. Her
dej—
her
mother
—
had taught her well to tell fortunes from the
questions asked. But now Glynis could see why one girl had giggled
nervously, and another had asked with apprehension if she would
catch the eye of the wicked Earl of St. Albans.

Seeing him as he was now—sprawled elegantly
across the bed, looking as boneless and lazy as a cat, his green
eyes large and glittering with intriguing lights—she could believe
those stories the tavern maids had told her. She had thought they
must be elaborating that he was the most depraved rake in England.
A gentleman by title only, and a man to fear and avoid. They had
said he took any woman he wanted, that he gambled and drank and did
what he pleased. That he was a dangerous man.

For he could make any woman love him.

She had almost laughed at their words.

But now she could see how he could do just
such a thing.

He had skin that glowed like rich butter. She
had never seen such skin before on a man. Peeking from the ‘V’ made
by his white shirt, the hair on his chest caught the light and
tempted like strands of gold. Almost she wanted to touch it, to
stroke the muscles she glimpsed there. That would be about as safe
as stroking a steal trap.

Yes, he looked like a trap ready to spring.
He concealed the tension coiled inside him with languid grace, but
her
dej
had taught her well.
Dik and shoon
—watch and
listen, Mother had always said, though her mother’s own eyes were
now sightless.

So Glynis watched this one as she spoke, and
what she saw kept her heart pounding and her nerves stretched
tight.

Stalling for more time, she told how she had
slipped upstairs when the maids had left to answer a summons back
to work. She did not tell him how she had gotten past a locked
door—he had no need to know about her skills in such matters.
However, the knowing glint in his eyes as she slipped past this
point made her squirm in her own skin. He seemed to know far more
than she told him. She did not like that. It made him seem more
Romany than
gaujo
, and she liked better to think of him as
an arrogant, hateful
gaujo
lord.

With luck, she would soon be gone from here
and never see him again.

Only why did her heart twist a little at that
thought? Oh, he was a devil to smile at her with his eyes. To stare
at her with warmth in his gaze. To lie so very still that she began
to forget her fear of him.

She needed more than luck tonight. She needed
all her wits and cunning, or her escape from him might cost her
dearly.

She forced a wider smile. “You were clever to
sense my lie—I was never mistress to Lord Nevin. But that one, he
holds papers he carries inside a box that is mine. One of the maids
came to his room and found me before could take it. I slipped away,
but the girl cried thief. So I ran.”

One golden-brown eyebrow rose. “Into my room,
where you could pose as my doxy for the night? You do like
high-stake games.”

She had to agree with him on that. Only he
had no idea just how high the stakes were.

He went on, his voice lazy. “But what papers
could Nevin possibly have that you would want? You are leaving out
some rather important details here.”

Glynis lifted one shoulder and her shift
slipped distractingly lower. St. Albans watched her push it back up
and decided that he was going to enjoy pulling it down again.

Lifting her chin, she looked him straight in
the eye, her stare unblinking. “Those papers are marriage lines
that would prove the truth of marriage to Lord Nevin’s son.”

St. Albans held utterly still. Disbelief, icy
and raw, trickled into him. Married? Her? To Nevin’s son? No. It
was preposterous. It ought not to matter, but it did. He did not
want his gypsy owned by Nevin’s son. Or anyone else. His glance
slid over her, and a confused anger beat hot and heavy against his
chest. Pushing down the emotion, he tried to think.

It must be a lie. Did Nevin even have a son?
He recalled vague talk of one. Yes, an heir. At university still,
he rather thought, so that would put the son at about her age. But
it could not be. Nevin was far too high in the instep to allow his
own blood to marry so far beneath him. The man had the effrontery
to even think his lineage surpassed all others, for its purity of
Norman blood. But the earls of St. Albans had been Saxon lords long
before Nevin’s kin arrived on these shores.

However, that was not the topic at hand. No,
it was this ludicrous idea of a marriage between his Gypsy
and...

No. He would simply not allow it to be.

He relaxed again, but his eyes narrowed as he
saw the flaw in her lie. “There is but one obvious question, my
sweet, which is why, if these papers are in Nevin’s reach, does he
not destroy them?”

Arching an eyebrow, she shot him an
irritating look as if he were a simpleton. “He has the box, not the
papers. And he does not know the trick to the secret bottom that is
concealed there. Lord Nevin’s son hid them there for safe keeping,
but if they are found and destroyed...”

Her face paled and her mouth tightened, and
the certainty flooded St. Albans that she meant every word she
spoke. But it all seemed too dramatic with this talk of secret
compartments and marriages. Dramatic, but plausible.

“I have vowed to get those papers, and I
shall. On my father’s memory, I will get them back.”

“And what if I said I would get them back for
you?” he asked.

Surprised by himself, he wondered briefly
where that offer had sprung from. Of course he had no intention of
making good on such a promise. It was not even yet a promise,
merely a question. But he did hope that she now would try to use
her charms to persuade him to assist her.

However, she did not look as if she
contemplated any such persuasion. Folding her arms, she studied
him, her mouth pulled down and a skeptical, assessing look in her
eyes.

“You? What could you do?”

For a moment, he thought that he must not
have heard her correctly. He blinked at her as her words sank
in.

What could you do?

The scorn in her tone stung like a wasp’s
barb. Of all the...why, the insolent little baggage! Who the deuce
did she think she was speaking to? Some...some upstart baronet?

Rolling off the bed, onto his feet, he
stalked towards her.

She fell back, her hands falling loose to her
sides, and sliding behind her. Her eyes widened, as if she had only
just realized her mistake.

A too sizable mistake
, he thought, his
temper barely in check.

“My sweet misguided Gypsy, either you failed
to gain enough information from these tavern wenches, or you have
not quite grasped my identity.”

Glaring up at him, she stopped backing up and
stood her ground. St. Albans stopped before her, so close he could
feel her anger flare in an almost tangible aura of heat.

“Oh, I know exactly who you are! I see your
kind every day. A
gaujo
who thinks too much of himself, who
has too much time to find himself trouble, and whose idea of help
for anyone is to offer money. Well, keep your coins,
gaujo
.
Some of us work for what we want!”

His fist bunched and he only just stopped
himself from taking that elegant neck in his hands to throttle her.
No one, but no one spoke to him in that tone of voice. And no one
had the right to criticize him.

Keeping his own voice very even and low, he
told her, just so that she would be quite clear and not make this
mistake again, “My dear Gypsy, I am Simon Alexander Derain Winters,
Earl of St. Albans, Baron Winters, Baron of Wexford and Fleet,
Knight of the Garter, and there is damn little I cannot do if I so
please, including get away with murder. Which I shall be happy to
prove to you should you insist on continuing this most unwise
discussion. And if you call thieving work, then no wonder you have
such a misguided view of the world and my place in it.”

Her glance dropped and thick lashes fluttered
low, but then she looked up again, her dark eyes burning, the gold
in them glinting hot as coals. Uncertainty also shadowed those
eyes.

Under his abraded pride, regret stirred. In
truth, he did have too much time for trouble, and he did solve a
good many problems with coin. Had he not just been thinking how
much she might cost him? However, that was not, he told himself,
what he had meant when he had asked what he might do for her.