A Much Compromised Lady (9 page)

St. Albans focused his attention on his
Gypsy—his Glynis.

She stepped around the fire, coming to his
side and he rose as she did so. She stared at him so intently that
for a moment he thought she would take his face in her hands as had
her mother. But she simply glared at him, her eyebrows flattened
over her dark eyes, her chin lowered, her tempting mouth in a set
line.

Turning, she said something in her Gypsy
tongue to her mother, who nodded to the older Gypsy man. He
vanished into the darkness, and when he came back, he gave
something to his Glynis. Cards, St. Albans noted with a touch of
surprise. Did his Gypsy intend to let luck decide? Devil a bit, but
she was a reckless one.

Kneeling on the carpet, his Glynis split the
deck to shuffle the worn cards by sliding part of the pack into the
rest. She fanned out the faded, painted backs. Firelight glimmered
on the worn wax coating.

“Take one,” she said.

He knelt and did. And turned it over.

The king of spades. Well, it was a high card
at least. Was it high enough? Would she draw a card now?

He glanced down at his Gypsy. Her eyes had
gone wide, and one hand had come up to her chest.

What? Did that card he’d drawn mean a good
omen, or bad? Blazes, but he could almost wish she would decide
with her heart, or her head, or her instincts, but not with this
nonsense. Nothing guided him but his own will. And the same was
true for her.

Why in blazes was he spending so much effort
on her? She was but a woman, like any other. And he had spent far
too much time on her as it was.

Standing, he glared down at her, unreasonably
displeased that she could not give him a simple yes or no.

“My coach will be at the crossroad to
Chelmsford. Tomorrow at sunset. If you want proximity to Nevin, I
can give you that. But make your choice soon.”

With a curt nod, he turned on his heel and
strode toward his horse. The point between his shoulders where the
knife had dug in earlier ached with each step, further irritating
him.

Would she come on the morrow? Or would she
run shy again? And what had she seen in that card that had made her
face pale in the firelight?

He glanced down at his hand, saw the card
still there and almost flung it away. But he changed his mind. He
would return it to her when next they met. Only it was not fate
that they would meet again. It was his own desire.

Gathering up Cinder’s reins, he swung up on
the black horse without bothering with the stirrups. He glanced
back to the fire.

His gypsy stood at the very edge of the
firelight, her people behind her. The air around her seemed to
crackle with tension, as if a storm was gathering in the night.

No one said anything as he rode away.

Well, the lot of them would learn soon enough
that what the Earl of St. Albans wanted, he got. By whatever means
were necessary.

* * *

Glynis stood at the edge of the woods, a
change of clothing and a few necessities wrapped in a bundle that
weighed heavy on her arms. A breeze, cool with evening air, brushed
her face, tugged loose a strand of her hair, and brought the dusty
smell of roads.

At the crossroad between Epping and
Chelmsford, a black coach waited. A coachman perched on his seat at
the front and two footmen stood at the back wheels.

Glynis wet her parched lips. Her heart beat
faster than it should after the walk here, and her courage was
leaking out of her like sand from a tight fist.

She had parted from Christo with an argument,
and those hot words sat badly with her. No matter that Bado had
only shrugged his lack of any opinion, or that her
dej
had
said with a frown that the cards had spoken and what would be would
be. Christo had voiced everyone’s misgivings—even her own.

This earl would take her, use her as he
wished, and abandon her. How could she trust a
gaujo
after
all? Once she stepped into his coach, he could do with her as he
will.

Glynis’s anger had roused at that point. “I
am three years older than you,” she had flashed back at Christo.
“And I am not some simpering lady who cannot cross a puddle without
getting wet! This is a chance we cannot ignore.”

At that, Christo had stormed off, cursing her
foolish stubbornness. But Glynis had made her decision.

It was a risk. But so was picking coins out
of a man’s pocket. As always, her needs—all their needs—were far
stronger than any worries.

She also knew in her bones that this
gaujo
had meant what he had said. It would be her choice to
become mistress in more than appearance. Yes, he wanted her—but she
had seen also that he wanted to prove he could
make her
want
him. Well, let him try. She had slipped from his grasp before. She
knew her own mind and what she wanted from this life, and it was
not him.

But still the words of the maids at the inn
echoed in her mind—this was a man who could make any woman love
him. What if that was true?

She tightened her grip on her bundle, feeling
the cloth bunch under her fingers.

If this earl was even half of what the maids
had whispered, he was far too dangerous for her tastes. Such a man
would take her heart, and leave her with only memories and an empty
bed, and an ache where he had lived.

As her mother had once been left.

She did not want such a fate, so she would be
careful as she danced with this devil. She would get what she
wanted and find a way to keep him distant, from her heart if from
nothing else. She had the warning of the card, after all—he was the
king of spades, the man who would betray as he had once been
betrayed. And she had her mother’s example of twenty years
alone.

Drawing a deep breath, Glynis started towards
the Earl of St. Albans’s coach, with its crest upon the door and
its four black horses whose gleaming coats glinted blue in the
dying sunlight.

The coach door stood open, the steps down. As
she neared, the earl stepped out onto the dusty road.

He looked far more like a lord, with a tall
hat set at a rakish angle, a beautiful brown coat molded to his
broad shoulders, buff breeches, and boots that shone like black
mirrors. Almost, she could imagine him a stranger.

But a familiar smile crooked the right corner
of his mouth. “I knew you had courage enough. You are indeed a
remarkable woman, Glynis Dawes.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I use my mother’s
name—Chatwin.”

St. Albans swept off his hat and bowed.
“Then, Miss Chatwin, your carriage awaits.” And because she looked
up at him, her eyes enormous and her cheeks pale under her golden
skin, he found sympathy enough for her that he gave her a rueful
smile. “Don’t tell me you have any fear of a man you’ve already
seen naked?”

Her glance sharpened. “I left before you had
your trousers off,” she said, and she peered into the carriage as
if it were a cell in London’s White Tower.

Oh, for...
, St. Albans thought, his
patience snapping.

Sweeping his arms around her, he pinned her
arms tight to her side and pulled her soft curves against him. The
bundle she carried wedged between them, but he disregarded it. She
struggled only a moment, only until she realized it was of no use.
Stiff with outrage, she turned angry, dark eyes up to him.

He smiled at her. “Yes, I am stronger than
you. I could easily force my will on you.”

For a moment, it was almost too tempting to
do just that. He burned for her. He wanted to kiss her until her
resistance melted and her resolve fled. He had waited too long for
her already. But she had raised the stakes for him last night, and
now it would not be enough simply to have her.

He wanted her willing and desperate with
longing. He wanted her aching with need. He wanted her on his
terms.

He knew a thousand ways to seduce a woman.
One of them would work with her. She had set her will against his,
and had set him a challenge to break her with fair means and foul.
She would be the who gave in to his desires.

Releasing her, he smoothed the arms of her
gown, swept her cloak back to cover her shoulder from where it had
fallen away. He lifted her chin with one gloved finger.

“There now, the worst that could happen has
not. So there’s no need for you to cower in a corner of my
carriage.”

She lifted her chin from his touch, and gave
him a cool stare. “I never cower. And I have your pistol with
me—loaded now. And if you had not let me go, I would have shot you
in the foot, and that, I think, would have dampened your ardor.
Now, do you help me into the coach, or does your mistress have to
fend for herself?”

For a moment, he did not believe her.
Glancing down, he saw that she had indeed slipped a hand into the
bundle she carried. It had not been a bluff. She had been ready to
shoot him if need be.

He smiled, delighted. She was going to be
more than a challenge. She might actually be his greatest
conquest.

With a bow, he handed her into the coach and
climbed up after her. The footmen put up the steps and closed the
doors as he settled himself in the corner opposite her, his legs
stretched diagonally across the carriage so his boots brushed her
skirts and touched her ankles.

“How do you care to pass the hour or so that
it will take us to reach London? Cards, perhaps?” He pulled out the
king of spades from his pocket.

She reached for it, but he held it away.

“I take it it’s a good card?” he asked,
staring at the dark king’s painted image. He glanced at her.

She gave a small shrug. “What is good for one
person can mean harm to another.”

His mouth twisted. “I suppose it could. Does
that mean you do not believe in evil, only in the harm caused by
someone else’s good?”

“No. There is evil. And perhaps the worst
evil is when harm is done under the pretense of good.”

Her words came out tinged by bitterness, and
he wondered if that was a barb meant for him, or someone else.
“That is certainly the worst hypocrisy...but are there not seven
deadly sins? Are those not evils as well?”

Again, she shrugged and turned to look out
the window, although there was little enough to see in the dusk of
twilight.

Give her time,
he warned himself.
Go slow. These affairs are always over too fast as it
is.

Tipping his hat down over his eyes, he
crossed his arms and settled himself against the carriage squabs.
“Well, we all look after our own interests. As I intend to do so
now. You will forgive me, my dear. Rest yourself, if you can.”

He relaxed, but he listened to her breathing
as he pretended to sleep. Truth was, however, that he was fatigued.
He had ridden to London last night, for he’d had arrangements to
make, and he had paced his room until dawn, wondering if she would
meet him or not. He could not recall the last time he had expended
such energy for a woman. Had he ever done so? Once perhaps, when he
was young and still had dreams. But why expend so much energy
now?

Pondering that, his mind began to drift, and
his last conscious thought was a surprising realization that a
feeling of relief had swept over him when he had seen her step from
the woods. St. Albans was still wondering about that as his breaths
slowed and deepened, and he fell asleep.

From her corner of the coach, Glynis stared
at the earl, with his tall beaver hat pulled low over his eyes and
his shoulders relaxing against the plush velvet of the seat, and
his chest rising and falling in even, slow measures.

Either he had no conscience at all, or he had
a cat’s ability to sleep when he pleased. Yes, that would suit
him.

Leaning forward, she glanced outside the
coach’s glass window, ignoring the luxury around her of velvet and
drapes and such comfort as she had never known. She could not enjoy
it, not with her nerves tight and her fists clenched around her
bundle.

The world had darkened to shadows, but she
though she glimpsed a rider, following at a distance. Christo,
looking after her, perhaps? She hoped so. Her arms still burned
from where this
gaujo
had held her tight, and her skin still
tingled. And she was not certain that, had he really kissed her,
she would have shot him.

She glanced back to the devil seated across
from her. He did not seem so bad like this, with that mouth of his
softened, and without its usual twist. What had put that twist in
his smile? And did he think only of himself because he had never
had anyone else to think about?

Uncomfortable with this image of him—not as
an earl, or as a
gaujo
, but just as a man—she turned her
stare back to the window and the darkness outside.

* * *

St. Albans woke to the clatter of iron
horseshoes on pavement. That meant that the London road had been
left behind and the carriage had gained the paved streets of
Mayfair. Sitting up, he pulled off his hat and raked a hand through
his hair. He caught a glimpse of Glynis as the carriage passed near
the flambeaus that illuminated one of the great houses.

She lay curled up on the seat opposite, her
head pillowed on one arm, her feet tucked under her skirts. Her
dark cloak spilled off her shoulder and one hand lay in nerveless
relaxation over her slim, cloth bundle.

Watching her, he realized he had never before
watched anyone sleep. The women he bedded, he never slept with.
Pleasure was pleasure, and for rest he sought his own solitary bed,
as he had all his life.

But it was rather pleasant to watch her now,
her face relaxed and unguarded, her hands curled close to her chin,
her chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths. She frowned
in her dreams, her brows tightened, and she hunched a shoulder, as
if to shake off some trouble.