A Summer Seduction (37 page)

He reached down with his free hand and shoved her skirts up, then began to unbutton his trousers. Damaris contorted, reaching down until her hand touched the hilt of Alec’s knife. She pulled it free and swung as hard as she could, stabbing it into Barrett.

Unfortunately the knife did not plunge in deeply but slid along a rib. It was enough, however, to slice a long furrow through his flesh, and he let out a howl of pain and staggered back, clutching at his side. The knife caught in his jacket and tore from her hands, clattering to the ground. Damaris did not waste time trying to find it but jumped to her feet and ran for the door. She reached it and was fumbling at the key, when Barrett slammed into her from behind, knocking her to the floor.

She scrambled backward, trying to pull herself away, but
he sat astride her, pinning her to the floor, and dragged her arms above her head, holding them immobile. She struggled, but he just grinned down at her.

“Go ahead,” he said, wriggling a little against her hips. “Squirm. I rather like it.” He secured both her wrists in one hand and hooked his other hand in the neckline of her dress. “Now, I think payment is in order for what you did to me.”

He ripped downward, tearing the dress, and Damaris screamed.

A
lec rode as if the
hounds of hell were after him, driven by an inchoate mix of rage, hope, and fear. Questions bombarded him. Why had Damaris taken his knife? What did it mean? Why would she take that cheap comb with her when she had a far better set of her own?

Because he had given it to her.

He told himself he was being a fool. Taking the silly comb meant nothing. Nor was the fact that she had been crying any proof that she did not want to leave him; her tears could have just as likely meant she was unhappy at Castle Cleyre. And perhaps she took his knife simply because she wanted a little protection with her. But if she was meeting a lover, why would she need protection? On the other hand, who was to say that the man was her lover?

That had been his first assumption, when jealousy had ripped through him. He had been certain that, like Jocelyn, Damaris had run away with another man. But now, with cooler blood, he had to wonder whether the scene Genevieve
had witnessed actually meant what she had assumed it did. Was Damaris eloping on a romantic tryst?

However foolish Alec had been about Jocelyn, even a large dose of jealousy could not make him believe that Damaris would act as Jocelyn had. She was several years older than Jocelyn, for one thing, a grown woman who had loved before, who had known sorrow and bitterness. She was not the sort to get herself into the type of situation Jocelyn had, and if she had, she would have been much cleverer in getting herself out of it.

Damaris would not have carried on an affair with Alec if she were in love with another man. On that, he realized, he would stake his life.

Besides, where and when would Damaris have come up with a lover? There had been no sign of a man in Chesley, and Rawdon was convinced that not only would someone have known if Damaris was being wooed, but also that if one person in Chesley had known it, everyone in the town would know it. Thea would have told him if Damaris had been seeing a man.

So this man would have to be someone Damaris had met during her brief stay in London, which seemed unlikely. Or he was someone from her past. Someone she had loved from long ago? She had not mentioned anyone but her husband, and it could not be him, since he was not only dead, but also someone Damaris would have been more likely to spit on than leave with.

Of course, she had not necessarily told Alec everything. There could have been a man with whom she had fallen in
love but who was married or could not for some other reason be with her. Perhaps he had shown up after all this time, and she had been overcome with joy at seeing him. Perhaps whatever she felt for Alec could not compare to her love for this man, and so she had left with him, after shedding a few tears for the hurt she must inflict on Alec.

Painful as it was, the notion made sense. Until, of course, one considered how this man could have known to find her at Castle Cleyre. And why had Damaris, if she regretted hurting Alec, not taken the time and trouble to write a more thorough explanation?

What seemed much more likely was that that this sudden and inexplicable departure was tied to the danger they had spent the past weeks eluding. What if the man was one of her abductors and he had somehow forced her to leave?

Well, admittedly, that did not make sense, either, for she had clearly packed and left the house on her own, as well as written him a farewell note. A note so final, so terse, so likely to wound, that he would not pursue her.

Perhaps he was merely fooling himself again, but something about that idea struck a chord in him. Could Damaris have written the harsh missive simply to ensure that he would not follow her? No, that had to be wishful thinking. And yet… such a blatant lack of concern was in no way like the woman he knew… the woman who had gently kissed the threadlike scars on his back, her tears falling on his skin.

Or perhaps it was not one of the ruffians who had attacked her, but the man who had been behind it. Perhaps it really
had been her family who had orchestrated the attacks, and the man with whom she left was an uncle or cousin.

And so his thoughts ran on, one moment filled with hope and the next crashing into a despairing certainty that he was playing the fool over a beautiful woman once again. But, whichever the case was, he was not about to give up. Not this time. However much it hurt, however foolish and duped and lovestruck he would appear, he had to find Damaris. He would not, could not, let her go until he had heard from her own lips that she did not love him.

He paused now and then to question someone he passed about seeing a post chaise headed this direction. Not everyone had seen it, but enough assured him that one had passed on the same route earlier that he believed he was continuing on the right path. As dusk fell, he began to worry that he might ride past them, that they would stop for the night and he would continue blindly on. So, despite the time it took, he began to stop at each inn along the way to see if Damaris was there. Fortunately, he thought, Damaris was a woman whom any man would have noticed and remembered.

At each stop he met with blank stares or head shakes until at last he slid down from his horse and asked the ostler his usual query and the lad’s eyes lit up in a telltale fashion.

“A swell mort?” the fellow asked. “A prime article?”

“The most prime,” Alec agreed, his spirits lifting a little. “Black hair and blue eyes. She likely was with a man.”

“That’s ’er,” the lad agreed. “They’re inside, gettin’ fed.”

“Are they, now?” Alec tossed him a coin and started toward
the inn. His blood was up now, and even though his stomach turned to ice, thinking of what might lie before him, he strode forward rapidly, drawn toward Damaris like a magnet to true north.

He stepped inside to find the public room curiously empty. A few further steps took him into a hallway where a clot of people were gathered outside a closed door. On the other side of the door, there was a crash and a woman’s cry. Alec’s heart leapt into his throat.

“Damaris!” He shoved his way through the crowd. “What the devil’s going on here?”

They parted, and the man closest to the door turned toward him, his face relaxing as he recognized authority. “We don’t know, sir. It’s been going on like that for a bit. Shouting and screeching and banging about. But the door’s locked. We can’t get in.”

Alec shoved the man aside and crashed the heel of his boot against the door. The other man, presumably the innkeeper, let out a cry of protest, but Alec paid him no mind, just kicked the door again. There was another cry from within, and Alec threw every bit of strength he had against the door.

It crashed open. Alec saw Damaris on the floor, a man straddling her, pinning her to ground, his hand reaching obscenely for his crotch.

With a roar of rage, Alec charged into the room.

Damaris had closed her eyes
, turning her face away from the sight of Barrett’s red face, stamped with lust, but at the sound
of the door crashing open, her eyes flew open and she swung her head toward the door. She stared in shock and disbelief as Alec threw himself at Barrett. He slammed into the other man, tearing him off Damaris and onto the floor beside her, landing heavily on top of him.

Rearing up, Alec rained blows down upon the man’s face. Barrett’s nose broke with a sickening crunch, and blood spurted from it, soon joined by a stream of blood from a cut above his eyes and another from his split lip.

Damaris staggered to her feet and glanced over at the doorway, which was filled with a crowd of strangers, all staring in fascination at the sight of Alec pounding his fists into Barrett’s face. She turned back to Alec and could not deny a certain vicious satisfaction in seeing him destroy the man who had just capped off his crimes against her by trying to rape her.

But, a more rational part of her brain reminded her, she could not let Alec put himself in the position of killing a man. “Alec, no! Stop!” She went to him, grabbing his arm as he pulled it back. “Stop. You will kill him.”

He turned and looked up at her, his face stamped with such primitive bloodlust that it would have made most men quail. “That’s exactly what I mean to do,” Alec assured her, but when she stood firm, continuing to gaze at him calmly, his blazing eyes lost their wild look, and he rose to his feet. Casually stepping over Barrett’s inert body, he pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right?”

Damaris let out a choked cry and flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest and giving way to a storm of tears.
He cradled her against him as she cried, stroking her hair and back soothingly. “Shh, love, shh,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “It’s all right. You’re safe. He shan’t hurt you again.”

“I know. I know,” she managed to gasp out. “I was so scared.”

There was a collective gasp from the people still clustered at the doorway, and suddenly Barrett’s voice rang out. “You doxy!”

Damaris and Alec whirled to see that while they were wrapped up in each other, Barrett had rolled away and pulled himself to his feet. He was standing against the wall, leaning back against it for support. Blood covered his face grotesquely, and one eye was already swelling. And in his trembling hand, pointing straight at Damaris, was a gun.

“You have ruined yourself now,” he went on, his words distorted by his swollen lips and battered jaw. “I have every right to shoot you and your fine—”

“Barrett, don’t!” Damaris cried. “Think! This will not help you.”

“Barrett!” Alec stiffened, his eyes narrowing.

“I disagree,” Barrett told her. “It will give me a great deal of pleasure.”

“It is I you want to shoot, not her,” Alec said calmly, sticking his hands into his pockets in a casual way and stepping in front of Damaris.

“Don’t worry. I intend to shoot both of you,” Barrett replied.

“Ah, then you have two pistols?” Alec asked. “Because, you see”—his hands swept up, still in his pockets, and two shots rang out simultaneously—“I do.”

Bright red blossomed on Barrett’s hand and chest. The gun went flying from his hand, firing harmlessly into the china cabinet, and Barrett stood for a moment, staring at Alec with a look of astonishment, before collapsing on the floor.

For an instant, everyone remained frozen. Then one of the women watching let out a high-pitched shriek and collapsed in hysterics into the nearest man’s arms. Alec pulled his hands out of his pockets, the emptied pistols still in them. He glanced from the man lying on the floor to the innkeeper.

“Is he—is he dead?” the innkeeper asked in hushed tones.

Alec strode over and dropped to one knee beside Barrett, reaching two fingers to his throat to check his pulse. “Yes, it would seem so.”

“Who is he?” The innkeeper came closer, staring at the body with a sort of frightened fascination.

“I’ve never seen him before,” Alec answered, and a flicker of his gaze to Damaris told her to keep silent.

The innkeeper turned toward Damaris. “What did you say to him, missus? Did you say his name?”

Alec answered before Damaris could open her mouth. “I believe what she said was, ‘You daren’t! Don’t!’”

“Ah…” The innkeeper nodded, his eyes going back to the dead body.

Damaris sat down hard in the nearest chair and watched as Alec opened the dead man’s jacket and reached into an inner pocket. He pulled out a silver card case and flicked it open, and his eyebrows rose slightly.

“Well, it seems as if his name was Dennis Stanley.” Alec
snapped the case closed and dropped it onto Barrett’s still chest. He rose to his feet and turned his most lordly expression on the innkeeper. “I have no idea why, but this man abducted my guest out of the garden at Castle Cleyre a few hours ago.” He glanced at Damaris. “’Tis easy to guess what his purpose was.” He cast an expression of disdain at the body. “Obviously he was a man of low morals and no honor, but other than that, I know nothing about him. No doubt you should call for the coroner. I am not sure who your local magistrate is.”