Betrayal (3 page)

The room in the Earl and Countess of Tullering’s home had a bed heavily draped in expensive gold fabric. Cream walls and a gold rug, which cost more than she’d earned in her lifetime, added to the wealth of the space. The writing desk’s tufted chair matched the bedding, and its curved feet added to the elegance. Oh how her life had changed in the course of a year.

A rosy-cheeked maid unpacked her small trunk and asked if she needed anything more.

“No, thank you. What is your name?”

“Ann, miss.” She bobbed and went back to her work.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ann. You can leave that for now. I’m quite tired.”

Once the girl closed the door, Elizabeth flopped onto the bed and closed her eyes. The heaviness of exhaustion blanketed her, and she slept until a loud scraping noise startled her awake. It might have been an hour or five minutes. She wasn’t sure.

Jumping to her feet, she shook off the foggy head left by her nap. She dashed into the hallway, ran to the next door, and knocked.

“Enter,” Reece shouted back.

She turned the knob and stepped in.

Shirtless in the center of the room, he gathered the pieces of a broken chair. Still too lean, but nicely formed, considering he’d been ill for so long. Muscles rolled along his back and arms as he lifted pieces of wood and stacked them near the fireplace.

“Did you throw that chair?”

He stood up straight and with his hands on his hips, looked her in the eye. “I did.”

“Remarkable. I’m glad to see your strength is returning.” She picked up the displaced cushion and a leg, and placed them on his pile.

“Are you not going to lecture me on losing my temper or the useless destruction of furniture?”

“Would you like me to?”

“Not particularly. It is just what I expected.”

His beauty staggered her. His bright blue eyes sparked enough to light the room, and his wet hair hung around his face like a fallen angel. Try as she might to ignore it, she longed to touch him. Her stomach tightened at the idea of lying beneath the sheets with a healthy Reece Foxjohn. She forced her breath out. “I’ll leave the lectures to your mother. I see this as a good sign.”

They finished cleaning up the mess.

“Don’t you even want to know why I broke the chair?”

She shrugged. “You’re angry. I do not blame you. I would be angry too.”

He stepped closer. His breath warmed her cheek as he lifted her chin with one finger. “Since you will offer no lecture and have no plans to draw out my feelings, why not tell me why I’m so angry?”

Swallowing to clear the lump in her throat, she gazed into those eyes. “You think you’ve lost everything. You were on top of the world, and now you have to start over again and from lower than before. You doubt you can ever recover and fear you will end up a crippled old man.”

He gaped as he stepped back from her. His head hung, and the shoulders she’d been admiring slumped. “Dear God, Lizzy, am I that obvious?”

Her heart ached for him, and she stepped forward. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she rested her head on his bare chest. If heaven existed, she’d found it. She imagined an eternity snuggled against his warmth. “I do not think it is quite as clear to everyone, Reece. You put up a good front at the wedding. Lillian likely saw through it, but maybe not the rest.”

His arms remained at his sides, but his cheek brushed against the top of her head. “Lilly has known me for years. How is it you see through me so easily?”

“You forget I have spent part of every day for a year watching you heal. Plus, I know how I would feel if I had to start training all over again. You were probably already strong when you started training to become a hunter, but I was only as strong as heavy pots and buckets filled with water can make a girl. I would be in despair if I had to do it all again.”

One hand skimmed the center of her back. “And would you? Would you start all over again, if you lost everything you have gained in the last year?”

She tipped her head up and stared him in the eyes. “I would do everything in my power to be better than before.”

“And if you failed?”

“I would pick myself up and try again until I succeeded.” Her heart tripped.

His head lowered until full lips she’d longed for touched hers in a whispered kiss. She stiffened at the first touch and relaxed as his hand came up to cup her cheek.

He pressed his thumb to her jaw, and when her mouth opened, he swept his tongue inside.

The kiss reached through, around, and inside her. Rising on her tiptoes, she opened for him and matched his kisses with her own desperation. Yes, this was what she wanted, more of this man. Her imagination had not done the moment justice. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling it from the neat queue. Soft tresses spilled over her hands. She burned as she molded against him.

Reece broke the kiss and stepped back, heaving breath and staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “I should not have done that.”

Elizabeth gasped to catch her breath. The pleasant tightening in her lower belly knotted painfully. Tears threatened to push out, but she refused to cry in front of him. “I see. Well, what is done is done. I will see you at dinner.”

Before she could run from the room, he grabbed her arm. The temptation to hit him so hard he’d release her warred with her desire to nurse him back to his former glory. Maybe then, he would see more than a scullery maid when he looked at her.

“Please, Lizzy, do not be cross with me. I wanted to kiss you. Just because I want something does not mean it is the right thing. I should not have forced myself on you, but I was caught up in the moment.”

Jerking her arm away from his grip, she laughed. “You think you could have kissed me if I was opposed to it? I am a demon hunter, Reece Foxjohn. Just because you have not yet seen me in action, do not suppose I am not capable of stopping you or anyone else. I know you, but you clearly know nothing about me. You should rest. I will see you at dinner.”

She gathered her wits in the hallway before she ran to her room, bolted the door, and looked for something she could break. She paced the carpet, took up a pale green vase, lifted it over her head, and then set it back on the table with added care. Breaking the expensive glassware would not change anything. It would not make her his equal. If The Company could not do that, then nothing could. Above her station, he viewed kissing her as an error in judgment. His conscience would not let him take liberties with the help. She understood. In fact, over the years, she had wished more of her employers had been so honorable. Ironically, she hated him for the same virtue that made her admire him so.

* * * *

After dinner and cakes, Elizabeth returned to her room. While the company had been lively, exhaustion and anger left her unable to enjoy it. Less than fifteen minutes passed before someone knocked on her door, likely the maid. “I do not require assistance to undress, thank you.”

The door creaked open, and Reece peeked his head inside. “I would quite enjoy that task, but it is not why I have come.”

Maybe she would go for a walk in the garden. She could walk right past him, pull off her heavy skirts, and run in the trousers she wore beneath. If she ran far enough, perhaps her exhaustion would force sleep. Perhaps she would not even come back to the house. She could sleep under the stars. “What do you want, Reece?”

“I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I upset you, and it was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“What was the first thing?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said it was the last thing you wanted, and I would like to know the first thing you wanted.”

He grinned. “You are quite witty when you wish to be.”

She shrugged. “Either answer the question or go to your own room.

Both his eyebrows lifted and he cocked his head. “If I told you, you would likely never speak to me again.”

“Really? Now I am intrigued. Tell me.”

He stepped closer. “The first thing I wanted was to kiss you until we were both senseless.”

The wonderful flutter returned to her lower stomach. “And for that, I would never speak to you again?”

“It would change things. Perhaps I’ve already ruined everything with the small kiss. I should have controlled myself, but you were so sweet and luscious in my arms.”

“What would it change?”

He’d gotten very close, but now he backed almost to the door. “This kind of thing changes a hunting relationship, any relationship. We will need to work together, and I do not want to put distance between us. Please accept my apology for my earlier behavior. I am sincerely sorry.”

He really was sorry, but for what, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe his remorse came from upsetting her or for kissing her. She pulled her shoulders back and met his gaze. “I believe you, Reece. We will be fine.”

A very sexy grin played across his face, and he bowed before leaving the room.

Elizabeth stripped down to a blouse and black trousers. She cloaked herself in a long-coat, checked her weapons were secure, and followed her desire for a long run.

Dew already covered the grass. She jogged through the formal garden to a gate that opened to a rolling field lit only by the moon and stars. Running as fast as her legs would take her, she headed for the trees to the north.

Her thighs ached. Breathless and lightheaded, she pushed herself further. She clutched the trunk of a small oak and gulped down air. Sweat poured down her face.

Movement deep in the trees stopped her. Likely a deer or hog foraging for food, but she couldn’t be sure at such a distance. It would not be good to meet an angry hog in the dark by herself. Training to kill demons wouldn’t help much in the face of a sharp tusk. A big hog would slice through her flesh in an instant, and there’d be nothing left for the other’s to find in the morning. A passel of hogs would finish her off, bones and all. A shiver shot up her spine.

Curiosity pushed her toward the movement. She crept deeper into the woods. No deer or rabbit scurried from her approach. Void of frogs croaking or crickets chirping, the forest screamed with silence punctuated by the occasional crackle of fire.

Firelight filtered through the leaves. Her heartbeat shook her to her fingers and toes, but she calmed her breath and eased forward on hands and knees. Careful not to break a branch or rustle the leaves, mud seeped through her trousers. Teeth chattering, she strained to keep even that sound at bay.

A break in the trees allowed her to spy on a small army of demons. They’d made camp, fed a fire, and prepared weapons.

Wiry treboxes covered in grayish green scales sat on rocks around the camp, sharpening blades acting as lookouts. Malleus, twice the size of a man, covered in green slime with bulbous heads, tossed hundred-year-old oak trees into the fire like matchsticks. Four of the hairy little beasts with the poisonous bite scurried here and there. Only the size of a five-year-old child, this was the type of demon that had nearly killed Reece with its razor-sharp teeth.

Downwind, she could likely sneak back unnoticed. Elizabeth backed away as slowly as she had come. Sure her heart would lodge in her throat and force out the scream pressing behind her lips at any moment, she cleared the forest and crawled across the field. Luck had hidden her from the demons when she’d made her run to get away from Reece. Only a fool would tempt fate twice. By the time she reached the garden gate, she’d been soaked through.

She carefully closed the garden gate behind her, then ran for the house. Mud splattered down the hall with every pounding step. She burst into his lordship’s private study without knocking.

Belinda rose from the settee and Gabriel from the chair behind his desk. They both stared at her wide-eyed.

She tried to catch enough breath to tell them what she’d seen.

“Demons?” Belinda cradled her abdomen with one hand and grasped her sword from inside her skirt with the other.

“In the woods. To the north.” She drew another breath. “At least a hundred.”

Gabriel’s eyes darkened and he rounded the desk. “Rouse the house. Start with Brice. He will be in the south parlor at this hour. I will go to the upper floors and wake the students there. Bella, go to the cellar and barricade yourself in with the servants.”

“Like hell,” Belinda said. “I will send the servants down, but I will be damned if I am going into hiding while my home is under attack.”

“You have to protect the baby,” he said.

She lifted her sword. “I promise you, I will.”

Elizabeth ran for the south parlor and told Brice what she’d seen.

Brice’s strong jaw ticked during her telling. He’d released his long hair for the night, and his dark eyes turned wild. “I’ll get the weapons ready. You may have given us the advantage we need, Elizabeth. Well done.”

Never having been in battle, Elizabeth shuddered just below the surface while excitement tingled in her fingertips. Would her training be enough? Would she live to see the dawn again? She ran up the steps and down the hall, banging on bedroom doors as she went and ordering students down to the ballroom. By the time she reached Reece’s door, he stepped into the hall.

“What the hell is going on, Lizzy?”

“Demons in the woods.”

He scanned her from head to toe. “What happened to you?”

“I was out for a run. I saw them.”

He grabbed her arm so firmly he would leave a mark. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed.”

Pushing hard on his chest, she dislodged herself from his grip. The mud on her hand marked his white blouse. Her chest tightened, and she clenched her teeth to keep from saying more than she wanted. When she tucked her anger away as fuel and not fire, she took a breath.

“We will all likely die in this war, Reece. Perhaps if you stopped treating me like a child, you could see beyond the end of your nose. You had better either arm yourself or go to the basement with the servants.”

She hadn’t meant it to be cruel, but he slumped and guilt washed over her. “I am not a complete invalid, Lizzy.”

“Well, then go get your guns ready. We’re going to war.” She left him standing in the hall and continued to wake the rest of the house.