No Place for a Lady (8 page)

"Not much farther," she lied. "We cannot rest. They are just two streets back."

He shook his head, pushing each word through his gasps. "I am... too slow. You go. They will not... hurt... a peer."

"Don't be a fool," she whispered urgently. "Your title is no protection. Bloody hell, you punched Ballast in the face! You may have disfigured him permanently. If he catches you, he will hurt you, then kill you, then toss your body where no one will ever find you."

He looked up at her, his expression bleak in the cold moonlight. He knew the truth, she suddenly realized. He knew his title was no protection.

"And what will he do to you?" he asked hoarsely. He pushed her down the street with surprising strength. "Go. I cannot run like you. Not through these streets." She watched him straighten his shoulders, his hands clenching into large, punishing fists. "I will hold them off as long as I can. Go to Penworthy. He will help you escape."

She stared at him, shock robbing her of words. Was he truly offering to sacrifice himself for her—
an actress
, as he had so contemptuously put it? Apparently, he was, and for the first time ever, her heart softened toward a peer.

"Blimey, you are a fool."

He lifted his head, a bitter smile on his lips. "Aye," was all he said.

Fantine looked down the alleyway. She knew she could escape their pursuers. There were any number of any holes and darkened comers that would hide her. But she had not abandoned him to Ballast before, and she could not do so now. No one, not even a rich, arrogant peer, deserved that fate.

"There must be some other choice," she said, more to herself than him. Then her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden burst of laughter from a pub across the street. The door had opened and an aged whore stumbled outside supporting a man obviously too drunk to know better than to wander outside with a desperate woman. Fantine turned away, knowing the whore would strip her cull of his valuables long before he relieved the itch that brought him outside.

Fantine dismissed the pair without a second thought. It was only one of the thousands of sins that occurred nightly in the rookeries. But Chadwick seemed inordinately interested in the sight.

"Come along, guv," she said, her irritation plain. "She be busy an' we ain't got time fer a diddle now."

He looked up, his eyes glittering slightly in the moonlight. "On the contrary," he said softly. "I think now is the perfect time."

Before she could react, he caught her about the waist and pressed her against the wall. The brick was cold against her back, and with half her breeches torn apart at the seam, the chill seeped directly into her bones. Then he pressed himself against her, his every hard angle heating her front with a devilish fire.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, alarm coursing through her.

His hands trapped her securely against the wall. To her left was a pile of refuse—a broken barrel, a shattered chair. To her right lay the open street. There was room and air about her, and yet she still felt surrounded by Chadwick, his body strong and heavy as he tried to shield her from view.

"You paid no attention to that other pair," he said, his breath a warm caress against her cheek. "You dismissed them without a second thought."

She tried to take a breath to calm herself, but that only pushed her breasts farther against the muscled wall of his chest. She closed her eyes, trying to block the memory of other hands, other chests pressed against herself, against her mother. Against all the actresses in the company.

She had always escaped before. As a child. But as Chadwick's hands wormed their way beneath her cap, discarding the item with a single flick of his wrist, she felt a strange languid heat weaken her body. It frightened her, and yet, she had no strength to fight as his nimble fingers burrowed deeper, pushing away the pins so her hair flowed freely.

"That is much better," he whispered. "Now no one can see your face."

She closed her eyes, mentally correcting his statement. No one could see her burning face except him, no one could see the flush that stained her skin except the man who was even now making her chest tighten with a tingling awareness that set her head spinning.

"This is wrong," she said, her voice too soft and breathy. She had meant to sound forceful, but she could not, not when she felt his breath hot on her skin as he trailed his lips over her shoulder, nuzzling along her neck until he found the sensitive curve of her ear.

"We are hiding in plain sight," he whispered as he settled harder against her pelvis, his desire a hot brand that made her squeak with alarm. "Shhhhh," he whispered, soothing her with more kisses, more heady touches along her arms and her neck. His hands slid beneath her shirt. "I am merely another customer doing his business against the wall."

"No," she gasped, wondering why she wasn't fighting. Why didn't she struggle as she had in her mother's greenroom? Why did the strength in his body seem a wonderful shield against the cold?

"Yes," he answered, as his fingers brushed apart the torn bindings over her breasts. She cried out, a low whimper of alarm, while her legs gave way, dropping her weight onto the corded muscles in his thighs.

Then, too swiftly for her reeling senses, he pulled back, dropping his hands to the bottom of her breeches, grasping the one untorn leg in both hands and ripping it open. Both sides now fluttered down to lie flat against her legs like parts of a shortened skirt.

"I run," she gasped, speaking to herself more than him. "Men never catch me." But he had caught her. He was even now settling himself even more securely against her. His hands dropped to her hips, curving beneath her bottom and pulling her up hard against his arousal.

"Wrap your legs around me," he said, his low voice reverberating through her body. "They are almost here. We must make this look real," he said as his mouth found hers.

The kiss was hard and heavy, draining the last of her thoughts away. He invaded her mouth with practiced ease, caressing her lips and then dueling with her tongue. She could taste him, strong and potent, and she felt as if she were being swept away in a storm—a heaving, surging flood of bodies and moans and guttural cries.

"No!" she whispered, feeling herself drown beneath the onslaught, even as her body arched into him. But it was too late. Through the haze that fogged her thoughts, she could hear their pursuers heavy bootfalls coming steadily closer.

She felt Chadwick's body clench, tensing as he began the motions of the act. Though clothing still separated them, she felt his hardness press deeply against her, felt herself open and moisten as the bawds said would happen.

No!
Her mind screamed silently. It was too much. He was too much and she was afraid. So afraid, despite his whispers.

"A moment longer," he soothed against her cheek. "They're almost here."

She acted without thought, her movements coming from panic and fear. Grasping the broken leg of a chair, she lifted it up high and brought it down hard on Chadwick's temple.

He crumpled like a stone.

When Ballast's men searched their street, they saw only a filthy whore, calmly picking the pockets of her sotted cull. They could not see much of him as his face was turned into the wall. One of the men chuckled as he passed them by, thinking that drunken fools always got what they deserved.

Chapter 4

"She hit me!" Marcus spun on his heel, glared at Penworthy, then continued pacing off his fury within the confines of his friend's library. "I can barely credit that it happened!" he muttered. He, a peer of the realm, had been sprawled near naked in the sewer. "She clubbed me with a block of wood, robbed me of everything but my breeches, then left me there to rot!"

Penworthy did not respond. Much to Marcus's frustration, all his friend did was lean back against the winged chair and extend his stockinged feet toward the fire. And rather than outrage, Marcus read amusement in the man's gaze.

Marcus spun away, letting his gaze fall into the fire. "She is a menace. She should be locked up."

"Tell me," responded Penworthy. "How do you feel today?"

Marcus lifted his head and turned back to his friend. "Feel? Bruised, battered, and..."

"Alive?"

He stiffened, uncertainty making his voice sharp. "Alive? Of course, I am alive, though no thanks to her. Do you know she stole my pocket watch? My sister gave that to me for Christmas last year!"

"I see you have another already."

Marcus frowned, looking down self-consciously at the chain that held his current watch. "Well, yes. Mavenford sent me this for my birthday. Quite a handsome piece, actually."

"Hmmm," repeated Penworthy, though this time there was a wealth of meaning underlying the sound. It suggested all sorts of things, not the least of which that Marcus had half a dozen pocket watches that he could lose to Fantine without even noticing. And that, perhaps, it was his own fault for bringing a watch to the rookery in the first place.

"That is not the point!" Marcus exploded, coming around near the fire to confront his friend directly. "She knocked me flat and left me there to die. Good Lord, if you had seen Norton's face when he opened my front door. He nearly had a fit laughing. My own butler, whooping it up like the veriest hyena!"

Surprise widened Penworthy's eyes. "Norton laughed at you? Right there?"

Marcus lifted his drink, trying to hide the blush that heated his cheeks. "Well, not just then. It was afterward in the servants' quarters. I could hear the merriment two floors up!"

"Ah," said his friend as he turned back to the fire. "Decidedly uncomfortable, I do not doubt."

"Uncomfortable! I was visited this very morning by my mother and sister. The story has already spread throughout London that I was accosted and beaten by no less than five assailants. Five!"

"Yet it was my Fantine, a little slip of a girl, knocking you flat with a chair leg." Penworthy had the audacity to actually smile.

"Damn it, man!" Marcus exclaimed, dropping his fists onto his hips. "You are not listening to me!"

"Merely because you have said nothing to the point," responded the MP happily. "All I know is that you are furious, slightly bruised about the temple, have lost a pocket watch, and seem happier than I have seen you since your brother's death."

"Happier! I am furious!" Marcus glared down at his friend, who merely smiled and sipped his drink. Then a totally unexpected emotion came over him.

Humor. He began to laugh.

"Sink me," he said, finally collapsing into a chair beside his friend. "I have not been this exercised in years."

"It is a nice sight to see, you know. You are much too young to wrap yourself up in mothballs."

Marcus frowned. "Is that what I have been doing?" He did not need Penworthy's nod to realize the answer. Indeed, since the moment he had first received news of his brother's death in Spain, Marcus had felt wrapped in a shroud, his world and thoughts dulled by that protective shield. Now a single annoying woman had ripped the covering away, throwing him into heights of exhilaration, fury, and even lust.

"Very well," Marcus said finally. "I shall not beat your thoroughly aggravating Miss Fanny."

"Fantine does have a somewhat unique effect on a person. Would you care to know how I first met her?"

"More than my good breeding allows," Marcus responded dryly.

Penworthy's eyes grew distracted as he gazed into the fire, his glass forgotten in his hand. His posture was lax, and the lines of strain eased from his face as he spoke.

"She came here in the dead of winter. I had just come home from a session at Parliament and 'ill-tempered' is the kindest term that could apply to my mood."

Marcus leaned forward, his thoughts already leaping ahead in Penworthy's story. "You cannot mean to say she came here to this house? How was she dressed? I cannot think that your staff would allow her entrance."

Penworthy grinned. "She did not come in by the door." He glanced up, and his eyes were actually twinkling. "She climbed in my bedroom window and waited for me there."

Marcus felt his mouth grow slack. "In your bedchamber!"

"I did not notice her at first. You know how she can hide in shadows." He lifted his brandy and took a sip. "I did, however, notice an odor, but I could not locate it."