Shameless (38 page)

“It gets better. You may take my word for it.”

Her lip curled at him. “I’m sure you would know.”

He laughed, but forbore to reply. Which was as well, because something extremely daunting had just occurred to her: was it possible—would he expect to have sex with her again, after they rose from the bath? She knew, from things her sisters and other married women of her acquaintance had said, that gentlemen could sometimes go on all night.

Oh, I can’t.

Almost she shuddered, but caught herself in time, not wanting him to see, not wanting to reveal how nerve-racking she found her situation. But still, something must have showed in her face.

“Regrets?” Cocking an eyebrow at her, he passed her the soap.

“About marrying you, do you mean?” Her feelings could only be
described as severely conflicted, but she gamely shook her head and took refuge in washing her face and hands. She could not, she discovered when that was done, possibly actually bathe with his eyes on her. The best she could manage was to discreetly rinse off a little. Fortunately, she had already had a very thorough bath not much more than a quarter of an hour earlier. Certainly no more than that, because the water had barely cooled at all.

Funny how the world could change in such a short period of time.

To her own surprise, she yawned, then sat regarding him a little owlishly, having raised a hand to her mouth just a fraction of a second too late.

He smiled. Then without warning he stood up and stepped out of the tub, completely flustering her. Her first good look at a naked man was brief, but it was enough to make her avert her eyes and send hot color flooding her face. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one chose to look at it, she was almost instantly distracted by the exigencies of her own situation: with his exit the water sank a full foot, leaving most of her person mercilessly exposed.

“Ah!” she gasped, and hugged her legs closer as she cast a wild look around in hopes of discovering some means of covering herself within reach.

“Come on. Out you get.”

Even as, with some apprehension, she looked at him again, he stopped beside the bath holding the quilt she had discarded earlier open wide to receive her. Around his waist was hitched their only towel. It covered only the most vital part of his muscular frame.

Suppressing the impulse to insist he close his eyes—she’d had time now to recollect that he had already seen, and more than seen, as much of her person as there was to see, and had no wish to appear ridiculously missish—Beth stood up with as much dignity as she could muster, stepped over the side of the bath, and was immediately wrapped in the quilt and his arms. Not quite fast enough, however, to prevent him from having an excellent view of her dripping body. That he had taken full advantage of the opportunity to look was obvious from the
gleam in his eyes as she glanced back at him. Holding the quilt close, she stepped away—he made no attempt to keep her—then turned to regard him a trifle nervously.

The expression on his face set her heart to knocking. The only word she could use to describe it was: hungry.

“Neil.” She wet her lips as she sought a tactful way to say that which wanted to burst from her lips. “I would rather not—that is, I wish to go to sleep now.” Then, anxious to make sure he understood, she tacked on hastily, “Just sleep, and nothing more.”

His expression changed on the instant, but before she had a chance to try to work out what that change meant, he spoke.

“And so you shall, Madame Roux.” He turned away, only to return a moment later with her night rail, which he handed to her. “I’m not going to pounce on you, you know, or do anything you don’t like. You wed me to save my life, and Richmond’s, and I am quite aware that I stand in your debt, and also that you now find yourself in an awkward position as a result. But you needn’t be afraid that I’m going to require you to act the wife in bed, or anywhere else. Once this matter with Richmond is settled, you may arrange your life to suit yourself, with my goodwill.”

“Neil . . .” She regarded him with a little trouble in her eyes.

“Go on to bed, Beth. We’ll sort the rest out on the morrow.”

He walked past her to the fire then and crouched in front of it, threw another log on the glowing embers, and prodded it with the poker. All the while, firelight played over the broad planes of his bare back. By the time the fire was settled to his apparent satisfaction, she was dressed in the night rail again and tucked up in bed with her eyes tight shut, because she really was very tired, and because her emotions were muddled and she thought that sorting the rest out tomorrow, after they’d both slept and their heads had cooled, was probably the wisest course. But even after he slid under the covers beside her and almost instantly gave every indication of having fallen deep asleep, she remained awake, despite being so tired she ached with it. Though she stayed carefully on her edge—not side; sprawled on his stomach, he
took up too much room for that—of the mattress, she could not but be acutely aware of him. To begin with, his stertorous breathing fell just short of snoring. His weight caused the mattress to sink toward him in such a way that if she moved just a little bit out of her spot, she would roll willy-nilly toward him. The heat of him, the force of his presence, an occasional slight movement all made it impossible for her to pretend that he wasn’t there, even though she lay on her side with her face resolutely turned away from him and willed sleep to come to her.

Dear Lord, what have I done?
was the panicky thought that, try though she would, she couldn’t get out of her head.

Exhaustion finally claimed her. She knew it did, because she had to have fallen asleep to be subsequently awakened. And she was awakened, though by what she knew not: a sound, probably. An especially loud pop from the fire? The wind rattling the window? Opening her eyes, blinking bemusedly into a thick gloom rife with shadows cast by the dying fire, she was stunned to see one of the shadows move.

At first she could hardly credit her own eyes. But it moved again, stirring from its position near the door and seeming to creep toward the bed. Heart pounding, watching it with widening eyes, afraid to move or reveal that she was awake lest she provoke she knew not what, she realized something even as the shape drew nearer and solidified into a crouching man: she could no longer hear Neil’s harsh breathing.

Just about the time she registered that, a violent shove sent her flying from the bed to fall tumbling to the floor.

T
HE ENSUING BATTLE
was fast and furious and absolutely, unmistakably lethal in intent on both sides. Beth had no sooner hit the floor than she heard the sounds of it, and realized to her horror that Neil had leaped from the bed the instant that he shoved her from it and was from that moment engaged in a deadly fight with an unknown assailant.

“Beth, get out of the room,” Neil roared, but she was already screaming like a banshee and on her feet and diving for the poker, because she was not about to let him face this threat alone. Grabbing it up, fueled by a rush of adrenaline, snatching her night rail out of the way of her flying feet so that the too-long hem would not trip her up, she darted back toward the grappling men, thankful for the firelight that let her tell them apart. They were much of a size, but Neil was naked and the man he fought so closely was not only fully clothed but armed with a wicked-looking knife that gleamed as the light struck it, and so she had no trouble knowing where to aim her blows.

“Goddamn it, Beth!”

Ignoring Neil’s groaning curse—he must have seen her flying approach over the attacker’s shoulder—she brought the poker down with a satisfying thud on the fellow’s back, having aimed for his head but been thwarted when he dodged just in time. She then commenced to whacking him frenziedly when at the first blow he did no more than curse and flinch and try more ferociously than ever to spit Neil on the end of his knife.

The end came as quickly as the beginning. A flurry of movement sent the knife flying. There was a soft crack, and then the assailant crumpled silently to the floor at Neil’s feet.

“Dear God!” Panting with exertion, Beth stood over the inert man, the poker poised ready to strike as Neil bent to check his pulse. His head lay at an odd angle in relationship to his body, and she guessed that his neck had been broken.

“Is he . . . dead?” she asked as Neil straightened.

The face Neil turned on her was as tightly furious as anything she had ever seen. He was once again in predator guise, and as she realized that, she felt her heart skip a beat. This was the part of him she scarcely knew, and didn’t want to know.

“You may thank your lucky stars that he is.” He growled the words at her. “What the bloody hell do you think would have happened to you if he’d killed me instead?”

Before he could say more, there was a loud knock on the door.

“What’s to do in there?” It was the innkeeper, calling through the panel.

“Thank God.” Beth felt some of the tension leave her body at this timely arrival of reinforcements.

“Stay,” Neil hissed when she would have hurried to open the door. “A thousand pardons. My wife had a nightmare,” he called back, and shot Beth a speaking glance.

“A nightmare?” Disbelief was plain in the innkeeper’s voice. “I never heard of no nightmare sounded like that!”

So they were to lie, were they? Beth didn’t understand it, but she was willing to follow Neil’s lead.

“Indeed, I’m very sorry,” she chimed in, trying to keep the breathlessness out of her voice. “It must have been something in the dinner that disagreed with me. It was a most terrible dream.”

“Hmmph. This is a decent establishment, I’ll have you know, where decent people expect to be able to get a good night’s rest. If I hear any more noise out of the pair of you, I’ll cast you out of doors no matter what hour it is.”

“There’ll be no more noise,” Neil promised.

“I’m very sorry,” Beth called again.

With another unhappy “hmmph,” the innkeeper took himself off. For a moment they both stood unmoving, listening to the faint sounds of the innkeeper’s retreating footsteps.

“Well played.” Neil’s voice was low.

“Is there a
reason
we don’t want anyone to know someone broke into this room and tried to kill you?” she asked, her tone a shade too polite despite her hushed voice, her gaze swinging from the door to him.

“It makes for far too many unpleasant questions.”

Beth looked down at the man at her feet. He was, indisputably, dead.

“Who is he?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“He’s known as the Butcher. His name is Hector Bunn.” Neil was searching the dead man as he spoke.

“Why ‘the butcher’?” Beth couldn’t believe she was speaking so calmly about a corpse that lay newly murdered almost at her feet. Shock, she expected.

“Because he likes to use his knife to carve people up. It’s quick and silent, I grant you, but messy, and there’s always risk involved when you work in close with a knife. For myself, I prefer a clean pistol shot when I can, and when I can’t I’ll use my hands.”

Beth caught her breath. “Dear Lord, he is what you are, isn’t he? An assassin.”

“One of the best,” Neil agreed. He straightened, and Beth saw that he was holding a pistol and a wad of cash he had taken from the dead man.

“What do we do with him?” she asked, looking down at the corpse again, the practical problem posed by having a dead man in their chamber having just occurred to her.

Neil made a sound that was almost a snarl. As she glanced up in surprise she discovered that he was walking—no, stalking—toward her, having disposed of the pistol and cash by tossing them on the end of the bed. Now that she was no longer in fear of either of their lives, his nakedness caught her notice, but she was still too agitated by the situation to pay much attention beyond registering that his private region was as large and impressive as the rest of him, and that he seemed totally unconcerned with his state of undress. What was more to the point was that he was looking angry again, and was bearing down with evident purpose on her. Tension and an almost tangible field of dark energy seemed to emanate from him like rays from the sun, electrifying the air around him. Her instinctive response was a tiny little frisson of unease (never say fear!), but this was Neil, she reminded herself stoutly, and stood her ground.

“Most females would be having hysterics about now.” He didn’t sound like he was complimenting her on her fortitude. His eyes were once again as shiny black as pieces of jet as they held hers. “They would be terrified at what they had just witnessed, and shrinking away from me, and they for damned certain wouldn’t have started walloping a professional killer who could slice them open with one swipe of his knife with a damned ridiculous poker, which, by the way and for future reference, makes for a piss-poor weapon.”

Having delivered himself of that speech, he took the poker, which she had tucked up under one arm, from her and threw it on the bed, where it landed with a bounce. Then he caught her arms just above the elbows in a strong grip that stopped just short of hurting her. When she raised her brows at him with what she meant to be quelling hauteur, he pinioned her with a look that should, by rights, have made her cower.