A Dangerous Man (17 page)

Cynically, Hart wondered if she had adopted such restraint only to enhance her individuality. Was she aware of it? Did she play on it? He shook his head, refusing a dish of rum-stewed apricots.

“No, take it away,” the dark-haired young matron on his right said as the servant offered her the same. “I cannot accept one more morsel, no matter how skilled Acton’s chef. Isn’t he skilled, Lord Perth?”

“Very,” he said, turning politely. He’d barely noticed her before. But now that she’d addressed him, courtesy required he make the requisite small talk.

“I’d give much to have a healthy appetite, but I fear I have too delicate a constitution to enjoy food.” The woman—Lady Jane Carr, was it not?—glanced at Mercy and Hart followed her gaze. Unaware she was being observed, Mercy popped a piece of capon in her mouth.

The currant glaze clung to her lower lip. The tip of her tongue appeared and licked it clean. He felt his body quicken in response.

“You have traveled extensively, have you not, Lord Perth?” Lady Jane asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, refusing to look at Mercy’s lips, Mercy’s eyes, Mercy’s porcelain smooth shoulders devoured by the night-sky-blue velvet.

“You have doubtless seen many extraordinary sights since the last time we met.”

“Yes.” Good Lord. Had they met before? He racked his brain. Of course. At Beryl’s wedding three years ago. He remembered her as being a sweet-faced girl, charmingly enraptured with her first season out. The three years were not reflected on her smooth countenance. There was nothing marring her features, though nothing to recommend them either. He cursed himself for comparing her to Mercy.

“Have you visited the Far East?” She tilted her heart-shaped face. “I have always been fascinated by antiquities. Unfortunately Donald is averse to traveling abroad.” She peeped at him to see if he was attending. “Donald is my husband.”

“My congratulations to him.” Hart inclined his head. “You are newly wed, then?”

“Oh, dear, no. I have been married a full two years now.”

“Then you are but a bride,” Hart said chivalrously, watching her turn a delicate coral color. “And where is your lucky groom?”

“In Scotland. Hunting.” She lowered her lids, touching the linen to her clean lips. He’d never seen anyone eat so daintily. It was an unusual accomplishment. “Donald is always hunting. Quite keen on it, he is. But I’d much rather hear about your travels. Have you been to eastern regions?”

He nodded.

“I have heard they are unearthing wonders in Egypt,” she said.

She was a perfect English lady: her expression composed, her voice serene, her appearance unexceptional.
Her hands retreated modestly to her lap when she spoke. They did not execute arabesques in the air to diagram her words as Mercy’s did.

“Very many wonders, Lady Jane,” he answered. “There are tombs in Egypt that still hold the treasures buried in them three thousand years ago.”

Her eyes grew large. “And you’ve seen them? Would you please tell me about them? I am avid for some distraction.”

Laughter, full throated and delicious, teased him. Mercy was responding to someone’s comment. The sound of her amusement reminded him she’d laughed at something he’d said yesterday. It had surprised him that she’d found wit where others were quick to read scorn.

But that had been before she’d blackmailed him. Before she’d forced him to her will. Before she’d lied. And after she’d suffered his mouth open over hers, after he’d tasted the honey-sweet warmth of hers, his hands had learned the weight of her breasts.…

With iron resolve he smiled at Lady Jane Carr. Poor woman, lonely without her husband, no doubt. “I will be delighted to provide such entertainment as I can for so lovely a lady,” he said. And, vowing to ignore his heart’s irrational tendency, he spent the rest of the evening doing his damnedest to please.

The scrawny, pint-sized stable boy who’d saddled the green gelding for him met Hart at the entrance to the stable. There was a cheeky grin on his broad face.

“What are you doing up, lad?” Hart asked, glancing at his timepiece. It was nearing eleven o’clock.

“Doin’ me job, milord. Very popular place the stables is at night.” He winked, touching a grimy forefinger to his brow in a conspiratorial salute. “Very pop-u-lar.”

Hart dismissed the urge to question the boy. He intended to make London by midnight. “I need a mount. Something fast. And not that deviled creature you gave me yesterday.”

“Sure thing, milord. But you did ask fer somethin’ wid a bit of brimstone in it,” the boy said reproachfully. He trotted down the line of stalls and returned shortly with a roan mare dancing in her tack.

Hart swung into the saddle, touching his heels to the mare’s sides. The boy jumped out of the way as he guided the horse to the stable door.

“London Road joins the east drive a mile out. If you be needin’ the names of some sporting establishments, I can be of some ’elp,” the boy offered cheekily.

“The Peacock’s Tail. Do you know it?”

“Peacock’s Tail, ye say? If it’s the place I’m thinking on, try Cambridge Circus,” the lad said doubtfully, catching the coin Hart tossed him. “But it ain’t a nice place, milord.”

Outside, the cold wind sucked the air from Hart’s nostrils as he squinted into an icy drizzle, cursing the night, the rain, and Mercy Coltrane. He was nearing the front of the house when a dark figure astride a pale horse detached itself from a shadowed copse of dripping hemlocks.

He could not contain a surge of pleasure though it was followed hard by outrage. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

Mercy Coltrane eyed him from beneath the brim of her ridiculous battered Stetson. Her leather-gloved hands were wrapped tightly on the reins.

“Well?” he demanded.

In answer she withdrew a paper-wrapped parcel from beneath the man’s overcoat she wore and flung it at him. He caught it one-handed.

“There’s two hundred pounds sterling in there,” she said hoarsely.

The wretched creature! Actually thinking he’d do this for money—What the hell did it matter to him what she thought? Abruptly, he stuffed the package into his coat pocket. He’d keep it, all right, if only to remind him of what she saw when she looked at him. Not a lover; a hired gun.

“Ah.” He couldn’t resist paying her back a little for her low opinion of him. “My fee. Good. You’re sure it’s all there? I’ll count it later, you know.”

She nodded, her lower lip thrust out.

“Now, just so that we are absolutely clear on
this point, you say I don’t
have
to kill anyone?” he asked.

“No!” Even in the dark he could see her grow pale. Good.

“Oh, well.” He sighed with exaggerated disappointment and then brightened, as though as some pleasant thought had occurred to him. “I expect I’ll at least have to hurt someone, won’t I? One often does in these piecework affairs. Should I endeavor to cripple or merely incapacitate?”

“Neither! You don’t have to shoot, maim, kill, or hurt anyone. Just find my brother.”

“Well, that rather takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?” he asked dolefully.

She blinked at him, her eyes widening with surprise. “You’re
teasing
me,” she said.

“Am I?”

“Yes.” Her lips were parted in wonder and he suddenly remembered too well the feel of her slender body, the music of her heartbeat counterpointing his own thudding pulse.

“Perhaps,” he replied, acutely aware of how dangerous teasing Mercy Coltrane was. “All right, Mercy. You’ve dutifully handed over the money. You can go back now.”

“No. I’m going with you.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised. But then, she had an uncomfortable knack of surprising him. “No, you’re not. You’re going back to the house.”

“I am not. I’m not going to let you ride into London and spend my money on liquor and then
return at dawn and tell me you gave it your best try.”

“You think I’d do that?” he asked softly.

She lowered her face, hiding her expression. “I’m not willing to take the chance,” she muttered.

“You’re going to have to,” he clipped out, and started past her.

She spurred her horse forward, matching his gait. “Look, Hart,” she implored, “I have to go with you. If you find Will, what are you going to say to him? How ever would you approach him? I need to be there.”

He didn’t bother to reply to that bit of fantasy. He wasn’t going to find Will. At least not tonight. Oh, he’d look, all right, but a man who set out to get lost in Soho could stay lost a dozen lifetimes with no more hope of being found than a whisper in a windstorm.

“I’ve dressed like a man.” Her words tumbled over each other. “I’ll keep up. I promise. And I’ll stay out of the way.”

He reined in and swiveled around. Her horse nickered as she pulled it to a halt beside him. He eyed her derisively. The coat hid her form and her hair was tucked up tight beneath her hat. It didn’t matter.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “No one in their right mind would mistake you for a man.”

“A boy, then.”

“Or a boy.” Her skin was too fresh, too creamy and smooth. Her lips were too softly lush, her remarkable
eyelashes too extravagant, to have been wasted on a male.

“It will be dark,” she pleaded. “I’ll stay outside.”

“Forget it.” He turned around, preparing to put distance between them, when suddenly she reached out and grabbed his horse’s reins close up under the bit.

“No.” Her tone had lost its plea. Anger and obstinacy replaced it. “Damn it.
Damn it,”
she said with distinct satisfaction. “You should understand. Of all people,
you
should understand. He’s my brother, Hart. My only brother. Think of what you did, what you risked, for your sisters.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he clipped out.

“A fool can see what you’ve tried to do, if they only know half the story,” she spat back. “The clothes, the Seasons, Bentwood … you sacrificed everything so that they could have the sort of life you thought they were meant for, didn’t you? Lady Acton told me about your father leaving your family without any means to provide for themselves. Beryl filled in the other areas. I know what you did, Hart.”

“You’re not only intractable and willful, you’re melodramatic.”

“I’m right,” she said flatly.

He kneed the gelding. She refused to let go of the reins and he would not trust himself to lay hands on her to loosen her grip.

“It’s no different for me,” she said. “I know I
lied to you. I gave you my word and I didn’t keep it. But I had no choice.”

He made a violent sound of disparagement.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she insisted. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I don’t care just as deeply for my brother as you do your sisters. I have no less an obligation toward my family than you do toward yours. It is not simply that I
will
not abandon my brother. I
can
not.”

“You haven’t abandoned him,” he said woodenly. “You’ve hired me.”

“No.
I
have to go,” she said. “If you appear, looking like this”—she motioned toward his rough garb—“he’ll think you were hired by the men who want to hurt him. He’ll bolt. He’ll run and there won’t be any hope of finding him then.”

Her words were reasonable, too reasonable. He could find no fault with her logic and he wanted very much to find fault with her. He considered her, this woman who knew too much and far too little, who in one breath implored him and in the other commanded him, who’d blackmailed him and forced him to her will. Who’d given her word and then broken it. Whose mouth had melted beneath his and then had seemed to forget it. Her gaze locked with his.

She was, damn it, right. He’d done far more for his sisters than break his word. He’d killed.

“You will stay where I tell you to stay, come when I say come, stand behind me and, above all, keep quiet.”

“Yes,” she breathed. Without another word he
spurred his horse forward, trotting out from beneath the shadow of the great house onto the alley.

High above, a pale curtain fell silently back across a darkened window.

Chapter 15

M
ercy squirmed on the carriage’s cracked leather seat. Across from her Hart was looking out the window. They’d left their mounts at a respectable-looking livery near the edges of Soho where Hart had hired the cab. Since they’d left Acton’s he’d said no more.