Dangerous to Kiss (38 page)

The light from the candle on the desk cast eerie shadows on his face. But she could see his features clearly. “Gray, I didn’t see the murderer’s face.” “Why not?”

“I don’t know. The candle on the mantelpiece was right behind him. It flared, I think, and my eyes moved to it. I honestly don’t know. Too many things were happening at once. I saw Lord Barrington sprawled on the floor …”

“Show me where and how.”

“There,” she said, “right at your feet, and … and Quentin came at me suddenly …”

“From where?”

She pointed to a corner of the room, between the window and the door. “And I was terrified the murderer might have another pistol.”

“Did he?”

“No, just the one.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was looking straight at it,” she cried out.

Her bosom was heaving, and her breath came in short sobs. In her imagination, she could hear the sound of the gun going off, feel the vibrations of the spent pistol, smell the acrid stench of burned powder.

“I think that’s enough for now,” he said quietly.

“No, Gray. If this is of any help to Quentin, I want to go on with it.” She gave a short laugh. “The worst is over. What more can you ask me?”

“Only one thing more. Are you sure you are up to it?”

“Quite sure.”

He studied her for a long moment, nodded, then said, “Close your eyes.”

She closed her eyes and heard the sound of the desk drawer being opened. There was a rustling, then the drawer clicked shut.

“Remember, I’m the attacker,” said Gray. “I’ve just shot Gil, and I’m coming after you and Quentin. Remember also what you told me. You are not going to look at my face, Deb. Now, open your eyes.”

He had taken a step closer to her and the pistol in his right hand was clearly illumined by the light from the candle on the desk. Her eyes darted to his left hand. It was empty. She let out a shaken breath.

“Gray,” she said, astonished, “the murderer had something in his right hand, a handkerchief, I think, but his left hand was holding the pistol. The murderer was left-handed, Gray.”

She had been of immeasurable help to him, but not in the way she thought. There was not nearly enough to go on to unmask the murderer. What they had were lures to bait a trap.

Gray inhaled deeply from the cheroot in his hand, then threw the stub into the smoldering coals in the
grate. Gil and he had often spent a quiet hour or two enjoying a smoke and a glass of fine French cognac before a roaring blaze. But that was before Sophie. After Gil had married, it seemed that his time was never his own. And then there was no time left.

He rose and crossed to the turned-down bed. After discarding his robe, he slipped between the verbena-scented sheets. He wasn’t ready for sleep. His mind was still sifting through everything Deborah had told him.

In his mind’s eye, he had a fairly clear picture of how things had progressed. Gil had answered the door, thinking that he, Gray, had come to keep his appointment. Quentin had slipped into the library and was hiding behind the drapes when his father and the murderer had walked in. He had been discovered. Gil had ordered Quentin to go to his room. But this the murderer could not allow, for Quentin would be able to identify him. He would have killed Gil first, of course. Then it would be easy to deal with the boy.

Deborah’s cry from the landing must have given him a rude shock. Now there would be three of them to deal with. All this must have been going through Gil’s mind too. Had he started to argue with the killer in order to distract him? And at the last, had he lunged for the gun? Was that the thud Deborah had heard? He was almost sure of it. It’s what he would have done. As Deborah said, in such a crisis, one didn’t think. One acted from instinct.

There was something else at the back of his mind, something that teased but remained elusive. What was it?

His head turned when the door to the servants’ staircase creaked open. Deborah stood on the threshold, a candle in one hand, the other holding the edges of her warm woolen robe together.

“I thought you would come to me,” she said.

He forced back a smile. “Now why should I do that?”

“Because this has been a miserable day. Because you must know I need comforting. Because I need
you.”

He tossed the sheets aside and patted the mattress
beside him. “It seems I have no willpower where you are concerned. You really are unscrupulous, Deb, to take advantage of me like this.”

As she deposited her candle on the dresser, she made a sound—a husky murmur of assent or approval—and she sped across the carpeted floor, shedding her robe as she went. His arms caught her, and he hauled her into bed.

Supporting herself on his chest, she stared down at his face. “You’re not wearing a nightshirt,” she said.

“I always sleep naked. You’ll get used to it.”

She dipped her head and told the tiny mole on his left shoulder, “I never knew it could be like this.”

“Like what?” His hands moved over her in light, leisurely strokes, not arousing, but calmly possessing every curve and hollow, every bone and sinew that belonged to him. He kissed the little frown on her brow, then her eyebrows, and finally the dimples that suddenly flashed to life in her cheeks.

“I told you. It’s not just this.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. “It’s you. It’s … I don’t know. Missing you when you’re not there. Wanting to be held by you. Wanting to hold you.”

“I never knew it could be like this either. I think it’s called ‘love.’”

Her gaze faltered before the intensity of his. “Gray, why can’t you just accept what we have and let it go at that?”

“You,” he said slowly, “are a coward. You do love me, you just won’t admit it. But all that aside, there is something I want to tell you, something I would have told you when I returned this afternoon if I had not been catapulted into another crisis. I wasn’t at the Foreign Office, Deb. I was in Windsor-Belvidere to be precise.”

She looked into his eyes and saw a knowledge that made her tremble. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

“I mean,” he said, “that I know you are Lady Deborah Montague. You are the daughter of the Earl of Belvidere. Leathe is your brother. I know everything,
Deborah. I know about Albert and that you were accused of his murder. Need I say more?”

She stared at him in blind, speechless horror. When she remembered to breathe, she sucked air into her lungs in an audible gush. “Leathe told you?”

“No. I figured it out for myself, from things you let slip.”

Her voice was hoarse. “What are you going to do?”

“Protect you, of course. Did you doubt it?”

She pulled out of his arms and sat back on her heels. “You went to see my father without consulting me?”

“Leathe went with me.”

“Leathe!” She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. “My God, he, at least, should have known better.”

He grabbed her when she made to slide off the bed. “You can’t keep running from your father for the rest of your life!”

“Oh, can’t I? Just watch me!”

He had to shake her to get her attention. “What about Quentin? Are you going to abandon him? He’s not going with you, Deborah. He stays with me.”

At mention of Quentin, all the color drained out of her face. Her eyes were swimming. “Oh Gray, what have you done? It’s not just me now. Don’t you understand? If you’ve made an enemy of my father, he’ll find a way to punish you too.”

“There is no need for so much anguish. Your father is only one man. Everything is going to be fine.”

His reasonableness in the face of her terror infuriated her. “Tell me what you have done!”

He went on in the same reasonable tone. “What I am going to do is persuade your father to have the charges against you dropped. In a week, two at the most, things should be settled. There will be no case against you, and you will no longer need to conceal your identity. You’ll be free, Deborah, free.”

He was smiling the way he sometimes smiled at Quentin. But she wasn’t Quentin. She knew Gray wasn’t a demigod. He was human, and mortal, and could be hurt. And her father was a monster.

Torn between fear and fury, she cried out, “I never wanted to bring you into this. Leathe promised he would do nothing without my consent. You don’t know my father. You don’t know how vicious he can be, how tenacious, how vindictive. Don’t you understand anything? By meddling in this, you’ve put your own life in danger.”

He kissed her gently on the lips. “I am more careful than that. Your father will do exactly as I tell him because he knows, or he soon will, that if he fails me, he will lose what he loves best in the world.”

“My father doesn’t love anything.”

“Now there, my pet, you are wrong. He is a man possessed. He loves his collections, Deb, and will do anything to preserve them.”

“Meaning …?”

His fingers moved gently, tracing her profile. “Every day that he delays, he is going to lose part of his treasure. I’ve already taken steps to set things in motion. Don’t worry, Deb. I know what I am doing.”

“You’ve set things in motion? What does that mean?”

“I am not without friends. Powerful friends. They are acting on my behalf. Your father will soon know that if he doesn’t take steps to clear your name, he will lose his precious collections.”

She wished she could believe him, but she knew her father better than that. “And if your plan doesn’t work? What then?”

He shrugged indifferently. “Then let them press charges against you. We can weather the scandal, but it will never come to trial. No one could blame you for what you did. It was a mistake to run, Deb. There was no real case against you.”

She closed her eyes in despair. She didn’t know how to convince him that it wasn’t that simple. Her father was devious. It was a mistake to underestimate him. He never forgave or forgot.

She shivered and pillowed her head on his chest. Her whole world was in chaos. Her shoulders were not strong enough to carry her burdens. She thought of
Quentin, the murderer, and now her father, and Gray. There was no end to it. She was trapped in a maze of fear and there was no way out.

Once again, he read her mind. “Trust me, Deb. I know what I’m doing. Let go and let me take care of things.”

The soothing words did not act on her as he thought they would. One moment she was nestled trustingly against him, and the next she was on her knees, her eyes spitting fire.

“Listen to yourself!” she stormed at him. “You sound just like my father! He wanted me to let him take care of things too! If I had listened to him, I would have married Albert. This was my business. You had no right to interfere.”

“Damn you!” He caught her wrists and yanked her so that she was sprawled over him. His face was only inches from hers. “How can you compare me to that miserable snake? I want only what’s best for you.”

“What’s best for me? I’m the one who knows what’s best for me! I knew it would be like this. I was a fool to trust you, a fool to come here. From now on, I just want to be left alone.”

Gray’s eyes were dark with answering fire. “In some things, Deb, you are nothing but a pitiful, sniveling coward.”

Before she could strike him, he rolled with her on the bed, and his mouth came down violently on hers. He dispensed with her nightdress, uncaring of her sharp intake of breath or the tiny pearl buttons that spilled over the bedclothes and onto the floor. She didn’t try to resist him. She wasn’t afraid. She couldn’t think when he touched her like this, kissed her like this. She could only feel. She was alive, gloriously alive, and if only for a short while there would be a respite from all her cares and troubles. She clung to him, inciting him to do more.

He knew he was driven, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. There would be other nights when he would take her with all the tenderness and finesse of which he was capable. But not tonight. Tonight he would be satisfied with nothing less than her total surrender. He had
been too patient with her, too intent on overcoming her initial distrust of him. He was done with gentling her. After tonight, she would never deny him again.

She went hurtling into an explosive, mindless climax with a velocity that stunned her. She reached for him, trying to draw him over her. He held her at bay till she was shuddering in the aftermath of spent passion.

“Does that feel as if you want to be alone?” he demanded, his voice almost savage. “You love me as much as I love you. Tell me, damn you!”

The lie trembled on her tongue, then died into silence. There was something in his expression she couldn’t bear to see. “Gray—”

“Tell me, dammit!”

She choked back a teary sob. “I love you,” she cried out, and wondered if she was wise to put so much power into a man’s hands.

“Don’t look so appalled,” he whispered, and his eyes were smiling. “It isn’t the end of the world. I love you too. That makes us equal.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Believe it.”

When he entered her, there was a change in him. He lavished her with feather-light kisses and soft words of praise. He told her in husky, erotic whispers that he loved the way she responded to him, loved the way she abandoned herself to him in this ultimate act of trust between a man and a woman.