Far Too Tempted (34 page)

Her stomach knotted into a fierce, tight ball, she surreptitiously watched her companion out of the corner of her eye. Having spent almost two full days with Jack Rivers, she’d sensed a myriad of moods that rarely showed in the man’s face but were unmistakable in the body language of motion and speech. He’d been determined, forceful, angry, reasonable and even considerate once or twice. Though he’d kept her tied, he’d made sure she was given food and water and time for her personal needs, as well as letting her wash and change this morning.

This new mood, a total withdrawal, made her skin prick with a sick terror.

He’d completely stopped speaking to her in the past two hours, nor did he ever meet her gaze directly. It was as if he was putting an emotional distance between them, deliberately removing himself from a situation in which he would have to think of her as a flesh-and-blood person—a person who could feel pain and fear and the imminent kiss of death.

Having taken the trouble to capture her to threaten Alex, she could only assume a man who callously participated in three murders would carry out any cursed threats he had made.

If Alex did not keep the appointed assignation, Jack would kill her. She would be three times a fool to not face that fact.

God help her.

Whether twilight touched the sky was impossible to judge on such a dismal day. At least Jack had been a little kinder when he tied the bonds around her wrists after their last stop. She could rotate both hands fairly well and her fingers weren’t numb this time.

“Are we almost there?” she asked quietly, unable to take the tension any longer. The entire street clattered with the sound of hooves against cobblestones and the squeaking of wheels. “Where exactly are we going and when do you expect Alex?”

Jack didn’t answer, his arms folded negligently across the front of his jacket, his face implacable.

“Sir,” she said sharply.

“Be quiet.” His lips barely moved.

Jessica swallowed, swaying on the seat as they took a turn. “I…won’t be quiet. How can you expect it of me? You may at this time control my fate, but not my mind. Giving me a simple answer will not affect the outcome of our situation, will it?” She allowed a brittle smile to curve her lips. “Think about it. How can it hurt to give me a little information?”

As if to mock her, the carriage slowed at the end of this passionate speech, rocking to an uneven halt. Jessica would have given much to be able to reach up and dash aside the curtain and see just exactly where they were, but that was impossible with her hands anchored behind her like a ship in a harbor.

Across from her, Jack moved restlessly, pulling something from under the seat. He said, “Well, my lady, it does seem that I can answer part of your question. We have arrived at the very heart of Bristol.”

Jessica lifted her brows, trying hard to deny the trembling in her lips as she spoke. “And so?”

“And so this particular area is not…how shall I put it? We aren’t in the finest neighborhood in this fair city. There are docks, warehouses and taverns as far as the eye can see. There are also brothels, for there is nothing like a drunken sailor with an ache behind the flap of his breeches.” His dark brows were solid bars over eyes as flat and black as shiny buttons. “Therefore you will wear this, pulled up over your head against both the inclement conditions outdoors, and so no one sees you, understand?” He tossed the cloak she had hastily shoved in her bag back at Braidwood toward her and it landed half on the seat, half in her lap.

Looking down at it, she said tightly, “Very well, if you will untie me.”

Rivers simply looked at her, unmoving. His gloved hands rested on his knees. “I’ll have your word first, madam, that you will not shout or otherwise call attention to yourself. This is a busy port; ships from all over the world come here to trade. A lady of your delectable charms could probably summon a few fools eager to have you to themselves and my quarrel is not with them, nor do I wish to waste my time killing someone if it is unnecessary.” He lifted one broad shoulder in a calculated shrug. “Besides, there is always the chance that I might just let them have you if I feel myself outnumbered.”

The thought of being hauled off by lust-filled foreign sailors was hardly appealing. Jessica lowered her lashes, stifling a tremble. “I promise.”

She’d seen the wicked-looking knife he produced from his boot several times already, but this time, when he moved forward to cut the rope binding her arms, she shuddered at the long, gleaming blade as she felt the flat coolness on her skin. Rubbing her chafed wrists, she allowed him to swirl the cloak around her shoulders, the very act a parody of gallantry, since the man offering it could very well be her murderer.

Jack unlatched the door and shoved it open, leaping outside. In the same spirit of cooperation, she took his outstretched hand and let him assist her in alighting from the carriage, her legs a little unsteady from sitting so long.

The street was barely visible in the gray light but she peered around just the same. Full, sour gutters ran dirty streams everywhere. Sounds and smells assaulted her senses shouts, curses, ribald laughter…

Jack jerked her hood tighter over her face and gripped her arm with steely fingers. He dragged her across the soiled bricks and tugged her into the doorway of a building with a low, sagging roof. Jessica had one glimpse of a tattered and beaten sign that proclaimed it the Swine and Nettle before she was dragged inside.

The taproom was full and even noisier than the street outside. The smell of stale ale mingled with tobacco and male sweat. Clamped to Jack’s side, she felt as if her ribs would crack and hardly needed his warning glance to keep her mouth shut. Never in her life had she imagined such a place. Her slippers stuck to the floor as they walked across the rough planks, there was a low haze of tobacco smoke that choked the lungs, and rough men sat everywhere, talking, arguing in low voices, and occasionally letting out a peal of coarse laughter.

“A room, please.” Jack’s tone was curt and low.

The innkeeper, wiping a dirty cloth across the scarred wood of the bar, barely glanced up. “An hour or so, or will ye be wantin’ the whole night?”

“The whole night.”

“Ah.” The man took enough interest to try to peer into the shadows of the hood around her face. Jessica felt her cheeks flame even though she was certain he could not make out her features. “Got yourself a sweet little doxy there, heh, sir? No problem, we have room. Lemme get your key now and I’ll lead you upstairs.”

“Good enough.” Jack swung her around forcefully and Jessica almost stumbled as he shoved her across the room. His highhanded tactics drew little more than a few curious glances, except that she noticed one young man, a thin youth that looked not much older than herself, fingering his glass of ale and watching them with steady light blue eyes. With his disheveled blond hair and rough, ill-used clothes, he looked very much as any of the other patrons, except for the sober intensity of his gaze.

“Come on.” Jack’s whisper in her ear was enough to banish the young man from her thoughts in an instant. Following the portly, unshaven innkeeper up the stairs, she was so grateful to escape at least some of the rank atmosphere of the taproom she took great gulps of air with each step. Beside her, Rivers played the lover very well, his arm a band of iron across her waist, his chin pressing her temple. Only once they were inside the seedy room and key turned in the lock did he release her. Jerking away as fast as possible, she shoved the hood off her head and faced her captor, shoulders back, her heart hammering.

She demanded, “When will Alex be here?” Tears she’d kept at bay for two days now threatened to spill free despite her furious blinking and she hoped he didn’t hear the quiver in her voice. She added fiercely, “This is an awful place.”

“Isn’t it?” Hands on his hips, Jack slowly surveyed the cracked mantel with a smoking fire beneath, the bare, scratched floor, the shabby bed with worn linens that looked only questionably clean. His smile was cynical. “The only beauty to the Swine and Nettle is that the patrons tend to not interfere and ask questions. I’d wager nearly every man jack of them downstairs would run like rabbits at the mere thought of the law.”

“From what I saw, I believe that.” Jessica’s very lips felt numb. “But then again, sir, so should you run.”

His low chuckle sent a ripple of unease down her spine. “Can you imagine what that lot would do should you decide to try to escape and came down the stairs alone and unprotected?”

“Are you leaving me here?” She stiffened, the cloak hanging limply around her body.

Rivers shook his dark head. “Not for long, rest assured. Remember, you are my gold, the treasure I barter for my wife. But first, I need to go downstairs and send a message. And you, Mrs. Ramsey, are going to have the good sense to sit here like a well-behaved little girl, am I right?”

Jessica couldn’t help but think of the ruffians just below the planks under her feet and shudder. She nodded barely.

“Excellent.” His teeth were a gleam in his dark face. He held up a key. “You will be locked in, of course. For your own safety.”

“Of course,” she repeated ironically.

Jack stared at her a moment before leaving, his dark eyes hooded. He said abruptly, “The exchange is to be at nine o’clock. If Alex hasn’t failed in bringing Eloise to me, he will be given the key once I have my wife, and instructions on what room you are in. It will be that simple.”

Simple
. Lord, she hoped so.

Jessica watched him slip out the door, hearing the decisive click of the lock as he fulfilled his promise to make her a prisoner. She paced over to where thick, moth-eaten curtains hung over the one small window in the room and drew the material back, only to see a rank alley ran along the back of the building, the rain forming greasy puddles on the reflections of the damp stones. Even as she stood there peering out, she saw a dark form rise and stagger away, proving the narrow avenue to be occupied by God only knew what kind of ruffian.

She nonetheless tried the window sash. It was stuck shut she discovered as she braced herself and tugged frantically, either from the grime of the centuries or from being whitewashed over time and again.

Click. Click.

Sagging against the rain-streaked glass, Jessica registered the sound and whirled around, her throat tightening.

Click. A scrape of metal on metal. Another click.

She stared at the door, her heart beginning to pound so that the sound resembled the crash of ocean waves on the rocks of a stony beach, filling her ears. The door gave a slight creak as the latch undid and it swung open.

Once before, she’d decided upon a fireplace poker as a suitable weapon. Jessica lunged toward the iron piece leaning against the hearth and lifted it high, brandishing it as she turned to face the man who had slipped into the room. Not sure she was surprised it was the fair young man who had watched her downstairs, she swallowed and demanded, “Who are you? What do you want? I’ll kill you, I swear it, if you as much as take another step.”

“Do so and lose the chance to escape.” Despite the roughness of his clothes and his common accent, Jessica could see clear intelligence in his light eyes. “The name is Tolley. Alfred Tolley. We have no time, Mrs. Ramsey. You must come with me now.” His narrow face was grim and something that looked like a ring of thin pieces of metal dangled from his fingers. “Now,” he added, “before Rivers comes back.”

He knew her. He knew of Jack.

Alex must be involved in this.

Dropping the poker, she nodded. “All right. I will go with you.”

He held out his hand and said urgently, “There’s a room at the end of the hallway that does not look over the alley but instead a small spot that once housed a garden. It isn’t occupied yet this evening, and earlier I broke the window out to make sure it would give an avenue of escape. We can leave that way without any noise.”

With a last glance at her nasty surroundings, Jessica dropped the poker and hurried forward, grasping his hand and letting him pull her out into the hallway. Smoky lamps gave little useful illumination as they ran along and she saw only warped doors and heard the raucous sounds from the taproom below. Pushing open the last door with caution, Tolley tugged her inside, drawing her toward the window. Warm, damp evening air flowed through the broken pane.

“Come now, my lady. Out we go.” Tolley leaned out of the sill and motioned toward the ground. “’Tis a bit damp and muddy, that I’ll allow, but the bushes have grown up over the years and your fall should be soft enough. Here I’ll help you and be along right behind. It…er…really isn’t far.”

Despite the assurance, the ground still looked quite a distance away, her destination nothing but a black hole of yawning darkness.

“Ma’am?”

Her alternative was Jack. Grimly, Jessica decided that if she had followed this young man out of the room, she had better follow through and jump out the window. With an unladylike hoist of her skirts, she sat on the sill and swung her legs over. A few heartbeats later, she put her palms firmly on the rotted wood of the frame and pushed off into the night.

Whirling damp air, her skirts flapping like a crow’s wings, her breath going out as she landed, as promised, in a thicket of wild shrubbery. As she floundered to get out of the way, she heard her companion crash down moments later, his breath going out as he plummeted to the ground. Fighting her way out of a bush that seemed to grasp her with claw-like branches, she realized with resignation she was acquiring more unsightly scratches. “What now, Mr. Tolley?”