Run Wild (14 page)

She glanced at him and there was just enough light on this side of the room to make out a gleam in her eye. A look that held both affront and accusation. Somehow he sensed what she was thinking: when they had first approached the cottage, he had led the attack with gun drawn, coolly, easily. As if he’d done it before. Frequently.

She might be thinking that, but she didn’t say it.

Interesting
, he thought with a growing, grudging sense of respect—the lady not only had guts, she was smart as well. Smart enough to know when to keep her opinions to herself.

She turned back to her work. “I’m good at what I do.”

She said it simply, tonelessly. Without pride. Without apology.

Without any emotion at all.

He lifted the bottle and took a long swallow of whiskey, watching her as she closed the cupboard door. “How did you come to be a thief?”

The words spilled out before he could stop them. Too late, he realized that the liquor was not only dulling the pain in his shoulder but loosening his tongue. He didn’t want to venture into these waters. Didn’t want to know a thing about her. Didn’t want to think about her any more than he already did.

Her hand still on the cupboard door, she turned to stare at him. He stared back, almost as surprised as she was. Curiosity about another person was utterly unlike him. He had kept to himself, thought only of himself for years.

But, he reasoned a moment later, he
needed
to find out all he could about Miss Delafield. She had seen the brand, knew one of his most carefully guarded secrets. He had to evaluate just how much of a threat she might be.

“How did you come to be a thief?” he repeated quietly, casually.

He thought she might tell him to go to hell.

Instead, she told him something else entirely.

“There weren’t any other choices available.” She shrugged and finished closing the cupboard, locked it.

He all but snorted in disbelief. “There are always choices for women like you.”

She turned to face him. “Really? And what sort of woman am I?”

“Well-born. Cultured.”
Beautiful
. He avoided adding the word
beautiful
.

The smile that curved her mouth held equal parts derision and irony. “Yes, I suppose most people assume that.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, her hands clenched into fists. “But I’m living proof that being well-born doesn’t guarantee anything.”

“So why turn to theft? I thought you were a seamstress.” He avoided glancing at the pendant that rested between her breasts.

“There aren’t any positions available these days, except among the aristocracy in London, and I... had to leave London,” she said cautiously. “Rather suddenly. Several years ago. I won’t go back.”

Standing there in the flickering candlelight, chin raised, she looked determined, defiant. And impossibly small and vulnerable. He thought her too trusting for telling him so much. For telling him anything.

And he urged her to tell him more. “There had to be safer ways to earn a living.”

“You mean as a governess or servant? One needs references for that.” She shook her head. “I didn’t set out to become a thief. I didn’t
choose
this life.”

She turned away abruptly only to be brought up short by the chain. If she had thought to flee, it was futile. She couldn’t even take another step unless he moved.

And he didn’t move. He still leaned against the wall, waiting.

Beneath that cascade of tawny hair, her shoulders rose and fell rapidly. After a moment, she lowered her head, staring at the floor. “I didn’t... have anything. Not even a shilling. I tried to find work. I
tried
.” Her arms tightened around her waist, her voice falling to a whisper. “And I was so hungry.”

Nicholas couldn’t say a word. The strangest, most unfamiliar feeling crept through his chest and he couldn’t do anything but stare at her straight, stiff back.

He’d felt that same hunger and fear, as a boy.

“Then one day I stole some food from a vendor’s cart. It wasn’t much. An apple and a small loaf of bread. I ate it all in a few bites.” She shook her head. “But I was so scared, I threw up.”

A small sound escaped her, too harsh to be a laugh. She paused for a long moment.

Then she continued, with an almost eerie calm. “The second time, it became a little easier. And the third time... and the fourth.” She turned to face him again, the defiance returning to her expression. “Because it felt good not to be hungry. It felt
good
. That’s how I became a thief.” Her fists were still clenched. “And there’s something else. I learned a long time ago that there are two kinds of people in this world—predators and prey.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I was the latter once. I won’t be again. Ever.”

It sounded like a warning. That he was facing not prey, but a fellow predator.

The threat cooled the warm sensation in his chest. “When you first found yourself in trouble, why didn’t you choose the most obvious means of support?” he asked sarcastically.

She shook her head, not understanding.

“The one most women choose. Marriage.”

She laughed, but again the sound held no humor. “I didn’t receive any offers of that sort. Plenty of less savory offers, but no honorable ones. Men from the circles I grew up in wouldn’t think of marrying a woman like me.”

That surprised him more than anything else she had said. “And what sort of woman are you?” He echoed the question she had asked earlier.

Her cheeks reddened, whether with suppressed anger or something else he couldn’t tell. “Tired,” she said flatly, her voice devoid of emotion. “I’m a tired woman. And it’s late and all I want to do is go to sleep.”

He stared at her a moment longer, then nodded, sensing he wouldn’t learn anything more tonight. The full weight of his own fatigue pressed down on him stronger than ever. “We’ll leave at daybreak.”

He turned and led the way back to the table, where he corked the bottle. Bending down, he tucked it into the pack of provisions he had secured earlier. He had taken one of the fishing creels and loaded it with foodstuffs and a few useful items scrounged from the cabin’s shelves. A length of rope woven through the top and bottom of the creel would allow him to carry it on his back, while leaving his hands free. He checked the sheepshank knots he had secured it with.

“Where exactly
are
we going?” she asked, meeting his gaze as he rose. “You haven’t just been running through the woods randomly. You’re going in a specific direction. Where?”

“You have a pressing appointment?”

“I just want to get to my room in—” She cut herself off, her eyes narrowing warily. “I want to get home. I need to go there to.... get my things. So I can leave England. There won’t be anywhere in the country that’s safe for me now. Not with the law after me.”

“Well, Miss Delafield, I’m afraid that unless your room is in York, you’re once again out of luck.” He reached down to the table and picked up the candle. “I have a pressing matter of business there and I don’t have time for side trips.”

“York?” she sputtered. “But that’s the opposite direction from—” She stopped herself again. “I don’t want to go to York. And I have no guarantee that something won’t happen to me when we get there. Or long before.”

“You also have no choice,” he reminded her, moving his foot until the chain pulled taut between them. “And unless you want a rematch of our wrestle in the woods, you’ll accept that I’m in charge and follow my orders until I can get us safely to a blacksmith.”

Some part of him—
damn
him—hoped she would opt for another round of wrestling. Though it would be different this time.

The thought of just how different he would make it heated his blood.

But the fury emanating from her slender form was far hotter. “I do
not
care for the way you keep making all the decisions.”

“Too bad. Get used to it.” Taking the fishing creel and the candle, he walked over to the bed and set them down beside it. He slipped his pistol from his back, and laid it carefully on the floor close at hand. Then he sat on the mattress with a weary sigh. “Get some sleep, your ladyship. We have a lot of ground to cover on the morrow.”

She was silent for a moment.

But only for a moment, unfortunately.

“And where am
I
supposed to sleep?” she asked indignantly. “On the floor?”

Something small and mouselike scrabbled across the hearth, the sound of its claws terribly loud in the night.

“Wouldn’t recommend it,” he said dryly.

He could hear her breathing, rapid and shallow. “A gentleman would let me have the bed.”

“Unfortunately for you there’s not a gentleman to be found for—oh, I would wager, at least a hundred miles.
I
have no intention of giving up the bed. You can share it or take the floor.” Leaning down, he extinguished the candle wick between his thumb and forefinger, plunging them into darkness. “The choice, Miss Delafield, is yours.”

S
amantha lay on her side atop the covers, clinging to the very edge of the bed, her stomach in knots. All her senses had become unnaturally sharp. The cabin’s utter blackness rendered her blind, which intensified every sound, every scent, every second of time that dragged past.

Her breath came fast and shallow as she waited for the man next to her—just inches away—to fall asleep.

She could
feel
him watching her in the darkness. Could feel his emerald gaze tracing over her shoulders and back. Or was that only her imagination? Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness some time ago.

Yet he hadn’t moved, not from the moment she had climbed into the bed, more than half an hour ago.

At least it
felt
like half an hour. Had it been only minutes? She could hear his breathing, as unsteady as hers. Every inhalation and exhalation sounded deafening in the stillness.

He shifted his weight, and she heard not only the creak of the bed ropes but the soft rustle of his garments against the rough blanket. She could feel the heat of his body radiating toward her. And his scent—a spicy, heavy muskiness mixed with the freshness of the rainwater he had splashed himself with earlier. He seemed to fill the very air she breathed.

She shut her eyes and tried to stop trembling. How was it that he managed to play on her nerves without even saying a word? Blast the man!

After everything she had endured this day—after being carted through the countryside, tossed down a hill, shot at, and run ragged by this scoundrel chained to her ankle—she should be dead to the world by now. Every bone, every muscle, every bruised and aching inch of her body cried out for the healing relief of sleep.

She tried to tell herself there was no reason to feel tense. He hadn’t made any move toward her. Hadn’t so much as touched a single hair on her head.

Still, her fingers tightened reflexively around the knife in her right hand. She had quietly slipped it from her skirt pocket before getting into bed. The hilt felt cold and solid and at least a little reassuring against her palm.

And he couldn’t be much of a threat at the moment... could he? After all, he had been bruised, battered, shot at, and run ragged today too. Not to mention the fact that he’d been wounded, lost a great deal of blood, and had a bullet dug out of his shoulder. He was hardly in any shape to... to...

She opened her eyes again. Her stomach felt queasy. Perhaps it was all the honey she had eaten earlier, but she didn’t think so.

It was the fact that she had never slept beside a man before. Ever.

If not for the accursed shackles, she wouldn’t be sleeping beside one now. The chain wouldn’t reach far enough for her to sleep on the floor. She had tried. Then she had suggested rolling up the blanket and placing it between them, but he had only laughed at her again.

Blackguard.

Staring into the darkness, she knew it was ridiculous to think that a blanket would protect her virtue. If he wanted to make any unsavory advances, a tattered length of wool wouldn’t stop him.

Nothing would stop him.

She clutched the knife tighter, her throat closing off as the memories sliced through her.
A
place where she had thought herself safe. A night when the lock on her door hadn’t been enough to protect her, when her Uncle Prescott had forced his way inside, had very nearly...

No!
Digging her nails into her palm, she forced herself to forget. Uncle Prescott was in London. She would never let him close enough to have another chance to touch her. She would never let
any
man hurt her that way again.
Never
.

If the rogue so much as placed a hand on her, she would fight to her dying breath.

She wasn’t a naive girl of sixteen anymore. She was older, smarter, armed with the truth about men and their lust. Armed with a knife—and the many tricks she had learned while living in the streets for six years. She could protect herself.

Closing her eyes for the third time in the past hour, she tried to put her troubling memories aside, tried to find the sleep she so desperately needed. But the late summer heat made the cabin sultry, even in the darkness, and no breeze, not even a whisper of fresh air, managed to slip through the fabric tacked over the windows.