Sally James (18 page)

'Go away, landlord, there's nothing we want,' Darcy called angrily, and Kate began to shout for help.

Immediately the latch rattled, and then a heavy body was flung against the door. Darcy, startled and abruptly sobering, released Kate and backed away across the room. He snatched up his sword from the side table where he had put it down when they entered the room, and Kate, breathless with relief, ran towards the door and waited for whoever it was to force an entrance.

The door was sturdy, but it could not withstand the onslaught it was being subjected to. Kate was faintly aware of other noises further off along the corridor, questions and squeals and protests, but her eyes were fixed on the door, which was being torn gradually but irrevocably from its hinges with each blow.

It gave at last. Kate pressed back against the wall, and then cried out in utter astonishment.

'Well, my dear Miss Byford, you seem to have landed yourself in something of a pickle,' the Earl of Malvern said, surveying her with eyes bright with anger.

'Adam,' she breathed, an inexplicable mixture of relief and gladness flooding through her, but before she could say anything else Darcy spoke.

'How dare you come bursting in on us, Malvern?' he demanded with a creditable assumption of dignified indignation.

'Do you really need to be told?' Adam asked impatiently. 'Get out of here, take yourself back to whatever hole you crawled out of.'

'I will do nothing of the sort! You intrude!' he cried, and leapt forward brandishing his sword.

Adam sidestepped neatly. The landlord, with several scared looking waiters peering over his shoulders in the doorway, backed hastily away, wringing his hands and uttering faint bleats of agony.

Kate sank down onto a chair, her legs incapable of holding her. She watched bemused as Adam walked over to the ruined door and lifted it bodily back into place, shutting out the interested spectators. Then he flung his riding coat over the back of a chair and slowly withdrew his own sword as he strolled back to the centre of the room.

'If you refuse to listen to reason there is only one way to teach you sense,' he remarked softly, and again sidestepped as Darcy rushed impetuously towards him.

Darcy was wildly angry, half drunk, and desperate. His thrusts were lacking in skill but vigorous and difficult to counter. Adam, however, fought with cool science, parrying Darcy's wilder attacks with apparent ease, and enraging him still further when it became clear to Darcy’s fuddled brain that he was not going to be able to touch the Earl.

'Damn you!' Darcy gasped, and his arm swung wide. It allowed Adam to slip under his guard and, with the most delicate stroke, draw a long line across Darcy's cheek which began to ooze bright droplets of blood.

Adam stepped back and lowered his sword.

'Have you had enough?' he asked in bitingly cold tones, and then had to resume his guard swiftly as Darcy, all caution fled, plunged forward with a roar and a wild, ferocious swirling of his sword.

For a moment Adam gave back, but there was too little room for such manoeuvres. Suddenly he changed pace and instead of merely defending himself leapt forward to attack, his sword flashing so rapidly from side to side, flickering forward into every opening, driving Darcy inexorably backwards, and beating off every lunge Darcy made so swiftly that Kate could scarcely follow what was happening.

Then, abruptly, it was over. Darcy lunged, but his aim was high and wide. Adam riposted and with a flick of his wrist sent Darcy's sword clattering across the room. Darcy, after a moment of stunned disbelief, rushed after it, but as he bent down with a grunt to seize it found that Adam had placed his foot firmly on the blade.

'I don't want to see you, ever again, or it will be the worse for you,' Adam said, so coldly Kate felt shivers of ice travelling along her spine. 'Get out, now. There is a chaise waiting, and your baggage will be brought down and loaded onto it. Move!'

Darcy, sobered and defeated, nevertheless remained where he was.

'Kate is going to marry me,' he said with an assumption of calm. 'You jumped to the wrong conclusion, Malvern.'

'Kate is not going to marry you or anyone else but me,' Adam snapped.

'I am not going to marry you,' Kate exclaimed. 'But you can't prevent me from marrying anyone else.'

'Do you really want to marry this - this poltroon?' Adam asked with a grin, and Kate, despite her anger, grinned back. She hastily straightened her face. She had no intention of admitting to the odious Earl of Malvern how amazingly pleased she had been to see him.

'Kate, just because I lost my head, being so close to you, you can't desert me!' Darcy said, then turned to Adam. 'You don't want damaged goods, Malvern. Kate's been with me for two nights, since she ran away from that dreadful school, alone in the house. How would you like that story to get out about your wife?' he asked viciously.

So swiftly that no one saw it coming Adam stepped across to Darcy and swung his fist, catching the other man on the jaw and sending him crashing to the floor.

Darcy groaned, and prudently lay where he was until Adam moved away.

'You dare spread such a calumny, or permit a whisper of this escapade to be spread beyond this room, Limmering, and you'll wish you'd never been born,' Adam threatened, and Kate thought she had never before heard such menace in anyone's tones. 'Now get up and leave,' he added, walking away to lean against the mantlepiece, one booted foot resting on the fender.

Darcy cautiously rose to his feet and began to dab at the cut on his face.

'Why do you pursue an unwilling girl?' he asked, attempting to sound insouciant, but merely appearing petulant. 'You already have her money.'

'She did not seem particularly willing to accept your attentions, either,' Adam responded with a sudden grin, his eyes twinkling.

'She can marry who she likes! Kate, please forgive me, and tell him it's me you love. He can't stop your income until you are of age, anyway, and if he had any sense of decency he would give you half of what your grandfather left him, without forcing you into a distasteful marriage which he wants as little as you do.'

'Oh, but I can and would,' Adam said quietly. 'I cannot imagine where you have this notion that Kate is entitled to the income from her grandfather's money in all circumstances. It is hers only until she marries me, or, being of full age, rejects me.'

'But I thought - ' Darcy began, then stopped and glanced uncertainly from Kate to Adam.

'If she were to marry someone else I could stop it at once,' Adam continued calmly, 'since there would then be no possibility of a marriage between us taking place. And I would certainly never give her any of the money were she to marry you, Limmering, for you to squander on gambling and loose women.'

Darcy opened his mouth to speak, then looked doubtfully at Adam, who smiled grimly and went to drag the door aside.

Darcy shrugged, turned away, and without a further glance towards Kate began to shoulder his way past the gaping inn servants.

'Landlord, move these idlers and get me some dinner,' Adam said calmly, and the landlord bowed almost double. 'Do you have another suite with an undamaged door?'

'Yes, my lord, certainly, my lord,' he gabbled, and turned to shoo the others away. 'It will be made ready for you at once. This way, my lord, if you please.'

Kate allowed herself to be escorted along the corridor to a slightly larger set of rooms. As the landlord checked that all was well, and the maid put more coals on the fire, she suddenly realized she would soon be alone with Adam, and took a hesitant step after them, but Adam was before her. He caught her arm and swung her round so that she almost fell against his chest.

'Let him go, you little fool!' he said disgustedly. 'Are you so besotted you can't see that he wants you only for the money he thinks to gain with you?'

'I'm not besotted! I never intended to marry him. Let me go,' Kate raged, her heart suddenly racing so as to make her almost breathless, and fought to free herself from Adam's hold.

Effortlessly he captured both her hands, pulled them behind her back, and forced her towards him. Trembling, Kate glanced up into his face, so close to her own, and saw he was smiling grimly down at her.

'It would seem I need to teach you other lessons,' he murmured, and before she realised his intention he had bent his head and was kissing her ruthlessly.

Too startled to move, Kate did not realize he had released her hands until she found them creeping of their own volition round Adam's neck. One of his arms was holding her tightly, while the other hand stroked her hair, then caressed her face and traced the line of her neck and shoulder, causing her to shudder with novel, delicious sensations which consumed her whole body.

A discreet cough from the open doorway brought Kate back to reality, and she turned away in acute embarrassment as the landlord, followed by a procession of maids, came into the room and began to lay the table for Adam's dinner.

Chapter Fifteen

'How did you know where we were?' Kate asked some time later.

While Adam had eaten, Kate had sat in bemused silence beside the fire. She would far rather have asked him why he had kissed her in such a fashion, but dared not. He had seemed angry, and she had no desire to provoke him into repeating the action. She shivered, and tried to bring her thoughts back to her question.

'After your previous reliance on your cousins I guessed that was where you'd go when you left the Academy,' he replied. 'I confess it puzzled me that the shutters were closed and the house seemed empty.'

'I didn't know the house was empty when Darcy took me there,' Kate put in hastily, though she didn't know why she should care about his opinion of her.

'I discovered that Sir William was away, but your friend Chloe hadn't seen you, so I had the house watched and then you were incautious enough to open the window while I happened to be there,' Adam said calmly, rising from the table and pacing slowly about the room. He seemed oblivious of the undercurrents between them, and behaved as though he had never held her in his arms, never devoured her lips with his own hard, warm and vital ones.

'You knew where I was all the time?' she asked, surprised.

'Of course. I followed you when you left in the chaise.'

'Why didn't you try and force me back then?' Kate asked.

Adam laughed. 'I thought a few hours spent in the company of Mr Darcy Limmering would be a more effective cure for any tenderness you might feel for him than heavy handedness on my part,' he explained.

'I didn't feel anything for him. I never did. He said he would take me to Amelia, and you must admit I've every right to go to my own family. I didn't know what he intended, the snake.'

'Then you are amazingly gullible, after all the sheep's eyes that have been languishing after you since you appeared in town. By the way, I passed another of your swains this side of Baldock. But he was driving such a sorry pair of nags I doubt if he'll arrive tonight. What is it about you that sends men wild with passion?' he added, amused. 'If you had the certainty of even a moderate fortune no doubt I'd have been besieged with offers for you.'

Kate tossed her head. 'Just because most young men are more polite than you are doesn't mean they want to marry me,' she retorted. 'And I wouldn't marry anyone who only wanted me for my money,' she added as an afterthought.

'Then your choice of husbands is remarkably limited. You'll have to make do with me, for I'll have your fortune anyway.'

She ground her teeth in fury. 'Do you expect me to marry you just to get my own money?' she demanded.

He looked at her, and she found it difficult not to drop her gaze from that intent regard. She could not read his expression, but she thought it contained a measure of contempt as well as exasperation.

'You have no say in the matter,' he replied at last.

Kate swallowed her retort. It was becoming tedious. 'How did you find us here?' she asked instead.

'I followed you as soon as word was brought that you had left,' Adam went on. 'As it happened your dear Darcy spent last night carousing with his friends, boasting he had captured the heiress, and would force me to disgorge my ill gotten gains as the price of marrying you to preserve your good name. A good friend who overheard him came to me, so I was ready to follow you from the moment you started.'

'But - ' Kate blushed, then forced herself to continue. 'Didn’t you, weren't you concerned that he - we - that he might force me, as he threatened?'

'I had faith in your ability to deal with Mr Limmering.' He stretched out and caught one of the ruffles on the neck of her gown, and pulled her slowly towards him. Soon she was standing beside his chair, looking down into his mocking face. 'By the looks of this, you made use of a bottle of wine to some effect.'

Kate for the first time noticed the splotches of red on her gown. 'It was the port decanter,' she exclaimed, and shivered, watching with fascination as Adam's finger moved to trace the neckline of her bodice, pausing at every splash.

'You have some on your hair,' he said, and his other hand came up and stroked the feathery curls. 'And your neck.' With which he suddenly leant towards her and his tongue began to lick at one spot just below her ear.

Kate was incapable of movement, almost incapable of thought. She was merely a sensation, a quivering mass of jelly which would have collapsed at his feet had one of Adam's arms not somehow been supporting her, forcing her against his own hard, firm body while one delicate finger traced the curve of her shoulder and sent incredible shivers through her whole being.

Suddenly Adam thrust her away from him. She collapsed into another chair while he rose and strode across to the window. Standing with his back to her as he looked out, he tossed his words over his shoulder.

'I would have been with you earlier had not my last mount gone lame a couple of miles away. I had to waste time enquiring at several inns in the town before I came up with you.'

'We - he was taking me to Amelia,' Kate repeated weakly. Why was she so breathless, suddenly so cold, so consumed with some inexplicable expectation?