Sweet as the Devil (32 page)

“Ah, I see. Are you just nursemaiding then, or planning on marrying into the family? Or should I say both families.” Miss Eastleigh’s various lovers had been discussed at White’s with admiration and unconcealed longing, while Blackwood was a legend in the boudoir. He’d bet a fortune the couple had found common interests. And Blackwood was no more Miller’s relative than he was unarmed.

“I’m just doing my job,” Jamie said, dismissing any false hope that Von Metis thought Sofia elsewhere.

“In any case, Wharton’s going to be pissed. He’s out for your blood.”

“He’ll have to get in line.”

Von Metis laughed.

Jamie glanced at Ben; he was supposed to have left when Jamie came in. “I can handle this from here.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” Ben replied, unmoving and plainly unmovable.

Oh Christ. Someone else in the line of fire.
“You didn’t actually come here for a portrait, did you, Johan? Tell Ben you didn’t so he can get on with his day.”

Von Metis grinned sardonically. “Actually I did. I came into some funds recently and decided to indulge my vanity.”

“I wouldn’t waste your money.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

For all his composure, Von Metis was balanced like a cat, ready to move, and it was clear to everyone that something ugly was about to happen.

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” Jamie quietly said.

“Not likely that.” A grin creased the count’s handsome face, a nonchalance resonated in his voice, his swagger emerging in the tilt of his shoulders and the wicked gleam in his eyes.

A toe-curling silence fell.

Then the door suddenly opened and Sofia said, walking in, “I’d like to—” “Get out.”

Jamie glared. “Get out.”

“Go,” Ben added without Jamie’s snarl.

She’d stopped on the threshold. “First, tell me what—”

“Jesus Christ,” Jamie growled. “Do what you’re told once in your life.”

“Why not let the lady stay?” Von Metis pleasantly suggested, his voice soft as velvet.

Sofia looked at the visitor for the first time, met his sinister gaze, felt a cold chill of fear, and realized she’d stumbled into danger.

She turned to leave.

Too late.

Von Metis’s hands flew up to his weapons.

Faster than thought, driven by instinct, Jamie hurled his body toward the door, wrenched his Mauser from its holster, and threw himself between Sofia and Von Metis’s eight-millimeter rounds.

A volley of shots rang out, Sofia screamed, Jamie grunted as two rounds tore into his shoulder, and Von Metis fell dead, shot multiple times in the head and once in the heart.

Jamie preferred head shots.

Ben’s forty-five round had blown out half Von Metis’s chest.

Sofia’s hysterical screams pierced the air in an unremitting, shrill, earsplitting cacophony of terror—her gaze riveted on the bloody gore that had once been a man.

Shoving his Mauser back into its holster, Jamie came upright out of his dive, pushed the shrieking Sofia aside, slammed the door shut, and locked it. There was blood and shredded flesh everywhere, Ben’s large-caliber round having made mincemeat of Von Metis’s torso, Jamie’s nine-millimeter rounds leaving a cleaner albeit just as deadly path of destruction. What was left of the count lay facedown in a widening pool of blood. Dragging Sofia to a chair, Jamie put his hand over her mouth. “Stop!” He pushed her into the chair. “We don’t need witnesses.”

Whether it was his curt tone or her abrupt descent, she was shocked into silence or sanity or both. Gulping hard, she drew in a breath and looked up at Jamie. “Oh God, you’re shot,” she whispered, wide-eyed.

“It’s nothing—a flesh wound,” Jamie muttered, ignoring the fact that he was bleeding all over the carpet. “Ben, could you let Douglas in?” He nodded toward the window where Douglas was about to break the glass with his rifle butt. He’d been outside, far enough away not to be seen, his rifle scope trained on the room, serving as backup should things go wrong.

His men would be in the hallway by now, standing guard at the door. Jamie had talked to everyone last night after Sofia had fallen asleep. They knew what to say or do to keep people out.

Sofia pointed a shaky finger toward the dead man. “Who is that?”

“One of Von Welden’s men. We’re fine now, you’re fine, don’t worry. Stay there, I’ll be right back,” Jamie added, moving toward the door and letting in two of his men.

Douglas was already rolling the carpet around Von Metis’s body, and the two troopers bent to help him, one of them uncoiling a looped rope he’d carried in. Douglas had stripped the body of weapons, wallet, and passport, placed them on Ben’s desk, and in short order the count was wrapped, tied up in the carpet, and carried out the door. Turning back from shutting the door behind the two men, Douglas looked at Jamie. “We’re ready whenever you are.”

In the process of searching through Von Metis’s wallet, Jamie held up one hand, fingers splayed.

“That shoulder needs looking at,” Douglas observed.

“In a minute.”

“I’ll leave two men outside.”

Jamie nodded and, moving from the desk, tugged off his cravat, pulled up a chair near Sofia, and sat. “I’m afraid we have to leave now,” he said, looping his neck cloth tightly over his shoulder and around his arm to stop the bleeding. “There’s no telling if Von Metis was operating alone or not.” He knotted the makeshift bandage with his teeth and looked up. “He usually works alone, but we can’t be sure.”

Sofia was trembling faintly. Ben was perched on the arm of her chair holding her hand. “Why can’t we protect Sofia here?” he asked.

“If full-scale hostilities break out, some of your friends could get hurt. There’s no point in jeopardizing others when my Highland estate is impenetrable. Also, the constabulary might want to become involved if reports of gunfire reach them.” His brows lifted slightly. “Not a good idea.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ben said.

“That’s not necessary. I’ve twenty troopers with me and two score more in the Highlands. In fact, I’ll leave some of my men to protect you and your friends.”

“He’s right,” Sofia said. “Stay with Mother. The sooner we leave, the sooner everyone here will be safe.”

Jamie didn’t have time to explain all the ramifications and possibilities of Von Welden’s mad pursuit, all that could go wrong and might. “I’m sorry, Ben. You’d just be in the way. And,” he more kindly added, “Amelia needs you. You know she does.”

Ben softly exhaled, well aware that Jamie’s troopers were thoroughly professional. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to argue.”

Jamie shook his head. “Give Amelia my regards. I don’t want her to see me like this.” He came to his feet and held out his good hand to Sofia. “We have to go. You have fifteen minutes to talk to your mother. Don’t mention any of this. Tell her I’m being difficult”—he smiled—“like men are. I’ll wait for you in the stables.” He pushed her toward the door and turned back to Ben as she left. “The men I’m leaving behind will clean up this mess. They know what to do. If you don’t want Amelia to know they’re staying behind, they can bivouac outside. They’re used to it. They won’t mind.”

Ben nodded. “Keep Sofia safe.”

“I will.”

“If possible, let us know when you’ve reached safety.”

“I’ll send word.” Jamie walked to the desk, picked up Von Metis’s belongings, and turned to the window. “I’ll go out this way so I don’t leave bloody footprints all the way down the hall.” He smiled, an automatic civility, a quick flash of white teeth. “Ciao.”

V
ON METIS’S BODY was buried where it would never be found, Sofia performed her part well and lied to her mother like the worst Judas, Jamie’s shoulder wound was hastily cleaned and bandaged, and the troop minus eight men were on the road within the half hour.

Jamie sat beside Sofia, holding her with his uninjured arm. His booted feet were braced against the drift and sway of the carriage; Sofia’s slippered toes just brushed the floor.

“It fits.”

She shot him a puzzled look.

“Your dress. Puffy sleeves and all,” he added, flicking the ruched organza on the fashionable leg-of-mutton sleeve. “I like it.” She was wearing one of Mrs. Lynne’s dresses.

“Thank you.”

Her reply was automatic and detached. “Are you tired?”

She nodded, rather than try and explain that she couldn’t so easily turn to idle chatter after all she’d seen.

“Sleep if you like. We won’t be stopping for several hours.”

And then, like intimate strangers thrown together by circumstance, they both fell into a ruminating reverie.

Sofia was struggling to reconcile the violence of the scene she’d just witnessed against the normalcy of her former life. An impossible task with the image of the ravaged man haunting her. The savage finality of death was etched on her retinas; the expanding pool of blood on the carpet replayed endlessly in her mind, what had once been a living man lying there spiritless and still.

She understood how narrow her escape. Jamie had thrown himself into the path of the gunshots meant for her; she owed him her life. Yet, she wondered how he could live in such a bestial world, how he remained human himself when he did what he did. And she wondered most how she could care for a man who so easily took another life. He’d shown no remorse, nor a scintilla of concern for the dead man, his attention focused instead on the disposal of the body and the speed of their departure.

How many people had he killed to be so hardened and inured to the act?

How skilled in the murderous arts did one have to be to discharge one’s weapon in a tight, methodical pattern while hurtling through the air? Such clinical expertise took practice.

She shuddered, assailed by doubt and fear.

Jamie drew her closer. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “If it helps, he was a cutthroat many times over; he deserved it.”

“There’ll be more like him, won’t there?” Despite her ethical reservations, she understood the life-and-death issues facing them.

“I’m afraid so, although once we reach Blackwood Glen, we’ll be safe.” He rested his head against the padded seat, the morphine he’d taken for pain beginning to tranquilize his senses.

“You’ll stay there with me, won’t you?”

“Of course.” A necessary lie.

“Good.” Shifting slightly, she turned into the warmth of his body, and setting aside her misgivings, yielded to his strength and power. He was her port in a storm, her unshakeable protector, the man who stood implacably between her and death. In a life less fraught with danger, perhaps she could afford a conscience.

But not now.

Not until their enemies were vanquished.

Shutting her eyes, she abandoned issues of right and wrong and concentrated instead on the peaceful life awaiting them at Blackwood Glen.

Surrendering to the palliative morphine, relieved of his pain, Sofia consoled for the moment, Jamie turned to the knotty, unresolved perplexities troubling him.

He was unsure whether definable limits to personal loyalty existed, but if they did, he’d reached that extremity. Ernst was sailing south on Antonella’s gunboat, out of danger and probably fucking his brains out—not that he gave a damn one way or the other. But what he did care about was Sofia’s safety, and ultimately, with her future assured, he found himself harboring a novel impulse to consider his own future.

Something he’d never consciously regarded before.

Something that had always been inevitable and beyond dispute, the orthodoxy long established that the eldest Blackwood son follow in his father’s footsteps. Five generations of Blackwoods before him had served the Battenberg princes; his destiny was foreordained.

Or was it? he wondered for the first time in his life.

Certainly, he’d long been conscious of the changing world and increasingly edgy about the obsolete monarchy currently wielding power in Austria. He’d been conscious as well that the myth of aristocratic exceptionalism was rotten to the core. Trained as a soldier, though, he’d resisted debating philosophical issues, giving his allegiance instead as his family always had to the princes of Battenberg.

And now, resist or suppress as he might, circumstances had brought him to this point of personal decision.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the leisure to debate his options at the moment. Von Welden would continue sending out killers because that’s what he did—like some goddamned demented Caligula with grandiose plans and no fucking soul.

So, the only question was: should he wait to be attacked or take the offensive? And the answers were all unpleasing.

Their party wouldn’t reach Blackwood Glen for three more days; another four or five would be required to return to Vienna—provided luck was on their side and they met no interference. The determining factor, however, was the increasing pain in his shoulder that suggested he didn’t have time to wait. If the wound festered, it could incapacitate him, possibly kill him, although he could probably last a week before collapsing. If he wanted to see Von Welden on his way to hell, he could hope for the best in terms of healing, but it would be better to prepare for the worst.