Tiger's Eye (17 page)

“Pray accept my congratulations, Countess.” He had his voice with its hard-earned accent well under control again. “You punch almost as well as you rut.”

It was a low blow, and he knew it, but he was too incensed to care. She gasped, and her cheeks flamed.

“Get out of here, you cretin!” There was true venom in the words.

Alec laughed, the sound grating.

“Such a vocabulary as you possess, love,” he jeered.

“Don’t you dare call me that! Get out! Get out, I said!”

“Oh, I’m going, you may be sure. Now that we’ve had a good tumble and I’ve found out for myself what lies beneath that strumpet’s garment, I’ve no more reason at all to stay.”

“Get out!” It was practically a screech.

With one more sizzling stare at her, Alec turned on his heel and stalked back into the dressing room. This time he closed the door very, very carefully behind him. Not for anything would he give her the satisfaction of seeing him succumb to the temptation to give it another vicious slam.

The candle was still burning in the dressing room. Alec threw himself in the chair Paddy had occupied that night that Isabella had tried to brain him—thus showing her true colors, if only he’d had the sense to see!—and felt for the bottle of brandy that was kept hidden under the skirt.

He meant to get good and drunk.

It was only later, much later, when the bottle was nearly three-quarters gone and the candle had melted down to a guttering nub, that Alec felt it.

He was so jug-bitten that at first he didn’t recognize it for what it was.

When at last he did, he frowned, trying to clear his head of the awful sensation.

But it stubbornly refused to leave. He was experiencing that omniscient tingle of danger again.

XXI

I
f nothing else, that last dreadful exchange with Alec left her too angry to cry.

For a long time Isabella sat huddled in the center of the bed, calling him every vile name she could think of under her breath and waiting with a belligerent kind of trepidation for him to emerge from the dressing room again.

An hour passed, and more, and he didn’t come out. Gradually she began to realize that he didn’t mean to come out. That he meant to brood or sleep or fume or whatever he was doing in there all alone.

Until morning, she hoped.

That gave her the rest of the night to figure out what to do.

She could not stay here under his protection any longer. She would not. Whether or not he needed her presence as cover for his own, he could not force her to stay. Not after what they had done. If he tried, she would … she would … She didn’t know what she would do, but she would think of something.

But then, the lowering thought occurred to her, he probably would not have the least objection to her removing herself from his vicinity. After all, as he had tauntingly pointed out, now that he had got what he wanted from her, what reason had he to want to keep her around?

None, that she could see. She would be just one more in his line of discarded mistresses. An embarrassment perhaps. Or, more likely, an object of complete indifference.

She was glad she had punched him.

She would insist on going home at first light.

Home—where someone wanted her dead. Isabella’s determination faltered, remembering that. How could she go home if someone there wanted her dead? If, indeed, someone truly did. Bernard had been wearing mourning—according to Paddy. But Paddy was Alec’s right hand; could she believe him? After all, she only had Alec’s word for it that anyone other than the original kidnappers had been involved in the plan to kill her. The question that occurred to her now that she had discovered the truth about his lecherous, untrustworthy nature was: Could she believe what Alec told her? Or had he said what he had for his own ends?

It was incredible to believe that Bernard or, for that matter, anyone else in her family was willing to pay to have her killed.

The only reasonable conclusion to be reached was that Alec was wrong. Either he was genuinely mistaken, or he had an ulterior motive in keeping her with him.

Perhaps he had meant to seduce her all along.

Isabella shuddered at the thought. Had she succumbed to the wiles of an experienced debaucher of women? She very much feared so.

True, she was not beautiful, but she was a lady, and as such, very much outside Alec Tyron’s normal ken. He seemed to have a hankering for the outward signs of gentility. He had worked hard to raise himself out of the gutter, and on the way had acquired many of the trappings of a gentleman: a well-bred manner of speaking, usually; a modicum of good manners (which she guessed could vanish as quickly as the upper-class accent); and wealth.

Did it not make sense that he might wish to secure for himself that ultimate proof of gentility, a titled mistress?

The gutter boy had bedded the countess.

How could she have allowed such a thing to happen?

Although her marriage with Bernard was far from a love match, it was a legal marriage, binding in the eyes of God and man. As her husband, Bernard was the only man who had the right to come into her bed, and join his flesh with hers.

No matter how she tried to wrap it up in clean linen, what she had done was no more or less than adultery. She had lain with a man not her husband of her own free will. She had not been forced, nor coerced in any way.

If she really cared to face the truth, what she had done made her no better than the girls who worked for Pearl. No better than Pearl herself.

She was a light-skirt, a strumpet, a woman of loose morals.

An adulteress.

And the worst part about it was that, if Pearl had not been sleeping in the dressing room to expose the full extent of Alec’s depravity, she would have revelled in the things he had done. She would have rejoiced in the feel of his lips on hers, his hands on her body, and even in the marriage act, which had seemed so disgusting when Bernard did it and so marvelous when the man moving over her was Alec.…

Never in her life had she thought to experience the blinding pleasure that she had experienced with him. Never had she even dreamed that such physical ecstasy existed.

Isabella took a deep, calming breath. She would force that incendiary enchantment from her mind, banish the memory of it as surely as she would remove herself from this world of harlotry and dissipation.

She would go home, back to Blakely Park and the quietly happy life she had made for herself there. Soon last night—indeed, all that had happened over the past fortnight—would be no more than an unpleasant memory.

She would never so much as think of Alec Tyron again.

Clinging to that determination like a drowning man to a lifeline, Isabella put her head down on the pillow and surrendered to the welcoming lure of sleep.

Until something reached down into her troubled dreams at last and pulled her back to wakefulness.

She did not know how long she had slept, but she did know, almost immediately, what it was that woke her.

A man stood beside her bed, looking down at her.

The fire had died down, leaving the room alive with dense charcoal shadows. But the fact that she couldn’t see anything more than his outline didn’t matter. Even if she hadn’t bothered to open her eyes, she would have known he was there.

Alec, come to her bed again for the Lord only knew what. To continue their argument—or her debauchery?

“Go away,” she said fiercely, sitting up and glaring at the menacing figure. And then, to her amazement, without any warning at all, the tall shadow detached itself from the darkness and leaped on top of her, wrapping its hands around her throat.

Isabella screamed once before the hands tightened, cutting off her breath.

XXII

A
lec nearly choked on his brandy. He spluttered, dribbling the fiery liquid down his chin, where it dripped onto his chest.

Damn the bitch anyway, for screaming like a banshee in the middle of the night and almost making him choke to death. He’d be damned if he’d go comfort her from any more bloody nightmares! The last time had cost him dear.

She could scream until hell froze over!

He wiped the drops of brandy from his chest with the flat of his hand, and ran the back of the same hand over his mouth and chin. God, he needed a shave, and a bath. He felt grimy, sticky, and out of sorts. All of which could be laid at her door.

She was making a god-awful racket in there. From the sound of it, she was having a hell of a bad dream.

Probably about him, Alec concluded with a jeering grin, and saluted the notion by raising the brandy bottle high before swilling down another huge mouthful.

It was damn fine brandy. Too bad it was giving him absolutely no pleasure at all. And that was her fault, too.

The only thing that would give him pleasure would be to rid himself of the self-righteous little vixen, preferably by putting a pillow over her face as she squalled her lungs out in the adjoining room.

Let her go back to her murderous husband. What bloody difference did it make to him? Hell, he quite sympathized with the fellow!

There was a great deal of thumping and bumping going on in the next room. She must be flopping all over the bed, struggling to wake up from the dream.

Listening to the din, Alec’s scowl deepened.

Damned noisy little bitch. Gave a man no peace.

His eye was swollen almost shut, and it hurt like hell. He should have played her tit for tat. Although hitting a woman—even such an infuriating one as she—went against his grain. But if he ever were to succumb to the urge to commit violent mayhem on female flesh, hers would be the flesh he would start with.

She screamed again, the sound abruptly cut off.

Alec cursed. He would be damned if he’d let her torment him all bloody night.

He had every right to get drunk in peace.

His lips compressed, he nodded to himself, and got to his feet. The walls of the room seemed to recede, and Alec had to catch the chairback to steady himself.

So far he’d done a pretty good job of drowning his sorrows. Once he got her quieted down again; he would finish the job properly.

With luck, he’d drink himself unconscious. Oblivion was a blessedly peaceful state.

Letting go of the chair, Alec made it to the door and fumbled for the knob, still clutching the bottle in one hand.

As he stepped through the door, squinting into the shadowy darkness of her bedroom toward the big bed, where she seemed to be flailing about in a positive frenzy, that nagging tingle came back in full force. It was strong enough to make him take a step backwards.

And that step backwards probably saved his life.

A knife hurtled through the darkness out of nowhere, thunking into the doorjamb near his chest, right where his heart would have been if he hadn’t moved. For a split second Alec stared at the quivering blade wedged solidly in the wood. Then a muffled curse and the sound of feet rushing toward him told him that he was under attack.

His mind struggled to surface through the fog of brandy that dulled it. A man loomed up out of the darkness, rushing toward him, swinging a club at his head. Alec ducked, and the club slammed harmlessly into the doorjamb.

His mind was clouded, but his instincts were intact. Twice they had saved him.

The man with the club swung again. Alec struck out with the only weapon he had readily to hand, the brandy bottle, crashing it into the attacker’s face. The glass broke with a tinkle, and Alec could feel the jagged edge of it slicing through soft flesh.

The man screamed, cursing as he dropped the club and clutched at his maimed face. His other hand fumbled at his waist for what Alec did not doubt was a pistol.

Alec dropped the bottle, which shattered with a crash on the floor. He grabbed the hilt of the knife that protruded from the doorway, wresting it from the wood just as the man jerked his hand up.…

Before he could get off a shot, Alec lunged forward, knife in hand. The blade sank satisfyingly deep into his opponent’s belly. Even as Alec twisted it, the motion vicious and designed to gut the victim as efficiently as a fisherman might his catch, his mind was clearing enough to assimilate the true meaning of the sounds that had lured him from his cocoon of brandy.

Isabella had not been crying out in the throes of a nightmare. She had been fighting off an attack.

The knowledge scared him sober. Even before he had the knife properly withdrawn from the shrieking attacker’s belly, he was running for the bed.…

He never made it. He was tackled en route, by a man big enough to knock him to the ground. Alec went skidding across the floor on his back, the knife flying from his hand to clatter across the floor. The enormous dark bulk of a man slid with him, grabbing at his legs, trying to heave himself on top of him. As Alec crashed into the wall, the man succeeded in straddling him, pinning him to the floor.

Near the hearth now, Alec could see the silver blade of a wicked-looking knife as it was lifted high above him. He was about to have his throat slit like a slaughtered calf’s. Getting his heels beneath him, he heaved, upsetting his would-be assassin’s balance. As the blade started down, he managed to lunge to one side. The blade missed his throat by inches, slicing instead into his shoulder.

Alec grunted with pain. The knife was withdrawn, raised again for the killing blow.…

At that precise moment, Isabella screamed.

The attacker’s attention was momentarily distracted, giving Alec a chance to punch ferociously upward. The blow caught the man on the chin, sending him reeling backwards while Alec grabbed the hand with the knife.

The man fought him, and he was strong. Even at full strength, Alec would have had a hard time besting him, and Alec was not at full strength. But he was fighting for his life, and Isabella’s, and that gave him the extra impetus he needed. Bit by bit, inexorably, he brought the man’s hand down to the level of his own face. Then, in a burst of strength, Alec slammed the hand holding the knife into the raised edge of the stone hearth. The man cried out, and released his grip on the knife.