Wicked Becomes You (25 page)

He would have to immobilize the man. The prospect would not have bothered him if they’d met in a
salle d’armes
, or if he’d had proof that Barrington had harmed Gerard. But right now, all he knew was that he disliked the man. And he’d never been particularly interested in punishing people for failing to charm him. He’d left that role to the bullies of the world.

Gwen interrupted his silent deliberations by making a choice of her own. She turned away from him, spinning on the ball of her foot and launching herself directly into Barrington.

For a split second of disbelief, Alex thought she meant to attack the man. Perhaps Barrington had a similar idea; taken off guard, he grunted and staggered a pace backward. But he caught the idea before Alex did—and caught something else, besides. Hauling Gwen up by her arse, he smashed his face into hers.

Well, Alex thought. Well. This was . . . clever of her. A clever distraction.

Her arms twining around his shoulders, she forced Barrington around, putting his back to the door.

Also just to distract him.

Alex was beginning to see this scene through a peculiar red haze.

Gwen loosed a moan, a sound that really did not belong in the hearing of any other man that Alex had or ever would meet, and then clawed her fingers into Barrington’s hair, yanking his head down toward her breasts.

Barrington obliged quite happily.

Her eyes found Alex’s over the man’s shoulders.
Go
, she mouthed.
Go now!

He stared back at her. The little
idiot
. Did she really think that he was going to slip out of this room and let Barrington have what she had offered to
him
but he’d been too much of a goddamned unforgivably thickheaded cowardly idiot to take?

Jesus Christ, what had
ailed
him? This was what he had planned by refusing her, wasn’t it? For her one day to be in some asinine Englishman’s arms, with him apart, elsewhere, claimless, no one to blame for it but himself?

She widened her eyes dramatically. Lifted her hand and pointed emphatically toward the door. And then rotated her hand and made a come-hither crook of her finger.

What the hell did that mean?

Barrington lifted his head. She gave a breathy gasp and pushed his head back down. Now her leg started to wrap around Barrington’s calf.

The meaning of the gesture suddenly penetrated. God above, he was a fool. He slipped out from behind the screen and opened the door, sliding silently into the corridor and pulling the door noiselessly shut behind him. And then he lifted his fist and banged. Once, twice, thrice. No more. Not waiting for an answer, he threw the door open so loudly that it cracked against the jamb.

“You little trollop,” he spat.

Gwen slapped her hands over her mouth and leapt away from Barrington—but rather than springing toward Alex as he’d envisioned, she instead raced to stand behind the desk.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. de Grey—please, it was—not at all what you think!”

“It was exactly what you think,” Barrington said. He yanked down his suit jacket. “What do you mean, poking about up here?”

Alex fixed him with a grim stare. He had no idea what Gwen thought she was achieving by loitering across the room from him. Did she want to witness bloodshed? He felt unusually willing to deliver it. “I will ask you,” he said icily, “the same question. Did I not make it clear that Miss Goodrick is off limits to your attentions?”

Barrington worked up a smirk. “The lady does not seem to agree. Perhaps we should consult
her
in this matter.”

“Oh!” Gwen put her hands behind her back and looked at her toes. “Oh,” she said softly. She looked up to Alex, eyes woeful, almost pleading. “I’m so sorry, Mr. de Grey. But it is such a
hard
decision. On the one side, you’ve been everything good to me. On the other, Mr. Barrington . . .” She trailed off and sighed, as if his magnificence were too large to be put into words. “I begin to understand,” she said hesitantly, “why ladies used to insist that knights joust for their attention. If only one victor were left standing . . . it would be so much easier to decide, wouldn’t it?”

For a brief moment, Alex actually felt in sympathy with Barrington: the man’s sneer was fading into a puzzled frown. “Miss Goodrick,” Barrington said, “I would joust any number of men for you, were we knights.”

“But I don’t think you’d win against
Alex
,” she said pointedly, and gave Alex a sudden urgent look.

Oh, Christ. He understood where she was going with this. He hoped she had a good reason for it. He sighed and cracked his knuckles to loosen them. Fists were not his forte, of course, but the week in Paris had sharpened him up after the laziness of the sea journey.

Barrington reached into his jacket, outright scowling now. “All right, enough,” he said, and as he withdrew his hand, metal glinted in the light. Alex went very still. “I must say, I’m disappointed,” the man continued to Gwen. “I’d hoped you were merely a talented trollop along for the ride.” He lifted the gun, then turned it on Alex. “Time for some truths,” he said evenly. “I waited for you to approach me, but now I begin to think you never intended to do so. Which leads me to ask: what the hell are you doing in my house? Weston wises up, discovers shit where his liver should be? That’s a fine specimen of manhood.”

Alex distantly registered Gwen’s gasp. A cold calm descended, just as it did in the training salon. His thoughts felt clear and sharp. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said flatly. Guns were tricky beasts. A kick could disarm the man or it could cause the gun to discharge. And Gwen had no cover to take.

Barrington gave a sharp laugh. His grip on the gun did not waver. “You think me a fool? I thought I recognized you that first night. Something familiar about the eyes. But it took a bit of inquiring to confirm it. The ruthless Mr. Ramsey. Curious choice of an emissary—I never heard Weston speak highly of you.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “But if it’s dirty work he’s designing, I can understand the choice.”

Alex sensed some movement from Gwen.
Stay still
, he willed her. He could not risk looking to her to telegraph the message. He did not want to lead Barrington’s attention back to her. “I’m no emissary of my brother,” he said.
Christ
. How pathetic that he’d not remembered this truth before bringing Gwen along. He’d risked her, here, thinking himself in aid of his brother, when his brother was—
what
? The victim of a swindle? Common blackmail? What the hell was going on here? How had Barrington convinced him to part with the lands?

“Then explain yourself,” said Barrington. “Or shall I ask the
lady
to explain?”

Thoughts of Gerry evaporated. “She knows nothing.” He watched Barrington intently. The man was nervous. The corners of his mouth were twitching. Earlier, Alex had mistaken that tic for a very irritating smile. “And I discuss nothing with a gun trained on me.”

“Forgive my approach,” the other man said dryly. “Your deception does not inspire politesse. Although why I bother, I don’t know. Indeed, why
do
I bother? Weston is a gutless sack. If he hired you to play the man in his stead—well, I am sorry for you. Would that you had stuck to your own game; I can’t afford distractions right now.”

Instinct was everything. Alex could sense, in the minute shading of the man’s voice, the slightest shift in his posture, that he had made a decision, and it boded no good for anyone. “All right,” he said quietly, intention coiling through him. One single kick—

“You’re an ass,” Gwen burst out, and smashed a pot onto Barrington’s head.

Alex sprang. Barrington staggered a pace and backhanded Gwen.

She fell into the desk, and some low, animalistic, unfamiliar noise ripped from Alex’s throat as he collided with Barrington and took them both to the ground. He seized the man’s wrist and pinned it, evading a knee to his balls on the way. Barrington’s limbs thrashed like an eel’s, but he had no practice in sparring. His grip around the pistol was white-knuckled. If Alex slammed his hand into the floor, if the gun fired, guards would come running. He placed his right knee on the man’s testicles, his left knee on the man’s left arm, and his left hand—
yes, by God, you son of a bitch—
on the man’s throat, squeezing, squeezing, until Barrington’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body went slack.

Take the gun. Relatch the safety. Gwen, by the desk. Face warm. No visible cuts.

Lashes fluttered.

Alex took a long, shuddering breath. Hand shaking, he cupped her cheek. Jesus God he had come here for goddamned
Gerry’s
sake and she’d ended up crumpled on the floor.
He
was going to put a gun to his brother’s head. “Gwen,” he repeated, not recognizing his voice; hoarse, fit only for a thread of sound.

Her eyes came fully open. They rolled immediately to the left. Toward Barrington.

“Forget him.” He helped her into a sitting position. “Look toward the ocean,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“The view is lovely,” he said, and whipped free the cords that tied the curtains away from the window pane.

She cleared her throat. “Alex, the documents—”

“Is the moon full?” he asked. Efficiently he tied Barrington’s wrists together. “I think we were due for a full moon tonight.”

She did not reply. He watched his hands looping the rope over Barrington’s ankles. No blood spilled, but it put him in mind of butchery all the same. He would have hog-tied and gutted this man gladly, whatever Gerry had done to invite this. The kosher style—strung from the heels to slowly bleed out.

His hands began to shake again.

“Yes, it’s a full moon. Are you all right?”

It took a moment for these words to penetrate. “Brilliant,” he said.

“Only that it seems an odd time for small talk, you know.”

He fitted the second cord between the man’s teeth, coiling it around Barrington’s skull twice, then round his neck once, before running it behind his back, drawing the loops of wrist and ankles tight. Barrington wasn’t going anywhere until someone came and found him. If he struggled, he would choke himself.

Let him struggle. Alex dragged him behind the screen for added concealment.

He turned back on a deep breath, preparing to pick Gwen up—his arms already focused on the feel of her, the reassurance of having her completely within his purview. Then he would be able to think again. This rage was so visceral that it numbed one. It lifted the hairs on his neck.

But Gwen was already on her feet, industriously stuffing her reticule with documents. Her quick glance upward ascertained that he was through with Barrington. She held up the reticule.

“These are maps,” she said. “This might explain it.”

He stared at her. “I’m going to carry you out of here,” he said.

She tipped her head, and then, as if only now remembering, touched her cheek where Barrington had hit her. “It’s only my face,” she said. “I can walk.”

“I’m going to carry you,” he repeated.

“But these maps, Alex—”

“Fuck the maps,” he said.

Her eyes widened. She studied him a moment, and then stuck the reticule under her arm. “All right,” she said, and stepped toward him. “I suppose I do feel a bit faint.”

They were halfway down the stairs when Gwen felt Alex’s grip tighten. She lifted her head and spied a guard approaching them. Beneath the shadow cast by the brim of his bowler hat, the leer on his lips bespoke his misapprehension of Alex’s embrace.

“Put me down,” she whispered after the guard had passed them. He had turned in the direction of Barrington’s private wing.

“Just lie
back
,” Alex said, and his tone was so unaccustomedly harsh that she recoiled. And was pinned, by one large and bullying hand, against his chest, where this hand kept her firmly.

“But if he finds Barrington—”

“We’ll go directly to the stables,” he said under his breath. “Tell the lad to take us to Monte Carlo.”

He carried her through the lobby as if she weighed nothing. The butler opened the door with no remark, clearly accustomed to odd goings-on. Down the short flight of stairs. Now gravel crunched beneath Alex’s footsteps as he walked the path around the house. The moon hung overhead in a star-studded sky so black that it looked depthless.

She closed her eyes. From the distance came the dull crash of the tide against the cliffs and the babble of guests somewhere nearer by. The sun had taken its warmth with it; the deep breath she took held a bite more familiar to her in autumn, and the scent of the pepper trees, and Alex: starch from his shirtsleeves, the tang of his sweat. He was a warm, solid presence, the strength in him undeniable. She had the sense of great struggles being waged inside him, but it seemed clear that questions were not going to unlock his tongue. All he wanted from her was to lie still in his grip.

Through her free-floating thoughts, this last observation refused to pass. It stopped squarely at the forefront of her brain. He was gripping her so tightly that she could hardly move. This was what he wanted.

Amazement made her jerk. His hand tightened briefly, as if in warning.

She caught her breath. She felt as though some soundless, enclosing bubble had burst abruptly, baring her senses to a new and altered and far more vibrant scene. His embrace was fierce, unyielding, but also comfortable—
more
than comfortable. His arms were strong and adept and he wanted them around her.