Chapter Three
The mouth of the Iniquitous Monster’s cave opened in a baleful “O” before her, scarring the granite face of Mount Runemor.
From deep within curled a plume of sulfurous smoke, accompanied by the tinkling of a million metal objects being trod on by a body of unimaginable size.
This was the Dragon’s home, and he was, apparently, awake . . .
—The Dragon and the Blue Star by Analise Crewe
He was gaining on her.
Ana knew these streets well, but the man thundered after her on long, powerful limbs and she didn’t stand a chance unless she found a way to evade him and hide.
She feinted to the right and ducked behind a passing man, hoping to lose her pursuer, but when she reemerged, he was right there behind her, closer than ever.
He must be the nobleman Miss Flanagan’s sister had promised her to, a huge, menacing hunter intent on capturing her.
He would never have her.
She knew a shortcut, a narrow lane that veered off up ahead, its entrance nearly covered with vines. If she could reach it before he saw her . . .
She summoned a burst of speed, legs aching and lungs bursting, and was through the vine-covered entranceway and halfway down the alley when a hand clamped around her arm.
She struggled and twisted but he held her easily.
“Stop running,” he commanded.
She stilled, panting from the exertion of running. She shouldn’t have chosen this deserted alleyway. There were no people in sight. He held her trapped easily, there was nowhere to run.
The light was growing dim and he was wrapped in shadows. He wore all black. One side of his face was crisscrossed with a webbing of raised purplish scars.
A nobleman of high rank, Miss Flanagan had said, not considered handsome, but not cruel. The iron grip on her arm felt cruel enough.
He’d called himself Warburton. One word to define him. Throwing his title around, as if she should be grateful to him for attempting to purchase her, make her his property. His name rang a bell in her mind. A warning bell, no doubt. She’d probably read about his exploits in the scandal sheets.
“I’ll be no man’s doxy,” she cried fiercely.
“No one’s trying to make you a d—”
She stamped on his foot with the heel of her boot.
“Oof,” he grunted, but his grip on her arm never loosened. She fought and scratched but he held her immobile, his huge arms around hers, holding her tight against his chest.
She stomped on his shiny black boots a second time but it didn’t seem to even make a dent.
“Are you quite finished? Will you allow me to explain?” he growled.
“I won’t! I won’t be purchased like a sack of flour. I will defend myself to the death!”
A disbelieving guffaw. He dared laugh at her? She’d show him.
“Release me,” she said passionately. “You’re hurting me.”
He instantly loosened his grip. His mistake.
She twisted one arm free and plucked the pencil from her hair. She’d intended to jab him in the eye but his face was so far away and the sharp point of the pencil impacted somewhere closer to his nose. She dragged it downward, adding another scar to his collection.
He caught her wrist, gave one firm little twist, and the pencil clattered to the paving stones.
What had Miss Flanagan said when she’d been inebriated one afternoon and regaled Ana with tales from her past? When you had to defend yourself from unwanted advances, it was best to go for the eyes, or the kidneys, or soft, fleshy parts. If that didn’t work, knee him in the bollocks.
She brought her knee up suddenly. He grunted.
“You missed,” he said, his voice rough, his lips far too close. “You’ll have to work on your timing and aim.”
This wasn’t an ordinary man. This was a scarred warrior who could break her arm with a flick of his wrist.
“You don’t want me,” she said desperately.
“I’m a redheaded spitfire of a hellion with unfortunate freckles.
I don’t have much padding and, believe me, I’m not biddable.
I should make a terrible mistress. I’d embarrass you greatly.
Wouldn’t you rather have a willing woman?
I’m certain a more voluptuous and experienced lady would be delighted to be kept by you. ”
“I believe you’re exactly the redheaded spitfire of a hellion that I’ve been searching for these several years. Analise Crewe, daughter of the late Lieutenant John Crewe.”
“I don’t want a guardian, or a keeper, or protector or whatever you choose to call it. Do you hear me? I will fight to the death!”
Fight to the death. She was her father’s daughter and make no mistake.
She pummeled him with her tiny fists, shouting that she wouldn’t be owned by any man.
He deserved her punches, her hatred, her fear, and more.
He was the reason her father was dead and she was alone in this world.
The reason she’d been forced to seek shelter in that derelict guesthouse.
She thought he was attempting to purchase her body for his pleasure.
The sickening thought flashed through his mind that perhaps she’d been so used before.
Goddamn it. He hated himself. He was too late.
Hit me harder, he thought. He stood stock-still as she beat him until she was exhausted and panting.
“Leave me be,” she gasped. “Let me go in peace.”
“Miss Crewe, if you’ll be still for one moment, I’ll explain myself. Your father—”
She kneed him in the groin again, and this time she connected. Pain twisted in his gut and stars danced before his eyes.
Enough.
With one easy motion he pinned both of her wrists behind her back, pushing her up against the vine-covered brick behind them.
“Hold still and listen to me now. I’m not trying to purchase you.
I’m the Duke of Warburton. I made your father a battlefield promise that I would protect you.
I’ve been searching for you ever since the war ended.
You’re an extremely difficult young lady to find. ”
She went quiet in his arms. Finally.
She was so small and fragile, the bones of her shoulders visible beneath the cloak. Delicate, diminutive, and . . . fiery. Like a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. She was gloriously alive and vibrant even half-starved and frightened to death.
He transferred both of her wrists to one of his hands, using his other hand to dig through his waistcoat pocket. “Look.” He held out her miniature. “He gave me this portrait of you. And a packet of your letters. I made a promise to become your guardian. The paperwork is complete. You are my ward.”
She didn’t much resemble the girl in the portrait anymore.
In his mind’s eyes, she’d stayed fifteen, a young girl with her hair in precise ringlets, tied with a schoolgirl’s white bow above her head.
A girl with an emphatically pointed chin, laughing green eyes, wearing an emerald necklace and eardrops that were far too adult for her age.
The woman he held pressed against the wall was nothing like the portrait.
Her face was still oval but her green eyes flashed with hatred, not humor.
She was slim, but shapely. He couldn’t help noticing the shapely part because her cloak had parted and her bodice had been pushed askew in their struggle.
No portrait artist could have captured her effect in person. The vibrant green of her eyes, the sunlight-on-old-copper of her hair, which had tumbled loose when she pulled the pencil free, falling in tangled curls around her neck and bosom.
The pencil that could have blinded him.
He still held her wrists. He didn’t fancy another jab from whatever other weapons she concealed on her person.
He’d keep her immobile until she trusted him.
He was acutely aware of how they must look to any passersby.
He had her pressed up against a wall. Covering her with his body.
It was a good thing the alley was deserted.
“You fought bravely, Miss Crewe. Just as your father did.”
Her breath caught, she stared into his eyes, attempting to read the truth of his words.
“You knew my father?”
“I was his commanding officer.”
“Warburton.” Understanding began to dawn. “Papa mentioned you in his letters to me but . . .” Confusion flooded her eyes. “You don’t seem like the man he described. He said you had an easy laugh and you were . . .”
“Handsome? Carefree? I’m not that man. Not anymore.” Now he was scarred. Hideous. Ill-tempered. “If I release your wrists, will you run away again?”
“Tell me about my father. Describe him to me.”
“He had your eyes. Steadfast, deep green. He and I played whist in our tents and drank to your health every night. He gave me a packet of your letters to know you by. I read the chapters of the fantastical novel you were writing. What was it called, again? Something about a dragon?”
She relaxed in his arms, the fight leaving her body. A sob caught in her throat. “Papa gave you my letters. You were with him the day he was injured?”
“He was gravely wounded. A lance injury. I was tending to him when I was attacked by a French cavalryman.”
“Then you didn’t actually see him die?” Fervent hope flooded her face.
“I did not.”
“His body was never recovered.”
“Many were not.” The mass graves hastily dug in villages along the way, death rendering the fallen nameless, and forever lost.
“There’s a chance he’s still alive, then. I knew it!”
“Miss Crewe, I . . .” The words clogged his throat.
He knew this kind of blind hope that kept someone going day after day.
He suddenly wanted to release her wrists and hug her to his chest, soothe her hair, press his lips to her delicate lids until the wild grief left her eyes. “There’s no hope of that.”
“You can’t know that!” She twisted in his grasp again, trying to break free.
“Pardon me, miss, is this bloke bothering you?”
Two men had come up behind them without Dex noticing—that’s how focused he’d been on her pain, her false hope.
He dropped her wrists and turned fully to face them.
She made use of the interruption to scoot out from behind him, but the arrivals kept her effectively hemmed in.
“This is none of your concern,” Dex said with cold menace. “Move along.”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” one of them, a mean-looking fellow with his cap pulled low, said.
“You’ll be safer with us, luv. We’ll see you home.
” He leered lasciviously into his necktie and came closer, sidling neatly into the slight gap between Miss Crewe and Dex, blocking her from view with his bony shoulders in their too-small jacket.
His equally unsavory and much broader friend moved toward her other side. The smell of stale ale and bacon grease rose from them in waves.
Miss Crewe chose the lesser of two evils.
Darting quickly around the man, she linked her arm through Dex’s. “Oh, that won’t be necessary, gentlemen. My brother and I were only having a bit of an argument!”
Dex side-eyed her in bemusement. Brother, was it?
“He doesn’t like the bonnet I chose at the milliner’s, imagine.
A lovely satin poke with a stuffed dove on a velvet nest, carrying a sprig of satin blossoms in its little mouth.
Ever so fetching! He says it makes me look like a shopgirl.
Can you credit it? Men will never understand fashion.
Now I want to give you gentlemen a word of advice, if you have sisters, or sweethearts, or wives, never, ever give them your true opinion of what they’re wearing.
If one of them asks you, ‘Does this new pelisse flatter my figure?’ you respond with an enthusiastic ‘yes’ even if the exact opposite is true. ”
Was she planning to vanquish them with chatter? Oddly, her plan appeared to be working. The steady stream of nonsense and the incongruously bright smile on her face was giving them pause, a slight glaze of confusion dulling their intent gazes.
“When he said I looked like a shopgirl, I said to him,” Miss Crewe continued, as if she were chatting with a schoolfriend, “Why brother dear, I am perfectly capable of choosing my own millinery, thank you very much, please stick to your own. Why, the one he chose for me to wear was a dull gray muslin with nary an ostrich feather or a stitch of silk on it! I do believe he wants me to look like a convent sister.”
“You could never look like a nun,” the wider one grunted, “you’re prettier’an a posy. Now why don’t you leave him and come along with us, eh?”
Dex didn’t like the way they were staring fixedly at Miss Crewe’s exposed decolletage, jaws slackened above stained cravats. She’d defused the situation somewhat, and he admired her quick thinking, but it was time to finish this.
His way.