Chapter 9 #2
“Oh! Oh, no. Begging your pardon, madam. I had no wish to cause distress, and I assure you, it’s quite safe. We never had no trouble afore now.”
“Well, you are causing distress. That being the case, I suggest you go away,” she told him in arctic tones.
“Yes,” he agreed hastily, as the wailing inside the room increased by several degrees. “At once.”
Angel was about to close the door but thought better of it. “A bottle of your best brandy and two glasses might suffice to compensate for the horrible ordeal you have put us through.”
Already halfway down the stairs, he agreed to send someone up with it and his footsteps faded away.
Angel closed the door with a sigh and leant against it.
“Bleedin’ hell,” Milly whispered, her palms bracketing her face.
“Your hysterical act was perfect,” Angel told her, clinging to her calm demeanour by a thread.
Milly made a choked sound and sank onto the bed. “It weren’t no act.”
Pushing back a tangled curl that had escaped her pins, Angel let out a soft huff of laughter.
“Who were they, miss?” Milly stared at her, fear making her voice tremble.
Angel opened her mouth but any answer she might have given died in her throat as a heavy knock vibrated through the door. She leapt away from it with a shriek and then sucked in a breath.
“The brandy,” she said weakly, laughing at her own idiocy.
She fixed the stern, imperious expression to her face once more, and returned to the door.
Mr Cleaver filled the opening.
He was sweating and breathless, a large lump was rising on his forehead, and his clothes were rumpled and dirty. He looked disreputable, dangerous, and none too happy.
Angel wanted to kiss him.
“Miss Baxter,” he said, his deep voice so low it thrummed under her skin and seemed to vibrate in places it had no business going. “A word.”
Angel swallowed, recognising with trepidation the glint in his hazel eyes as one that meant business. She glanced over her shoulder at Milly, who shook her head meaningfully.
Stepping forward and forcing Mr Cleaver to move away, Angel strode out and closed the door behind her before Milly could protest.
He silently grasped her arm, towing her along the corridor. Opening a door, he shoved her through it, followed her in, and closed the door behind him.
Angel turned, glaring at him.
“I cannot be in here alone with you,” she whispered in a furious undertone, folding her arms over her chest.
He mirrored her stance and leant back against the door, effectively sealing any means of escape. “You are not alone,” he drawled, jerking his chin towards the fire.
Angel turned to see Toby, curled up on the rug, a blanket covering his narrow frame. He was snoring.
She threw up her hands. “Oh, well, that’s all right, then. A fine chaperone he is.”
Mr Cleaver’s lips quirked. “I thought so. But never mind that. Who the devil were those men?”
Angel’s heart sank. She had rather hoped he’d know and would have some personal reason why they were after him. One that had nothing to do with her.
“I have no idea,” she retorted. “But I presume they were the two men who were watching us earlier.”
“I presume likewise,” he replied, pushing off the door and moving into the room.
A little unsettled, Angel took a step backward.
“I would also like to know,” he asked, oh, so politely, “why a respectable young lady is travelling with a pistol and is ready, able, and willing to fire it.”
Angel bristled. “I believe what you mean to say is ‘thank you, Miss Baxter, for so kindly saving my life. If not for you, I would have been spitted like a suckling pig.’”
He winced a little at the crude picture she painted, and Angel rather regretted saying such a thing. Her stomach—still in a knot of terror that had yet to unravel—roiled.
“I do thank you,” he said, his voice softer now as he took another step towards her. Angel took another step back, only to discover she had walked into the heavy wooden bedframe and there was nowhere else to go. “It was brave of you and nicely done.”
Oh.
Angel had not been expecting that and was suddenly all at sea. The truth was, she’d been terrified. That this man—so big and handsome and so vividly alive—might have been killed, murdered, possibly even because of her. It made her sick. It made her want to curl up in a ball and cry.
“However,” he went on, a steelier note to his voice now. “I have a strong suspicion that those men know something I don’t. I don’t like that, Miss Baxter. I’m willing to fight—happy to do so, actually—but I’d like to know what it is I’m fighting for.”
Angel shook her head.
“Oh, I think you can,” he told her, and Angel found she could not tear her eyes away from his, from the implacable certainty of his words. “I think you know exactly what this is about and I want to know why people are trying to kill me.”
“I-I can’t—” she said, the words quavering and breathless.
He closed the distance between them, his powerful frame so close she could feel the heat radiating from it. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to curl herself around him and let that delicious warmth envelop her, just like Toby, who slept so peacefully before the fire.
She stared up at him, finding his hazel eyes unreadable.
“Can’t. Or won’t?”
“Both,” she said, putting up her chin.
He let out a breath that fluttered over her, the faint scent of a fine cigar lingering. “Ah, well. It was worth a try.”
Angel’s eyes widened. “You… You aren’t going to interrogate me?”
“Interrogate? Oh, no. Far too much bother,” he said lazily.
She watched, senses on alert, as his large hand lifted to her cheek, the back of his fingers stroking gently.
“So soft,” he murmured, reaching for the lock of hair that had escaped and twining it around his fingers. “I love your hair. Black as a crow’s wing. Like silk.”
Angel swallowed, her heart doing a wild dance in her chest. Yes, yes, yes, the wicked little thing said excitedly, as heat bloomed low in her belly.
Aware that she was going to get no help from her own feeble sense of self-preservation because she had clearly inherited her grandfather’s lack of morals, Angel glanced anxiously towards Toby.
“Oh, you’ll get no help from that quarter, love,” he said, his low laugh doing dreadful things to her pulse. “He sleeps like the dead. There’s only one thing that can save you.”
“Wh-What is it?” she asked, though she was not at all certain she cared.
“One word,” he whispered, leaning in and nuzzling her ear. “Stop.”
Stop. The word buzzed about in Angel’s brain like a drunken bee, but that useless organ had melted into nothing more than warm honey, and the word slowed and got stuck and finally sank into the quagmire along with her wits.
His fingers settled beneath her chin, raising it and her breath hitched as he brushed his lips over hers.
Angel lit up. Every nerve, every fibre of her being attuned to the place where his mouth touched hers, so…
so gently. Only the flutter of a butterfly’s wing, but the exquisite brush of his lips was followed by another, and another.
One kiss became the next, and the one after, until a thousand kisses became one long, drugging kiss that surged through her veins, more potent than brandy, more dangerous than opium.
His hand slid about her waist as she swayed, steadying her, which was just as well as her bones were as substantial as butter. His other hand cupped her cheek, playing with her mouth with the skill of one who had perfected the art with years of dedicated practice.
Oh, he was good, and this was delicious.
He was delicious. A sound escaped her, a faint little moan of pleasure that only underlined how far gone she was.
Angel leaned into him and he pulled her close, and oh, his body was as warm and vigorous and solid as she had imagined.
His arms tightened, her breasts pressing against his hard body.
Her palms flattened upon his chest, and she felt the reassuring thud of his heart beneath the layers of fine linen and wool.
His scent, the scent of a man still hot and damp from exertion—from a fight for his life—filled her mind and made her giddy with longing.
She wanted to tear all that expensive fabric aside and slide her hands over his sweat-damp skin, to taste the salt tang of it upon her tongue.
Somewhere in the distance there was a faint knocking sound. Perhaps it was her moral fibre trying to gain her attention. She ignored it.
What was the word he’d told her, she thought in some distant part of her brain. Stop? Why on earth would she say such a foolish thing?
His mouth nipped at her ear, trailed wicked kisses down her throat as she inclined her head, allowing it, encouraging it.
“Miss Baxter?”
She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to kiss her like this forever. She wanted to coil herself about his big body and hold on tight and—
“Miss!”
Mr Cleaver leapt away, dropping her as if she’d scalded him as Milly’s voice, taut with anxiety, sounded through the door.
“Devil take you!” Mr Cleaver cursed, glaring at her. “You’re supposed to stop me. I told you to say stop. How difficult is it to remember one word? Stop!”
Angel just blinked at him, too dazed to speak. “St-Stop?”
“Well, it’s too late now!” he exclaimed crossly, striding to the door and snatching it open.
Milly, who had clearly had her ear pressed to the wood, fell into the room.
Mr Cleaver turned his scalding gazed upon her next. “A fine chaperone you are. Here I am, a wicked seducer, and you let her go with me without so much as a murmur. What is wrong with you both?”
Milly opened her mouth.
“Don’t you dare apologise,” Angel said crossly, finally having salvaged some shreds of intelligence from the wreckage he’d made of her brain.
Good heavens. She’d known he was dangerous, but really.
The government ought to stamp a warning on his forehead to caution unsuspecting females.
“I didn’t give Milly the chance to stop me, and she shouldn’t have had the slightest success if she’d tried. Good night, Mr Cleaver. Sleep well.”
With that, she grasped Milly’s hand and sailed from the room with her head held high.
Sleep well? Was she insane? As if he could sleep now!
Hart watched her go. He was still vibrating, energy surging through him with nowhere to go.
Well, there was one place for it to go and it had done just that.
He’d been all riled up by the fight, by the sight of her standing backlit in the doorway, pistol in hand. By the time he’d realised the villain had got away and there was no point in searching, he’d been in such a frenzy he’d not known which way was up.
Seeing as how he was in such an unreasonable state, he ought to have known better than to confront her the moment he got back.
He ought to have taken a moment to calm down.
He ought to have cleaned himself up and had a drink and gathered his wits instead of storming to her bedroom door and towing her to his own like a lunatic.
At least he’d stopped short of knocking her over the head and dragging her by the hair like the caveman he apparently was.
Hart groaned and sat down on the bed, raking a hand through his hair. He might have ravished her, and all with Toby asleep before the fire. What if the boy had woken? That would have been an education for the lad, and no mistake. What was wrong with him?
Miss Baxter was an innocent… probably. Though an innocent girl would not have responded like she had, surely?
She hadn’t been shocked, hadn’t slapped him, and she’d known how to kiss too.
Good Lord, had she known. He could still feel the touch of her mouth burning against his lips, still taste her on his tongue.
Pack it in, he told himself severely.
Yes, Miss Baxter was an unholy temptation.
Yes, she was undoubtedly responsible for nearly getting him killed.
If he had the least bit of sense, he would get as far from her as he possibly could.
He did not doubt she would try to ditch him eventually.
Yet, she needed him whether or not she wished to admit it.
He would simply have to endure it. He must grit his teeth, remind himself he was a gentleman and endeavour to help her do whatever it was she was set on doing without getting any of them killed. Presuming she wasn’t planning to blow up Parliament. At this point, he wouldn’t put it past her.