Читать книгу Dangerous Games - Charlotte Mede - Страница 10

His skull hurt like a bastard. A thousand sharpened knives carved their way from the inside of his head out. St. Martin passed a heavy hand over his face, aware of the woman pressed up against the heavy stone wall regarding him as though he’d materialized along with the stench of brimstone.

At first he’d thought her plain in her stiff dress, spine pulled up straight like a marionette, her hair tamed into a strict chignon. But now, upon closer inspection and even through the blinding headache, he saw something else entirely.

Beautiful no, unusual yes. The lips too wide and full, the eyes with their elegant brows, clear and all too keen. And she was thin, from what he’d thought he’d felt when he’d hauled her up against him, beneath the myriad stays and crinolines of her mourning garb.

By this point, he’d have expected her to faint dead away. Lord knew, he was close to it, the hammer behind his head continuing its unrelenting blows. But then she was a murderess. And they clearly didn’t succumb to the vapors.

“You were saying,” he said with mocking gallantry, “that I could have anything.”

Still pressed against the stone, she opened her mouth to utter something and then thought otherwise. Her face registered shock and the markings of desperation borne by guilt. About which he knew a great deal, the corrosiveness of its essence, how it could eat away at a life until there was nothing left save a hollowed-out bitterness.

Liberating in its own way, he thought cynically. Once the rubicon had been crossed, acts of duplicity and degeneracy became second nature, the devil as best friend. He wondered whether this was already the case with Mrs. Hampton.

“I find there’s nothing like drama to focus the attention.” Although it was impossible, she edged closer to the wall, the jet beads of her dress scraping against stone. “You seem distinctly uncomfortable given the circumstances. Perhaps we can discuss your options further elsewhere,” he said.

Some color was returning to her face, now as gray as the granite behind her. “Of course. Elsewhere.” The prospect of escape, when there was none.

He didn’t care if his smile reached his eyes. “Your house in Mayfair comes to mind.”

“You know where I live?”

“I know everything there is to know about you.” Particularly the details around her dear, departed husband. The pounding behind his eyes increased, telling him to get the hell out of the Tower and back into the fresh night air. “By way of introduction, my name is St. Martin,” he said, refusing to give into the pain.

Her eyes widened at the information as she attempted to place him and his family in the pantheon of connections that was London. She would glean very little of substance, the barest outlines, as he had made sure that most of his life was lived in the shadows.

“Lord St. Martin,” she said softly, pushing away from the wall at last, as though his aristocratic associations, under the guise of gentlemanly behavior, should make any difference to her sense of safety. Lilly Clarence Hampton could not imagine the worst of it, he thought.

She seemed to be pulling herself together, restoring her sense of equilibrium, challenging a peer of the realm who would, after all, behave with a semblance of honor. The delusion was particularly pitiable.

“Why do you believe I murdered my husband?” In the moonlight, her hair shone a dark gold. She was younger than she’d first appeared, the angle of the light falling across smooth skin only lightly marred with shadows. “Surely you followed the investigation. An intruder entered our home and, upon Mr. Hampton apprehending him, he produced a pistol and…” She paused for a reason or effect, he couldn’t tell.

“And shot him in the chest,” he concluded for her. “Yes, I recall the details of the investigation, including the fact that there were no signs of forced entry, no footprints, and no proverbial smoking revolver.”

Her shawl had slid from her shoulders to her waist, and she gathered it back up around her shoulders, her movements graceful despite her obvious fear. “And you dare to imply that I murdered my husband? And what evidence could you possibly have?”

He casually bent over to pick up first one and then a second of her combs from the floor, slipping them into his vest pocket. “Your reaction a moment ago, for one. As I recall, you said you would do anything. Not the response of an innocent woman.”

“Anything not to relinquish the architectural plans, my lord.” Her lips curled in annoyance. “You have misinterpreted my response.”

“I’m not so sure. And you can jettison the honorific. St. Martin is enough.” More than enough. “What if I told you that I had the pistol. Your pistol, to be exact. In my possession.”

However fine a murderess she might be, she wasn’t an actress. This time she came toward him, fear supplanted by anger. So close that he could see a fine pulse jump at the base of her slender neck barely revealed by a froth of black tulle. “I would say that you are lying,” she said, scarcely a foot separating them. “I would ask you to present me with the evidence, is what I would say.”

She was hardly the dry, brittle widow he’d anticipated. He wondered if Bellamy knew. “With pleasure. And with the full intention of relinquishing it to you in exchange for the architectural plans.”

Her eyes captured his, a stunning, clear blue, and it occurred to him suddenly that Lilly Hampton would not be readily subdued. When it came to opponents, he was never wrong.

“Where would you like to make the exchange,” she asked steadily. And he didn’t believe her for an instant. She would return to look for her pistol, supposedly secreted away, only to find it missing.

He smiled grimly. “Tomorrow evening. At your home in Mayfair.”

She swallowed hard and her breathing was heavy with a combination of impatience and fear. Pushing her hair back from her face, she said, “I have plans for the evening. It will have to be another time.”

“Of course. How could I forget? Your assignation with Mr. Bellamy? Are nuptials in the offing or is this a simple affaire?”

Her eyes darkened, blue turning to a storm gray. He could tell that all she wanted to do was yell, throw something at his head, choke him with that ridiculous shawl falling across her shoulders. Instead, she took a steadying breath. “Your aspersions are reprehensible and not worth my consideration.”

“Ah yes, the matronly airs.” He wanted to see how simple it would be to provoke her. “Although it would only stand to reason that you would be prepared to spread your legs for his protection, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the realm, after all. And a close associate of your late husband’s, if the rumors are correct.” Despite the personal insult and stinging insinuation, his tone was as even as that of a barrister from the West End.

In an instant the tightly coiled, elegantly controlled widow was gone. She opened her mouth to scream, fingers curling into fists at her side. Her first mistake and he calculated that it would not be her last.

Before she could make a sound, he’d dragged her flush against him, his hand clamping over her mouth. The shawl fell to the floor as she shoved against his chest trying to break the contact. He lifted her off her feet and carried her back to the Tower room, pushing her up against the edge of the glass case. The diamond gleamed spectacularly as he enclosed her thrashing arms and legs with his torso. Avoiding her knee to his groin, he deftly shifted aside.

“What’s the difference, precisely, Mrs. Hampton, between Bellamy and me? Between what he wants of you and what I want of you?” Not waiting for an answer, he lowered his face to hers, the blue of her eyes more vivid than the facets of the diamond behind them. He was strong, too strong, positioning his body over hers and pinning her hands over her head with one arm.

Her breathing was fractured beneath the heavy stays of her dress. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea, your screaming,” he said, whispering a fraction away from her mouth, removing his hand. “You should know far better than I.”

“You are disgusting.” She hissed the words. “Leave me be….” She attempted to scramble away but it was impossible. Her breath was warm against his skin, the scent of rosewater and fear a peculiar aphrodisiac. Not what he expected at all from the young widow, his reaction, this sudden and unmistakable hardening in his breeches. Even under all the ruching, the bombazine, the stays, and the corset, he could feel her body writhing against his. He saw her eyes darken a moment before he covered her mouth with his.

It stopped her words. It stopped her breath and he hoped it would stop her thoughts. His tongue slipped into the heat of her mouth while he ground his hips to push her roughly against the glass case. He felt the stays beneath her dress shifting as he slanted his lips to kiss her more deeply, more thoroughly, to obliterate her will.

He couldn’t tell if she tried to pull away, because it was impossible, his weight holding her fast, his mouth an unrelenting assault. First hard, then soft, what began as an attack became something else.

The pounding behind his eyes receded as his right hand burned its way down her throat, the angle of a shoulder beneath the tightly sheathed fabric, the underside of her breast hidden away beneath the stiffness of an unforgiving corset. Her lips softened, a white flag, as his mouth continued its sensual assault, his hands his weapon.

She moaned, in desire or surrender, it didn’t matter. Reason told him this shouldn’t be happening, that this stiff, unyielding woman shouldn’t be able to ignite mindless lust in a man who had given up on such things long ago. And yet he was feeding on her tongue, her mouth, her lips, ensuring she felt overwhelmed by his size, his power, his force.

Their desire mingled and St. Martin felt her chest against his own take several unsteady breaths as his lips wandered to her neck, the only exposed skin on her body, trailing heat just behind her left ear. She exhaled sharply, yielding to his mouth snaking along her jawline, brushing and then returning to hover again over her lips.

And suddenly he stopped, the silk of her hair roped in his palm, reminding him of something, someone. The ties that bind, he thought, the heavy pounding in his head returning with the steadiness of a distant drumbeat. He couldn’t recall when he’d last been with a woman, or more brutally, he didn’t care to remember. The heavy silk that he now gripped in his palm burned.

He wanted out and he wanted the cleansing breath of night air. Now. He let go of the woman in his arms but held her with his eyes, looking for submission of another kind.

She didn’t make a sound. Slowly he moved away from her, still caging her body, still holding her prisoner. She stared at the profile above her, pale as linen save for the crimson of her lips.

When she still didn’t move or say a word, he said, “I’ll explain. Tomorrow evening,” he added, reading her mind. “After Bellamy.”

He stepped back and he could see confusion and fear imprinted on her face, wondering if she had hallucinated their embrace moments ago. The secretive and unbending widow and the savage and wounded man. He wondered himself.

The damp fetid air was a contagion in the enclosed space, the diamond glistening, overt in its shameless beauty, behind them. The widow licked her parted lips and he almost looked away.

Reason had reasserted itself. “You cannot have the plans,” she said softly, decisively. Her trembling hands uselessly attempted to pull her hair back into place. “I won’t allow it.” A curtain of heavy gold obscured her face.

“We will speak of it tomorrow. Remember. You have no options.” He shoved a hand into his vest pocket and produced two of her ivory combs. Without asking permission, he once again closed the space between them and, despite her startled gasp, pulled her hair away from her face. Exposed, she couldn’t help but feel his gaze linger on her eyes, her lips, the curve of her neck.

She held her breath, watching as, with careful gentleness, he traced the outlines of her features, his long fingers lingering against her skin before anchoring her hair, almost reluctantly, with first one and then the second comb. The gesture more shocking than the violence of his kiss.

She stood motionless under his ministrations, eyes wide and searching, wariness shot through with distrust. For him, and most of all, for herself.

“Go,” he said when he finished, pushing her toward the door with its heavy grille, the soldier still positioned outside. “And remember,” the warning deliberately cruel in cold contrast to the heat of his touch, “you’re a murderess.”

And before she could respond, he strode out the room and was swallowed by the doorway leading to the antechamber. The small window with its loosened bars beckoned, offering the solace of cold night air and unforgiving cobblestones two hundred feet below. He didn’t look back.

Quickly securing the rope to the remaining bar, he leaped over the sill, not for the first time wishing for death but realizing fate was seldom so kind.