Читать книгу Saying I Do To The Scoundrel - Liz Tyner, Liz Tyner - Страница 14

Chapter Six

Brandt wore dark clothing and, as dusk fell, he took both horses and went to the woman’s house. He’d noticed the sky clouding. He wasn’t waiting until Sunday morning at half past eight and fifteen steps beyond the street corner and half a bottle past the refuse in the road. The woman wanted to leave her stepfather. That he could take care of. She could save her blasted instructions for her next kidnapper.

Nor did he want to be hanged if something went wrong. He really was picky about things like that. Tavern floor, fine. Noose, tight. He’d never even tied a cravat tightly. Things went smoother in the darkness. Fewer eyes watched. Usually the people who were about at such hours would go to great lengths to avoid notice and tried to avoid anything which might bring questions their way.

Looking up, windows on the first floor flickered with candlelight and silhouettes of figures moved beyond the curtains. He could take her away. He could hide her. He had the perfect place—waiting, but not for him. She could step over the threshold there. He couldn’t, but she could.

He tied the horses near the back of the house. He’d tried to hitch them as if they belonged to a house because if someone nicked them, he was going to be in a bind. Horses irked him. Heiresses irked him.

He noted the dim light from an upstairs window and then the corner ones. He knew the end room was more likely the master’s chambers because it received window light from both sides and had the ability to open more windows if the room became stifling. Then, when he saw the curtains being closed, he saw the shape of a valet, not a maid.

He moved to get sight of the other side window and could see only the dimmest of lights behind it. Miss Wilder’s room. Earlier he’d stayed long enough to see the outline of her bonnet as she’d removed it. And he’d watched a footman slink out another door, then rush away, possibly going to a meeting with a sweetheart or to finish an errand he’d neglected earlier. In just moments he’d known where to get into the house and where to find the woman when he returned.

Now, he stared up at the house darkened except for shadows near the front entrance.

He went to the back entrance with a bar he had brought along to pry open the door and, when he reached out, the latch was locked.

He put pry marks into the wood, separating the metal from wood, working to get the lock free.

Earlier in the day when the footman had left, Brandt had pretended to ask directions. Then he’d discovered Katherine Wilder was the niece of a duke.

He paused. He had to take care. He knew why she hadn’t turned to her uncle. A self-righteous man who refused to let his servants turn their backs on him or raise their eyes when he spoke with them. He doubted Miss Wilder could ever get on well with the man.

Lifting the bar, he slipped inside. He walked the hall until he found a stairway and quickly got to the upper floors. Even if someone heard him, he’d be undetected unless they saw him. Footsteps would be attributed to a servant, or to Miss Wilder herself, or to the master of the house. It would be assumed someone moving about was answering a bell pull.

He found a doorway which he thought paralleled the window he’d watched.

The door opened easily, with only a small click. The first thing he noticed was the flounces. No man could sleep in a room decorated like a petticoat.

He took five paces and stood beside the bed.

His breath caught.

She lay so still. Beautiful. Innocent. And still as death.

Memories flooded back, choking him. He turned to the window, stepped closer, and pushed back the curtain until it stood wide. He felt the burning in his eyes.

He was locked inside his own past.

The covers rustled as she turned away in her sleep.

She’d caused the flood of thoughts. The strength of them. She needed to wake and he didn’t want to touch her. But he wanted to shake her, rail at her and curse her. She wasn’t Mary and she’d brought the pain back to his mind, and he didn’t have drink enough to cover it because he had to be here, with her, instead of sitting at the tavern.

Afraid of what memories would stir if he touched her, Brandt picked up a book from her bedside table. He nudged her arm with the volume. She didn’t move.

‘Wake.’ He spoke insistently and this time the book was forceful.

She sat up, slapping at him before her eyes were open. He watched as she tried to see in the darkness.

When he saw the mussed look of her hair and the innocence of the white clothing she wore, he clenched his empty hand into a fist. He slammed the book on to the table, uncaring about the noise.

‘Come on. Get up. Your chariot is waiting. Her name is Apple.’ He reached for Miss Wilder’s arm and pulled her to a sitting position.

She jerked her arm away and her eyes flooded with recognition.

‘You are trespassing.’ The whisper hissed into the room. ‘You’re in my bedchamber, and I am not some person who might appreciate a man’s night-time attentions.’

As easily as lifting a child, he grasped her arms and pulled her from the bed and to her feet. He stepped back.

He moved away, giving her a graceful bow and pointing to the door.

‘It is not tonight, you fool. I have not packed yet. There are no witnesses,’ The whisper ended on a hiss. ‘He will merely think I have run away.’

Fool, she had called him.

How well she knew. He hadn’t controlled his world enough to keep this one out of it with the reminders of another life she forced into his head.

This had been a mistake. He’d thought years passing would give him strength. Would have made him able to face what he was about to do. No.

He’d hoped, like a fool, he had strength to look at his past without dunking his head in a bottle.

He wanted to swim to the bottom of a pool of brandy and not return to the surface. He embraced the murky depths and they held him. That would be the only touch he would ever again need. And he’d had to forgo it to keep a clear head so he could keep his feet clear on the direction to her house.

The Miss stood glaring at him.

‘Are you listening to me?’ She kept her voice low. ‘This kidnapping is not so important to you that you’re able to put aside the drink for one night and attend to it. You are not following my direction, either. Now leave my bedchamber.’ She pointed a finger just as he had done, directing him away. ‘This is not how I wish to be kidnapped.’ Her whisper hardly sounded, but he could hear her well.

‘I could be in a warm tavern.’ He gritted his teeth and fought to ignore the soft purity of her skin. She bombarded his senses with the air of womanliness which swept from her to cover him. ‘You’re not staying in your warm bed.’

Brandt reached for the satchel and pulled out the trousers and shirt. He handed them to her. She had to look like a young man. That would be his salvation.

She stared at him, her arms crossed over the cotton clothing at her chest.

‘You simply cannot follow orders, can you?’ she whispered. ‘And how did you find me?’

She acted as if unaware she was standing in front of a man in her bedclothes. He wasn’t. Without the bonnet and the cloak, she seemed half the size she’d been before. Or maybe it wasn’t that she was smaller, just that being so close to her caused something inside his chest to feel stronger. His heart beat faster and not because he was scared.

He needed to concentrate on the task, not the woman.

He moved his nose closer to hers and muttered. ‘I merely asked people direction to the lady’s house who wears disgustingly big bonnets.’

‘My bonnet was of no particular size.’ She pointed to the door. ‘Now, leave or I will scream. You’ll be hanged.’

She tried to stare him down.

‘You may be right,’ he said softly, and grabbed the shirt from the floor. ‘But I am here and we are both leaving. A kidnapping in the daylight is too risky.’

He saw the mouth open and knew her next words would be raised.

He covered her mouth with his hand. A sharp intake of breath and she stumbled back, sitting on the bed.

‘Don’t draw attention to us yet,’ he rasped in her ear. ‘Or I’ll have to return these clothes to the dead man they were taken from.’ He slowly took his hand away.

‘Vile,’ she muttered and slung the shirt at his shoulders, keeping one sleeve in her hand.

He reached to pull it from her, but she scooted back on the bed.

‘You’re going to wear the shirt,’ he said. She tried to wrestle it from his hands.

He moved to hover over her and tried to secure her hands to keep her from slapping his face again with the shirt.

Both her wrists were locked in his hands.

‘Do you wish to be kidnapped?’ He put his nose nearly against hers and kept his words low. He released her hands and moved back, sitting beside her.

She glared. ‘I’m considering it.’

‘I’ll leave if you wish me to. I’m sick of this house and I’m sick of you.’ He released the shirt. ‘Your choice. It’s now, or someone else. If I leave tonight without you, I want a promise you will never, ever seek me out again.’

‘I’ll go.’ She held the wadded shirt. ‘But you’d best hurry. I do not want to be with you another minute more than I have to be.’

She moved, raising an arm to put it in the sleeve of the garment. And her elbow connected with his shirt and bumped the gun he had hidden in his waistband. She paused, uncertain. ‘Do you have a weapon?’

‘It seemed prudent.’

‘Well, I have a knife. I’ll show you.’

‘A knife?’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘You think—Why do you have a knife?’

She leaned even closer, bringing the scent of a woman’s soft bedclothes closer to him. ‘Because I couldn’t get a gun without raising suspicion.’

He stopped. Either she had lost her mind, or she was afraid.

‘You don’t think Fillmore would come in your room?’

‘I’ve woken when the doorknob rattled.’ She moved closer, whispering, ‘But I sneaked into my stepfather’s study and took the key when he was asleep. He doesn’t know I have it.’

‘We’ll go. Just keep your silence.’

‘I want to be married, just not to Fillmore. Anyone but that beast.’ She reached up with her left hand and put a palm to his chest. His breath was knocked from him. His entire body warmed. He moved her hand away, but his fingers tightened on her wrist. Neither moved.

He needed out of this mess. He would go out the door and get on his horse and ride far enough away she could never find him and he’d never see her again. But his feet wouldn’t move.

Brandt leaned so close to her face he could feel her breath touching his cheek and he mouthed an oath when he felt his body respond. She’d trapped him.

She moved so close he couldn’t breathe and her arm brushed him as she tried to reach under the mattress. ‘I’ve tucked it here. The knife. I’ll show you.’

He leaned back when she held the blade between them.

His mind registered the knife she had in her hand, but his body registered the woman standing so close without layers of fabric between them, only the softness of the clothes she wore next to her body. He pried the blade from her fingers and stood away from the bed—taking two steps backwards so she couldn’t touch him.

He dragged in air through his nostrils. The woman, no sturdier than a stair rail, slept with a knife for her protection. She solicited a governess and a stranger to get her away from the house she lived in. She was either spoiled beyond repair—or afraid.

She righted herself on the bed, and stepped on to the rug beside him, the skirt of her nightrail tumbling to her calves. In one second, he was in a different world, thinking of things he couldn’t blame himself for.

She put her hand on his. Fingers over his knuckles clasping the weapon. Warmth on the outside of his hand, the coldness on the inside.

‘That is my knife,’ she said, ‘and I would like it back. I cannot trust you to follow simple directions and I may need it.’

He flipped the knife into the wall across the room. The blade vibrated and so did his body.