by Anne Stuart
Gilly considered informing the woman that if she had at least a passing acquaintance with soap and water, the air in the enclosed coach might be a deal more bearable, but she decided against it. The situation would also be improved if someone opened a window to let the fresh, cool air in, or if she could trade seats and not ride backward, something that had never agreed with her.
But she simply said, “No,” in a voice that encouraged no further questions.
She knew what an odd sight she made. A small, dark woman in oversized, overbright clothes, traveling alone on a public coach, was remarkable enough. One with a discernible French accent was a dangerous anomaly. She’d done her best to strip her voice of any Gallic tendencies, but a faint trace still remained. Particularly when she was nervous. And there was no denying that she was very nervous indeed.
She didn’t know how much of a head start she had on Blackthorne. She had no doubt he’d come after her. He wasn’t a man who liked to be bested, and even if he’d tired of his game of cat and mouse with her, he wouldn’t be likely to allow her to escape. A reasonable man would see it as the best possible outcome of an impossible situation. But Nicholas wasn’t a reasonable man.
The next stop was Newcastle. She’d never been there, but surely it was a large enough city that she could disappear into it. She was more than adept at fading into the filth and turmoil of a crowded population, and Newcastle had the added advantage of being a port city. She could always find passage off this island, well out of reach of Nicholas Blackthorne’s revenge. England was no longer home to her, a fact she accepted with bittersweet regret. Her short-lived haven had vanished.
Nicholas would be quite out of her reach, also. It was just as well. The longer she was with him, the less certain she was of her ability to extract that revenge she’d dreamed of for so long. It wasn’t any weakness of feeling for the man. He was a conscienceless bastard, a smiling, damnable villain, and her feelings toward him hadn’t softened in the slightest. They were still a solid mass of hatred.
But in other ways she’d weakened. She’d slept too many nights in warm, clean beds, with abundant food and warmth, even a friend to talk with. Those things brought back civilization to her battered soul. A civilization that might very well keep her from cold-blooded murder, no matter how much she longed to administer the justice he deserved.
She was better off admitting defeat. Her own defeat, at her own hands, not his. Only a few more hours until they reached their next stop, and she’d be out of his reach forever.
She closed her eyes, longing for the merciful oblivion of sleep. Her stomach was roiling, with her tension and the upsets of the transportation. If she could only pass the next few hours in sleep…
“What are we speeding up for?” a disgruntled fellow traveler demanded. “The coach is traveling too quickly as it is. Here you…” He opened the window, letting in a blessed blast of fresh air, and shouted at the driver. “Slow down, fellow!”
“Some flash cove is trying to overtake us,” the goose-fat lady announced, opening her own window to peer behind them. “He’s driving fit to beat the devil. He’ll run us off the road at this rate, that he will, and we’ll all be killed!”
Panic erupted in the carriage, all the passengers shrieking and talking at once, but it was nothing compared to the silent panic in Ghislaine’s heart. She knew who was coming up fast on the mail coach, driving like a madman. And for one brief second she had her own moment of madness, wondering, if she flung herself from the carriage while it was moving at such a rapid pace, whether she might cheat Nicholas of his triumph after all.
But she was crammed in the middle of four burly passengers, far from the door. And if she hadn’t ended her life ten years ago, she wouldn’t let Nicholas Blackthorne drive her to it now.
She clenched her fists in her lap, the swaying of the coach knocking her back and forth between the other passengers. Their driver seemed to show no inclination to be overtaken, and there was always the outside chance that he might outrun Nicholas. That Blackthorne might overturn his own carriage in his haste to catch up with them. Miracles could happen. They just didn’t happen to her.
“He’s gaining on us,” the goose-fat lady announced, turning to cast an accusing gaze at Ghislaine. “And we can all guess who he’s after. You’ll bring us all to our death, that you will, young lady, with your hoity-toity airs.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested faintly, trying to keep her voice flat.
To no avail. “She’s a Frenchy!” Goose-fat screeched. “Probably a spy! Stop the carriage, before we’re all killed!”
In the end it was a moot point. Blackthorne’s shabby traveling coach was built for speed, despite its decrepit appearance, and it pulled even with the more cumbersome mail coach just as they were nearing a bend in the road. The driver miscalculated, shouting a curse at Blackthorne, and then the coach jerked, veering off the road and overturning.
Ghislaine caught sight of him a moment before the coach left the road, and it was a fitting vision to take to her death. He looked like the devil incarnate, his black hair streaming behind him, his handsome face dark with rage and daring as he pushed his horses beyond endurance.
And then he was lost from sight as the coach crashed with a horrendous shuddering noise, passengers flying through the air, and Ghislaine had a moment to consider that perhaps the choice was being taken from her, after all, and there might indeed be a merciful god.
It didn’t take her long to revise that notion. The world was dark, heavy, and odorous, filled with noisy groans and angry weeping. Ghislaine struggled for breath, unable to move, and she knew with bitter despair that the goose-fat lady had landed directly on top of her.
And then she was blinded, assaulted, by light and air, as the weight was lifted from her, accompanied by an outraged shriek.
Blackthorne paid no attention to the cries of her fellow passengers. He paid no attention to her uncontrollable shrinking away from him, as he simply hauled her out of the upturned carriage, his hands rough, his face cold and bitter.
He shoved her into his carriage, climbing in after her and slamming the door behind him. Taverner started the coach immediately, and moments later they were traveling once more, the only slightly more sedate pace the result of the valet at the reins. She’d had time to notice the white bandage on his weaselly face, and told herself she wished she’d hit him harder. Then she might have had time to reach Newcastle.
The overturned coach was rapidly disappearing from sight, the bedraggled passengers shaking angry fists after them. “Aren’t you going to do anything to assist them?” she asked faintly. “Someone might be hurt…”
“They’re lucky they’re not all dead,” he snarled, his voice vibrating with rage. He stared at her, his eyes like chips of ice. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
She met his gaze levelly. Her entire body ached, she could still smell the goose fat, and her one chance of escape had been shattered. He wouldn’t give her a second chance. “Perhaps I’m lucky,” she said. “Perhaps not.”
“Apparently I’ve been too lenient with you,” he said. “Don’t think I’ll make that mistake again. I don’t like being made a fool of. And I’m rather fond of Taverner—his head is sorely bruised. I’m only surprised you didn’t go in search of me to exact your vengeance.”
“I did,” she said, before she could judge the wisdom of that particular confession.
For a moment the dark rage lifted, and he simply stared at her. “I must have been sleeping quite soundly. Either that, or I was… distracted.”
She could feel her face redden, a fact which amazed her. How could she be missish, after all she had been through? “You were asleep,” she said flatly.
“If you were feeling left out,” he mused, “you could always have joined us.”
It was a small enough thing, to be the final straw, but something inside Ghislaine snapped. She launched herself across the swaying carriage, all conscious
thought vanishing in her need to hurt him.
A moment later she was flat on her back on the opposite seat, his body pressing down on top of hers, his hands a manacle around her wrists, his long legs subduing her flailing ones. She was breathless, panting. He only looked amused, the madness fading from his midnight-blue eyes. And for one crazy moment she accepted the fact that his weight was far sweeter than that of the goose-fat lady.
“You’ve recovered your strength,” she observed in a low, bitter voice.
“Were you really fool enough to think you could overpower me?” he said. “The last time you went for me I’d spent the previous two days spewing my guts out. That tends to weaken a man, at least temporarily.”
“I wish I’d killed you.”
“Don’t be tiresome. Of course you wish you’d killed me—we both know that. The fact remains that you didn’t. The fact also remains that I’m the one in command now. You can’t escape me, no matter how hard you try.”
“Get off me,” she said, her voice a tight, furious knot.
He was very still, considering it. And then he shifted, pressing his hips more tightly against her, pressing his groin against hers, and she realized with shock that he was aroused. Definitely, massively aroused.
Panic swept over her, and for a moment she struggled. It was useless, of course—he was very strong. She forced herself to be still, knowing it was fruitless. “Haven’t you had enough today?” she asked instead. “You certainly appeared sated as you lolled in that girl’s bed.”
He rocked against her, just slightly, and a shiver of reaction swept over her. A reaction she couldn’t, wouldn’t put a name to. “You’d be surprised at how insatiable I can be,” he said in a ruthless voice. And he put his mouth against hers.
She’d been kissed like that before. Not often. His mouth ground against hers, painfully, until her lips parted beneath his assault. He thrust his tongue inside, a rough intruder, and she lay as still as she could, passive, searching for that dark, inner place that nestled between her breasts, the black, angry heart of her, where she could hide from him until he finished with her. It was a place she knew well, a place of velvet comfort, of total blackness, of lively despair. It was her haven, her only protection.
She couldn’t reach it. He’d caught her face in his hands, and the lace cuffs spilled over her cheeks, as his mouth moved against hers, hard with anger, burning with a desire that lit an answering spark within her, so that for a brief, wild moment she closed her eyes and surrendered to the unleashed power of his angry passion. Her breasts felt hot, tender, pressed against the fine cambric shirt; her hands, trapped beneath his body, wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke him, to hold him as she hadn’t held anyone in such an impossibly long time.
And then awareness of her own madness washed over her, and she began to struggle anew, kicking at him, squirming underneath his pinioning weight, her rage all the more intense since so much of it was directed at herself.
He lifted his head, staring down at her, his eyes glittering in the shadowy carriage, his breath coming in rapid gusts. “I thought you were beginning to like it,” he said.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied. Her mouth was wet from his kiss and she wanted to wipe the dampness, the feel of his mouth, away from hers, but her hands were still trapped between them. “You disgust me.” She struggled again, squirming beneath him.
“If you don’t stop moving like that,” he said mildly, “I’m likely to increase your disgust.”
She immediately stilled. She wanted to scream at him, but her screams had done little good. She wanted to fight him, but he’d already proven she was no match for him in a physical battle. She wanted to kill him, and she would, the next possible chance she had, she swore it to herself.
She wanted to cry. It had been so very long since she’d actually shed tears, she had thought she would never be able to again. It wasn’t as if she didn’t long to. For the first few years she was glad that particular feminine weakness had left her. There was no room in her life for regrets, for tears, for bemoaning her fate.
But later, when things got better, she’d sometimes longed for the release tears could have brought her. But nothing summoned them forth.
Not reliving the horror of seeing her parents on the block. Not the memory of Charles-Louis when she’d last seen him, his face gaunt with hunger, his eyes dark and haunted, his body no more than skin and bones.
Not the nights she’d sold herself to feed her brother. Not the first and only man she’d killed, Malviver, the scum of the earth, but a human being nonetheless.
But lying here, trapped beneath a man who could have had her soul if he’d wished it, she suddenly wanted to cry the tears of a shattered fifteen-year-old virgin. Wanted to so much that she could almost feel the stinging heat in the back of her eyes.
Suddenly he rolled away, sitting up and crossing to the other side of the carriage. He made a great business of straightening his coat, rearranging his disarranged neckcloth with casual expertise as if there were nothing more pressing to do. As indeed, there might not be.
Ghislaine scrambled into the corner, as far away from him as she could manage. She felt like a cornered animal, and yet he seemed to have lost all interest in her. And then he glanced up, his eyes staring into hers, and she realized he hadn’t dismissed her at all.
“I missed my breakfast,” he said. “Not to mention my morning shave. And there is always the distinct possibility that I would have enjoyed an additional hour spent in the pursuit of my other bodily pleasures as well, if you hadn’t taken off. You’ve deprived me of my creature comforts, Ghislaine. You’re going to have to supply them yourself.”
“I’d be more than happy to shave you,” she said in a deceptively sweet tone of voice.
He smiled wryly. “I’m certain you would be. I think it might be wiser to reserve that task for Tavvy. I’d prefer to emerge with my throat intact.” He leaned back, stretching his long legs out in front of him, and she couldn’t help her instinctive recoil, pulling her own feet up underneath the voluminous skirt.
He didn’t miss her move, of course, and his thin smile widened. “And while sharing my bed might prove a novel experience for us both, that’s not where your talents he, is it?”
She controlled her initial start of revulsion. “What do you want of me?”
“To cook me breakfast. We’ll stop at the next posting house, and you can provide me with something to put me in a better frame of mind. An omelet, perhaps, with fresh ham and mushrooms. Without the rat poison.”
“But as a flavoring it’s essential,” she replied, unwilling to be cowed.
“You’ll be my official taster. And trust me, even your hatred of me wouldn’t be worth going through the unpleasantness of poisoning. I know from recent experience.” He stroked his rough, stubbled cheek with his long fingers, surveying her thoughtfully. He leaned across the carriage, and despite her efforts to flinch away he touched her face. “I’ve marked you,” he said, his voice dreamy. “I promise to shave before I kiss you again.”
She jerked her head away from him. “Promise not to kiss me again,” she said, “and I might forego the rat poison.”
“Certainly,” he said easily, leaning back, and she released her pent-up breath.
She couldn’t quite believe her good luck. “You promise?” she asked, astonished.
“Of course.” His smile held a rueful sweetness. “The problem is, I always break my promises.”
It shocked her. “Have you no honor?”
“Not a trace.” He sounded astonishingly matter-of-fact about it. “I would have thought you knew that by now. An honorable man wouldn’t have left a fifteen-year-old girl behind in a dangerous country, particularly when that girl was most charmingly in love with him. An honorable man wouldn’t cuckold a man and then half-kill him in a duel. And an honorable man wouldn’t have absconded with his half-cousin’s female chef simply because she had the bad manners to try to kill him.”
He shrugged. “It’s easier without honor, ma petite. You should try it.”
“You disgust me.”
“Don’t be tiresome, ma belle. I know you detest me, you don’t need to inform me of it constantly As long as you make me a decent omelet and brew me some coffee, you can hate me all you want.”
“Coffee?” She couldn’t keep the faint trace of hope out of her voice.
Nicholas was too discerning a man to miss even that tiny glimmering. “I always have Taverner carry my favorite beans. The inns I can afford to frequent are unreliable, and a day without coffee isn’t worth living.” He gave her an amiable smile. ‘If you’re very nice to me, I might even let you have a cup.”
“My price is a great deal higher than a cup of coffee,” she said sharply.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I might have just found your breaking point. Coffee, Ghislaine, and your promise not to run away again.”
She would have traded her body for a cup of coffee. But not what remained of her soul. “No,” she said, her voice flat with fresh despair.
“Put out your hands then.” He sounded bored.
“What?”
“I said put out your hands. Unless you want me to come over there and…”
She put out her hands.
The neckcloth was soft, silken, and very strong. He bound her wrists tightly, his fingers deft and cool, then dropped them back in her lap. “I’ll leave your ankles free,” he said, leaning back again. “At this point Tavvy would probably shoot you in the back if you decided to run. He’s not in charity with you this morning.”
She said nothing, fuming. She wouldn’t use her unbound feet to run. She’d use them to kick him.
“And if you smile at me,” he continued in a lazy voice, “I might still let you have some of my coffee.”
Ghislaine growled, low in her throat.
“Close enough, ma belle,” Nicholas murmured. And crossing his arms across his chest, he gave her a mocking smile as the carriage lumbered northward.