A Dangerous Courtship (15 page)

"And well I should. You've the stamp of a thorough beast!"

He said nothing for a full minute. Instead, he tested the window sash with one hand, seemed satisfied that it was secure, tested, too, the thickness of the heavy drapes, finding them satisfactory as well, then let the material fall back into place.

Darkness once again claimed the room.

"I suppose I deserved that," he finally said.

"Not to mention a great deal more," she muttered.

"I won't deny it, my lady."

"You—you have been insufferable this night, sir."

"Aye."

"And boorish and rude and-—"

"Helpful. Don't forget helpful. With your injury to your... uh... leg, my lady," he roguishly reminded her.

Veronica's cheeks turned pink at the vivid memory of his roughened hands atop her thigh. "And then, to be even more alarmingly rude, you took the bundle. Where is it, by the way? Have you got it?"

"Ah, now the lady gets to the heart of the matter."

"Well? Do you have it?"

"Aye. I have it."

"With you? On your person?"

"No, my lady," he said, "but trust me when I say it is safe as a house. And that is about as much information as you'll be having from me on that score."

"But you'll retrieve it, in the morning, yes?"

"Yes. In the morning."

Veronica stood rooted to the spot where he'd left her by the door, her arms wrapped tight about her waist. She was feeling vulnerable and violated... and yet, heaven help her, there were tiny bursts of excitement bubbling up inside her at being closeted in this room, this darkness, with this man. The sound of his voice coming from across the chamber did odd things to her heartbeat, making it flutter, then pause, then beat a tattoo of thrills all the way from her head to her toes, over and over and over again.

"Feel free to light that lamp now, Veronica," he said. "Those drapes are as thick as any fog along the Thames. No one outside will be getting any kind of a view."

"Of all the—
You
light the blasted lamp!" Veronica exploded, mortified that while she'd been thinking of the man and the moment, he'd been contemplating the—the
drapes
of all things!

She thought she heard him chuckle softly, but she couldn't be certain, or the sound was smothered by his movements. She heard a further shuffle of sound and saw a spark that flared to a glow. Then the lamp's light blazed in the room, bouncing crazily for a moment and then settling to cast a soft light all about.

Veronica blinked against its vivid glow. The first thing she saw when her eyes adjusted to the brightness was Julian's gaze on hers, his one eye battered and salved and looking worse than she'd remembered.

He noted her attention to his face. "I am certain it appears far worse than it feels," he assured her.

Some of the fight washed out of Veronica and she felt truly ghastly that she'd just spoken so rudely to him.

"I... I am sorry you were attacked while retrieving the package, Julian."

He inclined his head to one side, curious and vigilant all at once. "Sorry enough to tell all about the bundle?"

"I-I told you. I came to Yorkshire to retrieve the package for a... a friend."

"Ah. Right. Some well-heeled lord in London. Care to share his name?"

Veronica shook her head. "I-I am not at liberty to say."

He frowned. "I thought as much." He drew in a breath, looked about the chamber, then nodded toward her maid's small, connecting room. "Is your abigail's window drawn?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Wouldn't want any late-night visitors trying to crawl through the thing."

"So you think the men who accosted you might possibly come looking for you?"

"Not me, Veronica.
You.
They came to find the person seeking the package. Unless there is some other young lady roaming Yorkshire on a mission for this 'friend' of yours, I suggest you'd best take an interest in protecting your own self."

Doubtless he was correct. Veronica shuddered once, then wrapped her arms more tightly about her waist.

"Feeling worried?" he queried. "Are you perhaps even beginning to question the merit of this 'friend' you seem so eager to protect?"

"No, not at all," Veronica replied, a shade too quickly, as she thought of Lord Rathbone. She reminded herself, however, that she'd come to Yorkshire solely for Pamela and
not
for Rathbone.

So thinking, she added, slowly and with more meaning, "I'll have you know I need not question this person's merit, sir. They are a good, true friend and would never lead me into danger."

As for where Rathbone would lead Pamela, that was another matter entirely, but Veronica dared not mention the man's name to Julian.

"Hmm," he merely murmured. "I hope you can claim the same once we reach London."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, Veronica, a great many miles lie between here and there, not to mention long stretches of road where any rough sort could ambush your carriage. You would do well to make certain your coachman keeps his blunderbuss loaded and at the ready."

Veronica shifted nervously. "I-I do believe you are deliberately trying to frighten me."

"I do believe I am. You've a long way to travel with a package that's already created quite a stir in just the span of an evening."

"Then I shall endeavor to be more careful."

"Rest assured, I am certain you shall,
because I will be with you every leg of your journey—and beyond."

"Oh." Veronica wrinkled her nose, not liking where the conversation was threading or how Julian was getting that look of portentous thunder on his brow. "You—you are no doubt referring to that—that outlandish notion of yours of becoming my personal guard."

"No doubt I am. And it is more than just a notion. It is now a reality."

"I am afraid it—it is out of the question, Julian," Veronica said, hoping a softer accent would help sway him. "I-I tried to tell you as much downstairs in the coffee room, but you did not seem inclined to listen."

"Nor am I so inclined to do so now."

"Be that as it may, my decision still stands. Though you might harbor some further sense of duty to me because of my predicament at Fountains and because I asked you to aid me in my mission, the simple truth of the matter is I have more than enough servants. Indeed, I feel I am constantly tripping over the lot of them, and well, you see, I... uh..."

Veronica stopped her spate of words, realizing with a sudden thud of embarrassment that Julian was barely listening to her ramblings. He had propped himself on a corner of the lamp table and folded his arms across his chest. He was, if she was not mistaken, contemplating not her words, but the full length of her body instead.

Veronica snapped her mouth shut tight as she felt that dark gaze of his move over every inch of her.

"I thought that might still your tongue," he said, his voice low and turning husky. "Do you always talk so much, Veronica?"

She lifted her chin, unwilling to acknowledge how much his voice and his lingering gaze affected her. "You insult me, sir, both with your gaze and when you use my given name."

"You use mine," he said.

"Only because you... you insisted that I do so," she pointed out.

"You could have insisted otherwise." He watched her, quiet for a moment, then said, "The truth is, I enjoy saying your name. I like the way it feels on my tongue and moving past my lips."

Veronica experienced a whirling in her stomach with his words. The man was the height of impropriety. And that look in his eyes, exuding a sexual prowess she'd had but a taste of at Fountains, warned her that she was playing with fire with this dangerous stranger.

"And your full name," he continued in that low, beguiling tone. "I am sure I would like that, too. What is it, my lady? Will you share it with me?"

Veronica took a deep breath, forcibly pulling herself out of the spell he was weaving about her with his voice and his gaze. Yes, she thought, she would inform him of her name and her father's and perhaps then he would not be so base as to address her like some rustic maid. In imperious accents, she said, "My full name, sir, is Lady Veronica Amelia Carstairs, and I am the youngest daughter of Earl Wrothram. My father is a very powerful and well-connected man in the elite circles of Society."

To Veronica's dismay Julian seemed unfazed by the information and only interested in her full given name. That dangerously seductive look in his eyes did not falter.

"You—you now know my full name, but you haven't yet given me yours," she said into the still quietness he seemed so comfortable to let hang between them.

"No I haven't, have I?" he finally murmured. He straightened away from the table, then began to move toward her. "Tell me, Lady Veronica Amelia Carstairs, do you plan to sleep standing upright and in full dress?"

So he intended to shock her, did he? She took a wary step back, glaring at him. "I'll probably not sleep at all, not that it is any of
your
affair."

He moved inexorably nearer.

"As your personal guard, Veronica, I should know these things. 'Tis a guard's duty to know if his lady is ready to flee at a moment's notice."

A few more steps and he'd be standing flush with her body.

Veronica scowled some more at him, then backed up all the way to the door.

"You—you are being thoroughly loathsome and vile—"

"And just the sort of fellow you'll be needing if any thugs come calling for you or that bundle."

"You are truly mad if you believe I'm going to play along with your ridiculous game, sir."

"'Tis Julian, Veronica. And of what game do you speak?"

He came to a stop, just a breath away from her.

Veronica forced herself not to tremble at his nearness. "This... this waggish train you've put into motion of being my guard of course," she managed to say.

"I find it a perfect plan, m'lady. I can protect you, can come between you and any raffish swine. I'll keep my eyes—or at least, one of them," he said, his bearded face creasing suddenly with that half smile of his she was coming to know too well, "trained for any signs of danger between here and London. All in all, y'know, you ought to be thanking me for offering my services as your personal guard. It's not every day I lend myself to such a duty."

"
Thanking
you?" Veronica sputtered. "For such an outrageous proposition? I think not, sir. What I
will
be doing is reminding you I have not accepted those services, not at all."

"Ah, well, like it or not, you have them all the same."

"I don't like it
.
In fact, I only allowed you into this chamber to tell you once and for all that I'll not be having you as my personal guard or... or anything of the sort."

His smile of his deepened.

"And just
what
do you find so amusing?" she demanded hotly.

"We both know the only reason you opened that door is because you thought I'd come walking in here with your package in my hands."

Veronica's cheeks flamed at the memory of her ill-conceived plot to tear the thing out of his grip.

Seeing the telltale stain atop her cheeks, he said, "I thought as much."

"Blast you, "Veronica whispered, seething inside.

He stared at her for an uncomfortably long moment, his ravaged eye not nearly as frightening as the other, which was smoldering to a deeper hue of black as each second ticked past.

Languidly, he reached out, claiming hold of her, his long, strong fingers splaying open about her elbows. "There must," he whispered, moving his body closer to hers, "be something of great worth in that bundle, Veronica, to make you risk not only your safety in travelling to Fountains, but your reputation as well."

Veronica drew in a sharp breath and with it came the scent of him. He smelled of the outdoors, of moon and mist—mysterious and alive.

He was standing too close. She could feel the heat of him, could feel his strength. Surely it was all a ploy on his part—a scheme to unsettle her, to make her tell everything, to confess all.

Veronica dug deep to find some composure. Lifting her chin, meeting his gaze with her own, she said staunchly, "I told you once and I'll tell you again, I don't know what the bundle contains."

His fingers kneaded the flesh beneath her muslin sleeves, coaxing goose pimples to flower atop her skin and down her spine, making her head feel woozy.

"Surely, Veronica," he murmured in that low, dreamy voice of his, "you've an inkling about its contents, about who might have ordered it to be placed at Fountains Abbey."

"No. I-I don't.
None."

"Ah, do not say you simply dashed away from London, bringing an irate coachman with you, all the while in search of a packet, the contents and the origins of which you have no clue about."

"Yes.
That—that is exactly what I am saying. I told you, I-I am on a mission. A Venus Mission. And what my duty entailed was to find the thing at Fountains and then take it back to—to..."