Danger's Kiss (19 page)

Nicholas wiped the foam from his lip.  “Did you
hear
the screams?”

She worried her lip between her teeth, then ran a finger along the edge of the chopping block.  “What did you...do to him?”

He smiled coyly before he took another swig from his cup.  Then he let out a long sigh of satisfaction.  “Nothing.”

Desirée blinked.  “Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

She gave him a cursory glance from head to toe.  There was not a drop of blood on him.  Indeed, she couldn’t remember seeing any blood on the master of the mews, either.  “But...  How...  I heard...”

“’Twasn’t what I did to him.  ‘Twas what he
thought
I was going to do to him.”

Nicholas chuckled at the endearing frown of confusion on her face.

“We’re a pair, you and I,” he said, raising his ale in a mock salute.  “You fool people into thinking you’re an innocent, and I make them believe I’m a monster.”

Nicholas was good at his work, renowned for his success at eliciting confessions.  But nobody understood how he managed to get them so cleanly or so quickly.

He relied upon reason.  Failing that, he tried guilt.  If that didn’t work, he used fear.  Rarely did he need to resort to violence, and even then, the kind of violence he inflicted was far more bark than bite.

One would never guess it to examine his wall of instruments
—
forge-blackened iron twisted into shapes designed to pinch and prod and torment delicate human flesh
—
hung in full view of any soul luckless enough to intrude upon the shire-reeve’s chambers.

“You didn’t torture him?”

He smiled and shook his head.

But instead of admiring his finesse, she let out a breath of disgust.  “Why not?”  She jabbed the knife in the air, punctuating her words.  “If you didn’t torture him, how do you know he was telling the truth?”

“Torture doesn’t give you the truth.  Men will say anything to stop torture.”

“Then how do you know
—
“

“Logic.  He’s the master of the mews, Desirée.  He sleeps with the falcons.  He wasn’t anywhere near the hall when Hubert murdered
—
“

“Hubert didn’t murder anyone!” she cried.

He set down his ale and raised his palms in apology.  “Listen, Desirée...”

“He didn’t, damn you!”

He reached out to take her arms, and the knife she was holding swung dangerously close to his chin.  Worse, she seemed in no hurry to lower it.

“Put that away.”

She glared at him.  He glared back.  She thinned her lips, but his cold stare won out, and she dropped the knife.

“Listen.”  He took a bracing breath.  “I should have told you this long ago.  You know I spent that last night with Hubert in the gaol.”

She gave him a dubious nod.

“Condemned men often wish to...unburden their souls before they die.”  He smiled gently.  “Hubert had a long list of sins.  He said he’d always managed to stay one step behind the devil and
—
“

“One step ahead of the law,” she finished.

He nodded.  “He told me he was gravely ill.  He knew he was going to die soon.”

Desirée’s eyes grew unexpectedly misty, and Nicholas suddenly felt the mad urge to wrap comforting arms around her.

Instead, he continued.  “He said he wanted to carry out one last great robbery before he died, one profitable enough to make certain his granddaughter was provided for.”  He gave her arms a tender squeeze.  “Unfortunately, things went wrong.  A man was killed.  Hubert was caught.  He told me when they dragged him away, ‘twas almost a relief.”

Her brow creased in bewilderment.

“He was dying.  Slowly.  Painfully.”  He added softly, “Don’t you see?  A charge of murder ensured him a quick death.”

She gasped in shock and tried to extricate herself from his grip.

But he held on.  It was important that she hear everything.  “I don’t know if the murder was intentional or an accident.  He never said.  But he refused to fight the charges.  So I promised him a swift and easy end.”

Her moist eyes narrowed as she spat, “Easy!  Easy?  You forget, I was there!  There was nothing easy about
—
”  She choked off her words, trying to break free again.  He wouldn’t let her.

“What I did was a mercy.”

“Mercy?” she cried.  Then she reared back her foot and gave him a hard kick in the shin.

He released her immediately, sucking a breath of pain between his teeth.  “Aye,” he gasped, rubbing at his aching leg.  “Don’t you understand, wench?  He preferred to hang rather than die slowly from illness.”

Desirée never wept.  Not in earnest.  Hubert hadn’t allowed tears.  Unless, of course, they were used as coercion, to inspire pity in men with bulging purses.  Otherwise, crying was a sign of weakness.

So she’d learned to armor her heart against those strength-draining emotions.  She turned hurt into rage, sorrow into fury.  Rather than weep, she cursed.

But for the first time since the awful day she’d been sold by her parents, she felt her armor give, yielding beneath the sharp lance of the painful truth.  Without Hubert near to scold her, a lump lodged in her throat and the sting of imminent tears burned behind her eyes.

Was it true?  Had Nicholas shown Hubert mercy in his final moments?  But how could that be?  Everyone knew the shire-reeve was pitiless.  She’d seen the evidence with her own eyes.

“What about the thief you flogged?” she choked out.  “Were you showing him mercy, as well?”

His shoulders sank.  “Aye.”

She blinked in surprise.

“You may as well know.”  He scowled, admitting, “‘Tis a trick of the whip, all noise, no contact.  I didn’t leave a mark on the man.”

Desirée’s chin quivered.  Was that possible?  Was it all farce?  He’d said before that Desirée, too, knew how to playact for an audience, knew how to manipulate men’s emotions for her own gains.  Was Nicholas only
pretending
to have a heart of iron?

A wayward tear slipped from the corner of her eye, and she felt a long-forgotten tightness in her chest.  She glanced at Nicholas, who was still grimacing from the pain of her kick, and his image blurred as tears filled her vision.

Then, to her horror, uncontrollable spasms began to wrack her body and ragged gasps were wrenched from her throat.  She staggered back, covering her face in her hands, wishing she could hide somewhere.

“Oh, lass,” Nicholas said on a sigh full of pity.

She didn’t want his pity.  She didn’t want him to see her.  Crying left her too vulnerable.

He started toward her, and she spun away from him, looking for somewhere to run in the small cottage.

“Come, little one, ‘tis all right.”

It was
not
all right.  She was weeping like the child who’d been sold now, tears streaming down her cheeks, her face twisted in grief, wretched sobs coming from deep inside her.

She stumbled toward the wall.

He followed her.

“Weep all you want, lass.”

“I’m not weep
—
“ she hiccoughed, then realized it was a pathetic lie.

When she reached the cold stone of the wall, there was nowhere else to go.

His voice came from directly behind her.  “Let it out.  ’Twill help the pain pass.”

His words and his proximity triggered her defenses.  Suddenly she felt trapped, physically and emotionally.  She whirled toward him and, without even realizing she was going to do it, slapped him hard across the face.

The blow startled him for only an instant.  He immediately seized her offending hand and grabbed the other for good measure.

There was no anger in his eyes, no condemnation, only patience.  And the silent understanding in his gaze was what prevented her from striking out again.

No one had ever looked at her like that, with acceptance and compassion.  And in that moment, she realized what he’d said must be true.  Though the shire-reeve wielded his authority over the crowd like a black-hearted demon, beneath his fearsome dark cloak, he was an angel of mercy.

To her dismay, the thought only increased the flow of tears.

Rather than scolding her as Hubert would have, Nicholas released her wrists and gathered her in his arms.

She fought him at first.  Experience had taught her that men who grabbed her like that wanted only one thing.  But he made no further assault on her.  He only hushed her gently, holding her close against his chest, cupping the back of her head.  And after a few halfhearted struggles, she succumbed to his comfort, sobbing softly into his shirt.

It was a curious feeling, letting down her guard, relinquishing control over her tears, and not being reprimanded for it.  Such surrender was against all her instincts.  For the first time since she’d left her mother and father, she felt free to be vulnerable.

Nicholas neither mocked nor judged her.  He only held her.  And all the while, it seemed as if he absorbed her sorrow into himself.

His arms felt secure and capable around her.  His voice was warm and kind and reassuring.  As he cradled her head against his chest, she could hear his heartbeat, strong and steady, and she began to wonder idly what it would be like to fall asleep to that pleasant sound.

After a while, she couldn’t even recall what she was crying about.  It seemed she was weeping out all the tears she’d collected over the years.  And still Nicholas had the patience to say nothing, letting her drench the front of his shirt while he stroked her hair with the same fondness he used to pet his cat.

At long last, she ran out of tears.  As she rested her head upon the lawman’s comforting chest, an amazing peace settled over her, as if she’d run a long way across a rocky field and now lay fatigued upon a grassy, sun-drenched knoll.

It was a dangerous place to be
—
exposed, vulnerable, open to attack
—
and yet she felt no fear in his arms.  Instead, a welcoming warmth suffused her blood and quickened her pulse as he continued to hold her close.  And part of her never wanted that feeling to end.

N
icholas’s shoulder had been soaked with tears more times than he could count.  Shown the smallest sign of compassion, the men he interrogated wept like children.  Nicholas never made them feel weak or foolish for their sobs.  God’s wounds, Nicholas himself often broke down over a cup of ale after an execution.

But Desirée’s tears were different.  Each hot drop seemed to burn his skin, searing guilt into his soul. 
He
was the cause of her weeping.  And even though he knew he wasn’t to blame
—
he hadn’t determined the sentence, he’d only carried it out
—
still he bore the burden of her grief.

He held her until her tears dried, until the hitching of her ribs calmed, and still she didn’t move away.  He closed his eyes, relishing the rare pleasure of a woman in his embrace.

Women never touched him.  Most wouldn’t even meet his gaze.  Since he’d become a lawman, even harlots wouldn’t traffic with him, fearing to incur his wrath.

He hadn’t realized it until this moment, but he was lonely.

A terrible isolation came with his position.

And a part of him, a part he usually kept under lock and key, hungered for intimacy, some human contact that lasted beyond the single night he spent with the condemned.

Holding Desirée in his arms made him realize he was weary of his life.  Which was absurd, considering he was three years short of thirty.

Yet what did he have to show for it?  Dozens of outlaw graves, scars from stonings, and an enviable collection of torturing implements as unsullied as the day they were forged.

What he didn’t have was a single friend.

Desirée gave a shuddering sigh against his chest, and he instinctively leaned down to kiss the top of her head.  Her hair was soft and fragrant.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d run his fingers through a woman’s tresses.

After a moment, he began to wonder if she’d fallen asleep.  She didn’t struggle out of his arms or push him away.  She remained in his embrace, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.