Sweetest Little Sin (31 page)

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Authors: Christine Wells

BOOK: Sweetest Little Sin
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“This way,” said Faulkner, starting up the hill.
Louisa nodded. As she followed, she put her hand in her cloak pocket and felt the reassuring shape of a pistol butt.
JARDINE swore silently and viciously from his hiding place. The full moon had risen, flooding the landscape with light. He could pick out every detail on Louisa’s damnably in-the-way form. The proud tilt of her head, her straight carriage, the tall, slim elegance of her, as she approached the temple.
A lamb to the slaughter.
Fury boiled over again. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder, squinted, and took aim.
But Faulkner moved into his line of sight, damn him. So this was what Smith and his cohorts had adjourned to the temple for. A meeting with the head of the secret service. Faulkner must be desperate for that list if he’d risk coming here openly.
Desperate enough to sacrifice Louisa?
Jardine looked around for a better position but there was none. The temple stood alone on this hill beside the stand of shrubbery in which Jardine now hid. He’d have to break cover to get a clear shot.
Smith appeared at the temple entrance, but Louisa and Faulkner both stood in front of Smith. There was no way to eliminate him from this vantage point.
A document changed hands. Then, events seemed to accelerate. Louisa stepped back, simultaneously producing two pistols and pointed them at Smith and his men.
Jardine was already on his feet, crouched low, running, when Faulkner suddenly dropped to the ground, rolling toward the hill’s descent.
There was a blast of gunfire and one of Smith’s thugs fell.
Jardine hissed through his teeth. He couldn’t approach, or she might turn, lose her focus, and be overpowered.
“Easy, there, sweetheart,” he muttered, easing forward. “Save your last shot.”
But another explosion rang out. The second henchman reeled backward. There was only Smith left, and Louisa turned to run, but Smith dived and caught hold of her skirts, dragging her down.
Dammit to hell but he couldn’t get a clear shot. Jardine bit out an oath and broke cover, running for the struggling pair.
“Get away from her!” Jardine aimed the shotgun, but Smith grabbed Louisa by the hair and jerked her head up, holding a knife at her throat.
“Put the gun down, Jardine,” he said, breathing hard. There was a fierce grin on his face.
Dimly, through the pound of fear in his head, Jardine registered that Faulkner was on his feet now, slipping and sliding down the hill. He had what he came for. No help there.
The document wasn’t important. Getting Louisa away from Smith was the only thing that mattered.
“You won’t do that,” he said to Smith, taking one pace forward. “You want me to see her suffer. Slicing her throat now would be far too quick.”
“You’re right,” said Smith. “And if I kill her, you’ll tear me to pieces.” He gripped Louisa’s hair harder, yanked her head so her face tilted up toward him.
Jardine’s insides cringed at her ragged cry of pain, at the wild fear in her eyes.
“What if I use my knife on this strong-boned face?” He held the point of his weapon a mere inch from her cheekbone. “Eh, Jardine? Seems a shame to mar such perfect—”
“Stop.” The air hissed between Jardine’s teeth. He put down the shotgun, slowly, at his feet.
Smith looked up, beyond Jardine, and smiled. “Ah. Here’s Radleigh. Just in time.”
JARDINE groaned as he woke. They’d bloody well had their fun, hadn’t they, before throwing him into this anachronism of a dungeon. Lord, it could have starred in a play from Shakespeare with its dank, dripping walls and its rats and its god-awful stench.
Reality hit him, and the roaring started in his ears. They meant to torture Louisa while he watched.
He had no illusions about his own courage. No man clung to his principles when he was roasting over a fire or his balls were ceremoniously crushed.
How much worse would the torture be when he was here, whole and unharmed, watching Louisa slowly and thoroughly maimed?
This was the calamity he’d spent eight years apart from her to avoid. Eight years wanting her, starving for her touch while he hunted the man who threatened to rip their world apart. By pushing her away to protect her, he’d somehow led her straight into the danger he most feared.
The exquisite bloody irony of it made him want to howl.
Footsteps and a desperate scuffle sounded on the stairs. Someone snarled an oath and then the footsteps continued toward Jardine’s cell.
One of the apes who guarded him unlocked the cell door and flung it wide.
A bedraggled creature stumbled inside, blond hair hanging in tangles about her head.
Louisa. Oh God,
Louisa
.
The cell door slammed shut, leaving them alone.
She stood there for a moment, her hair falling down around her face, obscuring her expression. Then her chin lifted.
Those blue eyes were solemn, haunted. “I’m sorry.” She drew her bloodied lip into her mouth and sucked, wincing a little. Releasing, it she said, “Faulkner has the list. At least he got away.”
“I know.” When Jardine got out of here, he’d find the head of operations and hack off the man’s balls with a blunt cleaver.
“Smith says he’s going to let Radleigh have me.”
She shuddered, and Celeste’s bloody, mauled face rose before his mind’s eye.
Ives. Ives was at large still. Jardine had sent him to that cottage in the woods, but he’d be back by first light. Ives would find a way to get them out, but would he be in time?
“I told you to go home.” He couldn’t believe how even his tone was. He wanted to wring her neck. He wanted to kiss her.
Kiss first, wring later.
Bloody hell.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I was stupid. But Faulkner said he had a plan. And . . . I couldn’t leave you. Never again.”
Awkwardly, she ran to him, sank to her knees where he sat on the hard stone floor. She stared into his eyes, her gaze communicating the depth of her love. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. It was a ginger kiss, their lips clinging lightly because of their injuries. But it struck down his defenses, reached into him, and gripped his soul.
She sank into him, and he strained against the manacles that shackled his wrists, wished he could enfold her in his arms. Her warmth was like a drug, her lips and tongue a tender balm, yet they barely touched the cold terror he felt on her behalf.
He kissed her hungrily and tasted blood. Hers, his own, he didn’t know. With a muttered apology, he gentled the contact, touched soft kisses to her cheeks, tasted salt. Raged again at her folly in refusing to stay safe.
“You beautiful idiot, why did you come?” he murmured against her ear.
“A fine way to talk after the way you just greeted me,” she whispered, a spark of indomitable humor lightening her moist eyes.
She sobered again. “I’m sorry. I was stupid to be taken in. Faulkner said he needed me.” Bitterly, she added, “Well, I suppose he did need me, didn’t he? As a distraction. As a shield.
His
plan worked, at all events.”
“You shouldn’t have listened to him. You should have refused to go.”
“I did at first. But, oh, Jardine, I love you. He knew I could not leave you here alone.”
His mouth set in a hard line. “It’s
my
duty to protect
you
, not—”
She put up her hand and lightly stroked his face with her fingertip. “There is no need for you to feel responsible for this. It was all my own doing, my own folly in trusting him. Part of me isn’t sorry that I did.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve lived in comfort and safety for eight years, but that existence suffocated me, Jardine. I’d much rather be here with you than safe at home not knowing where you are, whether you’re dead or alive. That was no life at all.
That
was torture.”
“Rather be here?” Jardine gave her an incredulous look.
She looked away. “Oh, you would never understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Did she truly fail to see the gravity of the situation? Fury boiled up, but he reminded himself of all she’d been through and repressed the urge to give it free rein.
Louisa removed herself from his embrace, and he was powerless to stop her. Stepping over his outstretched legs, she inspected the damp stone floor beside him. Then she sank down beside him in one elegant movement, arranging her skirts as if she were on a bloody picnic.
He was stung into saying, “Do you
know
what Radleigh will do to you?”
She laid her head back against the wall next to him and stared at the curved stone ceiling above. She swallowed convulsively. Her hand went to her stomach, as if the thought sickened her. But her eyes were dry and her face had taken on that firm set of determination he knew well by now. She was making a Herculean effort to show no fear.
He regretted his words. She’d seen Harriet; she needed no reminder of Radleigh’s capabilities.
You don’t have to be brave with me,
he wanted to say. But something told him that she needed to preserve this front, even with him, or she’d shatter.
After a time, she spoke. “I think I killed one of Smith’s men.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“You seem unsurprised.”
He turned his head to look down at her. “You’re a remarkable woman. I’ve always known it.”
WARMTH spread over Louisa, like the glow from a good brandy. But she didn’t feel remarkable. For all her swagger, she was afraid. Terrified of ending up like Harriet.
Or worse. Harriet had been tough, tenacious, despite her fragile exterior. Louisa hadn’t a fraction of Harriet’s experience or training. She was a miserable coward, in fact.
But she’d brought this on herself, trusting Faulkner, and the last thing she’d do now was snivel to Jardine.
She glanced at him. Despite the bruises and the dirt, he still looked gorgeously disheveled, as opposed to the utter guttersnipe she must resemble. “My remarkableness doesn’t extend to thinking of a plan to get us out of here, unfortunately. Any ideas?”
“Ives.” The word was barely a whisper. “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
Her stoic mask slipped.
An eon of pain could lie between now and tomorrow. She and Jardine might both be dead by then. They might be yearning for death to come.
The crease between his angled black brows showed her Jardine was putting that powerful, Machiavellian brain to work. This was what he did best, wasn’t it?
“There’s a way,” he said at last. “It would mean giving Smith something he wants. The only thing he wants more than seeing me suffer.”
A surge of hope died. Grittily, Louisa said, “You will not sacrifice your principles for me. If Smith wants something badly, the chances are it would hurt a lot of people.”
“Principles? I have no principles where your safety is concerned. But just to assuage
your
offended principles, what I propose is not likely to hurt anyone.”

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