The Last Broken Promise (8 page)

“You mustn’t argue with me, sister.” A soft blanket was being pulled up to her chin. “I’m a dangerous, thoroughly bad man who would not be in my current circumstances, if I did not richly deserve such a fate. Cross me at your peril.” Somehow he made it sound more like a playful jest than a threat.

“I can’t help it. I argue with everybody,” she murmured sleepily, unable to stay awake any longer.

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

The last thing Jess heard before she fell asleep was his low, seductive laugh.

“Wake up, Sister.”

The world lurched sideways. Jess decided to open her eyes just a little to see why. When she saw what had turned the world upside down, she immediately slammed shut her eyes again. There was a giant sitting on the side of the bed. This must be a bad dream she decided, not the bad dream she’d been having sporadically for her entire life, but most certainly a nightmare. Because, although they were all tall, her brothers were not generally considered giants. This giant was most certainly not one of her brothers. So why was he calling her sister? Jess was thoroughly puzzled. She never had outlandish dreams like this, never. She had a recurring nightmare, but it was not freakish.

Not much scared Jess St. John. Even living on the ship with Griffin hadn’t shaken her, and some of his sailors could be very unsavory. Well, face it. She told herself quite frankly. They were all unsavory, every last one of them. They were dirty and crude and had no manners whatsoever. That was why they were on a pirate ship to begin with.

All in all, Jess decided it was much better not to dwell on the giant perched on her bedside. Wiser to close her eyes again and hope for a better dream. So with a sigh, she snuggled back down under the cover. She turned over to face the wall. She purposed to forget him and the fantastical dream of which he was a part.

“Oh no you don’t.” Strong hands turned her back. “You
are
going to wake up. That miserable excuse for a magistrate will be bringing our breakfast soon. If he finds you in my bed, I’ll never get out of this cess pit.” The voice sounded vaguely familiar. It was deep and gravelly and oh so soothing. Soothing until the words registered.

“Your bed?!” she squeaked, instantly sitting up. The wimple that had been covering her hair the night before suddenly gave up the ghost. It slid completely off exposing the lush fall of her tawny hair.

“It’s all right, sister.” He had to get that frightened look out of her emerald eyes. Men and women in every strata of society on several continents feared him. And that fact pleased him, immensely. But he didn’t want to frighten this beautiful little nun. At this moment, getting the look of terror off her face seemed like the most important thing in the world. To keep her safe and unafraid were of paramount importance. “Your vow of chastity is uncorrupted.”

“What?” Jess’s eyes finally focused. She was instantly mesmerized by dark eyes the color of the amber gems her aunt wore at her throat on the occasions when she truly wanted to impress her visitors. They were stones of immense intensity and antiquity. His rare sherry-colored eyes seemed to pull her deeper and deeper into their depths.

“I said, your vow of chastity has not been broken,” the deep voice that matched the arresting eyes said wryly. “I slept on the floor.”

Jess frowned. He sounded rather condescending. Of course, he’d slept on the floor. Where else would he have slept? He didn’t have to explain something that obvious to her and she would tell him so in full detail. Who did the man think he was anyway? Men always believed women were there for the plucking. Well, Jessamine St. John was not ready to be plucked, thank you very much. Her mouth opened to set the blackguard straight. She glared up into his eyes. And then she became distracted by the rest of him.

Those tilted, green cat eyes of hers widened slightly as she brushed her mane of hair back so she could get a better look. Aunt Dorcas was wrong, her brothers
were
ugly. In fact, they were trolls in comparison to the man leaning over her with one hand braced against the wall to steady his balance. Sakes above, he was beautiful. The rakish glint of the small golden hoop he wore in one ear was exotic. And his perfectly carved lips surely were wicked. His chin was strong, as was his jaw line. Those kept him from being too pretty. But, taken at a glance, he was… well, there was no other word but beautiful. Could a man be beautiful, she wondered abstractly? Jess tried hard to swallow the huge boulder that had so recently formed in her throat. She couldn’t. But she did manage to slowly inventory the man through huge startled eyes.

He looked like one of those scandalous marble statues Lord Elgin had pilfered from Greece and set up on display in London. The ones that wore mostly cold hard drapes, wreaths of olive leaves, sandals, and very little else. At least, he looked like the illustrations of the statues she’d seen in a magazine her friend Emma had smuggled past her mother. Emma kept the literature shoved out of sight under her bed. The two of them had giggled far into the night over those pictures. They discussed them in great detail. Strange, but Jess didn’t feel like giggling at the moment. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t make any sound. Even breathing evenly was a total impossibility. All she could do was stare at him in fascination and try not to gulp air through her mouth like a beached fish. Her lips tried to form words, but nothing came out.

The statue of Adonis came to life. He dragged a frustrated tanned hand through thick hair the color of a shimmering crow’s wing. He threw back his finely-molded head, exposing the taut strength of his throat. Then he spoke conversationally to the ceiling, “Wonderful, McLeod. Being in prison wasn’t enough. Now you must share your cell with a randy drunk and a half-witted nun.”

Something clicked in her fogged brain at the word half-witted. How dare he suggest that just because she couldn’t speak at the moment, she was lacking in wits.

“I am not half-witted. Is that an earring you’re wearing?” Jess had intended the set down to come out forcefully. But somehow the words issued forth from her lips as a whisper. A frightened whisper at that. She was thoroughly disgusted with herself. She took a deep breath, determined to do better. Instead, she found herself under the full scrutiny of those mesmerizing eyes again.

“It speaks,” he mocked.

She bristled at his sarcasm. The best thing to do, she decided, before she got trapped in those hypnotic eyes of his again, was to establish her superiority. She’d become very practiced at doing this in the last several years. So practiced, in truth, she could turn a man into a pile of quivering jelly when she really set her mind to it. She’d quickly learned men did not favor prickly assertive women. Therefore, Jessamine St. John had turned prickly assertiveness into an art form. She sat up until her face was only a hand’s breath away from his own. By sheer force of will, she narrowed her eyes until they turned to green ice. She corrected him haughtily, “I, sir, am not an
it
.”

A slight smile settled on his chiseled lips as he replied, unconcerned, “You’re a dried-up, prissy little nun. It’s all the same to a man.”

This whole affair was not working out as she’d planned, not at all. The blackguard didn’t seem intimidated in the least. He hadn’t moved back one iota. In fact, he seemed to be memorizing her face with those dratted eyes of his. If she wasn’t very careful, she might fall right back into the depths of those eyes and be lost forever. Time to bring out the big guns, she decided. If it’s true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then her brother Dylan should have been flattered indeed. Since he was the most intimidating person she knew, Jess assumed his frosty demeanor.

“Will you please remove yourself from my bed, sir?”

Who was this minx who thought she could order him around like the princess royal, the man thought to himself? On this side of the Atlantic, he might be nothing more than a low pirate. But in Scotland, his father was a duke. Not a wealthy duke. Not a powerful duke. But a duke nonetheless. This cheeky little chit needed to be taken down a peg or two.

“Your bed?” There was a definite edge to his voice. More to the point, he did not retreat in the slightest way. In fact, if anything he seemed made of Carrara marble now.

“My bed.” Her words were far more confident than she was herself. His nearness made her nervous, extremely nervous. In fact, there seemed to be some sort of energy emanating from him. The pesky stuff poured all over her like a shower of fire. “I’m in it now. I slept in it last night. It’s my bed,” she said, not daring to raise her eyes.

“But how do you know you were in it alone?” There was a tantalizing darkness playing through his voice.

Instinctively she glared at him. “You told me you slept on the floor,” Jess protested.

The man moved infinitesimally closer. “I lied.”

She felt the caress of his breath on her cheek. It made her tremble.

“I avoid the truth whenever possible. It’s become an occupational hazard, you might say.” One lean, long-fingered hand reached out to test the texture of a strand of her hair.

Jess’s mind screamed. But her back bone straightened even as she spoke coldly through stiff lips. “You lie for a living? Faith, sir, you must be a lawyer.”

His honey-colored eyes narrowed at the insult. She couldn’t know it of course, but lawyers were a very sore subject for him. He hated them almost as much as he hated clergymen. His brother had set more than one fat, unholy barrister on him in the past. He understood well the slight she aimed at him. Finn McLeod had killed men for less insult. “I think I should be calling you my lady duchess instead of holy sister.”

There was a threatening sound to his voice she didn’t like. If the man was irritated, she thought in frustration, it’s his own fault. With graceful hands, Jess pulled her thick blonde hair over one shoulder. She calmly began to plait it into a neat, fat braid. She seemed to be ignoring the oaf until she spoke condescendingly, “No, you cannot address me as duchess. That title is reserved for my brother’s wife.”

Even in his anger toward her, Finn admired her spirit and her effort to mask her fear. “Are you attempting to make me believe your brother is a duke?”

“I’m not attempting to make you believe anything.” Now she sat about arranging her habit, anything not to have to look at him. She noticed he watched her carefully. “I’m telling you my brother is the Duke of MacAllister.”

“Austin St. John is your brother?” His narrowed eyes watched for her reaction. He knew well the Duke of MacAllister’s given name. And it was certainly not Austin. But he wanted to see if
she
knew it.

What should she do now? The man knew her dead uncle’s given name. She hadn’t counted on this criminal knowing the intricate vagaries of the British aristocracy. It only took a moment to decide what she must do. Green eyes rolled back in feigned disgust.

“Uncle Austin is dead. My brother is Dylan, Dylan St. John, you oaf. And if you don’t get your big carcass off this bed, he’ll have your liver and lights for breakfast.”

That ought to put the fear of God into him. For good measure, she gave his broad shoulder a shove. It was the wrong thing to do. The second her fingers made contact with his body, she felt the breath rush out of her lungs in a whirlwind. He was solid and hard and although she’d pushed with all her might, he’d not even moved. Instead a deep, hissing stream of profanity that would have impressed even Griffin poured from those perfectly molded lips of his. Jess was confused. Had she angered him to the point of violence? She prayed not.

“Let me see the birthmark,” he commanded quietly.

Jess cringed back against the wall. This was awful. He knew about Uncle Austin. Why hadn’t she thought of that? And he knew about the birthmark, that dratted thing. Dylan was named ‘Heartless St. John’ because of the blasted mark. Cartoons lampooning his adventures with women had been plastered all over London years ago. At least that’s what Griffin told her, she hadn’t actually seen the illustrations herself. The St. John family birthmark-it was always tiny, black, and heart-shaped. All the St. John men had one on their left breast and some of the women did also. Jess did, but no one except her maid and her Aunt Dorcas had ever seen it. And as far as she was concerned, no one ever would, especially not this rakish, lying, physically perfect felon. She crossed her arms protectively across her chest, willing him to believe the lie she was about to tell.

“What? Birthmark? I’d rather know about that pagan hoop you’re wearing in your ear.”

“I said,” he spoke again undeterred by her ploy. “Let me see the St. John birthmark.”

“All right, you win. The truth is, I don’t have a birthmark. I’m not related to the Duke of MacAllister. Truthfully, I don’t even know the man.” She couldn’t keep the trembling out of her voice.

But it didn’t work, he somehow knew. Finn McLeod, younger profligate brother to the Duke of Maitland, knew she was who she claimed to be. This girl dressed in the ridiculous nun’s habit was Dylan St. John’s young sister. No, not just young, he told himself ruefully. This was St. John’s virgin baby sister. And he’d just had the misfortune to spend the night in the same room with her unchaperoned. If the Duke od MacAllister ever found out, Finn would find himself either facing St. John’s pistol across a daybreak dueling field or married, to the little nun. Neither prospect sounded promising. Deep curses rumbled throughout the small confines of the room again. After a long while they stopped, but the angry glare from his eyes didn’t.

“Lady St. John.” The big man stood respectfully. He gracefully bowed. The gesture was both practiced and elegant. It looked as if it belonged in a London ballroom, not a cold damp gaol cell.

The honorific surprised her. None of the family ever used their titles. If their blasted uncle had ever married one of his legions of mistresses and had a legitimate child, they’d not be bothered with titles now. But the old man hadn’t been the least bit obliging. Privately, Jess was sure the old buzzard coveted the fortune Dylan had made. It had replenished the ancestral family coffers. Uncle Austin hadn’t married just so her oldest brother would have the burden of rebuilding the ancient wreck of St. John Castle in Scotland, as well.