The Marquess (8 page)

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Holding the sandwich she had prepared hastily and not
attempted to eat, Dillian crept down the towering enormous hall. She cursed the
beast for locking the door on her. She should have stolen that key long ago,
but it had never occurred to her that it could be used against her. She’d
rather thought of the key as an escape for herself should anyone come chasing
after her.

She hated this monstrous hall. Perhaps in daylight, when the
sun came through the stained glass dome in the foyer, it might seem a
friendlier place. At night, it rustled with shadows and tiny unseen creatures.
Or it echoed menacingly empty, as it did now.

The silence didn’t fool her. The creatures of the
night knew when a human presence came among them. The monster waited out there
somewhere. He’d come too close to give up easily. She contemplated
finding a downstairs room and enjoying her meal until he went away, but it was
late. She feared she might fall asleep before she knew it was safe to come out.
She hadn’t developed any warning signals down here to let her know when
he approached as she had in the upper halls. She had to escape upstairs to
safety.

She couldn’t see him anywhere. How could a man as tall
as the marquess hide himself in that great expanse of empty space? The moon
must be out. Light filtered into the foyer from the glass dome. She could see
nothing but the silhouette of the grand staircase and the few tables that still
graced the entryway. He must be waiting at the top of the stairs.

Stealthily, she stole toward the crossroads between the
front entrance and the corridor to the side entrance. She could go outside and
sleep in the barn. The spring night seemed sufficiently warm. And if he’d
locked the side entrance, she could just slip into the library and find a place
behind the curtains in one of the window seats. He couldn’t search the
entire downstairs for her. He’d grow tired of waiting after a while.

She’d almost made that choice when the door behind her
slammed closed. The rat! He’d sneaked up behind her somehow.

Without another thought, Dillian took to her heels and flew
down the front hall in the direction of the main stairs and safety.

And slammed directly into the broad chest of the towering
form stepping out from behind the suit of armor. Her sandwich smashed between
them.

“Gotcha!”

The voice boomed over her head as strong arms wrapped around
her back and dragged her up against a powerfully lean body. Dillian felt
crushed, suffocated—and something else she couldn’t quite name as
she realized for the first time in her life she stood in a man’s embrace,
her chest pressed against his.

Fighting the paralyzing effects of this imprisonment, she
shouted, “Let me go, you big oaf!”

She squirmed, dropping her sandwich to shove at the
encompassing bars of her prison, but she might as well shove at stone walls.
Her petite stature had never particularly concerned her before, but she felt
dwarfed against this monster. She found her face buried against his shirt
ruffles in distressing intimacy.

“Let you go?” he asked with some trace of gruff
amusement. “So we could play this game another week? I think not.”

He lifted her easily from the floor and hauled her in the
direction of his study. Dillian squirmed some more, but it only made her
appallingly aware of the differences between her body and his. Lord, but
she’d never considered how hard a man’s chest could be! Or thighs.
Or all the places in between.

She froze as she recognized the strangeness of some of the
bulges pushing against her. As if understanding the reason for her fear, her
captor adjusted her to fit beneath one arm. Now she practically rode his hip.
She tentatively pounded a fist against his back, but as she thought, it cost
her more pain than him. He just dug his fingers in tighter.

Dillian closed her eyes in mortification as she realized how
intimately he held her. She didn’t open them again when he threw her onto
the couch. She waited for the beast to light the lamp and expose her in
boys’ breeches and shirt. A hot flush spread across her cheeks before he
could even see her.

To her surprise, the lamp didn’t come on. She sensed
his terrifying presence looming over her, preventing her escape. Cautiously,
she opened her eyes and looked up. Cloaked shoulders blotted an enormous
expanse of her vision, but she could see nothing of his face in the darkness.
She realized he had his hands on his hips and his legs spread aggressively. She
didn’t like that stance at all.

“May I have the honor of an introduction?” he
asked with sarcasm when she said nothing.

Dillian thought about it. She didn’t know if
he’d believe her if she told him the truth. It did seem a trifle
ludicrous for a twenty-five year old staid lady’s companion to hide in
walls and steal food. He had only to light a lamp to see she wasn’t a
boy, if he hadn’t surmised that already. Perhaps she could draw some
sympathy if she gave some story about a nobleman enclosing her father’s
tenant lands...

Impatiently, he interrupted her creativity. “If
you’re going to lie, do it quickly. Otherwise, you’re wasting your
time. I can guess where you came from in any event. I’ll just wait until
the lady wakes to confirm it. Until then, I’m keeping you someplace safe.
I have no intention of spending the next week setting more traps.”

Dillian gasped as the marquess jerked her back to her feet
by grasping the neck of her shirt and hauling her up. She swung her fists and
kicked, but he seemed impervious to her blows. Fear finally crept over her. She
didn’t know this man. He could do anything he wanted to her and throw her
bones out for the wolves if he wanted. Or just stash her corpse in the walls,
for all anyone would know.

Blanche would know. Blanche could set the duke on him, but
it would be far too late to save her by then. Dillian squealed as he dropped
her into a new seat, this one a wing chair beside the fireplace.

“You have no right to treat me like this, you monster!”
she protested, jumping to her feet as he moved away.

The cloaked marquess jerked something off the draperies and
effortlessly pushed her back into the chair. “I believe the punishment
for breaking and entering is transportation, at the very least. Since the
Americans have very disobligingly refused to receive any more British riffraff,
you may contemplate the climate of Australia for a while.”

He jerked the drapery cords around her chest and arms,
securing her firmly against the back of the chair. He worked methodically, and
Dillian shivered again as his knuckles brushed the side of her breast. She
fought her terror with words. “This is ridiculous! You can’t do
this. I’m a lady. I have powerful connections. You can’t treat me
like a common thief.”

“Oh? Who says?” The aggravating creature knotted
the cord and wandered off in the direction of another window, apparently in
search of further rope.

Now that he no longer stood near her, her terror dissipated,
and Dillian wanted to scream with fury. He wasn’t even listening. The
beastly man had made up his mind and didn’t have any intention of
listening to reason. When he approached again, she kicked her foot furiously at
his midsection.

The marquess merely caught her ankle and wrapped the silken
cord around it. He didn’t handle her roughly, just matter-of-factly, His
hand was almost gentle as it held her still. No man had ever touched her leg
like this. Dillian didn’t like the sensation. She wriggled, trying to
slip beneath the tie binding her. His grip tightened and rode a little higher
on her leg.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he informed
her. “You don’t have a chance. I’m prepared to be lenient at
the moment, but not if you give me any more trouble.”

“I was only protecting Blanche,” she said
sullenly as he kneeled on the floor and fastened her ankle to the chair leg.
His proximity made her nerves crawl. Strangely, her leg felt cold when his grip
loosened. She understood the indecency of breeches when she realized he knelt
between her knees to tie her other ankle to the chair. She shivered with the
raw vulnerability of this position.

He seemed unaware of his prisoner’s tension until he
had the last knot tied. When he raised his head to examine the adequacy of her
binding, she felt him hesitate, and she gave thanks for the lack of
illumination in here. She still couldn’t see his face, so he
couldn’t see the fear in hers. The cord strained beneath her bosom as she
tried slipping her arms out from under it. When his hand came down to rest on
her thigh, she nearly leapt out of her skin.

Amusement tinged his voice as he used her leg as a support
for returning to his feet. “I think I like my women this way,” he
mused. “Shall I bind your mouth, too, so I can get some sleep?”

“Don’t you dare,” Dillian answered with
venom. “I’m trying to tell you, you’re making a mistake. I am
not a thief.”

“You’re not a guest,” he pointed out
prosaically. “I didn’t invite you. You’ve raided my larder
every night this week. You’ve ruined my sleep, caused no end of havoc
among the servants, and picked my flowers without permission. I think I deserve
some recompense.”

When he moved away, obviously intent on making himself
comfortable on the couch, Dillian kicked at her leg bonds and struggled against
the upper ones. “I cleaned your blamed bedroom, your royal lordship! What
else did you want me to do? Scrub your kitchen? From the looks of the filth
around here, I thought someone might appreciate my gesture. Obviously,
you’re the beast you seem and prefer the dirt of your lair.”

He turned to glare at her for that. “I have reason for
what I do. You are in no position to comment on it. Now, get some sleep.
Morning will come soon enough.”

She gave a scream of frustration when he settled on the
couch, covering himself with the cloak. The scream didn’t disturb his
position in the least.

Refusing to give in, Dillian shifted her shoulders and
started the process of releasing her arms.

In the light of early morning, Gavin leaned against the
staircase and stared at the locked study door across the hall. He’d left
his prisoner sleeping with exhaustion, one arm free of the ropes but the other
hopelessly knotted in place. She must have spent the better part of the night
trying to free herself.

With the draperies drawn against the day, he hadn’t
seen a great deal of her when he left the study, but he’d seen enough to
guess the rest. He’d known last night that she wasn’t large but
nicely curved. He could still feel the firmness of her thigh beneath his palm
when he so foolishly used it for support. He preferred not remembering how long
it had been since he’d touched a woman’s thigh.

But his thoughts kept straying to chestnut curls falling
across a creamy brow. Gavin’s fingers stroked the mangled side of his
face as he remembered the flawless perfection of her cheek. He’d sold all
the ornamental mirrors in the house long ago, but he need only cast a brief
glance in the shaving mirror in the mornings to remember how he looked, if he
needed reminding.

Perhaps Michael had the right of it. Perhaps he should woo
the damaged woman upstairs. Even should she see again, the Lady Blanche would
find it more difficult to shrink from his scars when faced with her own. The
lovely woman in the study would only shriek in horror if exposed to his
disfigurement. It had happened once too many times in the past to doubt her
reaction. Beautiful women in particular reacted unreasonably, and the woman in
the study was a picture of loveliness.

She was also a clever, willful, deceitful little saucebox.
Gavin couldn’t imagine what she was about hiding in his walls and driving
him to madness. But he pretty well figured it had something to do with the Lady
Blanche.

He could hear the chair in the other room topple with a
thud. She must have woken while he lingered here. She would hurt herself if she
kept it up. He had to go in there, confront her with her perfidies, and drag
the truth out somehow. But going in there meant showing himself to her. Only
half-blind Matilda faced him willingly. And his cousins, but they were another
lot of willful baggages. He couldn’t expect the same from a stranger.

He could wear the cloak and hood, he supposed, but damn it,
this was his house. He didn’t feel inclined to go about in costume in his
own home. He used the cloak for warmth rather than wear out his good coat, but
the days grew increasingly warm. Meeting her in the garb of hooded beast
didn’t appeal. Gavin supposed listening to her shrieks of horror when she
saw his uncovered visage would give him some perverse pleasure after she had
spent so many nights frightening his servants.

With that malicious thought in mind, Gavin unlocked the
study door and strode in.

She had both arms free and struggled with the ties at her
ankle as she lay sprawled on the floor where the overturned chair had left her.
The fall should have bruised her from head to toe and left her screaming bloody
murder. Instead, she looked up as far as she could—about the height of
his kneecap Gavin calculated—and began a stream of imaginative invectives
that encapsulated his ancestors as a combination of vile insects and field
rodents. He’d never heard anyone swear so inventively without using a
single curse word.

He waited patiently until she ran out of adjectives, then
grabbing the back of the chair, he said, “Hang on, I’m pulling it
upright.”

This time, she cursed bluntly, but she grabbed the chair
arms as he tilted the chair. Gavin considered remaining behind her, where she
couldn’t see him. With all the heavy draperies drawn throughout the
house, light seldom made much progress through these chambers. She could just
avoid looking at him as the servants did. But his own perverseness made him
cross the room and open the curtains even as she bent to untie her ankles.