With This Kiss (2 page)

The thunder of the horse’s hooves echoed into the distance. Morgan let out a dark oath, followed almost immediately by a bark of laughter. At least there was a bright side: he hadn’t been hurt. The thief s mount had obligingly broken his fall by leaving behind a fresh, steaming pile of dung — into which he had fallen face first.

Groaning as he rose, he brushed the horse’s droppings from his face and clothing. Old. He was getting old. Five years ago he would have caught the man handily. He made his way slowly back to his town house, limping slightly and shaking his head as he went. A report would have to be made to the local constable, of course. Then it was only a matter of time before word of the incident spread. He could see the headline of
The Times
now: VISCOUNT BARLOWE LOSES CHASE WITH THIEF AND LANDS IN MANURE PILE IN PROCESS.

A wry smile curved his lips. It might have been worse yet. Isabelle would have had a fit if the housebreaker had managed to make off with the wedding silver. He reached his home and studied the classical facade, looking for any damage that might indicate the man’s point of entry. As he did so, a puzzled frown touched his brow. The thief, he suddenly recalled, had come from the direction of the servants’ quarters, not the main house.

Odd.

Then it hit him. Faintly at first, nothing but a soft whisper of an odor, almost undetectable. Steadily it grew stronger. The smells of London were not pleasant, but Morgan knew them. This one was unmistakable. Sharp, acrid, burning.

His gaze snapped to the servants’ lodgings.

A soft, curling cloud emerged from beneath the quarters’ main door. A gray cloud, but not the glistening silver of fog. A dark, sinister cloud that absorbed light and everything else around it.

Smoke.

Morgan bolted for the door and threw it open. The heat within hit him like a blast from a blacksmith’s forge. Too late he remembered the warnings he had heard about taking care not to cause a draft. The quarters were already an inferno. Flames licked the walls, shrouding them in writhing bands of crimson, gold, and orange. Smoke burned his lungs. As he moved inside, the stench of kerosene gagged him. The fumes were so thick he could taste them in his throat.

His heart pounded erratically as his lungs constricted within his chest.
There was still time. There had to be time. He could get everyone out.

Morgan knew the servants’ quarters almost as well as he knew his own home. There was the ground floor, then three flights of stairs leading to various landings, each of which branched off to pockets of separate rooms. Then there was the attic, which had been converted to a private apartment for the Markum family.

He slammed his fist against the first door he could find. “Fire! Get out! Fire!”

He raced from door to door, pounding his fists and shouting to rouse the servants.

On the landing above him appeared an elderly man dressed in a flapping nightgown, his nightcap sitting askew on his bald head. Piers, head butler. The righteous indignation that filled his expression at the predawn racket turned at once to appalled understanding.

“Wake them up!” Morgan screamed. “Get everyone out!
Now!”

Piers nodded and turned away, his form swallowed up by the smoke and haze.

Morgan took a precious second to fasten a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, and then vaulted up the steps toward the second-floor landing. As he shouted his warnings, doors began to open and people began to emerge: confused and disoriented at first, then engulfed by panic. He heard one scream, then another and another, until the voices met in an ungodly crescendo of pure terror.

Smoke and fire were everywhere. Heat cracked the floorboards. Tongues of flame licked the walls, jumping from floor to ceiling and back again. More and more people poured from their rooms, fighting blindly for the main stairwell.

“Not the stairs!” Morgan shouted. “The windows! Use the windows!”

His warnings went unheeded. A crush of bodies pressed against him, shoving and screaming as they fought their way toward the narrow stair. Horror clogged his throat. It was worse than he ever dreamed possible. Worse than he ever imagined.

Where did they all come from? How many were there? Too many, too many.
Blistering remorse knifed through him.
He should have been firmer. He shouldn’t have allowed it. Not this many people. Why hadn’t he seen the danger?

He wheeled around to vault the stairs to the next level when he collided into a girl of perhaps fifteen, her eyes round with terror. Morgan recognized her — the cook’s daughter. She stood unmoving, her back pressed flat against the wall, her mouth hanging open in a silent scream.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the hallway’s end. There he smashed the window with his elbow. He swung his arm around the rough pane to clear it as best he could of glass debris, and then lifted the terrified girl. Ignoring her screams of protest, he dropped her from the second story to the boxwood gardens below.

He felt a body brush past him and leap from the window, followed immediately by another.

Good. Use the windows. You’ll break a bone or two, but you’ll live.

He fought his way against the tide of bodies until he had reached the top floor. The heat was worse. Everywhere. Fire. Smoke. Greedy, scorching flame licking and hissing, devouring everything in its path.

Grimly determined, he staggered forward. The instant he gained the upper landing, he heard a sharp crack of timber as the stair rail beneath him gave way. Screams filled the hall, followed by the dull thunder of bodies falling into the stairwell.

Morgan hesitated, ready to turn back to give aid, when an inner voice stopped him.

Move! Now! Get to the attic! The rest can get out. Please, God. The rest can get out. But Markum’s children —

The door to the attic was shut. To hell with the warnings about creating a draft. He had to get them out.

He tried the knob. It blistered his palm but wouldn’t give. Locked. He slammed his shoulder against the wooden door and felt it sag. One more hard shove, and it cracked open, splintering apart at the jam. He stumbled through.

More smoke. Black, billowing smoke. Heat. Burning, savage heat, surely worse than hell.

He scanned the room. Nothing. Too late. He was too late. He tried to breathe but couldn’t. His lungs were charred, shrunken, useless. Sweat and ash blinded him. As he lifted his arm to wipe his eyes, a flaming motion caught his attention. His shirtsleeve was on fire. He ripped the cloak from his back to smother the flames, then realized that that garment was on fire as well.

He
was on fire.

He dropped to the ground and rolled back and forth to extinguish the flames. Gasping and choking, he came to a stop in the center of the floor, struggling to catch his breath.

Then he saw it.

A tiny, whimpering figure huddled in a tight ball beneath a corner cot. A child. Alive. Dazed elation surged within him. He lunged across the room and pulled the quivering, terrified body into his arms.

Clutching the child against his chest, he crawled toward the attic window. He knocked out the glass, thrust his torso through the space, and peered below.

People. Mobs of people swarmed beneath him, their shapes lost in the fog and smoke. He heard cries of “Jump!” and thought he saw a blanket stretched out between them. Could they see what he held? He tried to call out, but his voice was nothing but a raw, hoarse whisper. He had no choice. Saying a silent prayer, he released the child and ducked back into the room.

Where were the rest of the children? Where were Markum, his wife, the babe?

His vision blurred. The world seemed to quiver and spin, and then the edges went red. He knew he was losing consciousness.
Not yet. Not yet.
He took a step forward.
Not yet. He had to find them.

He scanned the room. His gaze stopped at a bright, shimmering flame that seemed to dance in one corner, to leap and sway with a life all its own. Strangely captivated, he moved toward it. Then he heard the screaming.

High pitched. Agonized. Ceaseless.

Hideous understanding flooded through him, locking him in a paralysis of frozen horror.

The screams were coming from within the flame.

Before he could move, a thundering
crack!
filled the room. A ceiling joist broke free and swung down from the rafters. The smoking beam struck him directly in the chest, sending a sharp, searing pain radiating through him. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and propelled him backward, knocking him through the window.

Morgan reached out to grab hold of something to arrest his descent, but he couldn’t stop.

He was falling. Falling and falling. Falling forever.

Then blissful black nothingness.

London, 1857

The woman was putting on one hell of a show.

Morgan St. James’s gaze drifted back to the redhead for perhaps the third time that hour. She stood by herself at the foot of the
trente-et-quarante
table, betting consistently on black. Her stack of chips had increased since she had started to play, but her winnings were not substantial. At least not enough to draw his attention. What caught his eye — and that of several other men in the room — was the manner in which she played.

She wanted to be noticed. Her motions were too deliberate and dramatic to be interpreted any other way. It was an altogether unnecessary performance. Her presence alone was enough to command attention. One couldn’t help but notice her — for several reasons.

First and foremost was her appearance itself. Every inch of the woman was dazzling feminine perfection, from the top of her elaborately coiffed hair to the tips of her black high-heeled slippers. Her skin glowed like cream; her eyes were as rich and intoxicating as warm brandy. And her body — sculpted as though every inch had been deliberately crafted to satisfy a man’s most vivid fantasy. Her lush curves were wrapped in a rich, mouthwatering shade of pink satin that made Morgan think of a sugary peppermint confection.

He took a moment to study her hair. It wasn’t a soft, golden-red titian or a rich, russet-tinged auburn but a bold, brazen red. Flame red.

Another thought occurred to Morgan as he watched her place her bets. The woman had money. She played with the calculated expertise of a seasoned gambler, yet she had the bold nonchalance of someone for whom winning or losing was a matter of little concern. In other words, someone whose wealth was vast indeed.

All of which begged one simple question:
Who was she?

The fact that neither he nor any of the men with whom he was seated could answer that struck him as nearly unprecedented. The room in which they had gathered was London’s notorious Devonshire House. Given the ever-increasing crowds drawn to London for the Season, something had to be done to distinguish between the high life and the rabble. Thus the establishment of an exclusive chamber to which admittance was gained solely on the basis of wealth and social status. It was the best of all worlds: an intimate club where the players could mingle freely with their peers, where only the finest champagne was served, and where fortunes that had taken twenty generations to amass were routinely won and lost on the turn of a card.

But this woman was an outsider to the rarefied atmosphere of their little club. Granted there were other women present, but their presence could easily be explained. The Boston heiresses who came to barter their wealth and virginity for an honorable British title, the dowager duchesses who sat gossiping together in one corner, the Season’s Incomparables with their pretty little pouts and low cut gowns, the French courtesans who clung to the sides of their latest paramours like pampered, well-heeled pets.

The redhead belonged to none of those cliques, yet she seemed somehow essential, as if the assembly would be seriously bereft without her. Morgan’s gaze returned to the woman as if drawn there by magnetic force. She had won again, he noted, watching as the croupier pushed a thick stack of chips toward her ever-increasing pile.

His pleasure at watching her was abruptly diminished as he saw Jonathan Derrick, Earl of Bedford, cross the room and move toward her. The lust shining in his gaze was as clear and bright as a lighthouse beacon at midnight.
Pompous ass,
Morgan thought, battling a surge of possessive irritation. But to his considerable amusement, Jonathan Derrick proved no threat to the mental claim he had staked on the woman. As though aware of Derrick’s amorous intent, the redhead lifted her gaze and watched him approach. Although her expression didn’t change, the warmth in her brandy eyes turned to winter. She tilted her chin and turned pointedly away, giving the earl the cut direct.

Morgan applauded her silently.
Brava. Nicely done.
Derrick was the fourth man to approach her since she had arrived, the fourth man to be coolly rebuked. Very well. Let the fools rush in. All good things to those who wait.

He suddenly stopped himself, shocked at the train of his thoughts.
Idiot.
What was he thinking? He knew better. The woman was not for him. Never for him. Foolish even to entertain such an idea. He gripped the rich glass of burgundy sitting on the table before him and let out a low, steadying breath, fighting back a wave of tension.
Let it go. Let it go.

Forcing his thoughts away from the woman, he turned his attention back to his companions and the conversation at hand.

“Did you see the
Review
today?” demanded William Conor, fifth Earl of Gravespark. He was young, excitable, and unable to handle the bourbon he drank in regrettably copious amounts. “What did I tell you? It’s official now. They’re engaged. Lady Isabelle Cartwright and Lord Roger Bigelow. Didn’t I say it was only a matter of time before she—”

“That’s enough, Gravespark,” interrupted Edward Southesby curtly.

William Conor stared at Southesby with a confused frown. “What? It’s right here in the paper. I don’t see why… oh.” He swung his head around, and his bloodshot eyes fastened upon Morgan. “Sorry, old man.”