12 Chapter 12

She couldn't wave her away. Well, she could. She raised one hand. Ruby must see her dealing with this after all. And Cass was. Dealing with it in ways she'd never expected.

Also, if she let herself be drawn by his sin-ridden lips, by him, she'd lose that part of herself, the part of her no one had touched, because she didn't let them. The thing, the only thing, she had mastery over.

Herself.

Somehow she struggled free. She was naked under the robe after all. Any more of this and they'd eat each other alive. And that was something Ruby mustn't see.

"Don't stop now, Mrs. Armstrong, you're just getting to be interesting."

She snatched a breath. Interesting? The damn cheek of it. She was not getting to be anything. She was interesting. She cleared her throat.

"You said a kiss."

He huffed out a soft breath. "And now you somehow think I want more?"

"Well, I hope you don't think I do."

"That's not how it looked to me."

"You would know about looks, would you, perversely peeping through my window? Seeing what was in it for you?"

Well? How fine was this? A libertine like him, talking as if he were a choir mistress and she the roistering blade. Probably eyeing her too.

"Do you know something?"

Not when this had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and she wouldn't just have been better tackling a tiger, she'd have been better kissing one as well. Still, she set her jaw to match his own. What could he say that would worry her now? She'd given him what he wanted.

"You never let me finish earlier," he added. "Most women wouldn't just have screamed by now. They'd have raised the roof."

"Really?"

"Still a deal is a deal. So they say anyway."

He stepped back. Her jaw dropped open. Not only had she kissed him for nothing, when she should never have kissed him at all, she'd given him precisely what he wanted which wasn't a kiss at all. So now? Now?

She parted her lips.

He was right about her failing to raise the roof. He might as well have his money's worth.

The noise, the scream was masterful. For that matter the scream might have been heard in John O' Groats, Land's End, or Paris. Maybe, even in all three for that matter. She couldn't tell, not being in any of them right now.

She clamped her lips shut. Then she shrugged.

"As I think you will agree, I'm not most women, Lord Hawley."

Well, she wasn't. What was more she heard Barron yelling in his thick Dorset brogue somewhere in the darkness.

"Mrs. Armstrong? Mrs. Armstrong? Where be 'ee?"

"Yes," she said, facing Devorlane Hawley with her best, her most coolly appraising stare. "Just because I didn't scream, doesn't mean I wouldn't. Here, Barron. I'm at the door."

"Coming, my lady!" Pearl yelled. "We're coming!"

"What the bloody blazes be a'goin' on here, Mrs. Armstrong?"

The blinding light from Barron's driver's lantern dazzled her for a second, so she'd to fight not to shield her face. But not before she saw Ruby was also there, armed with a broom handle. She'd maybe gone a little far. But going a little far was better than going nowhere at all. She clutched her robe tighter. Having started this, she might as well finish it. Ruby hadn't brought that broom to sweep the path after all.

"He ...He ... I-I can't. I really can't speak of it." The tears she forced to her eyes were a masterful stroke. "I'm sorry. I ... I ... can't. Not when it's all too terrible, as you can see."

Devorlane Hawley swung around and grasped the broom handle. Why, and what he meant to do with it, was as mysterious as finding herself in a situation where a broom handle was involved in the first place.

"Jeezuz! Sorrr ... "

She smothered a shriek as the lantern flew from Barron's hand. The tinkle of glass was muffled by her yelp as boiling tallow wax spattered the hem of her robe. Devorlane Hawley barred Barron's throat with the broom handle, pinning his wheezing bulk to the wall. What was that thought she'd had several moments ago, when she'd first opened the door? The one about him seeing it all and experiencing nothing?He was certainly experiencing plenty now.As for Barron? He was experiencing fighting for his life.

This had somehow taken a turn for the worse. If Barron got killed here she was going to look very good explaining that to the magistrates. And the way Devorlane Hawley deliberately turned his head, feasting his eyes on her face as he held the stick in place, said the choice was hers.

How horrible was that when obviously she couldn't allow it. Although this, damn it, should be about her being attacked, not Barron. She snatched at the handle. She had to.

"Let him go."

"Aye. Don't 'ee think 'ee and yore fancy boots 'ull get away wi' this. Oih'll defend 'ee, moih lydy. Oih'll get him. Leave this ter me."

"That'll be interesting." Devorlane Hawley tossed his hair out his eyes. "You." He jerked his head at Ruby.

"Whot? Me?"

He dragged a breath. "Unless you think I am somehow meaning the tree there? Fetch Lord Koorecroft."

Lord Koorecroft? The county's most senior magistrate? A turn for the worse? Now it was a somersault. A woman who planked a stolen necklace on this specimen shouldn't blush to say it was rape. She'd have to if he fetched Lord Koorecroft, because then there would be the matter of what the damned man could say to Lord Koorecroft. Being dead and buried might not be enough to save her then. Not when her crimes had been dutifully reported by every newspaper up and down the land. She'd hang.

"Lord Koorecroft?" Ruby smoothed a copper tendril of hair back from her forehead. "Whot soddin' fer?"

"What do you think it's soddin' for? To accuse me of rape and molestation. It won't be difficult. He's at Chessington right now. You can cut through the hedge. Go on."