Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,120
door.
But she didn’t. In fact, a moment later, strangely enough, she relaxed a bit. And though her gaze remained wary, he didn’t detect any of the blazing fury he had seen earlier. Perhaps because she was tired.
He looked down at his hand still resting on the covers. And decided with bleak resignation that there was no sense in delaying the inevitable. “I’ve made a decision.”
“Oh?” she asked cautiously. “About what?”
“You.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I wasn’t aware that there was a need to make a decision about me,” she said mildly. “I’m quite accustomed to taking care of myself.”
“And how are you going to do that?” he replied quietly, bracing himself for the inevitable explosion. “You can’t stay in England. You have no money to travel to Venice or anywhere else to start a new life. And I can’t let you go without worrying that you might someday leak my name to the authorities.”
When she didn’t respond, he glanced up... to find her eyes sparkling with some emotion he could not name.
“I’m not a threat to you, I promise.” She remained calm, quietly waiting for him to continue his explanation.
Which knocked him off balance. He had come prepared for another heated argument, not for this... this... he wasn’t even sure what to call it.
“The way I see it,” he said, regarding her uneasily, “I really have only one choice. Since I decided some time ago not to kill you—”
“Glad to hear that.”
“I’ll just have to keep you.”
She blinked at him. Once. Twice. “Keep me?” she echoed as if he had spoken a foreign language. “What do you mean by that?”
Her cool question stretched his nerves even tighter. Rising from the wing chair, he walked to the end of the bed, waiting for her to erupt in outrage and hatred.
“You may not like the idea, but we don’t seem to have any other satisfactory option.” He toyed with the velvet drapes that hung from the canopy, his fingers destroying a delicate golden tassel that held them in place. “If you’re with me, you’ll be safe. And I’ll know you’re not blathering my identity all over England.”
“I see.”
“It’s the only solution.”
“It’s kidnapping.”
The way she calmly pointed that out made him laugh, a dry rasp that hurt his throat. “Not the worst crime I’ve ever been accused of.”
“All right. I’ll go.”
“Besides, the Colonies may not be Venice, but it’s better than staying in England, with your face in every newspaper and a murder charge...”
He stopped, his gaze on the tassel in his fingertips, as her words finally made their way to his brain. He slanted a glance toward her. “What did you just say?”
“I said all right. I agree to your ‘satisfactory option.’ I’ll go with you.”
He stared at her, stunned silent by her quick acquiescence. He could detect no sarcasm in her voice, no anger in her expression.
No hatred in her golden gaze.
“Uh... excellent,” he choked out. “You’ll be leaving with Masud in the morning. He’ll see you aboard our ship and take you to South Carolina.” He paced away from her before he could wreck any more of the bed curtains.
“Wait a moment, what do you mean I’ll be leaving?” she protested, her voice taking on a sharp edge for the first time. “What about you?”
“I’m staying in London.”
“You can’t stay here.” Her air of calm vanished, suddenly and completely. “If you haven’t noticed, there are people here who want to kill you.”
He stopped in front of the hearth, keeping his back to her. “That’s exactly why I’m staying. I’m not leaving until I’ve taken care of the blackmailer once and for all. I’m going to handle it personally this time.”
“But he might already be telling the authorities about you. He wants the bounty on your head. He’ll do anything to get it.”
“Exactly. Which is why I intend to go out in the open and make it a little easier for him to find me.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
It almost sounded as if that mattered to her. He turned to look at her, but she glanced away before he could read the emotion in her eyes.
And he abruptly realized what—or rather, who—might have changed Samantha’s attitude toward him. The dishes on the nightstand offered a clue.
He frowned. The last thing he needed was a pair of scheming females allied against him. “Why do I get the feeling there’s something going on here that I don’t know about? Did Clarice say something to you?”