Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,115

continued. “I thought I owed you a warning. Honor among thieves and all that. And it was a mistake. Look where it’s gotten me. If I had been in that blasted pub...” Letting go of the curtain, he pivoted on his heel and strode back toward her. “You, Miss Delafield, have caused me nothing but trouble from the moment we met.”

“Our acquaintance hasn’t been particularly enjoyable for me, either,” she replied, concealing her hurt beneath glacial formality.

“And never mind where I was,” he snapped. “Let’s discuss where you were. What the hell were you doing in that pub in York? How are you involved in this blackmail scheme?”

“I’m not involved. I don’t know anything about a blackmail scheme!”

“Then what were you doing collecting that package?”

“It’s a very long story, Captain Brogan.”

“I appear to have time, Miss Delafield.” He sat on the edge of the bed. And still made no move to untie her.

He didn’t trust her.

But then, he never had.

She glared at him, hating the way her heartbeat quickened at having him so near. “When I got to my room in Merseyside, I found that it had been ransacked. My uncle was there. He... he said he was going to take me with him to London. Lock me up in some place where he would...” She couldn’t continue.

A muscle flexed in Nicholas’s bearded cheek, his voice taut. “Did he hurt you?”

She lowered her lashes. It almost sounded like concern behind his words.

No. No, she had to stop dreaming like a naïve fool.

“He didn’t have the chance,” she rushed on, her tone as sharp as the pain inside her. “The blackmailer came in right behind him. He said he had seen the stories in the papers—”

“What’s his name?”

“Foster. Joseph Foster. He blames you for making him a ‘cripple,’ as he calls it. His right arm was missing.” She looked up. “He said you and he were old acquaintances.”

Nicholas was silent a moment, his brow furrowed. “I don’t remember anyone like that. And I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Well, he seems to know a great deal about you. He said he’s been hunting you for years. He wanted to question me about some business arrangement you had made with him, because he was suspicious that you were trying to change the agreement. He ended up fighting with my uncle.” She shut her eyes. “And he killed him. And then he... he told me who you really are.”

Sam lifted her lashes and met Nicholas’s gaze again, her throat dry and tight. “And I didn’t believe him,” she choked out, unable to bear her own foolishness. “I kept trying to convince him that it must be a case of mistaken identity.”

He looked away. “You still haven’t explained—”

“Let me finish. Foster took all my money, and he took...” Her eyes suddenly swam with tears. “He took the ruby you gave me.” She blinked quickly, desperate to keep her tears from falling, refusing to raise her bound hands to wipe at her eyes.

Nicholas whispered a curse and suddenly rose from the bed, pacing back to the window.

She wished it weren’t so easy for him to walk away from her.

Almost wished they were still shackled together.

“Why?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Why did you give that jewel to me, when it meant so much to you?”

He stared out at the dark city. “I wanted you out of England,” he said coolly. “You know too much about me.” His broad shoulders rose in a careless shrug. “I was protecting myself. Always been good at that.”

Sam dug her nails into her palms. She meant nothing to him. Nothing at all.

“So Foster robbed me blind,” she continued quickly, desperate to finish her story, to tell him what he wanted to know so she could get out of here. “And he ordered me to pick up the package for him. He suspected he was walking into a trap.”

“So you were simply to act as his courier? He was just going to trust you?”

“No. Of course not. He was there, in the pub. He was right there with a gun pointed at me.”

Nicholas jerked around to face her. “He was there and you didn’t tell Masud?”

“I didn’t know the African had anything to do with you. He was just some stranger accosting me. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him who I was. As soon as he grabbed me, I could see Foster coming across the pub toward us, but then Masud was dragging me outside, and he