When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,45
“You hurt people for him.”
He nodded slowly. “For years and years.”
“Did you—?” She inhaled as if steadying herself. “Did you kill?”
The sound of their breaths was loud in his ear, and he wished suddenly that he’d never turned down this path.
But he had. “No. Tonight was the first.”
“Tonight?” Her eyes widened. Obviously she hadn’t expected that answer.
“Yes. I’m not an assassin.” Or he hadn’t been. Once he murdered her brother he would be.
If she knew, she’d never let him close again.
And he needed her—her money and her advice for maneuvering through the aristocracy. He couldn’t give those things up.
Couldn’t give her up.
He inhaled and straightened, holding out his arm. “Come.”
She nodded, though a line was still etched between her eyes. Had he lost all the ground he’d covered? Did she hate him now?
His mood was foul as he escorted her to their bedroom. The maid was waiting up for them—or rather for Messalina. He hesitated, but really it was for the best. He needed to calm himself before he was near her again.
Gideon bowed to Messalina. “I’ll be a few minutes before I retire.”
She glanced at the maid and then him, and he thought there was apology in her eyes. But then that might’ve been wishful thinking. “I shan’t be long.”
He nodded again and closed the bedroom door behind him.
How the hell did aristocrats live like this—with servants all around them and underfoot? He wandered to the end of the hall, where a window looked out over the small garden in back of the town house. The garden had long been untended, and only a few overgrown trees remained, casting long shadows in the moonlight. Something moved, and Pea emerged from under one of the trees, his lanky form recognizable even in the near dark. He tilted his head up to the window and nodded.
Gideon returned the nod, glad that Pea was alert.
He watched the night for a few more minutes before a door opened in the hall behind him. He heard the patter of the maid’s retreating footsteps.
Gideon waited a moment and then retraced his steps to the bedroom. Messalina was already abed, the covers pulled to her chin and her eyes closed.
He shut the door and paused for a moment. Dear God, he wanted to climb in beside her. Pull the covers from her body and rip aside that damned chemise.
Instead he snuffed out the candle and walked to one of the chairs before the fire.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?” she whispered.
Had she any idea? Any idea at all of the restraint he was having to maintain?
“Not yet.”
He heard rustling as she moved in the bed. He kept his gaze firmly on the glowing embers in the hearth. He waited.
But even after her breaths had evened and deepened into sleep, he didn’t retire to bed. He was thinking. Tonight was the second time they’d been attacked by robbers inside a week.
And in both cases the attackers had been more interested in murder than money.
Which meant they were bent on killing either him or Messalina. He’d been defending himself since the age of thirteen. Gideon feared no one.
But if it was Messalina they were after…
He clenched his jaw. No. Not Messalina.
That couldn’t be borne.
Chapter Eight
“Then I shall take Bet as my payment,” the fox said.
The tinker wept and pleaded, but the fox stood firm. In the end the tinker was forced to agree to give his daughter in marriage to the fox. The only concession the fox made was to wait until the tinker’s baby daughter should turn eighteen.
And then finally the fox showed the tinker the way out of the wood.…
—From Bet and the Fox
“What a good boy,” Messalina crooned early the next morning.
The puppy sleeping in her arms didn’t reply.
Daisy had his little head tucked into her neck, dozing blissfully, while Bartlett made the finishing touches to Messalina’s toilet.
Messalina stroked the puppy’s triangle ears, softer than her kid gloves.
There was a scrape at the door, and she glanced up to see Sam shyly looking in.
“You’ve come just in time,” Messalina told the boy. “I’m afraid that Daisy will want to visit the gardens when he wakes. Can you take him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam crossed the room to stand beside her.
Messalina carefully transferred the puppy to Sam’s arms, but she needn’t have worried. Daisy still slept, his small body warm and limp.
She smiled. “Hopefully he’ll wake when you take him outside, but if he doesn’t, you might as well stay in the gardens until he does.”