Reckless Desire (Saved By Desire 6)

“You tell me,” Joe snapped. “The Count is your lover, not mine.”

“What?” She slammed to a stop. Ignoring his heavy, put-upon sigh, she glared at him. “He is not my lover. How dare you suggest such a thing?”

“Liar,” Joe countered, completely unmoved by her blustering protestations.

He pushed harder than he should because her answer was important to him. Something nagged at him that he had to get the truth from her, and quickly, but he couldn’t quite decide on where that urgency had come from.

“Are you his lover?” He demanded coldly.

“No, I am not,” Marguerite protested. She contemplated slapping his face for suggesting it, but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Not only did she not want to hurt him but she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that this man had rescued her from the Count’s clutches at least once this evening-twice, if she took into account the two men in the garden.

Still, she couldn’t allow herself to be carted off into the night like some forgotten baggage. Digging her heels in again she resisted all of his attempts to tug her, and glared at the back of his head.

“The Count has gone now, and there is no sign of his men. There is no reason for you to drag me anywhere,” she persisted. Her voice was now desperate but there was nothing she could do about that – she was desperate.

At the end of his patience, Joe slammed to a stop, turned to face her. He leaned over her until she had to tip her head back to look up at him.

Her heart leapt. For a second she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. Her gaze dropped instinctively to his lips. Her mouth opened. Her soul almost relished the prospect. She waited.

Joe almost groaned. He knew that look and shook his head in disbelief. Was she trying to seduce him into forgetting his need to take her with him?

Well, I will be damned if that is going to work, he mused snidely.

Lowering his voice to a contemptuous snarl of rage, he glared at her. “You are going to come with me whether you like it or not, so shut up and get walking. Of course, you could scream, in which case your lover, the Count, will come running. Or he might send his thugs to come and get you.”

In spite of that possibility, Marguerite still refused to budge. There was something inside of her that wanted some small measure of reassurance from him, or a tender touch, maybe? Or a gentle whisper of encouragement? Maybe even a promise that everything would be alright? Whatever it was she needed she wasn’t going to trust this man until she had something from him that assured her it was safe to go, well, anywhere with him. As far as she could see now, he was no less dangerous to her than the Count only for entirely different reasons she didn’t want to look into too closely.

“No,” she protested. “I am sorry but I cannot go anywhere with you. It is highly inappropriate for us to go anywhere alone together, especially be out on the street like this.”

While she was no snob, she wasn’t prepared to eschew the stringent dictates of society to ruin her reputation because of this man, no matter how handsome he was.

But, before she could leave, the two vagabonds he had accosted in the garden suddenly appeared through the bushes beside them. Both men launched themselves at Jeremy with feral snarls of rage. She screamed when Jeremy suddenly bent over having received a heavy blow to the stomach. Her cry was loud when his arms were held by one man while his accomplice landed a volley of punches into his ribs that made Jeremy curse.

Horrified at the unfairness of their actions, Marguerite knew she had to do something to help him.

“Get off him,” Marguerite screamed.

When nobody appeared to have heard her, she lunged for the back of the man throwing the punches, but he shook her off as though she was a mere triviality. Before she could run and fetch help, she watched Jeremy lift both feet off the ground and kick his assailant with such force that the

man disappeared back into the bushes, and landed on the ground beyond with a heavy thud. Suddenly planting his boots firmly on the pavement, Jeremy then bent over at the waist and drew the man behind him over his shoulder. He then quite brutally slammed him into the ground. The heavy crack of the man’s head striking the floor was something Marguerite knew she would never forget. The man wouldn’t know about it, though, because he was rendered unconscious immediately.

Marguerite stared at Jeremy in horror but, before she could ask him where on earth he had learned to do that, two more men appeared beside them and launched themselves at him.

“Who are you?” she whispered even though she knew he couldn’t hear her because of the heavy thuds of flesh meeting flesh, and the pained grunts when fists struck with surprising accuracy.

She winced at the brutality of the scene before her. The more she witnessed, the more she realised that Jeremy wasn’t a guest at the musical recital, but had been there for some other nefarious purposes.

Was he a burglar? Had he been hiding out? Were the men waiting for him outside? If so, what did they want with him, or her? Who were they? What had he done that would warrant them wanting to kill him like they seemed so determined to do?

All sorts of confusing thoughts and emotions ran through her mind to the point that she was going to burst if she didn’t get some of them answered. Impatiently, she watched the men trade blows were staggeringly fierce, but Jeremy didn’t seem to even feel them. For each punch he received, he landed two in return together with a violent kick.

Marguerite looked beyond them, at the carriage now waiting further down the street.

Why hadn’t it come to stop them? As far as she was aware nobody had gotten in or out of it. Had they gone to fetch help?

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” she called to the driver.

He remained unmoved. The haunting vision of him sitting motionless atop the huge conveyance made her shiver. She realised then that whoever was inside the carriage was connected to the thugs attacking Jeremy. Was the Count involved in this? Was this the skirmish they had been arranging in the house a few minutes ago? If so, it didn’t seem fair that the Count had sent his men rather than fight himself.