He snorted and turned away.
“Who do you think pays your coin?” she murmured.
Templeton paused midstride. A long moment passed where she could almost hear him considering, then he turned about. He whistled softly, then leaned against a nearby tree and thrust his hands against his pockets.
Maria opened her mouth to speak and then she noted his eyes were shifting, as if he espied something beyond her that she had no view of. His preoccupation alerted her to a rushing movement passing through the periphery of her vision. Suddenly on guard, she leapt back from a lunging foil wielded by a second man.
She recovered instantly and parried the next thrust, the two rapiers meeting in a clash of steel. Her jaw hardened at the sight of the burly man who faced her. She was an expert swordsman, a hard-earned accomplishment made possible by Dayton’s largesse. Still, her heart raced.
Sadly, my darling Maria, you are one who will live by the sword, he once said. Therefore, we must be certain your skill with a blade is unequaled.
How she missed him!
As always, the memory of his loss sharpened her focus and she began to fight with such fervor her opponent, large as he was, cursed and was pushed back. Her arm lifted, thrust, and moved lightning quick. She kept to a position that allowed her to keep sight of Templeton, who watched avidly, even as she remained engaged by his associate. She was small and fast, but that did not prevent the toe of her boot from catching on a tree root. Maria stumbled with a cry of alarm, the gleam of victory in her opponent’s eye undeniable as his foil aimed to take the advantage.
“Easy now, ’arry!” Templeton cried.
She hit the ground and rolled, Harry’s downward-plunging blade piercing the dirt, her upward-thrusting blade piercing his thigh. He bellowed in rage, like a wounded bear, then a bright flare of muted white hit the man full bore in the chest and took him to the ground with a brutal thud. The two bodies rolled briefly, a pained groan was heard, and then both men went still.
In the end, it was the figure in the billowing linen shirt who rose, yanking free the dagger that had found its home in the larger man’s chest.
Moonlight revealed pale hair and a quick turn of his head in her direction revealed fathomless eyes. Then Christopher St. John moved toward Templeton, who stood frozen nearby.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked in a deceptively quiet voice.
“Aye. St. John.” Templeton backed up cautiously. “The leddy’s none the worse, you see.”
“No thanks to you.” Moving as quickly as he had before, with a speed so startling it would be missed if one blinked, St. John had Templeton pinned to the tree with his dagger embedded in a bony shoulder.
What followed was agonizing to watch. St. John spoke in a low, almost soothing tone while twisting the blade into torn flesh, and the frieze-clad man writhed while gasping and sobbing out his replies. Against her will, Maria’s gaze moved back and forth between Christopher’s broad shoulders and the dead man a few feet away. She fought nausea, repeating a familiar litany in her head, one that absolved her of guilt because the end had been necessary to preserve herself. And Amelia.
His life or mine. His life or mine. His life or mine.
It never quite succeeded, but what more could she do? If she took too long considering how far in the mire she had fallen, she would sink into a melancholia that took weeks to run its course. She knew this from experience.
“Restore the area to its previous appearance,” St. John said, pulling away and watching as the man fell to his knees before him. “When the sun rises, this spot should be pristine and undisturbed, do you understand?”
“When I works, I’m careful,” Templeton said, his voice strained.
Christopher turned his full attention to her then, striding to her side and catching her elbow before dragging her away.
“I must speak with him,” she protested.
“A governess was hired and sent to Dover.”
Maria tensed, and perceptive as he was, he did not fail to notice.
“He said no more than that,” he assured. Despite the controlled quality of his voice, there was a dangerous undercurrent beneath the façade. “Trust that your need for such information is a secret saved. Wise of you to keep the reason for your inquiries a mystery. He has nothing with which to leverage extortion.”
“I am not a fool.” She shot him a sidelong glance, and the tiny hairs on her nape stood on end. He was leashed for the moment, but barely. “I also had the situation firmly in hand.”
“I will debate the use of the word ‘firmly,’ but I agree, you were doing well enough without my intervention. Blame my intrusion on a heretofore unknown speck of chivalry.”
Although she said nothing aloud, Maria had felt relief at his appearance and a softening she had not expected. At first, her examination of this new regard for him yielded no answers. Then she realized, with great surprise, that it was the first time since Dayton that someone had saved her.
“Why were you there?” she asked, noting as they left the cover of trees that he was nearly undressed, wearing only shirtsleeves, breeches, stockings, and heels. There was blood on his shirt and hands, an outward sign of his proclivity toward savagery.
“I followed you.”
She blinked. “How did you know?”
“I watched your abigail leave you. When I entered your rooms in her stead, you were not there. It was easy to deduce how you made your egress since I’d had the door in sight. A quick glance from your balcony revealed your direction.”
Maria halted so quickly, she stirred up the gravel. “You entered my rooms? Half dressed?”
He faced her, his gaze moving over her slowly and with rapidly building heat. As if nothing untoward had happened, he withdrew a kerchief from his pocket and rubbed the blood from his hands. “Oddly, I am more aroused by your masculine attire then I was when I pictured you naked in bed.”
When their eyes met, she saw a darkness within that even the questionable light of the moon could not hide. There was a betraying tightening to his lips and fierceness to his stance that made her shiver. Her nostrils flared and her heart rate picked up once again as her sense of preservation asserted itself. Her instincts urged her to flee from the predator that stood before her.
Run. He hunts you.
“I told you I was unavailable,” she said, her hand curling around the hilt of her weapon. “I am not known for tolerating those who meddle in my affairs.”
“Do you refer to your unfortunate spouses?”
Maria moved on, walking with quick strides toward the manse.
“You should not have been out alone, Maria, and you should not have scheduled such a meeting here.”
“And you should not seek to chastise me.”
He caught her arm and pulled her to him. His hand stayed hers when she moved to withdraw her sword, catching it and settling it over his heart. It beat as fast as hers, and the gesture was telling, revealing that he was not made of stone as most believed him to be. Her other arm was rendered harmless, held to the small of her back by his grip around her wrist.
The result was highly intimate, her chest pressed to his, her nose in his throat. She briefly considered struggling, and then decided she would not give him the satisfaction. Besides, it was wonderful to be held after the events of only moments ago. A tiny bit of comfort she never allowed herself to seek.
“I intend to kiss you,” he murmured. “Restraining you was necessary since you are once again armed and I’ve no wish to be run through. The weapons you carry grow larger with every encounter.”
“If you think the only weapons I have are ones I carry upon my person,” she countered, her voice soft, “you are sadly mistaken.”
“Fight me,” he urged in a husky whisper, staring down into her upturned face with tangible, unadulterated aggression. “Make me take you kicking and scratching.”
Christopher St. John was ruthless, determined. She could feel the simmering hunger and need within hi
m. It encircled her as surely as his arms did.
He had killed a man for her.
And it obviously brought out the devil in him to have done so.
She stared up into his hard, savagely beautiful face and realized what was happening. He had fought for her, therefore she was his prize. A shiver moved through her and his mouth curved in a purely sexual smile.
Heat flared across her skin and then sank into her blood. Blood that had been chilled from the moment her mother had taken her last breath.
Was she mad to want him for having killed on her behalf? Had Welton made her some aberration that she would find his protection arousing?