Wyn slammed his body against the guard to his left, knocking him off balance to teeter on the edge of the steps. Arms flailing, he scrabbled to stay upright. Lord Eads thrust her behind him, blocking the big guard lunging toward Wyn. She struggled not to fall, unwinding the ropes from her wrists and tugging the gag from her mouth. Lord Eads threw himself at his opponent, and the other guard regained his footing and grabbed for Wyn. She screamed. Iron links clanged. In one graceful movement Wyn leaped over the chain and hauled it high to swing around the ruffian’s shoulders. Lord Eads’s opponent bellowed and fell against the wall clutching his neck, blood oozing through his fingers. The big body thumped to the floor. The other ruffian shouted, then gasped, chains rattling not around his shoulders—his head.
“Don’t kill him!”
“I am not”—grating voice—“going to”—the ruffian slumped—“kill him.” Wyn released his captive, iron links clanking as the guard collapsed onto the stairs. He swung around, fire blazing in his silver eyes fixing on Lord Eads. “But I am going to kill him.”
Diantha pushed away from the door. “He didn’t—”
In the darkness above, a door knocked open against the wall. Both men’s eyes snapped upward. Then they met, blue challenging gray.
“Allou me.”
Wyn nodded and dropped to his knees beside the bleeding guard. The irons jangled. Lord Eads started up the steps.
Diantha surged forward. “But what is he—”
Wyn grabbed her wrist and dragged her through the door. Behind them on the landing the shackles were clamped about the smaller ruffian’s wrists.
The misty night air had turned to fog, the alley behind the duke’s house hazy and sparkling now like a haunted fairyland. Wyn pulled her, his grip digging into her flesh, and she struggled to keep up. She did not protest the brutality. She had never seen such fury in his eyes as a moment ago. She had also never seen a man murdered.
Their swift footsteps were eerily quiet in the alley that ran along the mews. This neighborhood was not like the street near the docks where Tracy took her, rather more respectable from the glimpse she’d had upon hastily disembarking from the hackney coach. She hadn’t known then what they would find inside the duke’s house, if they would find Wyn alive or—or—
She stumbled. He caught her shoulders, steadied her, and in the ghostly dark their breaths swirled mist between them. Somewhere far off, the clatter of hooves and carriage wheels echoed.
“Did you bring a horse? A carriage?”
She shook her head. “Lord Eads dismissed the hackney—”
He grasped her wrist again and jarred her into motion. The fog wavered ahead, showing glimpses of a stone building with a sizable wooden door. Wyn jolted her to a halt, a door rattled as it slid in a track, and he pulled her inside.
It was dark and warm, the scents of horses and straw wonderfully clean. Simple and like home.
He released her to close the door and Diantha sank against the wall, trembling. Wyn’s boot steps receded into the blackness. But he would not leave her—she knew this—no matter how furious. And finally, as she gulped in air, her lungs filled and her body shed its shock, her anger and hurt rose anew.
He returned, the white of his shirt and neck cloth visible first, then all of him, and she saw again the blood on his face. Her anger deflated. She reached out. “What did they—”
He gripped her wrist, flattened it to the wall, and he covered her mouth with his.
She drank him in, needing his anger, fueling hers with the pain inside her and such profound relief.
This was wrong. She loved him, but she could not be hurt by him again. Years of blind trust in her mother had taught her when to relinquish love so that she would not suffer. She wrenched her face away, struggling to breathe between the wall and his hard body.
“Defend yourself,” he growled, biting at her lower lip, and a moan escaped her. “Defend your actions tonight, your willful, reckless involvement in a matter that was none of your affair.”
“We saved you.” His hands moved along her arms and she offered no resistance. Everything in her was alive, feeling him, wanting him. His hands on her, rough and purposeful, were a dream. “You were in shackles.”
His palms came around her face, his fingers sinking into her hair, discarding the bonnet, jarring her jaw upward. Red marks circled his wrists. She gasped and he caught her mouth anew. He kissed her, long, deep, not allowing her breath and she clung to his shoulders until her legs got wobbly. She broke free to drag in air. He trailed kisses along her jaw, his hand moving along her neck, drawing her cloak open. She pushed at him with a feeble palm.
“Wyn, I—”
“You are mine, Diantha,” he uttered against her throat. “Mine.” No softly whispered words of affection or even relief, but gravelly possession like that night at the inn. His palm slid from her shoulder, around her breast, and their groans met in the darkness. He pressed his thigh between hers; she allowed it. Her body wanted this, but her heart was weeping.
“No. I cannot do this. Not after you were with a—a woman of ill repute last night.”
His hands swept into her hair, casting pins loose, holding her immobile. “I wasn’t with anyone last night, except you, in my dreams.”
“You weren’t?”
“How could I be with any other woman when I want only you?”
“But you said—”
“I lied. I lied.” He punctuated each utterance with kisses that fused her to him further. “I lied to make you refuse me, and I got what I wanted, but now I want you.” He tugged hard at her sleeve. Her breast bulged in the straining bodice. He touched her, sweeping his thumb beneath the fabric and over the nipple, and she felt his pleasure rumble in his chest beneath her palms. “And I will have you.” In one powerful move he swept her up into his arms. “Now. In a stable where, I think, you need to be had.” He took three strides, the stall door swung shut behind them, and he pinned her to the wall before her feet again met the floor.
She gasped for air. “I don’t want this.” But his hands were everywhere on her, and she was whimpering in need, pushing his coat off his shoulders. She had to feel him, to touch him one last time, anger tangling thickly with desire and desperation. “I don’t.” She spread her hands over the muscles of his chest and was weak inside with longing.
He pulled her hips hard against his. “I need you, Diantha.” His hands moved up her waist, curving around her breasts. “I crave you.”
“I suppose I should be flattered you consider me in the same category as brandy.” She tore at his waistcoat, tasting his jaw with her lips, pulling his shirttail from his trousers, seeking his skin, the taut, hot perfection of this man. “I won’t marry you. If you ask me again I will—”
“Have me.” He took her to the ground, pressing her into the sweet, fresh straw with the weight of his body. She rose to him, to feel him. Her skirts skipped up her calves then her thighs, gathered in his hands.
“You make me insane.” His voice was husky. Beneath the layers of fabric his hands surrounded her behind.
“Ohh, God.”
His mouth covered the soft part of her breast as his hand sought her below. He groaned touching her. She thrust herself to him, the hunger twining fast and desperate this time, the ecstasy of relief and need tumbling through her. He was not gentle; it gave him pleasure to caress her so, she thought, and she wanted that. She wanted to please him. She wanted to love him entirely.
“More,” she pleaded upon a whisper. “But I don’t— I don’t want you inside me. I don’t—uh—” Her body undulated beneath his touch. She threw her hand out to the wall, her eyes half closed and the beauty of her face exquisite as her pleasure grew. “We are not to marry,” she gasped, “and I don’t want you to get me with child. So, don’t—” The remainder of her protest was lost in a moan of pure feminine acquiescence as he slid his finger into her.
“Don’t put my hands on you?” Driven by her hot, primed beauty, his other hand moved to his breeches fastenings. “Don’t give you this?” Upon every thrust of his finger the creamy swells of her breasts above her bodice
