style="font-size:15px;"> ‘The bitch. How the hell did she escape?’ That was Hemsley.
Faintly from inside the room she heard the indignant artist. ‘Gentlemen, you have made a mistake. Someone dropped off a note for their mistress earlier, then left again. No one is here …’
‘I am going to make Jack Hemsley sorry he was ever born,’ Nick said close to her ear. Under any other circumstances his tone might have been considered politely conversational.
Tallie shivered. ‘You are going to call him out?’ she whispered back.
‘Eventually.’ Nick lingered over the syllables as though savouring them. His tone changed. ‘Thank goodness for that, the moon’s out.’
It was intermittent, still partly obscured by the clearing rain clouds, but Nick seemed pleased, which as far as Tallie was concerned was all that mattered now. She was keeping upright by sheer will-power and the strength of his body and she was so cold that she could feel nothing else at all.
Nick moved as though to turn his body and she gave a little cry.
‘Shh. It is all right. The roof next door is lower than this one and almost flat, just a few more inches and we will be over it and can get down.’
How would that help? Tallie wondered hazily. How could you get off a roof?
‘I’m going to let you go for a moment, Tallie,’ Nick said firmly. ‘Just stay still, leaning back. It will only be for a second.’
Before she had a chance to protest he was gone. Terrified, her eyes tight shut, Tallie flattened herself against the wall and waited for the sickening thud from far below. When he spoke, his voice coming from the level of her ankles, she was so shocked that she lost her balance and tumbled straight off the ledge and into his arms.
‘Shh, it’s all right, my darling, I have you, we’re quite safe, off that ledge now.’
Tallie made a huge effort and opened her eyes. She was cradled in Nick’s arms as he walked across the flat leads of a house. She was also stark naked. The linen drape had vanished and her white skin was luminous in the moonlight. ‘Oh!’ Tallie tried to wriggle free, but Nick held her tightly.
‘As soon as we are in the house you can have my coat, I promise. No one can see us, we are still too high up. Can you stand for a moment?’
Without waiting for an answer he set her on her feet, steadying her with one hand while he bent to tug at a trapdoor let into the roof. ‘Damnation, it is bolted.’ He tugged a knife from his boot top and attacked the edge of the trap. The wood splintered with a sound like gunshot and the flap hinged open. ‘Sit down while I investigate—there can’t be anyone sleeping up here or they’d have appeared by now.’ He swung himself into the hole and vanished.
Tallie sank down onto the cold leads and peered into the blackness below. She was shivering uncontrollably now and it was very hard to focus and to think straight. Nick’s voice came up to her in a clear whisper. ‘Sit on the edge and drop, I’ll catch you.’
Beyond caring what she was falling into, Tallie did as she was told and was caught neatly and swung to the ground. Nick had already stripped off his coat and began pushing her arms into it like a nurse dressing a clumsy child. It was blissfully warm from his body, but the cold went so deep her very bones seemed frozen and the shivering did not stop.
Nick forced the door with as much ruthlessness as he had opened the hatch and led her out onto a landing. Peering over the balustrade, she could see the staircase descending into darkness.
‘Either all in bed, which seems unlikely, or out,’ he whispered. ‘Come on.’ Tallie took a faltering step and felt her legs go. The next moment she was caught up in Nick’s arms again and he was descending the stairs, step by cautious step.
When they reached the hallway she was vaguely conscious of him fumbling with the door lock, then they were out on the street and Nick was striding rapidly out of Panton Square, across Coventry Street and into the narrow mews entrance of Coventry Court. Goodness knows what this looks like, Tallie thought hazily, but no one raised an outcry. Nick whistled and a carriage emerged from the shadows.
‘All right, my lord?’
‘All right, Roberts. Drive us to Upper Wimpole Street, fast as you can.’
‘No one there,’ Tallie mumbled against Nick’s chest. ‘All gone … Putney.’
He lifted her onto the seat. ‘What did you say?’ Tallie made herself focus. ‘No one at Upper Wimpole Street. Gone away on a visit.’
‘Hell.’ The carriage door closed and she was vaguely aware of Nick in low-voiced conversation with the coachman. It all seemed a long way away. She wasn’t even very cold any more, just numb and dizzy and very sleepy …
She was so warm, so blissfully warm. Tallie lay with her eyes closed, letting her sore and aching body relax into the softness of the mattress. Over her there was the comforting feel of linen sheets, the reassuring weight of bedcovers. She nestled her head into the goose-down pillow and sighed gently, letting the memory of why she had so much wanted to be warm, why she seemed to be bruised all over, come seeping back into her half-conscious mind.
The studio, Jack Hemsley—and Nick appearing just in time to save her. So strong, so reassuring, and he had called her my darling. Tallie drifted back to sleep, dreaming of Nick, dreaming of his arms around her, the steady beat of his heart against hers, his strength and his courage as he got them both safe along that ledge and to freedom.
When she surfaced again the early morning sunlight was flickering on her closed lids. She was still deliciously warm, wherever she was. This was definitely not her bed, although that was not an alarming thought. She allowed the idea to penetrate her waking consciousness and with the realisation came the awareness that while she might be warm all over, it was her back, her buttocks, her thighs that were warmest. And they were warmest because she was curled up against another naked human being. And the weight over her waist was not the bedcovers, but an arm.
Tallie’s eyes snapped open onto closed green brocade bed curtains. Whoever she was curled up against was lying very still; their breathing was hardly audible. Tallie made herself relax and concentrate on what she could feel.
A long arm, still now but promising strength. A long body. A male body. Tallie might never have seen a naked man in the flesh, but she had seen enough drawings of classical nudes in Mr Harland’s studio to have a fairly clear understanding of the male anatomy. And the scent of him. Nick.
Before she could give herself time to think, Tallie levered herself up on the elbow she was lying on and twisted round to face the man behind her. It was a confused and tangled manoeuvre. Somehow she ended up with both his arms around her and her uppermost leg over both of his.
It brought them so close together that she had to tilt her head back to focus on his eyes. Those grey eyes with their long black lashes. They held hers and she could not pull her gaze away. Fascinated, she saw his pupils widen, the dark flecks expand until his whole gaze was almost blackly intent on her.
He did not speak; she seemed to have lost the power to. His breath feathered her lips and she felt them part as though welcoming a kiss. Her tongue touched her sensitive upper lip and she saw the awareness of it in his eyes, knew from the change in the breath caressing her mouth that his lips had parted in response.
