with his lips and tongue …
Linette’s destroyer. A rackrenter, who sought out the company of loose women.
Darkness enveloped her again. Flames were burning her. She could hear Katy crying, Mama, Mama, and Rosalie was struggling to get to her, but was powerless to save her. There is no hope, someone was saying, there is no hope.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Weakly she hauled herself up against the pillows, still light-headed, still nauseous. Daylight poured into the room. And she saw that Katy’s bed was empty.
She began to scream.
The door opened and Alec Stewart was there. Instantly he strode to her bedside. ‘Rosalie. You’re having nightmares—my God, you look as though you’re burning up!’
‘Katy.’ The tears were still rolling down her cheeks. ‘What have you done with Katy?’
‘She’s safe. Do you hear me?’
‘I must go to her. I must …’
He sat quickly on the chair by her bed and gripped her hands. ‘She’s downstairs, having breakfast. Mary is looking after her; she’s quite safe. You’re safe.’ He touched her forehead. ‘But you have a fever. You’re not fit to go anywhere.’
She was trying to pull away. ‘I must get up, I must get out of here.’
‘And go where precisely, damn it?’
She sank back, pulse thudding. She had no money. Helen’s house had been destroyed. And she was clad only in a loose nightgown—where were her clothes?
Alec had gone over to the dressing table and was pouring something from a jug into a cup. ‘Here,’ he said, coming back to her, his face strangely shadowed. ‘Drink this. It’s Mary’s barley water.’ He sat on a chair next to the bed, supporting her shoulders with one hand and holding the cup for her with the other hand. She felt as weak as a kitten. Her throat was parched, and the barley water was cold and pure. His hand was unnervingly comforting against her back. But—
‘You will be all right here,’ he emphasised softly. ‘Katy will be all right. Mary has her two young grandchildren here nearly every day while her daughter works at a bakery in Bishopsgate. The little girls are playing with Katy now and Katy is perfectly happy. I’m going to send for the doctor.’
‘No.’
‘I know that you hate this place, and me,’ he said quietly. ‘But unless you can tell me of somewhere else you can go—somewhere safe—you really have no option.’
She hesitated, her stomach pitching. ‘I will find somewhere …’
He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘If you insist. But I take it you’re going with a bodyguard to accompany you?’
The blood pounded through her veins. ‘What—what nonsense is this?’
‘Not nonsense, unfortunately. This was delivered at the house this morning.’ He passed the crudely written note to her. She took it with trembling fingers.
Stop asking questions, whore. Your friend has already suffered the consequences, and you’re next.
The writing. The notepaper … Her stomach lurched.
He said, ‘Do you know who it’s from?’
‘I think—I think it could be from the same person who has been threatening my friend Helen. The same writing. The same notepaper.’
He drew in a sharp breath. She went on, in a voice that shook despite all her efforts to control it, ‘This is ridiculous! I cannot be threatened like this; I will go to the constables, or a magistrate—they will help me!’
‘Save yourself the trouble,’ he said.
He didn’t need to explain. He’d told her before that no magistrate would take the trouble to listen to her. A courtesan who writes for a gossip rag. That was how he’d described her. ‘Then I am even more determined that we will leave here!’ she cried. ‘Katy and I, we will find somewhere …’ She was trying to push back the bedclothes.
‘No!’ he rasped, flinging out his arm to stop her. ‘Whoever it is, they’ll follow you—you and the child!’ Then, a little gentler, ‘I don’t make a habit of throwing women and children out on the street. Stay here.’
He must have seen the downright fear shoot through her. ‘I realise the idea doesn’t immediately appeal,’ he said. His eyes darkened. ‘But believe me, as soon as word goes around that you’re under my protection, you’ll be far safer than anywhere else in London. And rest assured I will require nothing of you at all. Except, perhaps, obedience.’
She swallowed, hard. ‘Then—you truly think I’m in danger?’
He pointed at the note. ‘Don’t you?’
She sank back against the pillows. Oh, Lord. Where else could she go? But how could she possibly think herself safe here, of all places?
Alec was mentally cursing himself. If he hadn’t gone to Dr Barnard’s to tackle Stephen, he would never have seen her. She’d have been left to deal with her own problems, which she’d surely brought upon herself. But—was she really used to earning her living on her back, as well as with her vitriolic pen?
She was trouble. Even in that voluminous nightgown, she was treacherously alluring. He remembered her slender waist, the sweet curve of her hips, the warm scent of her skin as he’d hauled her against him in that kiss, the last time she’d paid a visit to Two Crows Castle. The memory sent a nagging ache of need throbbing through his veins.
You fool, Stewart.
‘Have you decided?’ he asked curtly.
Her eyes looked bruised with distress. ‘Will you truly promise me Katy is safe here?’
‘Of course she is,’ he said. Safer than she was with you last night, since you were dragging her around the town. No. He wouldn’t rebuke her—yet—for her idiotic trust in his brother.
She drew herself up and said, with that air of defiant dignity that so confounded all his preconceptions of her, ‘Very well. For as long as the danger stands, I will—accept your protection.’
He nodded, as if it were a matter of as little importance to him as the hiring of a hackney cab. ‘I am overwhelmed by your gratitude,’ he said.
‘Some day you must let me pay you!’
He shrugged. ‘Why? Nobody else does.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Only those poor soldiers!’
‘My soldiers?’ He looked coldly angry now. ‘I’d like to make it quite clear that none of them pays me a penny.’
Oh, God. She bit her lip. For some reason she believed him. ‘I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were a—a …’
‘A
