A Kiss to Remember (6 page)

The devil had come for him.

Although their appointment was long overdue, he had always expected to meet the devil face-to-face on some smoke-hazed battlefield, not while he was lying dead on his back in a stranger’s bed. And he hadn’t even had the decency to come alone. Instead, the old rogue had invited along a legion of demons that bounded up on the bed and began to swarm all over his helpless form.

One of them seized his big toe and began to worry the joint between its teeth while another scampered up and down his legs in a gleeful frenzy. He might have been able to endure that torture if a third demon hadn’t pounced between his legs, jabbing its needle-sharp claws into his most vulnerable flesh.

His eyes flew open. He struggled to lift his throbbing head, squinting through a chalky fog. It seemed the bed wasn’t swarming with demons after all, but with rats. The jolt that gave his raw nerves was nothing compared to the shock of discovering that the devil wasn’t a red-faced gentleman with horns and a pointed tail but a golden-haired, blue-eyed imp who hung upside down from the half-tester, peering intently into his face.

Without even considering the price his poor aching head would pay later, he shot straight up in the bed, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

Laura was basking in a tub of warm water behind a curtain in the corner of the kitchen when all hell was unleashed.

One minute she was half dozing with her head resting on the rim of the tub and her eyes closed; the next she was standing stark naked and streaming water in the middle of the tub, her every muscle tensed with shock.

The masculine roaring that filled the air was foreign to her ears, but she would have recognized the earsplitting shrieks anywhere.

“Lottie!” she breathed, her eyes widening.

Perhaps Dower had been right and the stranger
was
murdering them all. Surely having her pert nostrils slit
was the only fate dire enough to justify Lottie’s frightful squealing. Another voice joined the fray. Laura poked her head out of the curtain just in time to see Dower go charging past, pitchfork in hand and a steady stream of curses flowing from his lips.

Laura’s panic swelled. If she didn’t get upstairs, their guest might not be the one doing the murdering.

There was no time to towel off, no time to don the neat pile of underclothes she had laid out on a bench beside the tub. She jumped out of the water, wincing with pain when she hit her forehead on a copper kettle hanging from the rafters, then snatched up her clean dress and jerked it over her head. The pink muslin clung to her wet skin. Squandering only enough time to make sure the gown was covering everything pertinent, she untangled herself from the curtain and went flying, barefoot and dripping, through the hallway and up the stairs.

Laura was halfway to the second floor when the hellish cacophony ceased as abruptly as it had begun. She froze, gripping the banister.

Good heavens, she thought, Lottie must be dead! How else to account for the terrible silence that had fallen over the manor? Dread slowed her footsteps to a near crawl as she approached the yawning door of Lady Eleanor’s chamber. She peeked around the doorframe, half expecting to find the faded carpet strewn with golden curls and bloody limbs.

A very different sight greeted her.

Lottie stood in the middle of the bed, clutching a squirming armful of kittens to her chest. Her bottom lip was trembling, her big blue eyes brimming with tears. Lottie’s tears did not alarm Laura. The child had been
known to work herself into hysterics because George ate the last crumpet at teatime.

But she
was
alarmed by the feral snarl on Dower’s lips as he thrust his pitchfork toward the heaving chest of the man plastered against the wall between the windows.

Her heart leapt in her throat. It seemed Sleeping Beauty had awakened.

Although he was the one cornered and unarmed, he managed to look even more dangerous than Dower. His tawny hair was tousled, his eyes wild. Except for the quilt wrapped around his midsection and secured with a white-knuckled grip, he was as naked as Laura had been only minutes before. She stared without realizing it, distracted by his broad chest with its dusting of gold that arrowed downward to the tightly knit muscles of his belly.

He was forced to suck in that belly as Dower made another nasty swipe with the pitchfork. As the deadly tines passed just an inch from his flesh, he bared his teeth and growled low in his throat. Despite that primal warning, his helplessness tugged at Laura’s heart.

“Put down the pitchfork and step away from him, Dower,” she commanded.

“And give the bloody divil a chance to rip m’ throat out? I think not, missie.”

Since it appeared there was to be no reasoning with Dower, Laura fixed her hopes on the stranger. She sidled toward him, praying that he wouldn’t interpret her outstretched hand as a threat.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she said softly, her lips curving into what she hoped was a heartening smile. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

Her words might have been more convincing if Cookie hadn’t chosen that moment to come careening into the chamber, clutching a bloody hatchet. George was fast on her heels.

George rested his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath. “We heard the hullabaloo all the way down in the yard! It sounded like a piglet was being slaughtered.”

“What in the name of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus is goin’ on up here?” Cookie demanded, frantically scanning the chamber.

“Perhaps you should ask my sister,” Laura suggested, shooting Lottie a frigid look.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” Lottie wailed. “I just wanted to steal a peek at him. Then he started roaring like a lion and frightened me half to death and I fell down into the bed and started screaming and—”

“The little imp put rats in my bed.”

They swung around as one to gape at the stranger, surprised by the deep, cultured tones that had emerged from his mouth. Dower slowly lowered the pitchfork as the man shifted his glare to Laura’s sister.

Lottie was the first to regain her composure. She nuzzled one of the beasts in question beneath her pointy little chin. “They weren’t rats, sir. They were cats.”

He snorted. “There’s not much difference, as far as I’m concerned.”

Lottie gasped.

Cookie came bustling over to draw Dower out of the man’s reach. “There, there, you poor dear. I’m sure our little Lottie didn’t mean to give you such a fright.” Her motherly clucking might have been more soothing if she hadn’t still been gripping the bloody hatchet. Following
the stranger’s wary look, she tucked the weapon behind her back. “Don’t you mind old Cookie, now. I was just slaughterin’ a nice plump hen for your lunch.”

“Perhaps he’d prefer kitten stew,” Lottie suggested icily, her snub nose tilted at its most haughty angle.

“I was rather hoping for broth of brat,” the stranger shot back.

Laura didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Please don’t tax your strength so, sir. You’ve suffered a terrible shock. You’re not yourself right now.”

Everyone else in the room seemed to disappear as he turned that fierce gaze on her. “Then why don’t you tell me who the bloody hell I am?”

The emotion in the man’s
golden gaze was part fury and part plea, underscored by a panic that was almost palpable. If she didn’t act, and act quickly, someone in that room was going to blurt out something that would make her plan impossible.

“Oh, you poor darling.” Favoring him with her most sympathetic smile, she stepped forward and took his arm. “I can’t blame you for waking up in such a wretched temper after all you’ve been through.”

His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. “Why did you call me darling?”

“Why’d you call him darlin’?” Cookie repeated suspiciously, drawing the bloody hatchet out from behind her back.

Ignoring both of them, Laura turned, planting herself firmly between her guest and everyone else in the room. “What he needs right now more than our fussing and coddling is some peace and quiet.”

The man snorted. “I hardly consider being accosted
by a pack of rabid cats and a hatchet-wielding harpy ‘fussing and coddling.’ ”

Breaking free of Cookie’s grip, Dower lunged forward. “I’ll coddle you with this pitchfork, I will, if you speak ill o’ me missus again.”

Ducking beneath the tines of the makeshift weapon, Laura placed a soothing hand on Dower’s chest. “He doesn’t mean to be unkind. He’s just exhausted and confused. Which is why I’m going to have to ask the rest of you to leave us alone.”

Dower began sputtering anew. “You’ve gone plumb balmy in the ’ead if you think I’m leavin’ you all alone with that savage.”

“And a half-naked savage at that.” Cookie gave the quilt shielding the lower half of the man’s body a nervous look.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know as well as I do that he would never hurt me.” Laura stole a glance over her shoulder at the large, glowering stranger, hoping she was right. He’d looked much shorter and less menacing while unconscious.

“If he lays so much as a finger on you, gel, all you got to do is scream and I’ll come a-runnin’,” Dower promised, brandishing the pitchfork in the man’s direction.

“If she screams anything like her sister, I’ll be the one doing the running,” the man stiffly assured him.

Still grumbling, Dower and Cookie reluctantly filed out of the chamber, leaving Laura to retrieve Lottie and her armful of kittens from the bed. Lottie dragged her feet, sniveling most piteously until Laura leaned down and hissed, “March, young lady, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

While she shooed Lottie into the hall, George continued to lean against the doorframe, a thoughtful glint in his eye. Her brother had always known her better than anyone else and he obviously suspected that she was up to some mischief. When she turned her glare on him, he ducked out the door, but his smirk promised her that his cooperation wouldn’t come without a price.

“Sweet dreams,” he called to their guest just before Laura closed the door in his face.

She took her time twisting the brass key in the lock, then slowly turned to face her companion. She was already wondering if she had made a terrible miscalculation. Even garbed in nothing but a quilt and a scowl, he looked about as helpless as a hungry lion.

“Why did you call me darling?” he demanded again, as if the answer to that question was of more import than how he had ended up naked in Lady Eleanor’s bed.

“Just a habit, I suppose,” Laura replied, her expression one of studied innocence. “Would you prefer I call you something else?”

“You might try my name.” His steely tone suggested that she was already trying his patience.

“Your name?” She choked out a rusty laugh. “Well, we’ve never before had to stand on such ceremony, but if you insist…” Laura had always prided herself on her honesty. It was only by picturing herself trying to dig the dirt out from under Tom Dillmore’s fingernails on their wedding night that she was able to softly add, “… Nicholas.”

His bewildered scowl deepened. “Nicholas? My name is Nicholas?”

“Why, of course it is! Mr. Nicholas … Radcliffe,”
she added firmly, borrowing a suitably dashing surname from Lottie’s favorite author.

“Nicholas Radcliffe. Nicholas Radcliffe,” he muttered. “Damn it all! I can’t seem to make sense of any of this.” Slumping against the wall, he cradled his brow in his hand. “If I could only stop this infernal ringing in my head …”

Laura started toward him, drawn by genuine sympathy.

“Don’t!” He flung out a hand, glaring at her from between the strands of hair tumbled across his brow. It was almost as if she posed more of a threat to him than a crazed Cockney wielding a pitchfork.

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror that sat atop Lady Eleanor’s dressing table, Laura realized what a sight she must be. Her feet were bare, her cheeks flushed, her hair piled carelessly atop her head with dark tendrils tumbling this way and that around her face. The damp muslin bodice of her high-waisted gown clung to the gentle slope of her breasts. Torn between smoothing her hair and tugging her skirt down to cover the pale expanse of her ankles, she settled for awkwardly folding her arms over her bosom.

“We seem to have determined who I am. But that still doesn’t explain who
you
might be.” He cocked his head to study her, making her even more aware of her state of dishabille. “Or why you feel compelled to address me with endearments.”

He obviously didn’t recall their first meeting in the wood. Or their first kiss.

Since her folded arms no longer seemed adequate protection against his penetrating gaze, she tried to
distract him by plucking one of Lady Eleanor’s shawls from the armoire and wrapping it around her shoulders. “There’s a bit of a chill in the air, don’t you think?”

“On the contrary. I’m finding it rather warm in here. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I’ll be needing this quilt any longer.”