If You Desire - Cole Kresley - Страница 6

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Returned after ten years.

"You doona remember me?"

Oh, yes, she did. And remembering how she'd fared the last time the Highlander had drifted into her life, she wondered if she mightn't have been better off trampled by a drunken horde.

Outside, instead of following the general flight down Haymarket, Hugh immediately ducked down a back alley behind a gin palace, then set her on her feet.

Before she could say a word, he began pawing her again. "Were you injured?" he barked. While she could only sputter, he pulled up her skirts again to check her legs, then rose to fist his hands around her arms, dragging his palms down them from her elbows to wrists to fingers, checking for breaks, sprains. Amazingly, she felt herself to be unharmed.

"Jane, say something."

"I…Hugh?" Somehow he was here for her, though she scarcely recognized him. It was Hugh, but itwasn't . "I-I'm all right." Soon, yes,soon , she would catch her breath and stop gazing up at him.

How many times had she imagined their first time meeting after so long? She'd envisioned herself coldly sighing and spurning him as he begged her to marry him. He would plead for forgiveness for abandoning her without a word.

How different reality was proving.Of course , Jane would be quite foxed and capable of little more than dumbly staring. Oh, yes, and fresh from a police raid and near death by stampeding.

As he lightly tweaked her crooked mask, he exhaled a long breath. "Ah, lass, what in the hell were you thinking, coming here?" Though his looks were altered, his voice was the same—that deep, rumbling brogue that used to make her melt.

Buying time to collect herself, she drew back and brushed off her torn skirts. "This would have been perfectly safe if the proper bribes had been paid."

"Is that so?"

"Quite." She nodded earnestly. "I'm writing a letter to management." She could tell he couldn't decide if she was serious or not. Jane did have a tendency to joke at inappropriate times.

When she began untying her mask, he said, "Keep that on for now. Till I get you in a cab—"

More whistles sounded, and a harsh horn trumpeted the arrival of a police wagon. Hugh took her hand and strode forward, quickly putting distance between them and the warehouse—and her group.

"Hugh, you must stop. I have to go back!"

He ignored her.

When she tried to dig in her heels, he easily pulled her along. "Hugh! My cousins and my friend are still back there."

"They're fine. But if you go back in your condition, you'll get arrested."

"In my condition?"

"Drunk."

"Well, since you've addressed it, I will tell you that, in mycondition , the idea of going back to save my friends feels imperative and quite achievable."

"Will no' happen."

The alley finally ended, and they reached a cabstand. So Hugh was sending her home for the night? Perfect. She'd let the cabbie go a block, and then she'd get out and return.

As ever, a score of drivers geared up to jockey and wrangle for the fare. But Hugh held up one finger with a look that subdued even this lively bunch, then pointed to the nicest-looking cab. The chosen cabbie eased his vehicle over, all obliging.

Hugh tossed Jane inside, then turned to direct the driver to his mount on the next street over. When she realized Hugh was accompanying her, Jane opened the opposite door and heedlessly climbed out.

"Damn it, Jane." He loped around the carriage after her, swooping her to his side with his arm around her waist.

She was being carried again and could do little more than drunkenly blink behind her mask.

"Your friends are safe," he repeated as he tossed her back in, keeping a fist in her skirts as he joined her. He slammed one door, then reached over her to slam the other. Once they'd begun to roll along, he finally relaxed a fraction.

He'd never forget catching sight of her inside, then seeing her disappear in that swarm of people. Never, not as long as he lived.

"How do you know they're safe?" she demanded.

"I saw Quin go in, no' five minutes before me. And trust me, Quin will no' let his sisters stay to look for you."

Jane's eyes narrowed. "What was he doing there?"

"He suspected his sisters would attend."

She quirked an eyebrow, glancing out the window in the direction of the warehouse. "Really?" When she said the word slowly like that with her proper English accent, it always sounded like "raaaally."

Oh, yes, she was very suspicious. She hadn't climbed out her window tonight for no good reason.

She suddenly gasped, facing him. "B-but we were separated from Maddy!"

"Is she the blonde in the blue dress?"

"You noticed her?" Jane stilled. "I didn't think blondes were your type."

He frowned at her tone. "Apparently, they're my brother's. Ethan is intent on the lass and went in to…talk to her." Even after Hugh had followed him inside and warned him yet again not to seek out the girl, Ethan was undeterred. "Your friend Maddy—"

"Madeleine. Madeleine Van Rowen."

Van Rowen. The name hit him. His brother could not be lusting after that one. What in the hell would Ethan do when he discovered whose daughter she was?

"Your friend will be fine."At least from the crowd and the police. "Ethan will no' let her be hurt."By anyone else . "But when you see her again, you might want to warn her about Ethan. He's no' the most honorable of men."

Another understatement. Hugh would like to say Ethan had changed after he'd received the injury to his face. Or when his fiancee had died the night before their wedding. But Ethan had always been a rough, roguish sort, showing a marked indifference to feelings and forming few attachments even as a young man.

"Oh." Then she frowned. "Actually, Hugh, you might want to warn your brother about that one. Little Maddy's not as sweet and helpless as she looks. I'd worry more about Ethan." He cast her a doubting expression, but she ignored it and said, "So, both Quin and your brother were there. I wonder, what wereyou doing in a place like that?" When Hugh simply shrugged, her lips thinned. "No need to answer, I can imagine. Curious, though, that you're not scandalized thatI was there."

Did she want him to be? Of course, he hated it, hated that she was in a place so rife with danger. "Nothing you do could shock me, Jane."

"No comments on my behavior?"

"You're a woman grown, are you no'?"

"Hugh, you don't have to interrupt your night's revelry just to take me home." Her tone was almost cutting. "And there's another establishment very like the Hive, not too far away. I could give you directions. Much amusement for a man to have inside."

"I dinna go for that," he answered quietly.

"Then why on earth were you there?"

He studied the window beside her as he muttered, "Heard you might be." He glanced back at her. Her sudden smile was as baffling as it was devastating to him. Never taking her eyes from his, she untied her mask. Somehow she made that small movement sensual—as if she were undressing her body for him alone.

Want tightened his every muscle, and he leaned closer to her, even as instinct screamed for him to ease away.

She dropped the mask; he stifled a curse. Goddamn it, how could she have grownmore beautiful? He'd hoped he might have imagined how lovely she'd been. He'd thought she would have lost the first blush of youth, the fire in her personality diminishing. Seeing her again now, he knew these qualities wouldnever fade.

An old question arose for the thousandth time: Would he have been better off never having met her?

Right now, he believed so, yet he was still greedy for the sight of her, studying her face at leisure, savoring.

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