Samuel intervened. “I will see the bath prepared, Your Grace.”
“Shall I attend her, sir?” Annie asked, her tone reluctant and more than just a trifle bitter.
He ought to allow the duty to fall to her, it was true. But he did not trust the banshee tied to the bedposts not to fillet poor Annie and eat her liver for dinner, leaving her to bleed out on the floor whilst she made good her escape. Nor did he particularly trust Annie, albeit in a different fashion. He suspected the two women possessed different shades of cruelty.
“I alone shall attend her.”
Though he very much hated to accept the task, it must be him. She was cunning and crafty,Jane Palliser, and she knew how to fight. In a word, she was dangerous.
In two, damned dangerous. And since she had risen from the nearly dead, she was once more his albatross to bear.
“Very good, Your Grace.” Samuel nodded.
Annie’s expression soured. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be proper.”
Leo raised a brow and pinned her with the stare he used upon everyone who dared to oppose him. “The lady cannot be entrusted to anyone’s care but mine. She is very treacherous and would think nothing of shooting you in the heart if it would suit her purposes.” When Annie paled, he flashed her a taut smile. Occasionally, he forgot what it was like to be someone who did not expect lethal force, mayhem, and perfidy at every opportunity. “Never fear. I shall not allow her to harm you; that is merely why I must attend her myself.”
“Yes.” Annie swallowed, eyes wide. “Of course, Your Grace. We must and shall defer to your judgment.”
“Indeed,” he told her coolly. “You shall. Samuel, I expect the bath readied within the next half hour. Annie, have Cook prepare some clear broth and a light tea as a repast afterward. Perhaps some gruel. I expect she will be hungry as well. She looks too thin by half.”
Though why he should give a damn about her appearance or whether or not she ate properly was beyond him. Indeed, he should not. But there it was again, something abouther, that infernal woman. She dogged him, taunted him by her mere presence in his home. By her wide, blue eyes, the purple crescents beneath each. Her dirty shift, her dull, matted black hair. Even in her current state, she was more beautiful than any woman should be.
The footman nodded and left, hastening to his task, returning Leo to the responsibilities at hand. But the maid lingered.
She approached him after Samuel had gone, her blue eyes glittering with undisguised sensual intent. “Perhaps I could assist you later this evening?”
Perhaps she could warm his bed was what she meant to ask. The answer was no. Still no. Resounding.
“I fear I shall be otherwise occupied,” he told her.
Her expression closed as she dipped into another curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
And then she was gone, leaving Leo once more alone. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Hundreds of assignments over the years. He had dealt with villains, criminals, the most barbaric acts and men he had ever known. He had made decisions, led men to their deaths, to their adulations, to their ruin, to their triumph. And yet, in all those years, in all those deeds, he had never once hungered for the person at the center of his investigations.
Now, today, as all the days since he had first clapped his eyes upon her, he did.
He wanted his bloody prisoner. His body knew it. His cock understood it all too well. Regardless of her identity—who she was, where she had been, what she had done—he could not deny he remained attracted to her. Some wicked, deep-seated part of him whispered she was his.
The prisoner. Jane Palliser. The Irishwoman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The one woman who managed, whenever he looked upon her face, to render him speechless. That was who he wanted. That was who he needed.
It was also who he could never, ever have. He banished all such unwanted thoughts from his mind and stalked back to where he had begun. His feet carried him back up the narrow staircase. Back to the door leading toher.
Miss Jane Palliser, or whoever the bloody hell she actually was. One thing was certain: she had lied to his sister-in-law about her qualifications. He vowed he would uncover the truth about her, beginning with her name. The more she longed to withhold it from him, the more he wanted it.
When he re-entered the chamber, he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
Miss Palliser’s cheeks were wet. Her gaze met his and she sniffed, attempting to school her features into an expressionless mask. But it was of no use, for he had already glimpsed her. The real her. And he would now use it against her.
“A bath is being prepared for you in my chamber,” he announced, closing the door at his back, before striding across the small chamber to her bedside. “You have been weeping, Miss Palliser. Why?”
She stiffened, tugging at her wrists as her eyes blazed into his. “Because I am in pain, Your Grace. I have been tied to this bed as if I am no better than an animal.”
“You have earned your treatment with your own actions, madam,” he reminded her.
“I have done nothing wrong,” she denied, stubborn and beautiful to the last.
Even after having been ill with infection and fever, even bedridden for days and only just now on the brink of recovery, his prisoner was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. She took his breath and enraged him, intrigued him and confounded him, in equal measures.
