“Nevertheless, I am responsible.” He began at the top, his touch grazing her throat as he started his work, and damn him if the mere glancing connection did not make him burn. What was it about this woman that he could not resist?
“You are responsible for a great deal worse.” She gripped his hands, staying his motions. “I shall do this myself, Duke, if you please.”
“I have apologized for my actions,” he said stiffly. “You need not fear it shall happen again.”
“You will not shoot and then ravish me a second time?” Her tone was arch.
He winced at her acid tongue. “I did not force you.” He had not imagined her wild response, her wetness, or the power of her release.
“No.” Her gaze lowered to her hands, which still held his. “You did not.”
“Are you another man’s wife, Miss Palliser?” He had not intended to ask the question, for it emerged from his own personal need rather than from the threads of his investigation he was attempting to tie together.
“If I say that I am?” Her eyes met his once more.
“It will change nothing.” But even as he made the statement, he knew it for a lie.
“I am no man’s wife.” Her thumb stroked the top of his hand.
His cock twitched. He gritted his teeth, reminded himself why he was here. Who she was. Who they were to each other. It was necessity and duty, not want and desire. “Who is O’Malley?”
Her thumb continued its slow torture. “What do you know of him?”
Her interest was palpable. It occurred to him that she could still be lying to serve her own interests. Lord knew she had done it on every occasion they had spoken thus far. “I know he is one of the men responsible for plotting the attack on the Duke of Burghly,” he bit out. “I know he is in prison awaiting his reckoning. What do you know of him,Miss Palliser?”
She pushed his hands away as if they were fashioned of flame and she feared her dress would catch fire. “I know that he is innocent of the charges against him. Cullen would not murder a bee. He has a good heart.”
In her devotion to her cause, she forgot to tame her speech into the proper English elocution, and her brogue softened her speech. She spoke with the fiery passion of someone who loved him.
O’Malley… O’Malley… O’Malley…
Why was the surname so familiar, as if he had dreamt it before?
He stared at her, another forgotten name returning to him. It had been a year or more since he had last heard it.
“Bridget,” he said suddenly, the name leaving his lips before he could contain it.
She blanched, confirming his suspicions.
She was not Jane Palliser. She was Bridget O’Malley, sometime shop girl, half sister to the Duchess of Trent, suspected Fenian sympathizer. Though she had caught the attention of his men a year before, she had disappeared, all evidence of her and her involvement in the Fenian cause both, had gone dormant.
What an interesting development, and now he knew who she was, he would have his answers from her. All of them. A smile stretched his lips, and he still tasted her on his tongue, mingling with the sweet tang of victory. “Miss Bridget O’Malley, we meet at last.”
Chapter Nine
Bridget had tradedone gilded prison for another.
She stood at a window in the chamber she had been given at the Duke of Carlisle’s townhome and stared down into the bustling Belgravia street. It was a familiar pose. She had spent the weeks since her arrival at Harlton Hall observing the world beyond her window pane in one form or another, hopelessly trapped as any bird in a cage. And though she had vowed she would not sing, in the end, she had not needed to.
Carlisle had uncovered her identity on his own, connecting the trail of crumbs she had unwittingly left him. She had been so shocked from their encounter and his unexpected softness upon his return to her that when he had spoken her name aloud, she had given herself away. The duke was no fool. He was as wily as a fox. Though she had attempted to convince him he was wrong, the damage had been done.
He knew she was Bridget O’Malley. Half sister to Cullen O’Malley. Knew she was intertwined with the branch of the Fenians led by John that had been responsible for the Duke of Burghly’s murder in Dublin.
She, on the other hand, still knew nothing of what Carlisle planned to do with her or why he continued to keep her his prisoner instead of delivering her to jail. During their journey to London, they had traveled in icy silence, her wrists once more bound. When they had arrived at his palatial residence, he had cut her bonds with a grim air.
Do not do anything rash, Miss O’Malley. You will not like the consequences.
Even now, a day later, his dark warning sent a chill over her. Here she was, trapped as neatly as a fly in the spider’s web. About to become his dinner. Never mind the chamber in which he had installed her was the largest, most beautiful room she had ever laid eyes on, the sort of room she had not imagined existed. The bed and linens seemed dearer than gold, and everything smelled sweet and rich. The drapes were thick, the carpet plush, the pictures on the walls breathtaking. Whoever had decorated this room, from its polished, ornately carved headboard, writing table, and wardrobe, to its adjoining bathing chamber fitted with running water and a massive tub, had spared no expense.
