Bodice Ripper Page 10

  "I could get the word to him that I would do him a favor, if he did me a favor—tit for tat, if you will." He smiled, as if she would appreciate the gesture. "I'm sure that with the craziness going around about soldiers back home on leave, if I told him how much you... appreciated His Majesty's soldiers, he'd be willing to overlook any indiscretions."

  It took every fiber in her being not to lose her control right then and there. But if she did that, then she'd have lost already. She needed to give James time, as much time as she could give him. Until he got back to Dover with something they could use, she needed to play along. Not that it made her feel any better. She took a deep breath to steady herself before she answered.

  "Can I have some time to consider it, sir?"

  22

  James

  The train ride had been slower than he could have imagined. By the time on his watch, it took the same, but James decided that he must have forgotten to wind it; it had felt considerably longer.

  The cab was small, but he didn't need much space. Just enough for a change of clothes and his own broad shoulders, that touched on both sides. The driver got the horses going at a clip, and for that at least, James was thankful.

  His jacket was wrinkled from the long days of near-constant travel, and he was afraid that if he did much more then it would tear. He leaned forward and struggled to get it to slide off, and then laid it out across his lap.

  "Where you going, sir?"

  "The Geis estate, do you know the place?"

  "Outside of town, I'll have to charge you extra, sir."

  "That's quite alright," James said with a wave of his hand. He didn't have time for these sort of distractions. He needed to get back immediately. They started to trundle along the street, bouncing with the bumps and pits in the road, and for a moment James tried to turn off his brain. It would be easier that way, if he could manage it.

  When he came back to the world, he wasn't immediately sure where they were, but they weren't outside of town yet. The cab turned down another street, and he started to recognize buildings again. No, they weren't outside of town yet. But they were close.

  He laid his head back and examined the awning that made up the roof of the cab. He'd almost expected it to be grimy, but the wood had either been recently replaced, or else had been carefully polished.

  James made a mental note to tip the man handsomely, and then a loud wail went up. German bombers were on the way, and everyone had better get to a shelter. The cab slowed, and then stopped. James stepped out and looked up at the driver.

  "I don't suppose I could offer you extra to go the rest of the way?"

  The man gave a look that bordered on apologetic, and shook his head.

  "No sir, I gotta get my family."

  "Well," James said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a billfold, "here."

  He handed over a little more than he owed and picked his things up. It was only a couple kilometers. If he hurried, he could be there in twenty minutes. Just in time for things to go wrong.

  For a moment, he walked, carrying his bag and jacket. Then he thought better of it, pulled anything he could from his jacket pocket, and transferred it to his trousers.

  Then he started to jog, and then his strides spread out into a full run. If he wagered it right, he could cut his time in half. As he ran, a noise pulled him out of his fog. He narrowly avoided a car running down the street. That would be Mary and her uncle, then.

  She couldn't be safe with Oliver around, he knew, but they couldn't stop him without proof. As long as she got to shelter, everything would be fine. He redoubled his efforts.

  By the time he arrived, people were streaming out the front door, nearly a dozen men and women, few of them carrying more than the clothes on their back. He stood back and watched.

  They were the servants he'd let go, all right. Whether or not Davis had been involved in whatever Oliver was doing or not, he'd made sure to hire the same staff back on.

  One face stood out, though, and he had to blink and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. Was that...?

  "Mary!"

  She looked up. They all looked up, but most of them went back to what they'd been doing before. She had to push through the pack of people, all of them moving in towards town, as she tried to cross the road to him.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Pearl is dead. Someone shot him."

  James wanted nothing more than to draw her up into an embrace, and kiss her, to take her away and damn the consequences. But the people who shot a second-rate lawyer from two towns over on suspicion that he'd been working for someone who knew their secrets wouldn't let that happen. They'd be dead before they made it back to London if he didn't deal with it now.

  "I don't understand," Mary was saying.

  He kissed her and fished in his pocket, then pressed the key to his flat into her hand.

  "Take this. When the raid is over, if you can, take the train to London. Stay in my flat, I should be paid for the rest of the month. I'll come back for you. I promise."

  "I want to stay with you," Mary pleaded. He looked down at her, so afraid and vulnerable. He wished that she could stay with him, but it wasn't time yet.

  "No. It's not safe. Go on, Mary, before they all leave you behind. With all those people around, you'll be able to blend into the crowd. Wait! Before you go, I have one question. Which room is your uncle's?"

  Her directions were good. Up the stairs, take a left, down the hall. He could have drawn a map himself, though he'd only gone up the stairs a handful of times. When he got there, the door was closed and locked.

  The lock, surprisingly, held up when he put his shoulder into the door. The frame around it, on the other hand, splintered in after a few hard kicks. A shame, really, James thought. They don't make them like they used to, any more.

  The room was largely barren. A footlocker sat at the foot of the bed, and he tried the lock. Closed. He looked around for a minute. Was there anyplace easier to look?

  A satchel beside the locker, simply zipped up. He opened the zipper and upended the bag onto the bed. A day's clothing, a shaving kit, and a bar of soap. The Colonel was a simple man, and he traveled light.

  James sat back against the side of the bed and breathed. What now? The entire caper had been done in less than a day. Whoever had done it, there was a way to tie it back to Oliver Geis. James was sure of that much, but what?

  With a sigh, he started the walk across the estate to his room. He pulled the zipper on his bag, and pulled a pistol from it, checked the chamber to ensure that it was loaded, and slipped it into his pocket.

  The house was eerily silent, he noticed now. It seemed almost surreal; the sirens had been audible even from this distance, but now in the belly of the house, he could have heard a pin drop. He came back to the master bedroom, took aim with his pistol, plugged his ear as best he could, and shot.

  The bang was deafening, and when he opened his eyes the entire lock mechanism had been blown off. He opened the footlocker. There were large scorch marks where his bullet had gone in, but inside were scores upon scores of letters, each of them addressed to Oliver Geis.

  James didn't have time to read them, but some were clearly written in German—and then from behind, he heard a man clear his throat.

  He turned slowly. There was no reason to rush, now, after all. James knew who it had to be.

  Oliver Geis stood in the door, a couple of men flanking behind him. Davis was one, and the other had been the other man who threw him out. James backed up into the bed and watched them with his tired eyes.

  "Mr. Poole, I'm so glad to see that you've returned."

  "Colonel Geis."

  "So sorry that you won't be staying long." He smiled briefly, a cruel expression that held no happiness. "Davis, Richard, you know what needs to be done."

  Oliver stepped back, and then the two men exploded into action. James fired a shot that went wide, and a second that struck the second man, Ri
chard, in the gut. He went down to the ground and didn't move to get back up. He didn't have time for a third shot before Davis's fist hit him square in the gut.

  James had been focused on the gun, so he hadn't braced for the hit, and he folded near in half and dropped it. He couldn't take a breath, and couldn't see straight, but he pushed himself straight upright.

  Another fist came barreling down, cracking him hard on the jaw, and he fell to the floor. Davis kicked the gun away and moved up to sit on his chest, pulling a fist back to start pounding the steward's face into mincemeat.

  In a last ditch effort, James threw his body up and to the side, and Davis was thrown off. Mr Poole didn't waste a moment in scrambling to press his advantage. He didn't bother with a punch, but set his knee into the butler's throat and put his weight down hard.

  James could see Oliver, across the room, bent down to pick up the gun. He jumped up without a moment's thought and dove shoulder-first into the Colonel.

  Then the room exploded.

  23

  Mary

  Mary had been in the house for more than a week, and she'd barely had a minute to herself the entire time. Nobody came calling, nobody asked why she was there. Nobody pushed her to explain how she'd come to reside in a man's apartment with the man out. She'd been alone with her thoughts, and that was so much worse.

  When she'd gotten there, she was sick from worry about everything—about the bombs falling, about what people would think. About what they would do to stay away from her uncle if they were even able to implicate him in anything at all.

  Then she'd started worrying about bigger issues. James hadn't come back, and where was she going to stay? By the time she'd made it to London, presses in Yorkshire were already running with the story that the Geis estate had been nearly destroyed in the bombing.

  If she was kicked out of this place, she had no place to go back to. The hotel wasn't safe; she'd be caught. If she wasn't caught, what would happen when her father's money ran out? It had to happen, and if James had told her the truth, it would happen soon.

  She thought that her father's fortune could afford to pay the rent, if she could access it, but there was further the question of who to pay it to. She hadn't seen anyone since she had walked through the front door, nine days ago. She had found it quite nice, to be able to be by herself. Now she was beginning to go mad from the isolation.

  James... she had tried, for a while, not to think about him. It seemed easier that way. When she slept, though, she dreamed of him, and woke in a pool of sweat. When her mind wandered, visions of him danced before her eyes, and a tightness clutched her chest.

  She tried to think of the times they'd spend together, even in this very room, and remember the surge of emotions she'd felt with him. But it didn't help her feel better. Instead, it just made the aching in her chest feel worse.

  When she had gotten the paper on the train to London, and heard that her house had collapsed, she'd been so sure that he had made it out alive. He'd promised to her, promised to come back to her. And yet, as the days passed, she was realizing more and more that it was hopeless.

  Wherever he was, he wasn't coming back to her. Probably, he was buried under the rubble, and if he'd found anything that could have protected her from her uncle, then it had been buried with him.

  Mary shook her head. She couldn't afford that sort of thinking, not now. She needed to be strong, like everyone else with husbands or sons in the war. The only difference was that her war was back in Dover. She took a deep breath and let it out, and tried to count her blessings.

  It had been nine days, and she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Oliver. Davis had been with him when she'd seen them leaving the house, and Davis knew about the apartment. Maybe there was some soft feeling for her left in his heart. But the thought didn't make her feel any better.

  She much preferred the idea that James had stopped them, that he'd succeeded even if he hadn't made it out alive. However he had stopped them, she knew, there was little chance that they were still coming after her. If they were going to then they would have done it already.

  She laid back in the bed, the bed that she and James had shared their first night together in. She could still smell him on the sheets, could feel him on top of her, his weight giving her a comforting feeling of safety. Could remember the way he moved inside her.

  Mary nearly jumped when she heard a rap at the door, the first visitor in days. This was it, she thought. Finally, the landlord had come, and he was going to evict her. She straightened and smoothed her dress and tried to look as presentable as possible. Nothing untoward here, she reminded herself. She needed a place to stay, and her steward had offered the use of his house while he was out.

  Until he got back.

  The words drifted through her mind and hit her like a punch in the gut. She wiped the wetness from her eyes, blinked until she had control of herself, and opened the door.

  She saw the cast first. It was large and white and drew the attention of most people who saw it. It took up his entire lower arm on his right side.

  James Poole stood outside his flat, on a pair of rough-cut crutches. He carried his weight hard on one leg, and he had a single red rose in his hand.

  For a moment, Mary could feel her anger flash, red and hot, and she wanted to slap him.

  "James Poole, do you have any idea how much you scared me!" She settled for balling her fists up at her sides. "Not a letter, not a word to me, for a week!"

  She could feel her tears welling up again, and she tried to push them away, but it was a losing effort.

  "I thought you were dead, and I didn't—I couldn't—"

  She took a step back and pressed her back against the wall. It was as much a crutch to her as the ones under James's arms, and without it she would have fallen right down.

  He waited outside the door for her, until she took a deep breath and turned to him. She wanted a response, but none was forthcoming. He smiled before he spoke, and she already wanted to slap him again.

  "I'm sorry, Miss, I seem to have misplaced the key to my flat."

  He laughed, a deep sound that came from his belly, and she hated and loved him for it. He took a step into the house and winced when his foot touched the doorstep.

  "Do you need any help?"

  "No," he lied. "I can get around well enough, if I take my time."

  He hobbled across the room and fell into the sofa.

  "What happened?"

  "I don't remember that well. It happened quickly, so I've only been able to piece some of it together after." He took a deep breath and rubbed his knees. "I found your uncle's footlocker, and it was full of letters. I'm guessing it must have been blackmail of some kind. I remember that several of them were from Germans."

  Mary sat across from him and motioned for him to continue.

  "Oliver is dead. Last I saw, Davis was in critical condition, but he looked bad. The third man, whatever his name was—I shot him when he came at me."

  "No," she said softly. "They left, I saw them."

  "They saw me when I was heading out of town, and must have doubled back. I think your uncle was working with the Germans, on something. Your father got mixed up in it. They probably offered him a big payoff if he fronted some of the money."

  James looked up to see if Mary was listening, and she was.

  "Well, I guess he backed out—that would have been when he hired me, I guess—and then they killed him over it."

  They were both silent for a long time. Mary knew, really, that neither of them knew what had really happened. It was a lot of guesswork, and if the house had come down then in all likelihood the evidence was gone. Finally, James broke the silence once more.

  "I do have one last question, though."

  She could see his face, and could see he thought he was being clever again. She couldn't help but smile seeing it. He was a fool, but she loved it about him. She said the words he was obviously waiting to hear.

  "What's that?" />
  "Mary Geis, will you marry me?"

  Mary blushed, and then crossed the room to him. He was seated, and looked up at her. For a moment, she was taller than him, and she thought that was the way she wanted it. Then she leaned down, looked him in the eye, and kissed him.

  He kissed her again, hard. She could feel the electric want that was running through him.

  She almost didn't realize what she was doing until her lips were already on his...

  That said, her roaming hands gave him tacit permission—he let one hand drop, cupping her firm round ass cheek in one large, powerful hand and giving it a squeeze...

  His hands explored the soft curves of her body, the long lines of her legs...

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  I'm naked, touching myself, and thinking about you...

  He moves between her hips, her legs propped up around his waist...

  I have a dangerous job. One that means I can't get distracted by any woman that comes near me.

  But she was the perfect damsel in distress, and she was irresistible. The way she licked me. The way she touched me. The way she felt when I was inside of her.