The Hellion (The Lady Knights of Barony Book One ) (10 page)

She rubbed her pale flesh as she turned to leave. Dolly turned her pleading eyes to Dorian one last time as she stood framed in the doorway. Dorian’s resolved hardened.

“I won’t leave without her,” he growled as he jammed his cheroot into a nearby crystal ashtray. “Be ready to depart this inn at dawn.

Julian had remained stony and silent over the last two days of their journey and Ava didn’t know if it was because she’d been into a position to kill him or because he’d failed in his seduction.

Failed? No. Julian didn’t know it, but he’d conquered her body and soul. Not a second passed when that kiss wasn’t running through her mind. As they rode together in the saddle, both their backs ramrod straight to keep from touching for too long, not a word had passed between them. Yet words hadn’t been needed. A disconcerting heat passed between them, growing and swelling until Ava thought the two of them would both go up in flames.

Simon remained silent as well, although Ava suspected he’d really been awake that night and heard everything. She’d caught him stealing little glances at her, his eyes narrowed as if he were trying to figure something out but he never spoke.

The last two days had gone by in a blur of long hours in the saddle, dry oatcakes and more rabbit at mealtime, and quiet nights on her pallet under the stars. She and Julian seemed to have reached some sort of understanding, and the only time he touched her was when he was binding or unbinding her wrists with his ropes.

Ava now paced the small room at the inn where Julian had placed her under lock and key hours before. She knew the area well. Cardenas was only a day’s ride away.

For now, he left her in a windowless room, unbound, knowing that she had no means of escape. The spartan room contained only a small bed, a table with two chairs, a lit candle and a chamber pot and washing basin concealed behind a screen. Unless she wanted to bash Julian’s head in with the empty chamber pot, there wasn’t a weapon to be found or made. She supposed she could burn him with candle wax, but the pitiful stub barely held enough to coat her fingers. Not that she needed to make a run for it.

She was only one more day away from finding Blake and the kidnapped women, one day away from being free of Julian.

Strangely, just thinking of watching him walk out of her life forever made her feel empty. Oddly, she would miss their verbal sparring. Ava couldn’t believe it, but she would actually miss his constant ribbing and needling. It reminded her of her relationship with Vernon, but with a definite twist. Where she had absolutely no physical desire for Vernon, she could not say the same about Julian.

Could this be that feeling her friends had told her about? Could this be what Queen Isabelle felt for King Serge? The two were constantly at each other’s throats and when they weren’t he was making her smile with one of his witty quips. Moments later, the two could be seen kissing amorously. Within a few hours, the cycle would begin again and one would be left wondering how the two could stand the sight of each other.

However, Serge loved Isabelle and Ava had watched from a distance as Isabelle grew to love him back. Ava had always seen their fights as a natural extension of their passionate natures.

When she thought of Julian, she was immediately infuriated by what he’d done. She could not pretend to approve of what he was or what he’d been willing to do to her for money. Yet Ava couldn’t help the sympathy she felt for the young unclaimed boy Julian had been. Then of course, there was the way her body reacted in his presence. Just the thought of him now caused awareness to prickle at the back of her neck. It was insanity, pure and simple.

The sound of a key turning in the lock jolted Ava out of deep thought. Her heart pounded as she whirled toward the doorway expecting to find Julian. Relief flooded her when she found Simon there instead. She was not ready to face Julian just yet.

“This is probably the only time we’re going to have to speak alone, so I’ll get right down to it,” he said, not bothering with pleasantries.

Ava was taken aback by this, but managed to keep her face trained in an expression of indifference. She nodded and swept her arm toward the table, offering Simon a seat there. The two sat across from each other, the tiny candle stump flickering between them.

“What in God’s name is going on between you two?” Simon demanded, gripping the edge of the table tightly.

Ava didn’t even try to feign ignorance. “If I knew I would tell you.”

Simon wasn’t backing down. “I’ve known Julian my entire life and I’ve never seen him act this way around any woman, especially a lady.”

“I wasn’t...”

“I know,” he interjected with a wave of his hand. “I know you know that I was awake that night. I heard your story. It’s just that in the past even that wouldn’t have been enough to make Julian want you. The way he’s been treated by the nobility, he avoids them and everything they stand for. Last week that would have meant you, but now I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ava huffed indignantly. Her nature was one of quick decision; muddled confusion was new to her. “The two of you kidnapped me—”

“We have our reasons.”

“Kidnapped me!” she bellowed, rising to her feet. Her hands curled into fists on the table. “You mean to turn me over to Blake, a man who didn’t bat an eyelash as he made off with at least two dozen women right before my eyes. Julian hasn’t said a word about a change in plans and you want me to believe that he cares about me in some way? Will he release me from this room and send me on my way?”

“We both know what your plans are concerning Blake.”

“Julian does not. He still means to turn me over to him.”

Simon’s shoulders sagged in defeat.

“You’re a proud woman, Ava. You have reason to be from everything I know about you. Julian’s prideful too, you know, and because of it, the two of you could miss something. Hell, I don’t know what it is but I know it would be good for him. You were right when you said a home was where the people you love are. I think you’re the only one who can teach him that.”

Simon stood to leave and Ava felt her will dissolving. “What if he doesn’t want what I could offer him? What if we’re both wrong?”

This uncertainty was also foreign to her. It made her feel weak, something that she’d never experienced since the day she’d killed her mother’s rapist at the age of seven.

“What if we’re right?”

His final words remained in the room long after he’d passed through the door and locked it behind him.

What if we’re right?

If Ava was right, then the rapture she’d never experienced was now within her reach. She’d always wondered if there was something wrong with her, some reason why she’d never felt that spark for anyone. If a man as handsome and virile as Vernon couldn’t even arouse her appetite, then what man could?

Ava allowed her eyes to drift shut, hoping to catch at least an hour of rest before Julian inevitably arrived to check on her. Besides, if she was asleep, there was no way she could allow rational thought to invade and change her mind.

Julian Vincent.

He was the answer.

Julian stood in the doorway to the room he was sharing with Simon and watched as his friend slowly closed and locked the door to Ava’s room across the hall. He was moving as if he didn’t want anyone to hear or see him. As if he had something to hide.

Jealousy gripped Julian, coming upon him so suddenly that he felt weak from the force of it. His fingers tightened and curled into fists as Simon turned silently away from the door. The two came face to face, Julian’s cold, hard eyes lowering the temperature of the air around them by several degrees.

“How’s our little prisoner?”

Simon’s sigh hinted at agitation, which was further pronounced by the exaggerated rolling of his eyes.

“Honestly Julian, why don’t you just throw her over your shoulder and carry her off into the sunset already?”

Julian’s eyes drew into narrow slits and his arms crossed defensively over his chest.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you and your obsession with our ‘little prisoner’. You want her, Julian, and maybe if you weren’t so bullheaded you would see that she wants you too.”

This gave Julian pause. Of course, he wanted the little hellcat. But what could he offer her? A home bought with dirty money, that was what he could give her. Lady Ava Longley had no need of him and quite frankly, he wasn’t very excited at the possibility of her rejection. Why should she accept him after what he’d done?

No, the best thing to do would be what he’d wanted to do days ago. He was going to set Ava free and give Blake his money back. It was the least he could do, seeing as how he didn’t have the heart to leave her in the hands of such a lecher. Or he did have the heart. Therein lay the problem.

He couldn’t allow his feelings for one woman to derail his plans. Another job would come and money would follow. Within the year, that house on the hill would be his. Honest living would be his. Perhaps even a wife and kids would be in his future, once he no longer lived a life unsuitable for that sort of thing. By then she would be long gone and better off for having left him.

“I’m letting her go, Simon,” he admitted, his gut twisting as he said the words.

But I don’t want to
. He didn’t dare say the rest aloud, but Simon knew him better than anyone.

“She could be yours, you know. If you would tell her what you want, how you feel.”

Julian shook his head. “She deserves better than me. Tomorrow morning I will return her to Gladstone. Blake will not have her.”

Simon’s eyes lowered to his shoes and the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that told Julian that he didn’t want to say what was on his mind.

“Tell me, Simon,” he said, knowing that he would not like what he was about to hear.

“Julian, she
wants
to go to Blake. She didn’t say it to me exactly, but I know she means to try to kill him. Whatever has happened between them, she’s out for blood. Why do you think a woman with her skills hasn’t attempted escape even once? That night when she held the knife to your ribs, she didn’t stab you, but she could have used it to cut her bonds. Didn’t it ever occur to you to wonder why?”

No, it had not, but if Julian had been thinking clearly, it would have. He’d been too wrapped up in his desire, too stunned by her boldness to think of little else. Ava had surprised him in so many ways already, yet this sudden news shouldn’t have surprise him at all. Now that it had been said, Julian saw Simon’s words as the truth. It had been in front of him the whole time.

“I can’t help but think that there’s something bigger than the both of us going on here,” Simon continued. “I don’t know what it is but I’m worried about her. We can’t let her do this alone…whatever it is.”

Julian smiled. “I thought you didn’t like the little vixen? What about your injury?”

Simon shrugged. “What can I say? After a while she grew on me.”

“Tell me about it.”

She’d grown on him too, in a way that Julian could never hope to change. He’d never known a woman with more bravery and spirit. Conflicting emotions warred within him as he realized he had also never known a woman to be more stubborn and foolish. Determination set his jaw.

“I won’t allow it,” he said before brushing past Simon and moving toward the stairs at the end of the hall. “Have a bath and a meal sent up to her while I figure out a plan,” he said.

With that, he was gone, heading straight for the dining hall downstairs. He hoped that within the next hour or so he would have come up with a suitable solution. It would have to be a good one. Ava was not likely to go with him easily.

After a hot meal and a bath in his and Simon’s room, Julian was ready to face Ava. At least, he was as ready as he supposed he could be. His only strategy was to reason with her and if that failed, there was always brute force. He hadn’t technically released her yet. She was still his for the time being.

Julian ran a hand through his damp locks as he jammed the key into the lock and twisted it. Amazingly, his stomach felt as if it had been tied in knots. How was it that one woman was able to make him feel like a young boy again? He’d had his first woman when he was fourteen, and had plenty since. Yet somehow, walking into Ava’s room felt different because he knew he’d do whatever it took to stop her, even if it meant seducing her.

When he closed the door behind him and found her sitting on the bed, the coils in his stomach twisted to new levels of convolution. He quickly slammed the door behind him just before his limbs stopped functioning.

“Hello Julian,” she said softly, the tone of her voice made seductive by the soft glow of candlelight in the dark room. Julian realized that even though it was barely dusk outside, her room was windowless and the candle he’d left her with was nearly gone. At some point, the replacement he carried had fallen from his hand to the floor.

He was quite certain that she was naked beneath the sheet that was pulled up over her chest. She’d never looked more beautiful or more vulnerable than she did at that moment with a crisp, white sheet over her body and her dark hair falling around her soft shoulders in artful disarray.