Chapter 28
“It was so very dark, and the faces were blackened. You cannot possibly expect me to remember.” Perry stood and walked to the fireplace, away from the distracting ripple of Fox’s muscles as his hand flew across paper.
He’d removed his coat and peeled back his sleeves, refusing to meet her eyes. All she wanted was to make better use of these moments alone, before Father, or one of his henchmen returned.
“Perry.”
When she looked, that muscled forearm and wide hand were extended.
She went.
He smoothed those hands, with their sprinkling of dark hair, up her arms, slipped them around her waist, and pulled her to him.
She would surely melt. She had certainly died and gone to heaven. They should run off now, to Scotland, to the Lowlands, to France, anywhere. To hell with Prinny and his coronation, and the men who wanted to kill him.
“Your father is right—a sketch may help. The others may recognize the men. Perhaps we’ll even be a step closer to learning what really happened to your mother.”
Her chest tightened.Yes, of course.
“And we’ll certainly be a step closer to punishing them for what they did to you.”
He pulled out a chair for her, quickly turning back to business.
It was all so confusing. “Shall we really solve the mystery of Mama’s death?” she mused.
Fox’s mouth firmed. “We shall try.”
While she gazed over his shoulder, his pencil flew again over the paper, sketching a hulking black figure, as if he’d dipped into her brain and funneled out her only impression. The skin on her neck crawled, tension constricting her spine. The form was exactly right, the posture heavy, as if the man’s shoulders and head were too much to prop up straight.
“That’s it,” she whispered. “How do you do that?”
“It’s what I do,” he said, without stopping. Perspiration glimmered on his forehead.
Another figure began to emerge, slimmer, shorter, slighter, taking the shape of her other tormentor. She clutched the edge of the table and tried to breathe.
The pencil dropped. Fox’s arms came around her again and she buried her face in his neck, taking deep gulps of his comforting musk. His hand slid along her back, easing her breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He growled the words, as if he couldn’t breathe either. She touched her lips to the smooth spot of his neck below the place where his stubble started. A shiver went through him, and her body answered with a wave of pleasure.
He shared this with her, the bad and the good. They were partners in the events of the previous night. Well, up to a point.
She squeezed her eyes together, sat up, and mustered the courage to look at the partially disguised figures. It was her job to add eyes and brows. She passed a hand over her face and looked hard again at the picture that reared up in her mind.
Eyes that burned coldly and bushy brows bowed like the horns of a devil. Her imagination added lips contorted with the foul taste of malice, nostrils flared with evil intent.
All in shadows, like they’d been spit forth by the moor’s demons.
He’d brought down a clutch of pencils. She reached for one. “Let me try.”
Fox watched as she sketched,his heart swelling. She was a brave one, her hand with the pencil clutched too tightly for her to be wholly competent, her teeth clamped over her lower lip with the effort. As a girl, she’d not been fond of drawing, he recalled, not because she had no skill, but because her competitiveness got in the way. He’d apprenticed with Peale in Philadelphia, and Copley in England; hell, he’d even studied for a brief time in France, and he had the added motivation of needing to draw well enough to eat. Of course, his work would be more competent than hers.
She closed her eyes a moment to let her mind’s eye see for her and took a breath, hitching it around what must be the pain in her back.
Anger overwhelmed him. He shoved it down, trying to concentrate on her breasts under the gray cotton. She was alive. Her wounds would heal, and he’d do whatever it took to make up for his failures the night before, to avenge her, and to keep her safe. And after that…
He wouldn’t think about what might come later.
