Dalton gritted his teeth. "If you long for adulation you should return to London, where your adoring public waits to heap roses at your feet."
The glow in her eyes extinguished. "I don't want adulation. I want freedom." She tossed her head. "I want to sing at the top of my lungs. I want to . . . I want to live."
Something tightened in Dalton's chest. It was only natural for her to fabricate other realities when she'd been living under her mother's stern control her entire existence.
But her burgeoning rebellion wasn't convenient for his plans. He nudged her toward the doorway. "We need to reach Bristol swiftly, attracting no notice. If we meet anyone we know you'll be ruined instantly. It's dangerous for you, surely you acknowledge that much."
"Do you truly think me witless? Of course I know that. But the story can only help us. If the travelers at this second-rate inn, who are hardly likely to recognize us, believe they've encountered an opera singer and a prosperous merchant, they'll have no tales to tell of"-she lowered her voice to a whisper-"dukes and spinsters."
There was some sense to that. No . . . no, there wasn't. It was always best to simply keep one's mouth closed.
Let people make up their own stories.
"You're going inside and I'm going to the stables." He handed her some coins from his waistcoat pocket. "I'll pay for your tea. You'll sip it swiftly."
Her fingers closed around the coins. "Whatever you desire, caro mio," she said in that affected Italian accent with a sugary smile pasted on her lips. "Your wish is my command."
The obedient act didn't fool him.
There wasn't an obedient bone in that slim, curvaceous body of hers. And her next words proved it.
"I'll try not to serenade the good folk at the inn with more than one or two arias." Her hips swished in a suspiciously operatic fashion as she disappeared through the doorway of the inn.
Too many people around to hoist the lady over his shoulder, bind her wrists with his cravat, and bundle her back in a carriage to London with Con.
Dalton could ride the rest of the way to Bristol on horseback. Alone.
On second thought, better let Con do the tying, because thinking of something so intimate with the lady shot an arrow of pure lust to his groin.
His stomach growled. He could do with breakfast. But they needed to be on the road again swiftly, to minimize the risk of the news of his whereabouts reaching London.
Dalton didn't know why Trent had been searching for him. But he certainly didn't want him to hear about the cut across his face.
Gingerly, he probed the wound. It could do with a washing.
He strode to the stables and sluiced cold water from the pump over his face.
His mind cleared with the shock of the bracing water, the sound of horses pawing. Brisk smell of horse dung. Leather. Straw. Simple smells with no hint of spiced rose petals.
He followed the sound of Con's whistling to one of the stalls.
Con's grizzled face split into a grin when he saw him. "Well now, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty. Finally decided to awaken, eh? Where's your lady suitor?"
"You can wipe that smirk off your face. Nothing happened. And that was an infantile trick to play with the bed."
"Can't think what you mean." Con wasn't very good at appearing innocent. Too hairy.
"You know very well what I mean." Dalton gave him a disgusted look.
"You mean she didn't have her way with you? I thought a persistent thing like her might teach you a thing or two you didn't learn at Cambridge."
"Oh, ha ha." Dalton grimaced as his skin cracked over the cut. "It's really not a laughing matter. The lady will be ruined if anyone recognizes us."
Con snapped a horse bridle between his hands, testing the strength. He never left anything to chance, preferring to personally oversee the details of their excursions. "As long as you don't ruin her, she'll survive."
"Leave off. You know I'd never debauch an innocent." Although it had been exquisite torture holding her warm curves against his chest.
You don't feel those urges . . . right now?
A less principled man would've taken those words as a clear invitation to seduction.
"Sure and I wasn't talking about debauching. I was thinking more of wooing. Composing treacly verses about her eyes, that sort of thing. Making her love you and then abandoning her." His blue eyes sharpened. "I won't have you doing that. I like the lady."
Dalton sighed. "I like her, too, damn her scorched butter curls. Even though she has the most irritating habit of not listening to a word I say . . . and then disarming me by making me laugh."
Con shook his head, his whiskers twitching with barely concealed mirth. "Can't have her making you laugh, now. That won't do."
Dalton was an expert at tracking criminals through the crooked maze of London's back lanes. He could fell a man with one blow. Find a vulnerable neck with his blade in five seconds flat.
But he was beginning to suspect there were far more treacherous predicaments.
Being confined in small spaces with the most vexing and desirable woman he'd ever met, for one.
Wallflowers bursting into impassioned Italian in courtyards, for another.
She longed to be free from her mother's control. He'd met the countess and certainly wouldn't want her telling him what to do, but he couldn't allow the lady to increase the risks inherent in confusing the strict boundaries between his two worlds . . . the rake and the Hellhound.
It was too dangerous. For his plans. And for her safety.
"We've a killer to hunt," Dalton said sternly. "Or have you forgotten?"
"I haven't forgotten." Con ran his hand over the leather horse tack, testing the bridles and reins. "Though I'm none too happy about going back to Ireland. Never thought I'd see those shores again. Too many painful memories."
It was the same with Dalton. They were both returning to their troubled pasts.
"Do you have other family left in Cork?" he asked Con.
Con jerked his head. "Nah, not anymore."
Dalton had never seen Con shaken like this. It wasn't fair to ask him to do this, he realized. "You should return to London. I'll carry on alone."
Con grunted, giving a harness a last tug. "I've come this far. Besides, it's damned entertaining watching that slip of a lady wedge herself so thoroughly under your skin."
"Like a patch of poison ivy," Dalton said bleakly. "Scratching only makes it worse. She's probably in the breakfast room right now serenading everyone with a bleeding aria."
Con grinned. "Arias, is it?"
"Wants to make up stories about us. I'm Mr. Jones and she's a famous opera singer. Been repressed by that overbearing mother of hers her whole life and now she's breaking free."
"Like I said, damned entertaining. Wouldn't miss it for the world." Con gestured for a stable hand to come and take the horse tack. "I'll finish up here. Go fetch the opera singer and we'll be on our way."
Someone had to corral the lady back to the carriage.
And then he'd have to climb in after her because of the risk of a nobleman seeing him with this telltale crimson slash across his jaw in the daylight.
At least there'd be no more beds involved in their brief acquaintance. He'd convert the makeshift bed back to a seat immediately.
Though that was small protection.
Something about her brought out the beast in him.
When he entered the inn, he saw her immediately, across the smoky, low-beamed room, as if the other people were underwater, their features blurred, while she glowed in sharp relief.
Weak sunlight filtering through streaked glass caressed strands of honey and amber in her hair, and rested on her skin because it had the right to touch her, to warm her.
He wanted to touch her. Right now. Claim her as his.
And it looked like he wasn't the only one. A gangly fair-haired young man in a high, starched collar that left only the scarlet tips of his ears visible approached her table and stopped to address her in an unforgivably familiar manner. A hot wash of rage swept through Dalton's chest before he reminded himself that he couldn't possibly be jealous of a pup who'd barely started shaving.
He wasn't the jealous type. He never felt possessive about a woman. They were transitory diversions. No more his than the moon or the stars.
He never gave them any illusions about his intentions. And they never left dissatisfied.
So it wasn't jealousy he felt, it was mere protectiveness.
The same kind of protectiveness he would feel for any small, helpless creature that ventured across his path.
Except that she wasn't helpless. She'd bent him to her purposes easily enough.
Still, some dangers were too much for even a determined and thoroughly resourceful lady.
That pup may look harmless, but the first rule of traveling was never to talk to inquisitive strangers. Especially if they wanted to know what route you were taking, or when you planned to depart.
She'd been too sheltered. She had no protective shell.
She smiled at the pup in the high collar.
Dalton's hands tightened into fists and he crossed the room in three strides.
"Oh, there you are, Mr. Jones." She smiled at Dalton. "I was beginning to think you'd fallen into the horse trough. Coffee?"
She didn't wait for him to answer but poured him a cup from the silver pot on the table. "I know you take your coffee strong. Wouldn't do to weaken it with milk or anything as indulgent as sugar."