The Hellion is Tamed Read online

  Ramsey’s fingers tightened around Emma’s wrist, his knuckles paling as she winced. “You’re bleedin’ mad, is that it? Loose in the napper? A stranger threatenin’ me in me own place? You must be. Maybe this is my night’s entertainment.” He jacked his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the river. “I own the docks; I own it all. You shoulda never stepped into this tavern, my friend.”

  Emma’s gaze caught his, her lips forming a silent plea. Stop.

  She’d betrayed him, but Simon would kill for her.

  Because she was one of them, a member of the League, even if she didn’t know it. He tipped his chin just enough to let her see he wasn’t backing down. Not now, not ever. Confrontation and diversion were, he’d decided, the way to get them out of this mess. He was used to blending into any space he inhabited—a tactical gift—but he also knew when this strategy was doomed.

  “You with me?” he asked, a muted whisper he hoped only she heard.

  She shook her head, mouthed no.

  He held up three fingers. On the count of…

  Her pupils widened, hair spilling forward to roll over her worn bodice, the slopes of her breasts. “You’re going to get us killed,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

  Seeking validation of her statement, Simon glanced around the barroom. The crowd had closed in, circling like ravenous wolves, the air throbbing with the expectation of violence. The alley entrance was close, twenty feet, give or take. He wasn’t sure if they could make it there before the pack was on them.

  His focus found its way back to Emma, the grin twisting his lips only partly contrived. He was cracked for thinking it, but this brewing battle felt good. His body thrumming, his mind balanced on the edge of a cliff. He hadn’t felt alive in years, centuries. Addictive, the rush. All the things his brothers were afraid still lurked inside him. “Emma, queen of the slums, thief of mystical objects, you know who I am, and you know what I’m looking for.” Bloody hell, no need to whisper if they were going down. He pointed the knife at her. “Do you have it?”

  Her gaze betrayed her, shooting low. Coat pocket.

  “You can get us out? 1882. London. Or where you showed up before. Oxfordshire. Either will do.”

  She swallowed tightly, pressed her lips together, nodded.

  His fingers curled around the knife. She could’ve come back at any time but had simply chosen not to. “Then, my dark darling, we’re in business.”

  Before Ramsey would interpret the words they’d spoken, Simon took a swing, connecting with the brute’s jaw. His years of training with the Duke of Ashcroft had prepared him for this skirmish. Had prepared him for battle.

  But giants never went down easily.

  Ramsey staggered into the table with a roar, turning it over, sending glasses and candles flying. He went to his knees, hung his head for a belabored breath, then shoved to his feet. But, as Simon had hoped, the horde was more interested in warfare than him. A stranger they’d never seen, cared nothing about. Ramsey, they likely had problems with. So, they played into Simon’s hand, turning to each other, inebriated fools determined to prove their mettle.

  As the tavern erupted in shouts and the sound of breaking glass, Simon jammed his knife in his waistband and reached through the crowd. Her hand fell into his, seeking, and he hauled her across the bar, elbowing bodies aside, stepping over crystal shards and broken chairs, bodies and disorder.

  Someone gave Emma a hard shove that propelled her into his back, and they stumbled through the doorway and into the alley, moonlight a dreary spill over them. The scent of burning rubbish and coal rode heavy, the air foul and thick. Simon took a breath of it and turned to her. She seemed stunned, her gaze locked on their linked fingers. Chest rising and falling, bringing generous breasts he didn’t want to imagine filling his hands against the neckline of her ragged gown. Her eyes lifted to his, and for a brief moment, the sounds of chaos—shouts from the docks, carriage wheels hitting pitted cobblestones, terse conversation and cruel calamity—faded until they were the only two people in the world.

  Like they had been before.

  Emma. The girl who’d visited him when he’d been a lonely, confused adolescent, she the beautiful creature who’d stepped out of his dreams and into his time. But never fully. Never where he could do more than look. And yearn. The only person who’d ever arrived in his world from another who wasn’t dead.

  Not a ghost, but not someone he could touch, either. This moment was the first for that.

  She looked the same, standing there in the silvery, fog-shrouded light. Hair as ginger-sullied as he remembered. Indigo eyes, lashes so long they grazed the hollows beneath. Tall, the top of her head coming nearly to his shoulder.

  And those lips.

  Inviting exploration, inviting blind fascination.

  Which, at one time, he’d allowed.

  Been sucked into in breathless captivation. However, his yearning had perished lifetimes ago.

  Along with his naïve view of love.

  As if she could read his thoughts, those gorgeous lips parted, releasing a misty gasp into the night. Her breath stole into his lungs, the scent of cinnamon and cloves a delicious tickle. An awareness as tangible as her finger trailing down the nape of his neck and past the open collar of his shirt.

  Awakening feelings long dormant. Unwelcome and uninvited.

  Because the boy who’d loved her was gone.

  “Where is it?” he asked and wrenched his hand from hers, letting their arms drop. He rolled his fingers into a fist to stop the tingling in his palm and brought his arm against his chest to keep from reaching for her.

  At his stark tone, she took a lurching step into the alley’s rough brick. Her gaze plunged to his boots and worked its way up, the most excruciating inspection of his life. Exhaling deeply, she patted the pocket of a threadbare coat that had seen better days years prior. “Here. It’s right here. I never once, not ever, let your swish bauble escape my sight.” When she could see her admission didn’t sway him, she whispered, “Honest to heaven, I needed it more. I skipped in an’ outta time, no control ‘til I found it mentioned in a book about the spectral and arcane. I never meant to bother anyone, only get what I needed to survive. I can read, you know. My ma taught me, before”—she swallowed deeply and looked away—“she passed. Was a wonder I made it ta’ you those times, seeing as my control ain’t the best. I’ve been able to mostly stay in my own time now thanks to that hunk of—”

  “Fluorite,” Simon finished for her, refusing to let her plea soften his heart. Refusing. “It’s called the Soul Catcher, and we have people who desperately need it. You’re wrong about no one but you needing it. Children growing up with supernatural abilities who have no control, either. In truth, we have a brethren of souls seeking solace only that stone can give.” He jerked his head toward the tavern with a curse. “And the Dark Queen of the East End can obviously take care of herself.”

  Jamming her hand in her pocket, Emma yanked the Soul Catcher free. A gem the size of a walnut, the stone glittered in the moonlight, casting crimson facets like stardust at their feet. Shoving it toward him, she snapped, “Take it, then. Your all-powerful rock. Take it and be gone with ye’. Fancy toff such as yerself. In the wrong place. The wrong time.” At his measured silence, her smile grew, her teeth a flash of pearly brilliance in the night. “You can’t go wifout’ me. Ah, blimey, is that it?”

  Snatching the Soul Catcher from her hand, Simon let the wave of contentment at touching the gem slide like sunlight through him, pushing aside the raw feeling of touching her. “Honest to heaven, to use your verbiage, what if I can’t?”

  She huffed, her smile slipping at his mocking. “You’d risk this for me? Come here and not know ‘bout gettin’ back?”

  Simon tipped his head back and laughed, the sound as jagged as the slivers of glass beneath his boot. Glancing down at her, he shoved the gem in his waistcoat pocket with a careless shrug. A gesture he hoped concealed the storm of emotion he e
xperienced when he looked at her. “No, my dark queen, I risk it for my family.”

  Her chest rose and fell, another call to lose himself in the creamy swells of her breasts, dive into the warmth he could feel radiating from her body. Never to resurface. Lost. “I couldn’t step out then, when I came to you before. I didn’t know how until I stole yer blessed stone. Stuck in a box, walls holding me in. I would’ve. Maybe. Maybe later, I even tried. But you—”

  The tavern door burst back on its hinges as two brawlers stumbled into the alley, falling in a tangle to the grimy cobblestones, their grunts and punches echoing through the night.

  Simon grasped her hand, dragging her away from the bedlam. The knife in his waistband and the pistol in his boot considerable reminders of the protection he could provide. But he didn’t want to kill anyone. Not tonight. “We have to go.”

  She halted, jerking against his hold. “I’m not goin’ nowhere with you, mister.”

  The Soul Catcher heated until it glowed like a piece of the sun from the depths of his pocket. The haunts circled and edged, their breath hot, rank. He wondered if Emma could feel their presence. If she had any idea why he was trying to save her. He’d promised Julian and Finn he wouldn’t tell her, because it broke the rules. But how could he not tell her? “You can’t stay,” he finally whispered, the apprehensive tone painting his words unmistakable. At least to him.

  She gave another yank of her arm that he controlled by pulling her flush against his chest.

  Her heartbeat danced through the thin layer of her pathetic coat and right into his chest, like an arrow jammed in deep. Until his matched hers, a frantic call. “You can’t stay,” he repeated, his strident pronouncement echoing off the alley’s walls.

  She blinked, her face sliding into a brooding countenance Simon would have loved to capture on paper if he’d the skill, which he did not. He could only speak to the dead and steal. “How long do I have? If I stay?”

  The uproar from the tavern intensified, and Simon glanced over his shoulder to see another set of combatants tumble out the door. Turning without comment, he hauled Emma down the alley and onto Wapping Wall Street. They could lose themselves in the warehouses leaning like beaten guardsmen along the river if need be.

  Until he could convince her to go to 1882 with him.

  A fine mist had begun to fall, coating them in the slick, stinking moisture only London could bring. Crossing the congested lane, Simon dodged carts, sedan chairs and hackneys, stepping over excrement and discarded rubbish, the night pitch without the gas lamps he was used to, the cobblestones greasy beneath his boot.

  “I’m just down on Milk Yard,” she panted, struggling to keep up with his long-legged stride. “Headin’ into the docks at midnight ain’t wise for—”

  “Isn’t wise,” Simon whispered and pulled her into a concealed nook next to a freight warehouse’s open doors. Men swarmed in and out of the structure like ants, shouldering scuffed crates and dripping barrels of ale, tossing the couple lingering in the shadowed alcove nary a glance as they passed them.

  Giving Simon a weak shove when he released her, Emma glared at him, her eyes matching the cobalt shimmering through the darkness and making his heart stutter. “Headin’ into the docks at night isn’t wise. Not for a posh man like you. The shabby clothes ain’t enough to prove you belong here. They know, these tough rookery blokes, the minute they lay sight on you that you don’t. The accent, too, polished like the queen’s silver, it is.”

  The man came out of nowhere, his silver blade slashing through the corner of Simon’s vision.

  Simon hurdled into a mindless protective mode, insanely thankful the Duke of Ashcroft had forced lessons in self-defense upon him since he was in short pants. Shoving Emma behind his back, he kicked low, connecting with the assailant’s shin and sending him to his belly on the cobblestones. Going down on his knee, Simon wrenched the knife from the man’s hand and twisted his arm until one more rotation would have it breaking. When the ruffian looked over his shoulder, gaze wide with fear, Simon spun the weapon on his palm like a card he was sharping. “The package isn’t always what it appears, my friend. A lesson for you, free of charge.”

  “Oh, for the love a’ God, let me handle this if you’re only goin’ to tease him,” Emma muttered and was suddenly down there with him, her ragged skirt crumpled about her ankles. She grabbed the knife from Simon’s hand and pressed the glittering blade against the man’s neck without another breath passing from her gorgeous lips. “Jonesy, you know better than ta’ welcome a visitor to our fine neighborhood in such a manner. And a friend of mine, too. A real good one, for all ya’ know.” Hooking the blade until a dribble of blood oozed into the tattered collar of Jonesy’s shirt, she laughed. “You are one right fool. After we had a discussion the last time you snuck up on me. Dicked in the nob, you are.”

  Simon frowned, bracing his hand on the slick stone. “Dicked in the what?”

  “You don’t speak our language, posh man,” Emma whispered with a smile that broke through London’s haze to light him up inside. “Crazy. He’s crazy ta’ chase me down again like this. Not the first time I’ve forced a cutting edge to his throat.”

  Simon rocked back on his heels in horrific comprehension. Jealous, possessive certitude. “Is there more to this story than I’m seeing laid out before me, my dark queen?”

  “As if you’d know what life be like down here, you toady toff,” Jonesy mumbled from his twist on the cobblestones.

  Simon jerked the knife from Emma’s grip, tossed it aside and yanked Jonesy to his feet as if he weighed less than a sack of grain. Another grateful nod to the duke’s training, Simon thought with a torrent of unsolicited fury. Shoving the man two steps away, he straightened his cuffs in an effort to gather his wits. So like his brother Finn, he almost, almost, smiled. “I should point out, I grew up in St Giles, so you can keep your bloody opinions to yourself, friend. I’d find another couple to brutalize if you understand my meaning.”

  Emma edged behind Simon as Jonesy stumbled away, her gaze burning into his back. Hell, he’d surprised her and himself by admitting where he’d grown up. What was he doing?

  “I can’t leave here.”

  Losing his fabled control, Simon turned, grabbing her by shoulders. “Is there anything holding you in this time? A family? A child?” His voice dropped to the far reaches. “A lover?”

  Her cheeks shown pale in the moonlit shimmer a drifting cloud cast over them. The sounds from the warehouse, clanks and shouts and cranks, rolled over them like a wave. Simon didn’t think the shine of tears in her glorious eyes was a play on his emotions. Instead, they seemed a play on hers.

  Stumbling out of his hold, she glanced around, her throat clicking as she swallowed. She tucked her hair behind her ears, shifted from one worn boot to the other, delaying the decision. Finally, after a silence that he thought included her heartbeat in its rhythm, she shook her head. No. Nothing holding her in 1802. “What am I going to do? Learn to live another way? Like one of your society women? Fancy me up like a doll.”

  He snorted, imagining that. However…his mind spun as he took Emmaline Breslin in. A thorough inspection that sent a flush shooting across her face—but an inspection she allowed. Her body was magnificent, even in rags. Her face spectacular, even with dirt smudges and hollows chalked all over it from lack of food, lack of sleep. Her accent was trash, her expression criminal. Her attitude…he sighed. Rotten. But he’d been no better, worse maybe, and look where he’d ended up?

  It wasn’t the craziest plan he’d ever had.

  He knocked the toe of his boot against stone, giving her time to accept her decision. Accept his. “Do you have a portal? To get us there?”

  She chewed her lip, gaze shifting from the ground to the wall to the sky before returning to his. He checked her pinkie for a sign she was lying, but it remained still. No twitches. His heart tilted in his chest, and he knew he was still much too vulnerable to her, which made him unaccountably angr
y.

  She held out her hand, her smile frank, mixing tartly with her rotten expression. “With the swish stone, I don’t need one.”

  Slipping the Soul Catcher from his waistcoat pocket, Simon gave it a quick spin and tumble, in and out, around and over his fingers. Partly to impress. Partly because he could.

  She might be decent at sleight of hand…but he was a legend.

  “Showy,” she said with a scowl, but a rosy flush relit her cheeks, her dazzling eyes tracking his performance. Maybe she wasn’t completely immune to him, after all. “So, you goin’ to tell me where we need to go or play with the swish stone until dawn?”

  He dropped the gem into her palm, hoping this wasn’t the last he’d ever see of it. “1882. London. Or Oxfordshire, where you showed up before. April, if you can manage it.”

  She took his hand, her touch storming his senses. The Soul Catcher flared, golden light glowing against their skin. “Easier if I drop us in this very spot. An exact day, I can’t guarantee. My travel isn’t that…accurate.”

  Simon muttered a curse beneath his breath. Brilliant. “Then this spot it is.”

  She straightened her spine, closed her eyes and whispered something he couldn’t quite catch.

  Then they were gone.

  Chapter 1

  The Present

  1882, A Duke’s Boisterous Residence

  Mayfair, London

  Five days and eighty years later, all Emma could think was: Simon Alexander’s a do-gooder. A hypocrite. A changer of lives. His bloody own, the most astounding. From rookery bugger to natty bloke. A mighty grand life he’d procured for himself.

  Now, he thought to change her. Procure this life for her. Without even considering that she wouldn’t want to be beholden, owe such a debt to his family. To him.

  The daft part of the deal? She wanted to change. For him, without knowing him anymore, an understanding she’d stumbled over like a wrinkle in the extravagant carpet upon which she trod. She glanced around the luxurious bedchamber with a tight swallow. This life of measured sips instead of gulps, walking with your back straight as a ruler and whispering when you felt like shouting was a life she wasn’t sure she wanted.