The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies) Read online

  “Because you’re a bad shot and missed?” was her impudent reply, as she stood her ground, her chin raised and the most imperious expression Seb had ever seen stamped across her face.

  Rather than the fury probably anyone else would rouse in him with such a reply, instead, the right side of his lips flicked up into what was possibly a semi smile. He found himself amused. A state that was rare.

  “I aimed at his leg not only because I could see in his eyes his intent to shoot me, but also because I wished to stop him and interrogate him, my lady,” Sebastian replied, lowering his pistol to his side. “Which I would like to do before he bleeds to death.” He turned and stalked to the front of the crates before striding over to the fallen man.

  Behind him, he heard her mumble something and start to follow, her cane near silent on the cobblestones as she did. He glanced back and noted the rubber stopper on the bottom of the device, obviously put there to mask the sound. Did the lady get up to such mischief that she often required her presence to be silent? Not to mention a hidden retractable blade housed in its shaft? He rather suspected she did.

  Approaching the man, Seb kicked away the pistol that had fallen to the ground from the man’s hand, ensuring it was out of reach. He crouched beside him while Livie hurried over to the man’s other side but remained standing. Seb guessed that the injury to her right leg probably hampered her from crouching as he was.

  “Shall I fetch a doctor?” she asked.

  Seb shook his head, untying his necktie. “There’s no time, though this may delay things by a minute or two, enough to hopefully question him before he bleeds out.”

  “But surely you won’t let that happen, will you?” Livie gulped, her eyes all but pleading.

  Seb merely shrugged as he pressed the material against the man’s wound. He knew from the amount of blood the man had already lost that the bullet had clipped one of the main arteries, and there’d be no saving the man. The best he could do was delay the inevitable, even if only for a minute or two. He pressed his necktie down harder upon the man’s leg and the man hissed in pain, beads of perspiration trailing down his pale and clammy face as the fabric quickly turned crimson. “Who sent you?”

  The man’s face contorted into a look of loathing. “Fuck you.”

  “Manners.” Sebastian pushed down harder on the man’s leg, eliciting a further moan. “There is a lady present. Now, who sent you?”

  “I was proud ta…” The man struggled to speak, his voice a raspy whisper as his breathing became more and more labored. “Ta take on the task, to try ta get ya…”

  Seb pressed down even harder on the man’s leg. “Who?”

  The man screamed in agony and Livie winced. “You’re hurting him.”

  For a third time, Seb pressed down on the man’s leg, ensuring another groan of pain. But then he raised his hand and lifted the necktie from the wound. Blood began to gush out once again. “I won’t ask you again, and I’d say you have less than a minute left before you bleed to death.”

  The man drew in a shaky breath and stared defiantly into Seb’s eyes. “I’ll go to my grave before I betray my leader to you.”

  “You’re already there,” Sebastian stated as he watched the man take a final shuddering breath before the life fled from his eyes.

  “Oh my goodness…is he dead?” Livie asked across from him.

  “He is,” Seb confirmed as he flicked open the man’s collar. Sure enough, there was a snake tattoo on the man’s neck. The man had been a member of the Lads gang, and obviously they weren’t trying only to take over Seb’s territory, they were also trying to take him out, not caring if anyone else was shot in the process. “Goddamnit! They’ve gone too far now.”

  He glanced up at Livie and saw that she was leaning heavily on her cane, appearing extremely pale. He doubted a duke’s daughter had ever experienced someone dying in front of her. No wonder it looked like the smallest wind would tip her over. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

  Livie gulped and shook her head. “No. It’s just the last time someone died in front of me, I was eight and it was…it was my mother. And well, he looks just like she did. His eyes staring vacantly up at nothing, glassy and empty. Brings back rather horrible memories, I’m afraid.”

  The admission surprised him. She’d obviously not had quite the sheltered life a duke’s daughter was meant to. “Come on, I need to get you out of here.”

  Livie nodded. “I’ll be fine in a moment. Just a tad dizzy.”

  And before she could protest, Sebastian strode over to her side, grabbed her cane, and swung her over his shoulder. He would have liked to have treated her a bit more delicately, but he still didn’t know if the danger was truly over, and he needed his pistol at the ready. He strode down the street toward where she’d said her carriage was waiting, his eyes scanning across the fog-laden shadows.

  Even though the initial threat may have passed, he still felt uneasy having Olivia here with him and her being placed in danger because of it. An overwhelming urge to protect her had engulfed him, and he knew he had to get her as far from his environment as he could.

  She shouldn’t be surrounded by his darkness for a moment longer, and he was determined she wouldn’t, no matter her thoughts on the matter. He would not have her blood on his hands, as he did his mother’s.

  Chapter Ten

  Being hauled over the back of Sebastian’s shoulder like a sack of coal, with her derrière resting high near his head, was not how she imagined the evening ending. In fact, some would think it rather mortifying, even though Livie found it a tad thrilling.

  She’d never been carried by any man before, well, at least not since she’d been a child. Though it was slightly uncomfortable being jostled on his shoulder while he stalked down the street, presumably to where her carriage was waiting.

  Hearing some horses in the distance, Livie knew her assumption was correct. Just as quickly as he’d scooped her up, he swung her down, careful to keep one hand of his on her waist as she steadied herself while he placed her cane in her other hand.

  Her breath caught in her throat from the touch of his hand against her own; even through her gloves she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. His hand was so large and work-worn, so very different from the manicured and soft hands of the gentlemen she knew. It was a hand capable of untold violence, she was certain, but perhaps, based on the way he held hers, tenderness, too.

  Livie peered up into his face and instantly felt every single part of her body tingle. His eyes were fixed firmly upon her own, with an almost ferocious hunger in his gaze.

  No man had ever looked at her like that before. No man had ever dared touch her waist before, either.

  “Everything all right, my lady?” Gregson, her carriage driver, interrupted, as he stuck his head out from the driver’s compartment, concern etched in the lines around his eyes before he noticed Sebastian standing in front of her. “I have a shotgun with me and I’m not afraid to use it!” Gregson couldn’t quite hide the tremble in his voice as he tried to stare down Sebastian.

  “It’s fine, Gregson,” Livie implored. “This man is a business associate of my brother’s, and he’s just assisted me out of a perilous situation.”

  “And I shall be joining her to ensure she gets home safely,” Sebastian added as he pulled open the carriage door.

  “I knew I never should’a brought you here,” Gregson grumbled, still looking suspiciously over at Seb. “Nasty neighborhood this is. The King of the Rookeries runs it, he does. Devil’s spawn I’m told he is.”

  “Everything is fine, I assure you, Gregson,” Livie managed to utter before she was bundled into the carriage by Sebastian. “Please just take us home.”

  “Very well, my lady.” Gregson’s voice was muffled through the wood as Livie adjusted herself on the cushioned seat, while Sebastian followed her in and swiftly cl
osed the door.

  “I’m sorry about what he said.” She stared at Sebastian as the carriage pulled away and glided down the street, the pace increasing quickly. It seemed Gregson was keener to leave the area than even she was. “He didn’t realize who you were, obviously…”

  “I’ve heard a lot worse, Lady Olivia,” Sebastian replied, staring steadily through the window and watching the streets they passed. “Think nothing of it.”

  “It’s probably just as well he didn’t know your true identity, for I think you already scared him,” she said, belatedly noticing how much space he took up in the carriage with the breadth of his shoulders and his muscular legs. The man was like a Viking dressed in a tailored black suit. She rather liked it. “And, after what we’ve just been through together, please do call me Livie and I shall call you Sebastian.” She already did in her head, so it would be easier to do so when she spoke to him, too.

  “Very well, Livie,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue like butter, smooth and velvety. All she wanted to do was lap it up.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been one of her best ideas. Hearing her name from his lips was far more intimate than she thought possible.

  “Tell me this, though,” Sebastian continued, leaning forward, his head lowering close to her ear. “I scare most people. Why don’t I scare you, Livie?”

  His breath was a rough whisper against her skin. She softly gasped as desire, sharp and swift, unlike anything she’d ever felt, filled her. Pulling her head back, her eyes flicked up into the vivid gray of his, and her heart began to gallop at the intensity staring back at her. “How do you know you don’t scare me?”

  “Because I can sense fear in others, but in you I do not.” He raised his hand slowly up to her face before gently brushing the pads of his fingers over her cheek, caressing the smoothness of her skin with the roughness of his. “In fact, what I sense in you is…excitement.”

  It was all Livie could do not to melt into his hand. His touch was like lightning, sending a searing heat of awareness to the core of her being. She was in unknown territory with the feelings he was eliciting in her, feelings she’d never experienced before.

  “Should we not discuss the events of what just occurred?” she blurted out, not wanting to discuss any of the odd feelings the man was conjuring within her. When he dropped his hand, she was glad of it, and perhaps even a little disappointed. Though the way her emotions were all currently jumbled, it was hard to tell the difference.

  “Yes, I suppose we should,” Sebastian said as he sat back on the seat, his eyes settling upon her intently. “Tell me, then, how did you come to be in the alley? You mentioned something about it being at my request, which, I assure you, was not the case.”

  Livie told him of the note apparently authored by him that she’d received while at the McAuley ball. She pulled it from her cloak pocket and handed it to him.

  His eyes scanned the parchment. “It’s not my writing or my signature.”

  “How was I to know that?” Livie replied. “If you had replied to my previous letters, I should have known it was not from you in an instant.”

  He merely raised a brow.

  She lifted her chin and smiled somewhat sarcastically at him. “Now your turn. Why were you there? You mentioned something about me having a party and not inviting you?”

  He nodded. “I received word that you were meeting an informant in the alley. As I knew it to be a dangerous area, I decided to attend to protect you.”

  “That’s very gallant of you.” For some reason, Livie was thrilled with the thought.

  “I assure you it wasn’t,” he stated, his voice gravelly. “I went because you’re my sister’s ticket to the Dragon Duchess. I had to protect my soon-to-be investment. Especially when she makes such hairbrained decisions.”

  Obviously that was why he’d attended. She should have reasoned that before conjuring some image of him being noble and heroic. To him, she was nothing more than Charlotte’s entrée into Society. “It wasn’t a harebrained decision. Getting your note seemed like a godsend after spending a fruitless day searching for you,” she said.

  “You were searching for me?”

  Livie nodded.

  “Then you have gotten your godmother to agree already?”

  The man was quick, she would give him that, and she got the impression, vague though it was, he was somewhat surprised she’d been able to get the duchess’s agreement so swiftly. “Indeed, I did,” she took great pleasure in telling him. “I am to bring Charlotte to her house at midday next Monday to meet with her.”

  “That was fast.” He didn’t sound too thrilled with the news as he ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it somewhat.

  For a mad moment, Livie wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair. Brush the locks away from his head and caress each strand through her fingers…perhaps trailing some kisses along his jaw as she did so. A delicious heat spread through her stomach even just thinking about it. Goodness, she was getting carried away and had to get her mind back on track.

  “I haven’t even told Charlotte yet,” he continued, glancing distractedly out the window.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Livie sighed. “In any event, as I’ve filled my end of the bargain, you’re still going to honor your agreement, aren’t you?”

  “I told you, I always fulfill a promise. I will sign the contract and fund your gazette.”

  “Good. I need the funds you’ve promised, and urgently, too.”

  “Explain.”

  Livie chafed a bit at the command, but she succinctly told him of Mr. Mooney and his threat regarding the rent. “Clearly, now you can see why I went against all good sense to meet you. The gazette is on the brink of disaster before it has even begun. It’s imperative I get the funds. Though, in my defense, I thought I’d be perfectly safe with you there, so I saw no real issue in attending.”

  She saw the surprise that flashed in his eyes for a brief moment.

  “You thought you’d be safe with me? Even knowing all you do of me?”

  “Yes.” And perhaps some would question her sanity for doing so, but she knew down to her bones that Sebastian Colver would never physically harm her, even if he was prepared to kill, as she’d seen for herself earlier. But he had his own code, which she knew included never hurting a female.

  “Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?” A cold, hardness slammed across his expression. “In the end, you weren’t safe with me; you were shot at multiple times because of it. Nearly collateral damage in a rival gang’s vendetta against me.”

  “Who’d dare have a vendetta against you?”

  He briefly told her of the Lads of Leybrook Lane. “The snake tattoo on the man’s neck identified him as part of that gang.”

  “Do all gang members have tattoos?”

  “Yes. And each gang has a different design.”

  “Do you have one?” The question popped from her lips before she could think better of it.

  His scar twisted slightly in what appeared to be amusement. “I have a dragon on my chest.”

  Images of his chest suddenly flashed in her mind, and her eyes were drawn of their own accord to that part of his body. Covered in the layers of silk and cotton that made up his shirt and jacket, the refined clothes couldn’t hide the breadth of his chest and muscles underneath.

  “Do you wish to see it?” His voice dropped an octave as his hand went up to the collar of his shirt.

  “No!” she blurted, dragging her gaze away from his chest to his eyes. “That would be highly inappropriate.” Even if she did want to. Suddenly, she felt the need for some fresh air; the very thought of him unbuttoning his shirt and exposing his chest to her making her feel decidedly hot and flustered.

  He laughed. “Well, if you ever change your mind, Livie, you need only ask.”

  “
I won’t,” she was quick to respond, noting the mirth twinkling in his eyes. He was enjoying teasing her, and the way her name rolled off his tongue, so intimate and familiar, was setting her heart aflutter.

  Good gracious, get ahold of yourself.

  Straightening in her seat, Livie took in a calming breath. “I assume you will be taking action against those responsible for the ambush?” She didn’t actually want to know what sort of action Sebastian would deem appropriate against a group that had quite literally tried to kill them, but she had to get him talking of something else besides partially unrobing.

  “Yes. They will regret trying to do so, I assure you,” he replied, his eyes tightening at the corners as the amusement fled. “And once I find out who their leader is, he will rue the day he decided to come after me.”

  His eyes showed an unrelenting promise in them, and Livie knew he meant what he said. “You don’t know who he is?”

  “Not yet, but I will.” He shifted slightly in his seat, readjusting his legs, and Livie got the distinct impression he didn’t like not knowing that piece of information. But then a thought occurred to her. “Why would a rival gang send me a note pretending to be from you? What purpose would it have served them, having me attend? And how did they even know about me?”

  “I don’t know. But I will find out, and trust me, I will make whoever is responsible pay for embroiling you in all of this.”

  “I can get some of my own informants to make inquiries about this leader’s identity,” Livie added, even if they were technically Kat’s informants. But Kat wouldn’t mind, having given her access to her butler Fenton and the network of informants he coordinated.

  “Aren’t your informants too busy trying to dig up the dirt on all the bachelors in Society to assist?”

  “Indeed, they are, but the network is vast, and one more avenue of inquiry shall not be a problem,” Livie assured him. “Besides, I now have a vested interest in keeping you alive, for we are to be silent business partners. Which reminds me, I really do need to obtain those funds from you to give to Mr. Mooney, as much as it pains me to pay him his extortion.”