Silver-Tongued Devil by Jennifer Blake

Author:Jennifer Blake [Blake, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780727851147
Google: gML84v06OtwC
Amazon: B008IKA9GE
Goodreads: 425519
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 1996-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The townhouse blazed with lights as Renold and Angelica approached. Angelica’s absence had been discovered, the alarm given. The house servants were up and standing in hushed groups in the courtyard. Their outcry as they saw their master and his wife brought Estelle and Deborah hurrying onto the gallery.

Tit Jean was not there. He had sent runners in every direction in search of Renold, and was himself out looking for him. Estelle was nearly incoherent in her relief at seeing them safely returned, though she was horrified at Angelica’s scrapes and bruises. Deborah, eyes sharp, demanded to know where they had been and what had happened.

Renold had no time for explanations. Handing Angelica over to the two women, he shut himself into his dressing room where he was extremely, if usefully, sick.

It was not going to be enough. He had never been quite so completely drunk or drugged to near insensibility in his misbegotten life. Careless hilarity warred in his veins with an overwhelming need to lie down somewhere and sleep like a dog. He could give in to neither, but had to keep moving, force himself to think, to plan. There was too much to be done.

If he had been more in control there in the alley, he might not have killed the younger Skaggs brother. To risk leaving him alive and able to follow after them was something he could not afford at that particular moment. Besides, the man had been about to put his filthy hands on Angelica.

There had been that other one, the man who had paid to have Angelica taken. He had retreated, a more cowardly move than expected. Most fathers would have fought to prevent leaving a beloved daughter in the hands of an enemy.

His hands. God help him.

He could not afford to think of Angelica as she had been, bound and helpless, in that back room. He would not remember the feel of her in his arms and the degrading need to take her while she was grateful to him, while she might not, could not, resist.

No.

No. But neither was anyone going to take Angelica from him.

Reeling from the dressing room, he struck the door, then clung to it, breathing in harsh gasps. He put a hand to his face, fighting the disorientation, the hovering stupor. His fingertips were slippery with the sweat seeping from his hair. A violent shudder rattled his skeleton and made his teeth chatter. He clenched his jaw, bracing against it.

It passed. Somewhat. Enough that he noticed voices coming from the courtyard. He pushed erect, swaying until he found his balance. Fastening his gaze on the French doors to the gallery as a goal, he made toward them.

Tit Jean had returned. He was there below, surrounded by a half-dozen people, all trying to give him the news that he might end his search, that the lost were found.

Matters could now proceed. Renold summoned purpose and authority, injected it into his voice as he called out to the manservant.

“Yes, maitre?” Tit Jean’s voice, mellow, concerned, obliging, floated up to him out of the dimness.

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