Free Tiger's Eye by Karen Robards

actually sit on her bed…! Only a husband was accorded such privileges, and then only rarely.
    “If you want to talk, I’m willing, because God knows you must be frightened to death and I hadn’t considered that, but if you let loose with one more squeal I’m likely to throttle you. My head aches like bloody hell.” The warning came grumpily out of the darkness.
    His language in her presence was almost as unsettling as his presence on her bed. Certainly no gentleman would swear so in front of a lady. But since she had been kidnapped the proprieties had been flouted so many times in so many ways that bad language was a mere bagatelle.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scream. But—you’re sitting on my bed.”
    “It’s either sit on your bed or go back to my own. I’m not exactly in ruddy good health at the moment, you know. But I can bloody well leave if you wish.”
    “No!”
    From the satisfied quality of his silence, Isabella guessed that that was the response he had expected.
    “All right then. If the idea of being ravished out of hand is what’s making you so nervous, pray dismiss it from your mind. Even if I wished to—which I don’t—and were capable—which I don’t think I am just at present—I don’t go in for forcing myself on unwilling females. There are too many willing ones.”
    Isabella was both embarrassed at his plain speaking, and shocked at what she perceived as his uncanny ability to read her mind. Ever since she had become aware of his presence, a tiny part of her mind had been afraid that he had come into her room in the middle of the night for just such a purpose. After watching him disport himself so shockingly with Pearl, and remembering how his eyes had heated as they’d moved over her own body, she felt she had good reason to be wary. Alec obviously liked women, and she could rely on neither his morals (she was convinced he had none) nor his breeding (he had none of that either) to keep him in check. But he had said he did not force himself on women, and to her surprise, she discovered that she took him at his word. He might order her murder, but she believed him when he assured her that he didn’t indulge in rape.
    “Now that we have that settled, what do you want to know?” His disembodied voice was curiously comforting. It was nice to know that there was someone with her, that she was no longer alone in the dark. She would be quite comfortable with him, if only she could be assured that he felt toward murder as he felt toward rape.
    “What happened? How did I get here, and why are you … hiding … in the dressing room?”
    Isabella could feel him looking at her. “I don’t much like the word ’hiding,’ “ he said finally. “Though I suppose it’s true enough. I was shot by a man who’s worked for me for years, someone I thought was totally loyal. From what he said before he died, he was paid by someone else within my organization to kill me. Hardy—that was his name, Rat-face Hardy—died before he could identify the man who hired him. With me half-dead, Paddy got his protective instincts up. Not knowing who the traitor was, he elected to trust nobody with my precious person but himself.
    “You were felled by what I can only assume was a stray bullet, so Paddy had on his hands two badly bleeding bodies that he didn’t know quite what to do with. He bundled the pair of us up and brought us to Pearl, who is as shrewd as she can hold together. Paddy trusts Pearl, and so do I. She’s one of the few people that I absolve of a wish to harm me. Pearl came up with the idea of putting you and me into a single bedchamber, you quite openly as one of her girls taken ill, and me in secret. Whoever wants me dead had a taste of success, and he’s likely to try it again if he can. Until I’m up to full strength again we decided that it was best if I lay low. Paddy is playing bodyguard while my men try to ferret out the weasel who wants to take over the organization.