Read Online The Dark Affair by Máire Claremont - Free Book Online Page B

sodding pace. Or are you saying your prayers like a typical mad Catholic?” The keeper to the left laughed.
    The other chortled. “It’s her woman’s mind. Can’t keep pace with her feet.”
    Suddenly, the keeper was up against the wall. James’s bindings pressed against his throat, his blond hair framing his face as he hissed, “Lady Margaret.”
    “W-whot?” the keeper gurgled, and his face swelled at the abrupt pressure to his esophagus.
    The other guard attempted to grab Powers, but the earl’s foot shot out and drove into the keeper’s knee, dropping the man to the ground. Powers shoved his bindings harder against the fleshy throat of the man against the wall. “Her name is Lady Margaret. Not lass. She is a lady, and Catholic or no, you are a damn sight lower than she.”
    Margaret stepped up to Powers, not touching him. Not willing to chance his anger could be spilled out further, but she couldn’t let him go on, not if he ever wished to leave. “My lord, I thank you for protecting my honor.”
    He didn’t respond to her, but rather fixed his attention on the other man and said with a terrifying coldness, “What is her name?”
    The keeper shook slightly, his eyes darting to his fellow worker still moaning on the floor. “L-lady Margaret.”
    Powers nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s right. And are you beneath her?”
    The keeper nodded.
    She reached out one hand, tempted to touch him. “My lord—”
    “Say it,” Powers snapped, ignoring her attempt to placate him.
    “Y-esss,” the keeper wheezed. “I am beneath her.”
    Powers shoved him away, then smoothed his hair back from his face, both hands coming up. A strange, almost animal-like gesture, due to the cords at his hands. There was no wildness in his icy eyes. Just calm. Collection. Control. Not one move of his had been uncalculated. “You are staring. Most impolite.”
    Her mouth opened slightly. “I—” She had no idea what to say. Should she thank him for defending her when so many men simply let such behavior pass as course for a woman—and worse, an Irishwoman—attempting to make her way outside the home? Or should she castigate him for behavior that would only aid the doctors’ estimation of his madness.
    “You realize over the years I have heard far worse,” she said softly.
    His gaze turned steely. “I don’t care if you have. In my presence, people will treat you with the respect you deserve.”
    Carefully, she surveyed him, then said, “Thank you. The methods were a bit jarring, but I greatly appreciate the sentiment.”
    For a single breath, it seemed as if his face softened, that the real James emerged through his hard exterior. He looked down at her, his voice even and sure. “You’re welcome.”
    As the keepers lumbered up from the floor, staggering a bit, she began to feel something in her heart that she didn’t like at all. Despite all reason, she
liked
this thorny man who hid behind his wits and opium. Because deep down inside, there was a man who had been hurt irrevocably . . . just as she had been.
    The keeper who’d been kicked got to his feet and squared his shoulders, swinging his elbow and punching Powers on the cheek. The lord’s head snapped back, and though his eyes glazed with hate, he did nothing.
    Her insides twisted, though she wasn’t shocked. “Cease!”
    The keeper’s thick face twisted. “He’s a mad dog and gets what he deserves.”
    And the other keeper threw a punch into Powers’s abdomen.
    Though he buckled slightly, the viscount didn’t go down or groan. Nor did he struggle.
    It didn’t matter that he was a lord. In the eyes of the keepers, he was little more than an animal, and here they had the authority.
    For her . . . For a few disrespectful words, he had thrown a keeper against the wall, knowing the consequences. And for this he did nothing.
    Her heart suddenly twisted at the dichotomy. How did such a man as Powers love? Wholly. Wholly and beyond. Which was why he had