Fiona Brand - Blade's Lady

Anna grasped his hand, disconcerted at the sharp thrill of sensation as his fingers closed over hers, aware that the pads of his fingers and palm were rough and calloused instead of city-soft.

“No hospital,” she repeated as evenly as she could manage, given that her heart was still pounding with the aftershock of her discovery, fanciful or not, and a heavy jolt of what she could only label as acute awareness of the man holding her. “I—stumbled and fell. Hit my head. It’s just a bump, I…” She took a breath and pulled herself into a sitting position, wincing as her head spun anew. “I can walk. My briefcase. I need my briefcase.”

“It’s here.”

The relief as her fingers closed over the familiar grip was almost too much. “Good,” she said numbly, unable to prevent the tremor that shook through her. “That’s good.”

She couldn’t risk losing her briefcase. Everything that mattered to her was in it. Her laptop computer and diskettes. The notes for her book. Enough cash that if she had to, she could walk away from her shabby little apartment without her possessions and have enough to survive on until she found another place to live and a new job. Most important of all were the contents of her handbag when she had run all those years ago: credit cards, a driver’s licence, the passport she’d never been able to use. Over the years she’d also amassed a collection of faded newspaper and magazine cuttings—every time some journalist resurrected the mystery of the missing Tarrant heiress, the unstable young woman who had thrown away a life of wealth and privilege in the most flamboyant of gestures, by supposedly driving her expensive sports car over a cliff.

The documents and photos weren’t conclusive proof of her identity—she could have stolen them—but she clung to them; they were hers. She had changed—her breath caught in her throat when she thought of just how much she had changed—but the strong resemblance in those photos was all she had. When she’d stumbled, bruised and bleeding, from her wrecked car all those years ago, she had simply picked up her purse and run. She’d had the clothes on her back, the jewellery she had been wearing and some cash. She hadn’t dared use the credit cards.

She had escaped Henry’s last, clever attempt on her life by sheer blind luck. When her car’s brakes had failed, a tree had been all that had stopped a certain plunge over the cliff’s edge into the water far below.

Her utter helplessness in the face of her stepfather’s relentless determination to remove her from his path had almost paralysed her with fear; but she had known in that moment that she couldn’t afford to stay around—certainly not until she was twenty-seven—and give him another opportunity to kill her. When she’d later discovered that Henry had decided to cut his losses and had pushed her car over the cliff, making it look like she’d died, she had known she’d made the right decision.

She hadn’t gone to the police. She had already tried that avenue, and no one had listened. She’d been twenty years old, and Henry had seen to it that her credibility was less than zero. He had painted a convincing picture of a hysterical young woman balanced on the edge of mental instability. He had done a great job of character assassination, and she had played into his hands on several occasions by openly accusing him of trying to murder her, from the age of eleven on. It had been a case of people thinking she was crying wolf. Even her own mother had believed she was mentally unstable.

Until the sabotage on her car’s brakes, Anna had begun to believe it herself.

No one had given credence to the notion that Henry de Rocheford was doing anything more than looking out for the interests and welfare of the Tarrant family, as he had “selflessly” done for years.

She had to wonder if anyone would now.

Minutes later, they were standing in the shadow of the entranceway to the park.

Anna’s wet coat clung and dragged. Moisture was seeping through in several places, and she was shivering, but she didn’t protest; she wanted to check the street before she stepped out onto it.

Despite the fact that she’d insisted she was capable of walking, she felt disconcertingly weak and was sharply aware that she was in no shape to handle anything else the night might throw at her. She swayed, her hand groping for the rough surface of one of the stone pillars for support, and didn’t protest when the stranger wrapped his arm around her waist, clamping her close against his side. The solid barrier of his body protected her from much of the wind and rain, and the heat that poured from him drove back the worst of the chill. Anna stiffened at her ready acceptance of the stranger’s protection, the extent of her trust in him when she didn’t trust anyone, the disturbing memory of those moments when she’d actually wanted to get closer to him. The bump on her head must have skewed her judgement.

His voice vibrated close to her ear, making her jump. “Where do you live?”

Anna didn’t bother to dissemble. “I have a flat nearby.” There was no point in not telling him where. She would have to leave, anyway. Tomorrow.

“I’ll see you home.”

The statement was delivered flatly, and she wasn’t inclined to argue with it. The stranger was big, well over six feet tall, and from what she had seen and could feel, he was solidly muscled. His arm tightened around her as he urged her across the road to a Jeep.

He helped her into the passenger seat. The Jeep smelled new and expensive. For the first time, it occurred to Anna to question what a well-heeled stranger had been doing strolling through Ambrose Park in the rain, at night, and what had compelled him to even look in the storm drain?

She knew he wasn’t the man who had chased her earlier; he was too tall, for one thing. But what if he had been looking for her? She couldn’t discount that possibility, no matter how much she wanted to trust him.

He swung into the driver’s seat with a sleek, fluid grace that drew her gaze. He had taken his jacket off, and in the dimly lit confines of the cab, his muscled biceps gleamed copper as he twisted and placed the dark bundle in the rear, along with the torch he’d carried. In the short time it had taken him to remove the jacket, his T-shirt had gotten soaked, and now it clung slickly to his broad shoulders and chest.

With dawning apprehension, she realised just how big, how powerfully built, he was, and that he was dressed completely in black: black pants, black boots—even a black watch, with a cover hiding the face. The colour of thieves and assassins.

His hair was long, caught back in a ponytail. She hadn’t noticed that in the dark; she had assumed his hair was short. Anna swallowed, for a moment caught again in the hazy limbo between sleep and wakefulness that had swamped her when she’d regained consciousness. This was no dream, she told herself fiercely. And he was no knight in shining armour, despite the fact that he’d helped her.

She tipped her head back to meet his gaze, and her breath hitched in her throat despite her attempts at control. His eyes were as dark as his clothing, an intense shadow-black that seemed to absorb light, giving nothing back. The effect was sombre, electrifying.

The impact of his face hit her all over again, sending an odd quiver of mingled fear and elation through her, starting a queer shifting sensation deep in her stomach, as if her centre of gravity had just altered and she hadn’t yet found her balance. Heat rose in her as she experienced another heavy jolt of the awareness that had disoriented her so badly earlier, as if she were once more caught in the relentless grasp of one of the vividly sensual dreams that had haunted her through the years.