Page 37 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
‘Gossip has it you are an experienced and generous woman and he is a cad and a spendthrift. If you would like to pass some time in my company, I am certain you would not regret it.’
Snatching back her hand, she stepped away. Was this person mentally sick? Could he hurt her? Should she run? Nicholas was back now and her first thought was that he had not waited to collect their chestnuts. Her second was more along the lines of amazement. He looked nothing at all like he usually did, the disdain in his face showing every feeling.
‘Get away from her, Bowles.’
Nicholas’s hand was in his pocket now and Eleanor had the impression that he might have held a weapon there. In the mood he was in she was more than certain he would use it should this stranger be difficult.
The fury in Bowles was magnified as he spat out his words. ‘Bromley. I had heard you were back, of course, but I scarcely believed it. Back from the dead like a cat with nine lives, though I have to say your appearance is altered for the worst. More contretemps in America? The result of your arrogance and your reckless testing of boundaries?’
‘Stay away from me and from my friends. If you decide not to take this advice, then expect retribution.’ Nicholas spoke quietly but there was a threat in every single syllable that was unmistakable, the echoes of an old hatred more than evident. He’d gained control of himself now, a stillness in him that was decidedly menacing and any emotions upon his face well hidden.
All fight seemed to go from Bowles and he turned on his heels and left them, the tap of his shoe plates distinct against the stones on the ground.
* * *
Nicholas bit back a curse. What the hell was Nash Bowles doing talking with Eleanor? He didn’t want that crawling amoral mongrel anywhere near her, his mind returning to the woman he’d found the bastard with in a back room of Vitium et Virtus just before he had disappeared all those years ago.
Nick had seen exactly what a madman was capable of then, the lines of carefully placed cuts on the girl’s bottom weeping blood.
‘It’s a place of fantasy,’ Bowles had shouted, his fists flying. ‘And you have no business being in here and spoiling it. She’s a serving maid, for God’s sake, and will be well pleased with the trinket I shall leave with her as payment. Besides, the pleasure of pain is underrated.’
His victim’s face told him exactly the opposite.
‘Is that true?’ As he’d asked the small dark girl this question she had simply shaken her head and burst into tears, trying to pull her clothes up to cover her shame in the process. There were more wounds on her fingers.
Without another thought Nicholas had picked up a much thinner Bowles by the scruff of his neck and thrown him out the front door, uncaring of his lack of dress and his plethora of threats. He fell in an untidy heap on to the pavement below.
‘Never come back. If you do I will kill you slowly with as much pain as I can administer.’
‘You will regret this, Bromley,’ he had replied. ‘See if you don’t.’
Nick had laughed at that and lifting the small knife that the other had dropped threw it in an arc so that it landed within an inch of Nash Bowles’s right hand.
‘The only thing I might regret is not aiming that blade squarely into the space between your legs.’
That day long ago morphed into this one as Nicholas felt a warm hand tuck into the crook of his arm, his mind brought abruptly back from the past to the present.
The wind had risen and the grasses under the trees were being tossed in a silky blanket.
‘I thought he might even have tried to drag me off with him.’ Eleanor sounded breathless. ‘I think he is deranged.’
‘I am sorry. He won’t hurt you.’
‘He has hurt others?’
‘Many, probably.’
‘Then what is it he wants from you?’
‘Revenge or the promise of silence? He is a bully and a coward and as he was interested in a stake of Vitium et Virtus for himself he was always hanging around the club.’
Her teeth were worrying her top lip. ‘He would be a horrible person there, for there is something frightening about him, something broken.’
‘You are right and I have first-hand knowledge that he does not truly comprehend the notion of a line between yes and no. He was an only child and more than spoilt so he imagines the world should be exactly as he should want it.’ Nick breathed in deeply, trying to disperse the alarm he had felt when he saw Eleanor with Bowles. If she were to be hurt because of his past...?
‘Will you play a part in the club’s running now you are back?’
‘No. I’m thinking of giving my share to the others if they want it.’
