Page 121 of The Viscount's Seduction
There were lights in the stables. Someone would come for her.
Donegal stretched a leg through the window and paused, looking down.
Well, and he had somehow managed to come in that way, teetering on this fascia board like an elephant dancing on a tea saucer.
His other leg came through.
“Help,” she shouted.
“Sirena.” That bellowing voice was Bakeley. He was right below her.
“Bakeley,” she shouted.
Donegal stepped out on to the same length of board where she tottered. It gave way.
She shrieked, and slid, hands scratching along the brick façade, finding no purchase until her toes hit a jutting casement above a ground floor window.
“Blast it.” Her fingertips gripped the one other brick in the entire house needing tuckpointing.
“Sirena, jump.”
She heard scratching from the shadows. Donegal was perched on another window.
He was coming for her. Below her was all bricked gangway. The spymaster’s home was not surrounded by bushes or trees that would obscure the windows or allow a climber in, no. Someone risking this climb would also risk a broken limb or worse.
“Come, love. I’m here.” A hand gripped her ankle and relief flooded her.
“Bakeley.”
“Slide into my arms, woman.”
He pulled her foot from its perch and she shrieked, balancing on the one foot still supported by wood.
“Now,” he said, and grabbed her other foot.
“Wait.” She closed her eyes and reached a hand down for another purchase. He caught at her other leg and slid her along his body, while she braced her hands against the window, sliding until she was leaning on him, his arms locked around her, her bottom cradled against where his stiff manhood would be if he ever again felt any desire for her. His scent—leather, bergamot and horses curled around her too, and his breath came in great gulps like he’d just run all the way from Knightsbridge—or wherever he’d been. She began to shake in the same rhythm.
He squeezed her tighter. “My God.”
A thud sounded nearby.
“It’s him.” Her voice was a whisper, a mere breath.
Bakeley loosed his grip and shoved her behind him. The thud of two feet hitting the ground had been loud enough. The stealthy movement that came after, he sensed more than heard, and it was close.
The stitch in his side still pained, but it was nothing compared to the rush of panic, and then relief, and now rage sweeping through him.
Her trembling rattled him also. She tugged at his arm, trying to yank him away from the dark, invisible figure lurking.
He pulled the pistol from his pocket. “Go.” They were near the servant’s entrance. “Wait for me in the kitchen.”
A loud crash sounded above and a beam of light burst from the library window, erasing the shadows around them.
Just in time, Bakeley ducked.
The fist coming at him shattered a ground floor window. Bakeley ripped a sharp blow to the man’s jaw with his left fist, and the man went down.
Footsteps clattered, growing louder.
