To Capture a Rogue, A Revelry’s Tempest Novel 3, (EBOOK)

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{ Chapter 1 }

London, England
September 1814


The blade embedded into the wood next to his temple wasn’t his first clue.

But it did verify the fact that Nicolina was ready to kill him. And this time, she might very well do the job.

“You’re alive, you bloody bastard.” Her left fist flew hard into his chest, pinning him to the stable wall as her right hand shifted position on the black leather hilt of the blade next to his head.

His wife always had been fire. Uncontrollable. Demanding. Explosive.

But the blade was new. Or at the very least, she had never come this close to severing his ear.

Nicolina had always been good with the blade. Too good, thanks to that misguided uncle of hers.

“Alive.”

The one word seethed long from her full lips as she yanked the dagger from the wood. Her shoulder shifted back, her arm ready to strike again.

Gareth caught her wrist high in the air, halfway to contact.

She could attack him once in an ambush out of the black of night. But not twice.

Twice he would not let slide.

His fingers around her wrist tightened, choking until she squealed. Her left fist on his chest started to pound into his flesh.

“Blast it, Nic.”

His muttered words sent her into a flurry of fury, a demon wildcat bent on pummeling him into the depths of hell. Her left fist and the tips of her boots flew in a whirlwind, bent on punishing.

He shook her captured arm, squeezing harder until the dagger popped, slipping from her fingers. He twisted her wrist into submission, forcing it behind her back as he spun her, his free hand wrapping around her waist.

Trapped, she screeched, her legs flailing as he lifted her from the ground. Her body clamped to his, he carried her to a stall at the back of the stable, grabbing several lengths of leather reins on the way. Within seconds—against her twisting and kicking—he managed to tie her wrists onto the rails of a wooden chair behind her back.

Her body bucked against the seat of the chair and he rounded on her. His hands clamped onto her shoulders and he set his weight to bear down onto her.

“Cease, Nic.”

Still a wildcat, she jerked to the left under his weight, tilting the chair to the side, almost making it tip over.

He caught her mid fall and righted the chair, then dug his fingertips into the muscles in her shoulders. “Dammit, Nic, cease. You bloody well just almost cut off my ear.”

Her body stilled even as her chest heaved with rapid breaths. She shook her head, trying to clear wild locks of blond hair that had escaped her bonnet from in front of her eyes. She looked up, her green eyes piercing him. “If I had wanted to take your ear, Gareth, I would already be holding the bloody stump of it.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Nic?”

“What the hell am I doing here?” A forced cackle screeched through her teeth. “What in the hell are you doing here, Gareth? What in the hell are you doing alive? What in the hell business do you have at a gaming hall? What in the hell are you doing walking around, alive, healthy, whistling—whistling, damn it, bloody well whistling—I heard you come through the gardens whistling. While I think you are dead—for a year—and not just any death—a cold, painful, vile death—your body lost, rotting on some random dirty field on the continent. And you are whistling?”

“Nic—”

“What, Gareth? What? There is no excuse—none—you are alive and you didn’t come home. You are dead—dead. And then suddenly you are here.”

Gareth’s head dropped forward, his eyes closing. He willed a breath deep into his lungs. Peeling his fingers upward and off of her shoulders, he took a step backward.

Took a step away.

He had to breathe. Breathe air that was not hers. Air that wouldn’t consume him. Space that wouldn’t consume him. Fire that wouldn’t consume him.

He wasn’t ready.

He hadn’t been able to even bear the thought of seeing her. Of setting himself in front of her once more. Not with the shame.

And then this. Her attacking him out of the blind.

His forehead lifted, his eyes pinning her.  She hadn’t moved, hadn’t twitched. She just stared at him, each breath she took sending a fresh tremble through her body. Anger. Anger consuming her.

“You are in no state to listen to me right now, Nic.”

“Untie me.”

“You are not calm enough to untie.”

Her body convulsed, her arms trying to break free from the leather binding them to the chair. “Untie me this instant, you treacherous monstrous arse.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “My point.”

“You don’t get to have a point, Gareth.” Her body continued to twist, yanking on the knots holding her down and the small black bonnet on her head slipped to the side and fell down onto her shoulder. “You are bloody well alive. So you don’t get a point. You don’t get a word. You don’t get anything.”

He exhaled a long breath, striving for control, striving to reconcile the fact in his mind that his wife had randomly appeared in London, found him, and was sitting before him.

Plotting his quick and painful death, no doubt. But here. Here with her green eyes shooting daggers at him.

“What do you want of me, Nic?”

Her head snapped back, her body stilling. “What do I want?” A coarse chuckle left her as her look went upward to the stable roof, her head shaking. “Nothing, Gareth. Absolutely nothing.”

“You attacked me, Nic, your blade nearly impaling my forehead, and you want nothing from me?”

Her gaze dropped to skewer him. “I strike that. I do want something from you, Gareth. I want you, my husband, to know that I am well aware of the fact that you are alive.”

 “Then you have succeeded on that score, Nic.” He inclined his head to her. "Good eve.”

He spun and strode out of the stables without a backward glance.