Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [94]
No, it was all coming to fruition. He would have liked to be in at the kill, but he’d waited a long, long time for this kind of satisfaction. It would be worthless if his presence did something to endanger its success.
Tomorrow afternoon there’d be a huge, collapsed section of earth in the west field. Both Isobel and Serafin would have disappeared, leaving Madsen behind to help clean up the mess. Harry was rethinking his decision to get rid of Madsen—he could find work for a man like him. Peter was an unsentimental individual, cold as ice, and he could be relied upon to do what needed to be done, with no squeamishness.
It was a shame Bastien Toussaint had disappeared, but he was a bit of unfinished business that could always be dealt with later.
For the time being, the Committee was almost back in hand. And some night, very soon, Harry would take his King Charles spaniels and stroll out to the sunken field and spit.
He was too old and dignified to dance on their grave. But he could count on the dogs to do their business, and that would have to suffice.
He’d step in and save the Committee. And with any luck, in a few years the Queen’s Honours List would include his life peerage. “Lord Harry” was so much nicer than a paltry “Sir Harry.”
In the meantime, he needed to exercise all the patience he had at his command. The trap was baited and set.
He just had to wait.
21
The bed was very small. Killian was very large. Long legs and arms wrapped around her as he slept, and she should feel suffocated, trapped.
She didn’t.
Her body hurt. He hadn’t meant to hurt her—in fact, she was probably to blame for it. She’d pushed him. He’d pushed her. They’d done everything she could think of and then things she’d never imagined, as the long, endless hours stretched into the night and beyond, and she’d taken him every way she could.
And now she was lying in his arms, entwined with him, her body aching, her soul hurting, her heart ready to explode. They’d had rough sex, kinky sex, silly sex, deliciously nasty sex. And then, God help her, they’d made love.
He’d moved deep inside her body, his eyes looking into hers, his hands cradling her face with devastating gentleness, and he’d been motionless as he came inside her. And then he’d said, “I love you.”
The monster, the butcher, the man who’d put a bullet in the head of a pregnant fifteen-year-old, who worked for terrorists and sadists and genocidal maniacs, had told her he loved her.
And even more horrifying was the undeniable fact that she loved him, and always had. Even when she’d thought she’d killed him. Even if she had to kill him again, she loved him.
And there was no way she could live with that sick, awful knowledge.
She could run. She, who never ran, never faltered, never shirked her duty. She could slip out of his sleeping arms, pull on her clothes and leave this place. Just vanish, into the night air.
She could do it—she had the skills. Peter wouldn’t find her. He’d certainly be able to, but he wouldn’t do so. He’d let her go, because he’d know that she wouldn’t run unless she absolutely had to.
And he could take over the Committee in her place. He was better at keeping Harry Thomason’s delusions at bay, and he knew everything she knew. She still had to fight her emotions, the feelings breaking through her icy calm. Peter had made peace with that long ago. He had no emotions, except when it came to Genevieve. He could take care of business with icy composure, find out who and what was behind this latest string of disasters, and make sure whoever they were were stopped. He could see that Killian was set up in the style he was demanding. And meanwhile Isobel would be gone. Where no one, not even Killian, could find her.
It was almost as if he were hearing her thoughts in his deep, exhausted sleep, because he stirred, his grip tightening, and muttered a soft grunt of protest under his breath. As if he knew she was going to run.
He’d try to stop her,