“She does not,” he said flatly. “I barely know the chit.”
His friend melted away in the dark, his low, mocking laugh lingering in the air.
It was Rhys’s turn to stop when Nicolas asked, “Did he ask you about her?”
He closed his eyes, hating the fact that he asked, for it confirmed a belief that he himself did not understand.
He…the shadow that might prove to be Nicolas’s most dangerous adversary in the long game he played.
Rhys did not answer for several moments, then he replied, “He was most interested.”
The shadows swallowed him, and Nicolas took a deep breath to calm the sudden pounding of his heart.
You little fool, how recklessly you linked our fates and I danced with you tonight.
He took a hackney from Covent Garden to Berkeley Square and exited the equipage a few houses down from her home. Gripping his cane, he made his way in the shadows of the gas lamp of her home. He waited a few beats before crossing the streets and climbing over the side gate, walking with careful stealth around to the gardens that faced her windows. Standing there, he peered up. There was a light in her room, and she sat at the open windows, her chin resting on her drawn-up knees, staring out into the night.
Her glorious hair was unbound, a few long curls waving in the gentle wind. She looked wildly desirable and forlorn. Nicolas stared at her, perfectly hidden in the dark of her gardens. He was almost tempted to climb the trellis to her small balcony. Would she scream? Slap him?
No, she would be dignified in her hurt. He blew out a low breath. How presumptuous of him to even dare think his remark had been enough to cause her injury. Lady Maryann had exerted no effort to captivate him, yet he was unwillingly entranced.
“I know you are there,” she said so softly, he wondered if he imagined it.
How had she known? Was it the same for her, that her skin burned with awareness at their proximity? Nonsense, but deep inside, something purred. The need stirring to life felt unusual, foreign, and it shook him to the core. It made no earthly sense that his resistance to her allure was so fragile.
He was not a man to be entangled with matters of the heart or of the flesh. He’d only taken four lovers in the years he’d spent abroad, all Parisian actresses, and only a few since he returned to England. Each connection had been a momentary burst of pleasure; all had been easily obtained and relinquished with greater ease. He had formed no attachment, and he hungered for none. His mistress these last two years had been a deeper dive into vengeance, understanding its complexity and becoming the man it required.
Building a reputation such as he had did not happened overnight, but by layer of deceptive layer infused with a healthy dollop of cunning.
His heart jolted, and with a sense of shock, he realized he’d not taken a lover in about six months, and whom Nicolas truly couldn’t remember. All the debauchery done in the most exclusive whorehouse to bestow him the moniker “the daring and the wicked” had been a part of his machinations. Those women had been paid handsomely to ignore him as he paced their boudoir and mentally calculated his next steps. Only when his need had been great did he tumble with one into true debauchery that would last the evening.
“Why did you come?”
“Did I place that wounded look in your eyes?”
She lowered her gaze briefly, and he detected the gentle shudder as it worked through her slender frame. She looked so young and innocent, her lashes long and thick against her pale skin. Her eyes opened, and a faint hauteur settled on her face. “How arrogant to think you would have such power,” she said with a smile of disdain.
That curve of her mouth was meant to mock, but the irresistible pull of its latent sensuality had his breath hitching in his throat. The part of him that he had silenced in his drive for vengeance stirred and stretched.
“I am sorry,” he said gruffly, unable to offer anything else. “I am so damned sorry.”
Chapter Eleven
Maryann inhaled at the flutter of warm sensations that erupted in her stomach and her heartbeat quickened uncomfortably. A dart of awareness prickled along her skin, as if she had summoned the devil who tormented her thoughts. It was inexplicable, but she