Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,66

and gathering up her skirts, she picked her way carefully across the road, the snow slick under her boots. Stealing a glance about, she noted the street proved a barren stretch of roadway, with no observers about. Faye slipped down a passageway, bypassing dark window after dark window, heading for the lone one that emitted a soft, fiery glow.

The moment she reached that window, she caught the edges of the sill with her fingers and went up on tiptoes.

Alas, the distance from the earth to the sill, combined with her already miserably short stature, made seeing inside an impossibility.

Sinking back to her heels, she dropped her palms atop her hips and did a sweep of the narrow alley. Faye’s gaze landed on a crate, and springing into movement, she raced the length of the way. Collecting it in her arms, she wrestled it back to the window.

Panting and slightly damp from her exertions, her muscles straining, she set it carefully down. Then, climbing up, she inched closer to the clear panels.

And promptly wished she hadn’t been so successful in managing a look inside.

Everything within her froze. Her heart’s very beat. The breath in her lungs. The thoughts in her head.

All became useless. She was useless.

It was Tynan. And yet, Tynan as she’d never before seen him.

Her unblinking gaze remained fixed on that prettily decorated, bright, and cheerful parlor and, more specifically, Tynan and the woman with him.

Tynan was dressed in the quality of black wool garments befitting any proper gentleman, but he also wore a smile. Not the cynical bend of his lips that she’d grown accustomed to, but a genuine, relaxed, lazy quirk, and all because of the woman in his arms. She was near in age to Faye’s years, and yet, that was where all similarities between them ended.

Tall where Faye was short.

Gently rounded where Faye was almost gaunt.

Her curls a pale, perfect gold, a stark contrast to Faye’s dark tresses.

And currently, that young woman was enveloped in Tynan’s arms. Their laughter melded, snapping Faye from her horrified reverie and bringing her sinking back to her heels.

Heart racing, Faye stared at the stucco wall of this residence Tynan kept.

A family.

More specifically, a lover. Or a wife.

A sharp pain cleaved at her chest.

Why was the latter possibility somehow all the worse?

Which didn’t make much sense. She’d known Tynan but a handful of days. And their interactions and exchanges had been bound in what each of them stood to gain from the other. They’d been tense and angry and… passionate. Her eyes slid closed, her lips tingling still with the memory of his mouth on hers.

He, who’d insisted throughout that he didn’t so much as like her, and yet, he should smile and laugh so freely with that handsomely attired young beauty.

Faye opened her eyes.

Nay, it shouldn’t matter and didn’t matter. She’d been met with that same derision from the very people who’d sired her. Nor was this discovery truly about how Faye felt. The entire reason Finn had directed her to these streets was so that Faye might see that Tynan wasn’t the unmovable, indifferent figure he presented to the world. He was a man who did care, and by the way he’d embraced that woman, he was a man who cared deeply.

Faye stared blankly at a portion of the stucco wall.

The truth of it was, she actually did know that he cared about people from how he looked after Finn and the other children who lived in that house he kept.

But now she also knew he had someone important in his life, and that was no doubt the reason he couldn’t be bothered to invest a moment of his time with her.

Shivering within the folds of her fur-lined cloak, she rubbed at her arms. With just one glimpse, she’d gathered the depth and force of his caring and love for the woman.

Faye stood there. She didn’t know for how long. Long enough that her toes went so cold as to go numb within her boots, and she ceased feeling the cold. She, however, proved the glutton for suffering that her sisters affectionately teased her for being.

Scrambling onto that crate once more, she raised herself up and peered inside.

Oh, God.

He was reading.

It was a tiny book and yet a familiar one.

Poems.

He was reading poetry.

As he did, the gloriously beautiful young woman sat, embroidering, as all good ladies were wont to do, as Faye had always quite hated and resented.

Faye’s gaze moved to the enigmatic Tynan Wylie, perfectly groomed, seated