line of her dress, the muscles of her throat working as she listened. “And I think you know I intend to have a name.”
Her eyes narrowed on him in the dim light. “Is that a threat?” He didn’t reply, and in the silence, she seemed to calm, her breath evening out as her shoulders straightened. “I don’t take kindly to threats. This is the second time you have interrupted my evening, sir. You would do well to remember that it was I who saved your hide earlier.”
The change in her was remarkable. “You nearly killed me.”
She scoffed. “Please. You were perfectly agile. I saw you tumble your way from the carriage like it wasn’t the first time you’d been tossed from one.” She paused. “It wasn’t, was it?”
“That doesn’t mean I am looking to make a habit of it.”
“The point is, without me, you could be dead in a ditch. A reasonable gentleman would thank me kindly and take himself elsewhere at this point.”
“You are unlucky, then, that I am not that.”
“Reasonable?”
“A gentleman.”
She gave a little surprised chuckle at that. “Well, as we are currently in a brothel, I think neither of us can claim much gentility.”
“That wasn’t on your list of qualifications?”
“Oh, it was,” she said, “But I expected more the approximation of gentility rather than the actuality of it. But there’s the rub; I have plans, approximations be damned, and I’m not letting you ruin them.”
“The plans you spoke of before tossing me out of a carriage.”
“I didn’t toss you.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “All right, I tossed you. But you fared perfectly well.”
“No thanks to you.”
“I don’t have the information you want.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. “How very rude.”
“Take your mask off.”
“No.”
His lips twitched at the unyielding reply. “What is the Year of Hattie?”
She lifted her chin in defiance, but stayed silent. Whit gave a little grunt and moved across the room to the champagne, returning to fill her glass. When the task was done, he returned the bottle to its place and leaned back against the windowsill, watching her fidget.
She was always in motion, smoothing skirts or playing at her sleeve—he drank in the long line of the dress, the way it wrapped her unruly curves and made promises that a man wished she would keep. The candlelight teased over her skin, gilding her. This was not a woman who took tea. This was a woman who took the sun.
She had money, clearly. And power. A woman required both in spades for entry to 72 Shelton—even knowing the place existed required a network that did not come easily. There were a thousand reasons why she might wish access, and Whit had heard them all. Boredom, dissatisfaction, recklessness. But he couldn’t see any of those in Hattie. She wasn’t an impetuous girl—she was old enough to know her mind and to make her choices. Nor was she plain, or a dilettante.
He moved toward her. Slowly. Deliberately.
She stiffened. Her grip tightened on the paper in her hand. “I shan’t be intimidated.”
“He stole from me, and I wish it back.”
But that wasn’t everything.
He was close enough to touch her. Close enough to measure the height he’d noticed in her before, nearly equal to his own. Close enough to see her eyes, dark behind the mask, fixed on him. Close enough to be cloaked in almonds.
“Whatever it is.” She pushed her shoulders back. “I shall see it returned.”
Four shipments. Three outriders with bullets in them. After tonight, Whit’s own throwing knives, which he prized above all else. And, if he was right, more than could ever be repaid.
He shook his head. “It’s not possible. I require a name.”
She stiffened at the doubt. “I beg your pardon; I do not fail.”
Another man might have found the words amusing. But Whit heard the honesty in them. How was she involved in this mess? He couldn’t resist repeating himself. “What is the Year of Hattie?”
“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”
No. He didn’t say it.
She took a deep breath in the silence, seeming to consider her options. And then, “It is what it sounds like. It is my year. The year I claim for myself.”
“How?”
“I’ve a four-point plan to captain my own fate.”
His brows rose. “Four points.”
She lifted a hand, ticking the answers off on her long, gloved fingers. “Business. Home. Fortune. Future.” She paused. “Now, if you would tell me what precisely was removed from your possession, I will see it returned, and we