glass and held his gaze.
‘Friends, Venetia.’ He supposed that they were, of a sort, even if they were opponents, too.
They touched their glasses together and let them linger a moment before drawing away.
The brandy was smooth and mellow upon his tongue, as expensive as any in his father’s cellar. He watched her take a sip, watched her swallow it down, her every action unmistakably feminine in contrast to the masculinity of the drink.
‘Brandy, but not champagne?’
She smiled. ‘Are you shocked? Rest assured, I do not normally invite gentlemen to dinner, let alone take brandy with them.’ She moved to sit in the small armchair closest to the fire.
‘Then I am the first?’
There was a sober expression in her eyes before she nodded. ‘Contrary to what the world may think.’ The knowledge pleased him more than it should have.
‘Why not any of the others?’
‘An unnecessary question.’
‘Not to me.’
Her fingers toyed with the stem of her glass where it balanced on the arm of the chair, but her eyes, when they met his, were bold. ‘Maybe the question you should be asking is why you?’ Then she looked away, reaching to set her glass down upon the small table and inadvertently knocking the newspaper balanced on the chair’s arm to the floor.
She bent to retrieve it, but Linwood was there first, their fingers tangling together against the crackle of paper. Their eyes met. Desire pulsed and throbbed between them. He stroked a thumb against her fingers and felt her hand open beneath his. Her eyes seemed to grow darker. He felt the tiny shiver that rippled through her, saw the way her lips parted slightly before she lowered her gaze and slowly withdrew her hand from his.
They rose together, their breathing in unison.
‘The London Messenger,’ he said.
‘Your own newspaper.’
He gave a nod of acknowledgement and glanced down at the page she had been reading.
‘The murder of Rotherham,’ she said.
‘Has done wonders for the paper’s circulation,’ he said and knew that the game had just racked up a notch. He kept his voice calm and steady, as if the subject matter meant nothing to him.
‘That seems a harsh take.’
‘I am a harsh man. And I have made no pretence of my feelings regarding Rotherham.’
‘You have not,’ she agreed. She gestured to the newspaper article. ‘It makes no mention of the fire that destroyed his house.’
‘Little wonder. The fire was three years ago.’
‘Three years. How precise your memory is, Francis.’ She was a worthy opponent, indeed. He knew where this was leading.
‘Very precise.’
‘One might wonder as to why.’ She watched him.
‘It is not every night that a duke’s pile is razed to the ground. It was a spectacular blaze...by all accounts.’ Thrust and parry.
The tension hummed between them. They were dicing closer to the edge than ever before.
She paused and in that tiniest of silences was the roar of danger and desire. He knew the question that was coming next.
‘Did you witness it?’ she asked.
‘You are very interested in Rotherham, Venetia,’ he said softly.
‘Is not everyone?’ She held his gaze; watching him as carefully as he watched her. ‘And you have not answered my question.’
‘Half of London witnessed it,’ he said.
‘What sort of man burns another’s home to the ground, and a duke’s mansion at that?’
He thought of all the darkness of the past, and of Rotherham slumped dead across his desk with a bullet in his brain. He thought of Clandon’s suspicions, and of the questions that were now being asked about Rotherham’s murder. And he knew what he must do. He could see the flutter of the pulse in her neck, the dilation of the pupils in her eyes, each and every long dark lash that lined them. He stepped closer, moved his mouth to her ear. She made no move, stood as still as a statue, while all that was between them struggled and strained in the hiss of silence for release.
‘A man like me,’ he whispered. Her breasts rose and fell a little faster. He heard the soft quickening of her breath. ‘But then you have known that all along, have you not, Venetia?’
She nodded as if she did not trust herself to speak. Her lips parted slightly. ‘And the rest of it...?’ Her chest held still along with her breath.
The air was so tense that it almost crackled.
He shook his head, but did not clarify if it was a denial of guilt or a refusal to answer the question. ‘Let us not talk of the rest of it tonight.’
She