When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,18

to thumb through some papers on a desk.

He’d dismissed her without saying anything.

She wasn’t some weak chit to be pushed aside.

She pursed her lips. “What did that boy steal from you?”

“A brass candlestick.”

“And that was enough to threaten him with death and cast him from your household?” she asked incredulously.

“Sam committed a crime,” he said through what looked like gritted teeth.

“He’s a little boy!”

“You do not know what you are speaking about,” he said so softly a chill ran through her blood. “And now the matter is over.”

“No, it isn’t,” Messalina shot back. “I’ll not live with a man who is so savage to a child.”

“You’ll not live with me?” Gideon looked up at that, his face dark. “You’ve given your word, madam. Do you truly wish to have this battle with me?”

Messalina inhaled, steadying herself. One month. That was all she had to endure before she could leave him.

“No. But your behavior—”

“Just because you cannot understand my actions doesn’t give you the right to judge them—or me.” He stepped closer to her, his animal heat radiating off him as he stared at her with narrowed black eyes. “Will you keep the terms of our bargain?”

She was breathing fast, her heart racing with hatred…or some other emotion. “You have no—”

“Messalina.” He caught her chin, his hands hard as he leaned close in a parody of a kiss. “Will you keep your word?”

She did not fear him. She did not. “Yes.”

She yanked her chin from his fingers.

For a moment they stood there, she still breathing too fast, he with banked heat in his obsidian eyes.

He reached out and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear slowly. Almost tenderly. “Thank you.”

Her lips parted as she stared at him.

His hand fell and he bowed abruptly. “I’ve an appointment. I’ll return tonight to sup with you.”

He gave her one last piercing look before walking out the door.

Messalina’s shoulders slumped as the tension drained out of her. Lord. How was she to sit and eat with Hawthorne tonight? Converse as if nothing at all had happened?

And then it struck her: in one month’s time she’d have to do more than converse with Gideon.

She’d have to lie with him.

* * *

Thirty minutes later Gideon climbed the front steps of Windemere House.

He’d spent the walk here remembering Messalina’s face. The expression of shock and disgust. It shouldn’t bother him. After all, he’d never wanted kind looks before. Never needed them. He didn’t need anything other than his own wits and cunning.

Still. That expression bothered him.

He shook his head and rapped sharply at the door. A minute later it was pulled open by the butler, a man named Johnson and one of the witnesses to his marriage to Messalina. The man paused to give Gideon a long look. Gideon couldn’t help a hard, bright smile. He knew what the butler was thinking—in all the years Gideon had worked for the duke, he’d always entered this house by the servants’ entrance.

Johnson stepped aside, his manner once again that of a rigid upper-level servant.

Gideon gave his hat to a footman and followed the butler up the stairs and down a narrow hall.

Johnson tapped at a door and then opened it. “Mr. Hawthorne, Your Grace.”

Windemere looked up from a plate piled with smoked fish, ham, and eggs, and gestured with his knife. “Leave us.”

The butler silently shut the door.

Windemere sat back in his chair. “Think you pulled one over on me, do you? Stealing my niece away.”

Gideon didn’t let an eyelash flicker. “No, Your Grace. My wife was merely eager to inspect her new home.” He added smoothly, “I’m sorry that in her excitement we forgot to bid you farewell.”

The duke grunted ill-humoredly and attacked the fish with his knife and fork.

Gideon wondered how many times he’d stood like this in front of the duke, waiting for orders, watching him gobble a meal. A hundred times? Two hundred?

Past any man’s endurance, in any case.

“Well?” the duke finally barked, as if Gideon were the one holding up the discussion.

“I wanted to discuss our pact.”

“Eager for her dowry, are you?”

Of course he was. He needed that money to make his way into society. Gideon merely nodded.

The duke ate the rest of his fish.

Gideon made sure to show no impatience. That would only reward the old man.

Windemere finally rose and walked to a tall desk against the wall. He took a key from a chain on his watch and unlocked the desk to take out a legal paper. “I’ve caused half of