She knew she shouldn’t . . . that it wouldn’t do . . . but then her fingers were on that thin white line, barely there against rich skin, edging into the soft swell of his lip. And then she was touching his mouth, tracing the dips and curves of it, marveling at its softness.
Remembering the way it had felt on hers.
Wishing for—
No.
Her hand came away from him as though she’d been burned, and she turned her attention to the rest of him, to the way one arm spread haphazardly across the carpet, the victim of laudanum. He looked uncomfortable, and so she reached across him, intending to straighten that arm, to lay it flat against his side. But once his hand was in hers, she couldn’t help but consider it, the spray of black hair that dusted the back of it, the way the veins tracked like rivers across its landscape, the way the knuckles rose and dipped, scarred and calloused from years of fighting. Bruised with experience.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” She ran her thumb across those knuckles, unable to resist, unable to remain aloof in the feel of him.
In the memory of him—young and charming and handsome, with the world at his feet—tempting her like nothing else.
Nothing else, but freedom.
She shivered in the cool room, her gaze moving to the fire, where the flames he’d stoked had died away to a quiet ember. She stood and moved to add another log to the hearth, stirring the coals to raise the fire. Once golden flames licked and danced again, she returned to him, staring down at him arms akimbo, and took a moment to speak to him, finding the act much easier with his accusing eyes closed. “If you hadn’t threatened me, we would not be in this position. If you’d simply agreed to my trade, you’d be conscious. And I’d not feel so guilty.”
He did not reply.
“Yes, I left you holding the guilt for my death.”
And still nothing.
“But I swear I did not mean it to go the way I did. The whole thing got away from me.”
Yet still she’d run.
“If you knew why I did it—”
His chest rose in a long, even breath.
“Why I returned—”
And fell.
If he knew, he’d still be furious. She sighed. “Well. Here we are. And I am tired of running.”
No answer.
“I shan’t run now.”
It seemed important to say it. Perhaps because there was a part of her—a very sane and intelligent part of her—that wished to run. That wished to leave him here on his cold, hard floor, and escape as she had so many years ago.
But there was another part of her—not so sane, and not so intelligent—that knew that it was time for her penance. And that if she played her cards right, she could get what she wanted in the bargain.
“Assuming you negotiate.”
She turned to the sideboard, where the day’s paper sat, unread. She wondered if he were the kind of man who read his news each day. If he were the kind of man who cared about the world.
Guilt flared, and she pushed it away.
She tore the sheet of newsprint in half, then searched the drawers in the room until she found what she was looking for—a pot of ink and a quill. She scrawled a note, haphazardly waving the wet ink in the air as she returned to him, still as a corpse.
Extracting a hairpin, she crouched beside him again. “No blood this time,” she whispered to him. “I hope you’ll notice that.”
Still, he slept.
She pinned the note to his chest, reached into his boot to extract her knife, and made to leave.
Except she couldn’t.
At the door, she turned back, noting the chill in the room. She couldn’t leave him like this. He’d catch a death of cold. On a chair in the corner, there was a green and black tartan. It was the least she could do.
She had drugged the man, after all.
She was across the room and had the blanket in her hands before she could change her mind. She spread it across him, tucking it around his body carefully, trying not to notice the size of him. The way he exuded warmth and the tempting scent of clove and thyme. The memory of him. The now of him.
Failing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
And then she left.
Chapter 3
H e dreamed of the ballroom at Whitefawn Abbey, gleaming sun-bright in the shade of a thousand candles and the sheen of silks and satins in a myriad of color.
The room belied the darkness that lurked beyond the enormous windows overlooking the massive gardens of the Devonshire estate—the country seat of the Duke of Lamont.
His estate.
He descended the wide marble stairs to the ballroom floor, where a crush of bodies writhed in time to the orchestra situated behind a wall of greenery at the far end of the room. The heat of the revelers overwhelmed him as he made his way through the throngs, pressing against him, pulsing with laughter and sighs, hands reaching for him, touching, grasping. Wide smiles and unintelligible words beckoned him deeper into the mass of people—welcoming him into its center.
Home.
There was a glass in his hand; he lifted it to his lips, the cool stream of champagne quenching the thirst he hadn’t noticed before, but was now nearly unbearable. He lowered the glass, letting it fall into nothingness as a beautiful woman turned and stepped into his arms.
“Your Grace.” The title echoed through him, coming on a wave of pleasure.
They danced.
The steps came from distant memory, a slow, spinning eternity of long-forgotten skill. The woman in his arms was all warmth, tall enough to make him a proper match, and curved enough to fit his long arms.
The music swelled, and still they danced, turning again and again, the sea of faces in the ballroom fading into blackness—the walls of the room falling away as he was distracted by a sudden, heavy weight on his sleeve. He turned his attention to his forearm, wrapped in black wool, pristine but for a sixpence-sized white spot.
Wax, fallen from the chandeliers overhead.
As he watched, the spot liquefied, spreading across his coat sleeve in a thread of molten honey. The woman in his arms reached for the liquid—her long, delicate fingers stroking along the fabric, her touch spreading fire as it crept toward the spot, hot wax coating her fingertips before she turned them up to his gaze.
She had beautiful hands.
Beautiful skin.
She wore no gloves.
He followed the line of her long arm from wrist to shoulder, taking in her piecemeal perfection—the curves and valleys of her collarbone; the long rise of her neck; her angled jaw; her wide, welcoming mouth; long, equine nose; and eyes like none he’d ever seen. One blue, one green.
Her lips curved around the words he’d craved and feared for so long. “Your Grace.”
And, like that, she was in focus.
Mara Lowe.
He woke on the floor of his library, coming to his feet in a mad rush, a foul curse echoing in the blue fog of breaking dawn.
A green and black tartan fell to his feet as he rose, and the fact that the woman had covered him with a blanket after drugging him in the dead of night was no kind of comfort. He imagined her standing over him at his most vulnerable moment, and wanted to roar his anger.
She had drugged him and left.
Again.
On the heels of that thought came another.
Dear God. She was alive.
He hadn’t killed her.
Relief burst full and high in his lungs, warring with frustration and ire.
He wasn’t a killer.
He ran one hand down his face to ease the tightness of the emotion, and noticed that she had not simply left him.