Was this the man who had so wounded Corinne? Who had made her fearful and given her that haunted look in her eyes?
His fists clenched at his sides. “I will know who you are,” Edward warned softly.
Quinn touched the brim of his hat, smiled in a near sneer, and mounted his horse. He could not have heard Edward or even seen his lips moving, but the fact that he’d picked up the gauntlet was clear.
Another complication in an already tangled affair.
Edward lowered the curtain and returned to Corinne.
Simon stood in the entryway of his home and pulled off his gloves one fingertip at a time, his movements deliberate and evenly paced. The action was meant to calm him, but it was ineffectual. His breath heaved with his anger, and his neck ached with tension.
Edward James had been visiting Lysette while she was “indisposed.” The man had stood in the window sans coat and waistcoat as if he were at home, his posture both defensive and possessive.
Simon had played this game before, coming to a head with a man over a desirable female. It was a diverting activity and Simon rarely had a true stake in the outcome. If he won the lady’s regard, the sex was wild and hot. If he lost it, he conceded with a smile and caught another.
This time, he was incensed. He would like to think it was only his pride that was bruised, but the truth was more disturbing than that. He had been happy those brief, passionate moments in the library. Not merely content or distracted but happy. To know that it had been nothing noteworthy to Lysette was a bitter realization to reach.
And then there was the feeling that he was losing his mind. He had disliked Lysette until last night. Now, suddenly, he felt murderous over the thought of her with another man.
Right now.
He growled and bounded up the stairs to his room, determined to change from his riding clothes to something more suitable for a night of bawdy delights. A hard f**k would get her out of his blood. Tomorrow he would be clear headed and ready to deal with her as he must.
“Mr. Quinn, you have a caller.”
Simon paused in the act of removing his cravat. He met his butler’s gaze in the mirror attached to the inside of his armoire door. “Who is it?”
“She would not give me her name, sir.”
Tensing at the news that his caller was female, he asked, “Is she blonde and beautiful?”
The butler’s mouth twitched. “Yes, sir.”
All of Simon’s simmering anger and frustration reheated to boiling. He yanked off the loosened linen and tossed it on the floor. She must have come haring directly after him in order to reach him so soon. Perhaps she realized how James’s show of propriety had ruined her plans for him, whatever they were.
For a moment, he debated sending her away without seeing her just to aggravate her in kind, but the thought of Eddington’s hold over him stayed his tongue. The sooner he knew what she was up to, the sooner he could be rid of her and away from the damnable lot of mischief makers.
“Where is his lordship?” he asked.
“Out for the evening, sir.”
With a long, rapid stride, Simon quit his chambers and descended to the lower floor. He was vaguely aware of his butler scrambling after him, but he paid the man no mind. He would not be needing tea or refreshments. If anything, he needed a stiff drink.
He paused on the threshold of the receiving parlor and found Lysette seated delicately on the edge of his yellow brocade settee. She was dressed in a bold burgundy gown, another color choice he would not have anticipated her to select but one he found potently alluring against her creamy skin. An elaborately decorated hat rested on the carved wooden side table and she twisted the strings of a matching reticule in her lap.
She was the picture of elegance and gentility . . .
. . . until she looked at him with the blue eyes that had lured him across a ballroom and into her arms.
Something akin to lightning raced across his skin. Burning. Tingling. Making him perspire. His heart rate picked up its pace and his chest rose and fell unevenly.
As he entered, her expression of hesitation and wariness was swiftly replaced with heated feminine appreciation. Her gaze lowered to his bared throat and her tongue darted out to caress her lush lower lip.
When her eyes met his again, the raw, carnal hunger he saw in the crystalline depths hardened every muscle in his body, tightening his frame with coiling lust. A quarter of an hour ago he had wanted to strangle her. Now, he wanted nothing more than to lift her skirts and ride her to a screaming cli**x.
Again and again.
He growled and snapped, “Bah! You are not worth the trouble.”
Pivoting, he left the room.
“Mr. Quinn . . . Wait!”
He turned about again and found her chasing after him. “The name is Simon, curse you, as you well know.”
She drew up short, her breathing as rapid as his. “Please. Allow me to introduce myself. I am—”
“I know bloody well who you are, you addlepated female!”
“Lynette Baillon,” she continued stubbornly, “daughter of the Vicomte de Grenier. I believe you may have known my sister, Lysette Baillon. Perhaps intimately . . . i-if last night was any indication.”
Simon stood frozen, unblinking. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“You do not know me,” she said softly. “Until last night, you and I had never met.”
Chapter 9
The woman was either daft as you please, or the answer to a prayer.
Simon’s gaze narrowed and became examining, moving from the top of Lysette’s—Lynette’s—golden head down to the hem of her gown. He noted the artfully revealed lacey underskirts, the tightly cinched waist, and the low bodice, which displayed a tempting swell of luscious br**sts. It was an ensemble designed to display the feminine charms of the wearer to best advantage. The Lysette he knew did not dress to arouse. If anything, her gowns were remarkably understated.
But beyond this woman’s outward appearance were deeper, more complex signs—there was no torment in her eyes and no brittle tension in her delicate frame.
Lynette. Lysette.
“Twins,” he said, near dizzy with the sudden rush of understanding.
“Yes.”
Out of all the things that should have come to Simon’s mind in that moment, the only one that gained prominence was the realization that he was not insane. He did not dislike and desire the same woman with equal vehemence. He disliked Lysette. He lusted for Lynette.
Simon lunged into motion without warning, catching Lynette’s elbow and dragging her back into the parlor. He kicked the door shut and tugged her about to face him. Before common sense reared its head or she regained her wits enough to protest, he cupped her head in both hands and took her mouth with savage intensity.
She tensed briefly, then melted. Her body leaned into his, her hands circled his wrists. She whimpered and surged into him, her voluminous skirts pushing into the hardened ridge of his c*ck and urging him into a frenzy of need.
He spun and pinned her to the door, his knees bending and then straightening, stroking the length of her body with his own. She gasped and his tongue stroked deep into her mouth, licking and tasting, drinking her in. As her skin heated with arousal, the scent of some exotic flower intoxicated him and made him drunk with desire. She did not smell like Lysette. She was unique.
She was his.
“A thiasce,” he breathed, lost in the feel of her.
Lynette released his wrists and reached for his waist, the feel of her small hands through the linen of his shirt inciting a ferocious, gnawing need.
Never in his life had he been so desperate to be inside a woman. And it was going to happen. Now. Nothing could stop him.
He fumbled for the key to turn the lock, but his hands shook with such violence that he could not grasp it. With a muttered curse, Simon turned his head away to see what he was doing.
“Were you lovers?” she asked in a husky whisper.
He glanced at her as the lock clicked audibly into place. She was flushed and disheveled and achingly beautiful. Although her features were a mirror of Lysette’s, she looked nothing like her. Lynette was soft and warm in his arms, her scent alluring instead of subdued, her passion hot and powerful.
“No,” he answered, absently thinking that there were a hundred questions to ask, while simultaneously realizing that he didn’t give a damn what the answers were. At least, not at the moment.
“Then why?”
“Why what?” What in hell was she talking about?
He reached between them for the placket of his breeches.
She stilled his movements with her hands. “Why are you so . . . ardent?”
Simon laughed and nuzzled his cheek against hers. “Such an elegant way to say I am acting like a rutting beast.”
Lynette flushed, but did not release him.
“I usually have more finesse,” he promised, forcing himself to take a step back. “Unfortunately, I am out of sorts at the moment.”
“Out of sorts? You?” She smiled and his chest tightened. “The man who had a house burning down around him, yet had the presence of mind to rally the guests to douse the blaze?”
“Lust wants quenching like a fire. I rally to that cause with equal gusto.”
“You are wicked, Mr. Quinn.”
Simon debated whether he should seduce her in the parlor or take her up to bed, but a touch of sadness marred the angelic beauty of her features and reined in his lust as logic could not.
Exhaling harshly, he ran his hands through his hair and fought to tamp down his unruly appetite for her touch, her taste, her smell. Her.
He gestured for her to return to her seat.
“How did you know Lysette?” she asked, sitting with a perfectly straight spine and hands folded delicately in her lap.
A peer’s daughter, she had said. That would explain the similar elegance of deportment Simon had witnessed in her sister.
It did not, however, explain why Lysette was an assassin.
“Our acquaintance is a difficult one to categorize,” he murmured. “But it is not romantic by any definition.”
Lynette blushed, but her gaze did not waver from his. “Last night . . .”
He smiled ruefully. “The first time I have ever felt an inkling of attraction to her. I suspected madness was the culprit, because the change was so drastic I could hardly credit it. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to learn that you are two women and not one.”
“So you are unaware that she passed,” Lynette said gently.
Simon frowned. “Passed what?”
“Passed on.”
“Bloody hell.” He paced, his thoughts returning to the events of the night before. Desjardins. James. Carrying an injured woman in yellow out to the comte’s carriage. The posturing of James in the window had been protective, not possessive. “When? This afternoon?”
Lynette’s frown matched his. “Beg your pardon?”
“When did she die?” he asked slowly, feeling disoriented.
“Two years ago.”
“That is not possible, Lynette. I saw her alive and well just yesterday.”
Lynette’s stomach clenched hard and violently. She reached for the armrest of the settee for support and then Quinn—Simon—was crouched before her, studying her face with a worried frown.
“I think there is a great deal that you and I do not understand,” he said, his Irish lilt soothing and gentle. “Perhaps you should tell me about your Lysette, then I shall tell you about mine.”
Inhaling and exhaling in measured rhythm, Lynette attempted to calm her racing pulse. In the space of only moments, she had been barked at, kissed senseless, and now told that her sister was alive and well as recently as yesterday. She knew that was impossible, that there must be some grievous error, but some tiny part of her shouted in vindicated exaltation. The part of her that still felt Lysette as keenly today as it had the last time they had been together.
“Two years ago,” she whispered, “my sister was killed when the carriage she occupied overturned and the lamps set fire to the whole.”
Simon moved to take a seat beside her. “You have only the one sister?”
“Yes. No other siblings.”
“What are the odds that there would be a woman of identical appearance to you who is not a relation?”
“With the name Lysette? Impossible.” She turned slightly to face him. “I must see her.”
“I should like to be there when you do.”
Lynette stared at Simon’s breathtaking features and felt calmed by his mere presence. It was astonishing to feel such a connection to a stranger, but she did not doubt it.
Simon would not allow harm to befall her. She was convinced of that.
“This woman cannot be my sister.” Her voice quavered and she cleared her throat. “In addition to the fact that I was there when Lysette was buried, the simple truth is that she and I were very close. There is no chance that two years would pass without a word from her.”
“I do not understand any of this.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But I can tell you the Lysette I know is not . . . well.”
“Not well?”
“A bit touched.”
“Oh . . .” Lynette worried her lower lip between her teeth. “How did you become acquainted with her?”
“My life is not one you wish to delve too deeply into, Mademoiselle . . .”
“Baillon.”
His frown deepened. “Lysette goes by the name Rousseau. Does that sound familiar to you?”
“Rousseau?” Lynette frowned, trying to recall if she knew anyone by that name and finding that she did not.
“Mademoiselle—”
“Please,” she interjected, “call me Lynette. After last night . . . and now. You almost . . . against the door . . .” Her face heated.
His large hand rose to cup her cheek with something akin to reverence. “You cannot even say it, can you?”
She swallowed hard, riveted by his tenderness and the way the stroking of his thumb over her cheekbone reverberated all over her body.