Francesca felt a gaze upon her the way one might feel the presence of a ghost. Or demon. The fine
hairs of her body lifted and tuned toward the window. She fought the instinct to turn and look. Her
neck tensed until it ached. But finally she gave in, her head whipping around to find the glowing eye
of Ra that was the sun.
Blinking away the black shadow left upon her vision, she turned back to her friends, who were
both undressing for the final fitting of the gowns they'd wear that evening to Cecelia Teague's
engagement soiree.
"Do you know what a woman's worst enemy is?" Francesca spoke the question that would start
the conversation she'd been burning to have all day.
Cecelia's fingers paused, her stocking only halfway rolled down her shapely calf. "According to
you, it's a man, isn't it?"
"It's submission," Francesca corrected, her brow wrinkling in concern. "Cecil." She used the
masculine moniker they'd coined at the Chardonne Institute for Girls in Lake Geneva, where they'd
met and forged their years-long friendship. "You are the kindest soul in the known universe, and I
worry that Scotsman of yours is going to trample your tender heart under his ambitions. Are you
absolutely certain such a prompt marriage is advisable?"
Cecelia slipped her stocking off the rest of the way and methodically arranged it before unhooking
the other one. "I hear what you're saying, Frank, and your concern touches me, but Ramsay is not so
demanding as you think. He doesn't require submission from me, only understanding, and I give that
gladly."
"Yes, but—"
"I'm no shrinking violet." Cecelia stood to her full height, appearing, even in her corset and
drawers, a broad-shouldered Valkyrie. Beautiful, strong, and devastating to any man who would
cross her. Her lashes, however, swept down over shy cheeks. "Not anymore, at least."
Her argument might have meant more if she weren't wearing violet, which happened to be her
favorite color. But no, nothing about Cecelia was shrinking; in fact, her figure had become fuller than
ever now that she'd been applying herself to enjoying life with her Lord Chief Justice fiancé, a
monstrous large man with determination and appetite to match.
"Not all men are the grotesque goblins you consort with, Frank," Alexandra, the Duchess of
Redmayne, teased from where she selected an assortment of chocolates from a dish.
Francesca's mouth twisted wryly. "You know, I'm no great hater of men. I just…"
"Detest them?" Cecelia proffered helpfully.
"Despise them?" Alexandra chimed in.
She rolled her eyes at them both. "Distrust them."
"As you well should, of course." Alexandra bustled over to Francesca to pluck at a ribbon that had
become tangled in her chemise. "However, it's interesting to note that all of us have been betrayed by
women, as well as men, and have learned they can be twice as vicious if need be.""An excellent point," Cecelia agreed. "Women make just as fine heroes as men, but I daresay the
inverse is true as well. They are fantastic villains." She turned to the mirror, smoothing hands over
her curves. "I'll take this moment to remind you both that many women gossip and talk about frivolous
things whilst being fitted for an engagement ball, rather than secret societies, villains, and suspicion."
Alexandra, her wealth of dark curls shining auburn in the spectacular sunlight, squeezed
Francesca's arm with gentle reproof. "We are sorry, aren't we, Frank?"
"Yes," she muttered as the modiste swept in with a few of her assistants, pouring a confection of
cream silk and lace over Cecelia and molding it to her curves.
"You do look like a goddess," Francesca marveled. "I'm an utter ass."
Cecelia's sapphire eyes crinkled at the corners with a fond smile. "You're a dear to worry for
me." She turned to Alexandra. "Ramsay's your brother-in-law, Alexander. You don't share
Francesca's worries about him, do you?"
"It's not that I worry about the man," Francesca cut in before Alexandra could reply. "It's only …
are you certain you want to marry so soon? That you can keep both your husband and the business he
so detests without him forcing you to choose between them?"
Alexandra twisted her perfectly formed lips into a contemplative posture, guiltily glancing down at
the floor. "Not to be a hypocrite, Cecil, but you do have the luxury of a long engagement if you need
it."
Cecelia glanced back and forth from Alexandra, who'd had all but a daylong engagement to her
duke, and then to Francesca, who never slept in the same bed twice. "Do you two doubt me?"
"Of course not!" Alexandra reached for her.
"I do not doubt your ability, your brilliance, or your heart, dear," Francesca clarified, "only I—we
worry that your expectation to both live in marital bliss and maintain your personal sovereignty is a
bit … optimistic, that's all."
Cecelia pouted, an unintentionally sultry gesture. "Naive, you mean?"
"I didn't say that."
"She didn't say that out loud," Alexandra corrected helpfully.
"When did optimistic and naive become synonymous?" Cecelia huffed. "Can a woman not hope
for happiness, fulfillment, and love without being made to feel that she isn't cynical enough for the
trends of the day?"
"I don't want you to be cynical," Francesca argued. "Just … careful. In the span of a few months,
you found out you had a wealthy aunt who owned the most successful gambling hell in London and
half of the ton's darkest secrets. You've been shot at, kidnapped, betrayed by a close friend, and your
business burned to the ground." She ticked these recent events off on her fingers. "You made an
enemy, and then a fiancé, of one of the surliest, most unyielding, ill-tempered Scots in the empire—"
"Let us not forget handsome, loyal, rich, and generous—" Cecelia cut in, defending her lover.
"And then you've agreed to marry him even though he still does not want you to rebuild the
establishment—"
"—as well as a school and employment placement program for displaced women—" Cecelia
corrected.
"Also, the investigation into who imprisoned those girls in your cellar isn't exactly tied up, if
you'll pardon the expression. I mean we've found the procurer of the children, but not who intended
to buy them. Don't you think a wedding on top of all that is too much too soon?"Cecelia shook her head vehemently. "It's too little, too late, if I'm honest."
"How do you figure?"
"I love Ramsay." Cecelia's voice quieted, as one did when conveying a simple truth. "I want to be
his wife, and if our lives are still dangerous, isn't it best that I marry as soon as I can? That I live the
life I want because I'm so aware that tomorrow is not guaranteed? We're almost thirty, Francesca. If
we're going to marry and have children, now is the time."
"But…" Francesca almost bit back the argument burning a hole in her chest. "We vowed not to
marry." They were supposed to be the Red Rogues for life. The Three Musketeers. Going on
adventures, making mischief, and leading one another through the mire that was life.
Now she'd have to do that all on her own.
Alexandra rested her head on Francesca's shoulder, all empathy and understanding. "We were
young, impulsive, traumatized girls when we made that promise. Things have changed a great deal,
haven't they?"
For them, perhaps. Alexandra had found her duke, and he'd slain her dragons both real and
remembered. Cecelia apparently felt as though Ramsay was her match, a Scot every bit as hard as she
was soft. Powerful where she was pleasant, and disgustingly besotted with her.
What did Francesca have? Her revenge. She could sense that she drew closer to it, but it remained
so frustratingly out of reach.
It consumed her every moment. What time did she have for true affection when she was so busy
making false love to anyone she could get her hands on?
What if she survived her quest for vengeance? What then? Of course she and her Red Rogues were
all still friends—the best of—but now loyalties were split. Love and family came before friendship.
And no matter who had buried the bodies of their enemies, she could tell that her friends' hearts had a
little less room for her.
The thought made her nearly mad with melancholy, though she'd die before she admitted it.
Cecelia turned on her dais, smoothing the dress over her hips with a look of happiness that was
almost painful to behold. "Frank," she asked. "After this is all over … do you think you'll ever
marry?"
Francesca thought about it. Tried to picture any sort of domestic bliss and grimaced. She'd desired
to marry once upon a time, but … that was before. Before she'd lost Declan Chandler.
"I think it's impossible for me to be happy with a man," she answered.
"Why?"
"Because I could not endure the rule of a husband, and yet would not respect or desire a man who
would be ruled by me." She shrugged at her conundrum.
Cecelia laughed. "You'll need to find a man with the bravery to stand up to you."
"And the wisdom to stand down," Alexandra added sagely.
"Show me such a man, I dare you." Francesca allowed herself to share their amusement until the
modiste and the small army of assistants returned with their gowns for the engagement and wedding
week's revelries.
This evening's ball gown, a sage-green confection with dramatic black cording and lace at the low
bodice, made her appear to have curves where there might be none. This was why she used Madame
Jaqueline Dupris, that and because she had made a few alterations specific to her, including extra
pockets for weapons, tonics, and whatever else she might need to conceal.Last-minute alteration notes were made for the subsequent gowns, which would be delivered the
next morning.
A restless awareness plagued her as she signed papers, handed hat and dress boxes to footmen,
and tossed her scotch back with more relish than usual, glancing toward the tastefully draped
window.
The sunlight was … was what? Watchful? Expectant? Or was she being dramatic? A heat skittered
across her skin that had nothing to do with the unseasonable late-summer warmth. It was as though a
foreign gaze touched her. It peered past the art and artifice she'd tucked around herself, through the
skin and sinew of her, to the cold and lonely darkness beneath.
She felt, in that moment, like a diary opened to a stranger, and yet she had no reason to do so.
Unsettled, she scanned the busy street from the corner of the Strand to the bright, cloudless horizon.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No strange fellows lurked down below or peered from windows
across the way. People were everywhere, and she was just one of the throng of Londoners going
about her rather pedestrian day.
So why did the heat of the sun call her to strip away the layers of her clothing, exposing her flesh
to its warmth?
Perhaps this city was driving her mad.
Again the reflection blinded her, and she turned back to face Cecelia's disturbingly observant
assessment, as her friend had drifted closer. A worried wrinkle appeared between Cecelia's brows
as she opened her parasol to protect her skin from the rare sunlight. "You're not going to … that is to
say … you're not going home with Lord Brendan, are you? On the night of my engagement party?"
"Of course I will. I'm getting close. I can feel it. My next bedfellow might just spill the
information I've been looking for."
Alexandra drew up to her other side, adjusting her hastily donned hat. Regardless of their fortunes
and status, the Red Rogues often served as one another's ladies' maids at such outings, so they might
talk freely. "Frank … what you're doing with these men is not safe. What if someone hurts you, or
worse?"
"You well know anyone with nefarious plans should fear me rather than the other way around."
Francesca winked and patted her pocket where a small pistol rested inside. She needn't remind them
of the knife in her boot, another up her sleeve.
"Of course we know you're trained in combat." Cecelia spoke more conspiratorially in public.
"But … oh, I don't know … I can't even say it."
"Say what?"
Alexandra and Cecelia exchanged glances before the Duchess of Redmayne forged ahead. "Word
is spreading faster than predicted that…"
"That I'm an undiscriminating spinster starving for sex?"
Alexandra's peachy cheeks darkened as she glanced up and down the busy street. "Well … yes."
Francesca gave a nonchalant shrug. "What care have I what they all say? They can take neither my
title nor my fortune from me. Their acceptance means nothing, and my reputation is useless next to my
revenge."
Before her friends could reply, a blur of heavy rags and faded wool crashed into the porter's bevy
of boxes, sending gowns, millinery, and haberdashery scattering in a fountain of wrapping paper and
ribbons.A portly older man with bad teeth and frizzy grey hair peeking from beneath a weathered cap
writhed on a slew of silk chemises and underthings, squawking and carrying on like a seagull in
distress.
Her footman, Ivan, stepped to the man, shooing him away with strongly worded reproofs.
"Oh, do stand down, Ivan, and help the poor man up." Francesca huffed over the cobbles, reaching
the man's right shoulder as Ivan reluctantly held the left. "What happened here? Are you all right, sir?
Do you need medical attention?" Her propensity to rapid-fire questions wasn't one she'd gathered the
discipline to overcome.
It took more strength than she'd expected to lift the surprisingly heavy, incredibly solid fellow
from the ground, and he seemed to do nothing whatsoever to assist in his own recovery. The
shoulders beneath her hands were padded with too many layers of clothing for summer, making him
seem twice his size. It was impossible to gauge his height as he was stooped over so, with a hump on
his back beneath his coat that made her own neck ache in sympathy.
"No 'arm done. No 'arm done," he drawled as he tripped and scrambled off his arse to a semi-
upright position. He batted at his jacket and backside, releasing more dust into the air than one would
collect on the street alone. "It's me damned rheumatism acting up again. Might you get me cane for
me, love?" The nail of the finger he pointed with was caked with the same grime as what stained his
fingerless gloves. She didn't want to consider its origin.
"Of course." She stooped to retrieve it and extended it, careful not to touch him. "Are you sure you
are not hurt?"
"No more than me pride," he said rather sheepishly as he hobbled about, treading on a few of the
garments that had escaped their wrapping.
Francesca did her best not to wince.
"My Mildred, she's always after me for not watching where I'm going. Thick as a mooring post I
am, that's what she says." He looked down and gawked at a pair of discarded drawers, which were
now soiled from the road and the soles of his patched boots. "What's all this?" He stooped to scoop
up the delicate silk, and bent again to yank at the skirt of her ball gown, which was still mostly in the
box until he got his hands on it.
Inspecting it with one wide eye, he turned his attention to her with the narrowed gaze of a
detective. "Are you going to some posh to-do later? You're a fine lady, i'nt ya? I can tell."
It took no great investigative mind to decipher that. "A ball, in fact, if I can clean my gown by
then." Impatience threatened to seep into her tone as she reached for her dress. It had cost a fortune,
and now the cleaning would, as well. She might have to wear another for tonight.
A crowd had begun to gather after a fashion, couples and businessmen passing by more slowly to
gawk at their goings-on.
Francesca would be humiliated, if she were prone to such ridiculous emotions.
A dingy smile split the man's face, revealing three blackened teeth Francesca couldn't bring
herself to look at. "Whar now! I fink you'll be the prettiest thing at the … wait a tic. Do I know you?"
"I don't believe we've been introduced." She began to inch toward her carriage as Alexandra,
Cecelia, and the footmen did their best to reclaim and reorganize the boxes.
He wagged that large, dingy finger dramatically. "You're famous or somefing, ain't ya? I've seen
you in the papers?"
"That isn't likely…""Why!" His face lit with recognition. "You're that prodigal countess. Mont Claire it were, weren't
it?" He slapped his thigh. "Well diddle me giddy aunt, I'll have to tell the missus I was run over by
royalty."
"Hardly royalty—"
"And if it'll make you feel better, she'll wallop me another good one for ya. A brigadier general is
my Mildred, keeps me on my toes so she don't smash them with those giant clodhoppers, God love
'er."
Cecelia was unable to hide a snort of hilarity from behind Francesca as they helped the footmen
stuff everything into the carriage to sort out in a less public location.
"Well, sir." Francesca reached into her purse, extracting a coin. "Please accept this as a gift for
Mildred, along with my apologies for the fall." She didn't know whose fault it had been, but she was
ready to be done with the entire business.
"That's too kind, my lady, too kind." He snatched the coin from her and studied it with almost
insulting exactitude.
"Not at all," she murmured. "Good day, Mr.…"
"Thatch, Mr. Edward Thatch." His hand snaked out with astonishing speed and plucked her gloved
fingers for a kiss.
"Mr. Thatch." She suffered the kiss, which lingered a bit too long, before pulling her hand back.
"You enjoy your ball, my lady," he said, tipping his cap.
"Thank you." Francesca batted away her footman's hand, sending him up to the driver before
mounting the first carriage step.
"Dead men tell no tales," came Thatch's raspy voice from behind her, lowered to an intimate
whisper. "But watch the shadows for ghosts, they'll spill your secrets quick enough."
A chill pinned her, paralyzing her spine for a breathless moment before she whirled around. "Why
would you say—?"
Life teemed on the street, but the rheumatic Mr. Thatch was nowhere to be found.No matter how the Devil of Dorset scrubbed at himself, he couldn't wash away the imprint of
Francesca Cavendish. Not from his nostrils. His hands. His lips.
And not for lack of trying. He'd stripped off the wig and prosthetic nose first upon bursting into his
Knightsbridge row house. He'd cleaned the black polish from his teeth before shucking everything
else and diving into the shallow bath he'd ordered.
She'd only touched his shoulder through ridiculous layers, and he'd only kissed her glove.
But she lingered all over him. God, did she stay with him. In every conceivable way. Her
fragrance remained long after she'd gone. Not a perfume, but something softer, more honest:
laundered linen and citrus. It stripped away the stronger scents of the city in favor of her pleasant one.
The sound of her. A voice so wry, it rasped with deviant mischief, woven from moonlight's
melody juxtaposed with a confident derision not often found in a female.
And then there was the feel of her. Not that he'd sampled enough of that to know. She'd helped lift
him from the ground, which was no mean feat as he quite possibly doubled her weight.
Such strength for a woman with no more physical substance than a weeping willow strap.
What did she taste like?
The question struck him with such longing, such unabashed hunger, he swallowed twice.
The Devil of Dorset ran slick, soapy fingers over his chest, cresting the ridges of his ribs and
angling south, to where his cock pulsed beneath the water, swelling for the umpteenth time at the very
thought of her.
Francesca Cavendish.
They'd shared a space before. He'd been introduced to her earlier that year at the Duke of
Redmayne's spring soiree. He'd kissed her glove then, and that contact had electrified him. So much
so that he'd almost let his guard, and his act, slip.
Almost.
This time, he'd prepared himself. Or so he'd thought. He tried all he could to mentally talk himself
out of his attraction. The woman possessed none of the sexual characteristics attributed to a
temptress. No curves to speak of, only long, supple limbs. She was neither demure nor submissive,
but often indecorous to the point of rebelliousness. Her smile was wide, her jaw sharp, and her gaze
assessing. She spoke with conviction and unrestrained, forthright confidence.
No man listed such things when discussing the perfect mistress.
And yet … she was a woman passed around from man to man like a delicacy to be sampled only
by the most fortunate.
The thought released some heat and pressure from his cock like a valve, dispersed it through his
veins in a parody of … of what? Anger? Possession?
The hand low on his belly curled into a fist before it ever reached its wicked destination.
Francesca Cavendish was dangerous. Who'd have ever guessed?
The last time they'd interacted, he'd been Vincenzo de Flor, the Count Armediano of Italy. Blackhaired and swarthy from months in the sun. He'd carried himself as a descendant of Roman gladiators
and gods naturally would. Cocksure and foolhardy. Overly so. He'd been investigating Cecelia
Teague's intended, Lord Ramsay, in regard to the Crimson Council.
Subsequently he'd found that Ramsay's superior, the Lord Chancellor, had been the villain all
along.
He had been a true devil that night. Flirting with and scandalizing Cecelia Teague, enraging
Ramsay in the process.
Normally, he would have enjoyed himself, but not with her in the room. Only steps away. Sharing
air and space. It was all he could do not to become distracted as the sound of Francesca's bawdy
laugh, unrepentant and decidedly unfeminine, shot waves of pleasure chills down his body.
He'd caught her eye a few times. That is, he'd caught her looking. At him. Like that.
Like she was the sun, and she already knew he was a mass of ice and ash and shadow, just waiting
to be pulled into her orbit. Yearning for a touch of her warmth.
Which was strange, because the Countess of Mont Claire, while known for the heat of her bed,
was equally as notorious for the ice in her heart.
He reached for his own brand of cool composure, and found it dispelled by the inferno she'd
ignited within him.
He couldn't forget … that he didn't believe she was who she claimed to be.
And the one way he would find out was to get her naked and inspect every inch of her lithe and
creamy body.
Galvanized by the thought, the Devil of Dorset stood, stepped out of the bath, and whipped from
the rack a towel with which to dry himself.
Who would he be to her now? Who would she desire? Who would she let get close?
The devil, as they were wont to say, was in the details.
He flipped through the mental files of who'd already claimed to have had her. Most recently, Lord
Colfax.
The thought of the disgusting old sod heaving himself between her thighs forced him to fight an
acid retch threatening to escape his stomach.
What could the man possibly have done to seduce her? It had made sense when she'd left the
Savoy luncheon with Terence Folsom for an afternoon tryst some weeks ago; he was a randy young
buck with an elegant manner and a winsome smile.
George Randle had lifted a few eyebrows, as he was a portly fellow, but his wit and wealth
seemed to make him a favorite with dames and debutantes alike.
No one had believed the inbred libertine earl, Henry Blankenship, when he'd claimed to have
spent the night with her, but then he and Percy Morton had exchanged notes on her lovemaking. That
had shocked the ton double, because everyone had whispered that Morton was an invert, only
interested in bedding other men.
The list of her lovers became only more varied and bizarre from there.
It was enough to put a man off his dinner. Not only that, it made his job all that much more
difficult …
How did one seduce a woman with unpredictable tastes? She certainly didn't have a physical type.
Nor did she prefer the young or the old. Swarthy or pale.
They'd not all been titled, either, her irritatingly various lovers. One was an officer of the court.Another a banker who, in turn, knew a speculator who'd claimed to have shared her with his twin
brother.
Most of the others had been lords.
All of them had one thing in common. They'd wielded a great deal of influence in their spheres.
More than they ought, in general.
Was it possible Lady Francesca Cavendish was impassioned by power?
Because power he could do.
He stood in front of his mirror, studying a body hardened with it. Of course, even as he dried the
dips and swells of his muscled form, he understood that power was so much more than brute strength.
It was control. Discipline. Wealth. Influence. Charisma. It was the command of oneself and others.
Power was fear and love, envy and adoration.
And he could manipulate all of these.
The question was, How could he flex his power for her, specifically? In what way would she react
to him? Which power would put him above the pack?
He stared at the features he detested, hair he always covered, the eyes that haunted him in
suffocating nightmares.
He hated the man in the mirror, as much as he hated the one in his memory …
All of this was his fault.
Blinking the thought away, he went to work.
Becoming someone else wasn't so hard. Certainly, the props and prosthetics helped, but that
would truly fool no one for long. The true art was in the small things. The thrust of his jaw, the shape
and movement of his brows, tension in his lips and cheeks. The muscles too minuscule to define
working to create an entirely different person with unrecognizable mannerisms. When one was
familiar with another, it was more than their face that sparked recognition; it was also the way in
which they stood, the movements of their limbs, their tone and inflection. The undefinable energy or
lack thereof.
What would the countess prefer?
Should his mouth be hard, tight, and uncompromising? Or lackadaisical and debonair? Was he
born to power? A lord, perhaps, with an entitled swagger and a bombastic wit. Or did he capture it?
Consume it? A politician? A sober, cunning, nay, conniving magistrate with his eye on the queen's
bench?
Hmmm … a solicitor could ask more questions without being suspected of anything, which aided
his cause. On the other hand, a lord would get to drink more …
That decided it. He reached for the ginger wig and the pale powder, having not lost all of his tan
he'd gleaned from his months of preparing to become the Italian count.
His hand paused before it wrapped around the powder as he noted he'd missed a few fingernails
in his scrubbing. His hands were still those of Edward Thatch, the rabble-rousing East Ender with a
loose tongue and an excellent ear to the ground.
As he meticulously groomed his nails, he caught himself glancing at the mirror. At eyes he wished
he could change with the rest of him. Brown, with flecks of gold and green. His only real liability, the
one recognizable thing about him. Through them, the Devil of Dorset always peered into the world.
He truly could look like anyone. Everyone. And no one.
But his eyes remained the same.A question whispered through him, beleaguering his breath.
Who are you?
He always answered the same. I am an imposter. Because I cannot be who I was.
Francesca Cavendish had been a sweet, amenable, softhearted girl.
She wasn't sweet anymore. But she'd been kind to Edward Thatch …
A kind imposter with a kind mouth.
The kind of mouth he wanted wrapped around his cock.
Fucking hell. He turned away from the mirror before he broke it.
He'd always had a cold streak. Where was it now? He needed it back, so he could reveal her, so
he could break her. Because it was more than bloody likely another woman claimed her name. She
was missing something Francesca Cavendish had. A dark freckle, almost a birthmark, on her top left
lip. She was nothing like he remembered, like he'd imagined, and he'd imagined plenty over the
years.
He needed to get to the ball, to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Francesca Cavendish.
As luck would have it, both of the men he'd built identities for had received an invitation to
Cecelia's ball, and, as per usual, only one of them would attend.
These men never ran in the same circles, for obvious reasons.
The Countess of Mont Claire wasn't the only motive for attending the function.
Sir Hubert, the former Lord Chancellor, had been interrogated for weeks now. He'd given up the
name of his cohort who'd trafficked the underaged girls from Cecelia Teague's enterprise without her
knowledge.
Lord Brendan Murphy. A general in a hidden army who'd also been invited to Miss Teague's little
soiree. So many questions would be answered today, at a philanthropic event for helpless women and
children, no less.
How apropos.
Since Lord Brendan was Irish, the Devil of Dorset decided he would go as a Scot. A marquess.
Higher up in the hierarchy, but with a penchant for vice and villainy.
Vice was where the devil found his darlings, after all, and Lady Francesca knew that more than
most.
The Devil of Dorset had answered to many names in his lifetime. He'd chosen to be nobody, and
could thereby be anybody. A specter in the dark and a man no one would miss when his sins finally
caught him up.
But to Francesca Cavendish, he'd once been Declan Chandler, and the few short years at Mont
Claire had been the only happiness he'd known.
She might not be the girl who'd stolen his little-boy heart all those years ago, but at the very least
he could seduce a fantasy before he ruined a fake.Francesca elbowed the Lord Chief Justice of the queen's High Court in the ribs as she scanned the
ballroom. "Take your eyes off your intended for two consecutive moments and tell me which one is
Lord Brendan." she demanded.
Cassius Gerard Ramsay, Ramsay to those knew him, rubbed at the spot on his Viking-wide trunk
where her bony elbow had jabbed.
"He's over there, with the wispy beard and the waistcoat that only fits in his most confounding
fantasies." Ramsay might as well have pointed outright for all the subtlety in his gesture, and it took
everything Francesca had not to shush and grapple her best friend's fiancé.
"Look away, you dolt," she hissed. "I see him plain as day."
Ramsay wrinkled his nose with apparent disgust, an oddly boyish gesture for a man as imperious
and imposing as he. In that moment, Francesca objectively understood Cecelia's attachment to him.
The man was tall and wide as an American redwood with a sense of humor to match, but his ice-blue
eyes and tawny hair rounded out his stern—almost savage—features in a way that wasn't …
completely oafish. She supposed he might be attractive, if one found a Scottish barbarian giant
alluring. Which she didn't.
"You're still staring," Francesca admonished though clenched teeth as she widened her smile for
anyone who might be watching. "You're going to ruin our introduction if you're so bloody obvious."
Ramsay's features maintained their grimace of disgust. "Are ye certain ye want to leave with
him?" A visible shudder rippled through him. "He's just so … ugly."
"I see that Cambridge education granted you descriptive eloquence, my lord." Francesca rolled
her eyes and smirked, but sobered when she met his earnest look of concern.
Uncomfortable with the sentiment, she slid her gaze away. "I'll be fine. I always am."
"If ye say so." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Cecelia worries about ye, is all."
"Cecelia worries about everyone. It's alternately her most irritating and wonderful trait."
At that, Ramsay let out a commiserative chuckle. "Ye'll forgive me for asking, Countess, but how
are ye going to seduce a man whose taste runs to young girls? Ye're not exactly … that is to say…"
"I'm a dried-up old spinster?"
His perpetually grim features twisted with chagrin. "I didna mean to imply."
"Don't overcontemplate this, but I have my ways." Setting her glass of wine on the tray of a
passing footman, she swiped another of the glorious vintage and drifted away from Ramsay and
toward her mark.
Lord Brendan Murphy. He was high up in the council, and she and Ramsay both knew it. They
suspected he'd had something to do with the recent debacle with Cecelia's business, and all
Francesca had to do was wrest the proof from him. One way or another.
He was on her dance card in three waltzes, but half of the game of seduction was proximity. Eye
contact. Complimentary glances. Coy smiles. All that boring tripe.
She skirted the edges of the dance floor, nodding at chaperones and wallflowers to her right andleaving plenty of room for the swirling couples on her left.
Cecelia waltzed with a somewhat clumsy man Francesca didn't recognize, who was a good three
inches shorter than her. The disparity in height didn't seem to bother her good-natured friend or the
partner, though a quick glance at Ramsay told her the surly Scot didn't appreciate where the shorter
man's eyes kept landing.
Cecelia's generous breasts.
Smothering a smile, Francesca sipped her wine and turned toward Murphy.
Before she could close in on her prey, a familiar feeling lifted the fine hairs on her body. A strange
dichotomy of warmth and chill. Something like the gaze of a god, or the presence of a ghost. It struck a
chord of awe in her, and a bit of fear, if she were honest.
Turning, she used a sip from her champagne glass as an excuse to scan the teeming, glittering,
whirling mass of revelers.
There. Across the ballroom. A man stood out by standing still.
He stared at her from the shadows of deep-set eyes.
And just like that, in an overheated room overfilled with people, they were utterly alone. She and
the ghost.
Francesca blinked a few times to be certain he wasn't, indeed, some figment of her imagination or
truly a specter of the dead.
No, he was still there. Staring.
Strangely discomfited, Francesca affected an air of nonchalance. When others would have
retreated, she lifted her glass in a slight toast.
I see you. I see you watching.
Her next thought was to wonder how on earth she'd missed him before.
He had harsh-hewn features that contrasted with his immaculate, elegant attire, and a commanding
brow. His nose was bold rather than broad, and his mouth defied description. It shouldn't have
tempted her. Not as hard as it was.
Hard like his gaze.
He was a hard man all over, it appeared, and extraordinarily fit. Not as monstrously big as
Ramsay, or as tall and rangy as Redmayne, but a man of medium height, bred to stand in a crowd not
above it.
The pallor of his skin, the perfection of his slick auburn hair, and the sartorial grace of his stance
seemed incongruous with the rest of him, somehow. Like he'd once been a wild thing only recently
tamed. A sportsman, maybe?
The man was, in a word, striking.
In response to her gesture, his lip quirked, and his angular chin dipped in a nod. He drifted
forward with faultless poise, exuding an overabundance of authority and such inadvertent menace that
people melted aside before he took a step. Both repelled and entranced, the crowd moved away from
the force of his dynamic presence, and only then did they look to see what had prompted them to
instinctually do so.
Some of them seemed to know him, and he murmured a returned greeting to a few as he passed.
But he didn't stop for anyone until he'd reached Francesca.
No, he didn't tower like Ramsay, but he hadn't the need. Everything about him bespoke
domination. Power. Unequivocal strength.Something deep, deep within Francesca trembled. Not with fear, per se. It was more feminine than
that. Abruptly, ridiculously, she wanted to purr at him. To do all the things she'd done before to
attract a man.
To see if she could cast a spell as powerful as his.
Francesca abandoned her glass of wine so he wouldn't see it quiver.
Here was a man who would smell her weakness, and at the moment that weakness began in her
knees and worked its way into all sorts of alarming places.
"Dance with me," he ordered.
Francesca rarely responded to commands, and this one was no different. The issuer didn't have to
know, however, that her lack of response was an involuntary mutism caused by his astoundingly
seductive Scottish brogue. His voice was smooth and dangerous and beautiful, like molten ore
hardening into weaponized steel.
"Dance with me," he said with an air of someone unused to repeating himself.
Francesca adopted a demeanor of disinterest to cover his effect on her. "You're not on my card,
sir." She turned away from him, stepping toward Murphy, but the ghost stayed with her as if he'd
anticipated her move.
"Do ye care about any of those men on yer card?" He reached out and flicked his thumb over the
ribbon tied at the wrist of her glove on which the filigreed card dangled.
"Not particularly." Dear Lord, had her voice ever sounded that breathy before?
"Then forget them, and dance with me."
He stood close, too close. Awareness of his proximity threatened to overwhelm her. Instead of
retreating, as her instinct bade her to, she stepped in.
"And just who are you, that you're so impertinent?" she demanded. "Surely you're aware it is
against protocol to dance with a man to whom I've never been formally introduced. You do us both a
dishonor."
The dark and wicked shadows in his eyes jangled her nerves, but an impish charm almost
concealed those shadows enough to convince her they hadn't really existed at all. "Since when have
ye cared about protocol, Lady Francesca?"
He had her there. Since never, that was when. She did what she liked when she liked, and the devil
may take the consequences.
She was at a disadvantage, here. He knew such things about her when she didn't even know his
name. In fact, she couldn't decide what unsettled her most: That she had been waylaid from her
private mission. That he was asking her to dance in this impolite way …
Or that she was tempted to say yes.
More than anything she'd been tempted to do in years.
She looked up at him and found the lure of an adventure she hadn't yet enjoyed. A flirtation she'd
never allowed herself to have. When one chased a singular goal, all other idle pursuits seemed to just
disappear. Her every interaction had been calculated, save for those with Alexander and Cecil. Her
every desire stashed on a shelf deep within herself, deep enough to have gathered dust and been
forgotten.
"My lady?" The man held out his hand, and Francesca was suddenly aware of everyone looking.
Cripes. These Scots. They certainly did breed a specific sort of man. Sensual and arrogant. Bold
to the point of impertinent.And this one wielded a smile that would disarm the most protected of hearts.
Francesca doubled the guard on hers, throwing in a few ramparts and spikes … maybe a moat for
good measure.
She took his hand and led him to the dance floor, where the musicians had struck up "Blue
Danube."
Often while dancing, Francesca found herself leading. This time, she had no choice but to follow
along as the strong arms clamped around her might have lifted her feet off the floor had she allowed
it. The circle of his embrace was unlike any space Francesca had occupied. Here she had no need of
her control, which was just as well because he quartered her none. The muscles beneath his jacket
bunched and flexed as he led her through a flawless waltz. Her body responded to his slightest lead,
deftly gliding through the motions with a grace she'd never possessed before. One his sinuous
guidance lent to her.
Just who did this man he think he was?
"I'm Lord Preston Bellamy. Marquess Drake."
Francesca blinked up at him, reassuring herself she hadn't spoken aloud.
"I'm—"
"Oh, I ken who ye are."
"Not enough to know I detest being interrupted." She'd intended to sound coy, but a sharp edge
bladed her voice, conjured by her discomfiture.
"My apologies," he murmured.
She caught it then, a flash of uncertainty—no, something else—something stronger. Anger perhaps?
Men didn't like to be corrected by a woman. A spinster, no less. Most especially a marquess, her
social superior.
The instantaneous flare of emotion smoothed back into a more pleasant expression of interest and
charming curiosity.
A facade, to be sure. Francesca had donned enough of her own to recognize one. So, what did the
intrepid Drake want with her? Being the unattached Countess of Mont Claire came with the
occasional nuisance of a penniless, titled, fortune-hunting suitor. However, she prided herself on
detecting their desperation from across a crowded room like this.
No, her awareness of Preston Bellamy, Lord Drake had nothing to do with desperation. He'd the
power to arrest her attention from across the room, without her even looking at him. His smile was
open but his eyes as mercurial as the cosmos, and possibly just as fathomless. He'd the title of a lord
and the trapezius of an ironworker.
So she had his name and knew nothing more than before. "Are you a friend of Lord Ramsay's?"
"Ramsay is a man famously without friends," he replied.
Francesca's brow twitched. "That isn't an answer."
If he was surprised that she didn't allow him to be coy, he didn't show it. Turning his head, he
found Ramsay in the crowd. "I would say Lord Ramsay knows me better than anyone else in this
room."
If a man could sound duplicitous and truthful at the same time, he did.
"What part of Scotland do you hie from?" she pressed.
His hand slid down her back in a barely perceptible caress, sending a thrill through her spine.
"The part that worships strong, crimson-haired women as goddesses in scandalous pagan rites."Another non-answer. Though one that evoked all manner of delicious and dangerous images.
Trouble. This man with his whiskey and moss eyes and winsome wickedness would cause her no
end of trouble. She should walk away from the dance floor this instant. She opened her mouth to claim
a twisted ankle, or an overheated headache, and make her escape.
"How would you describe these rites, my lord Drake?" The question slid out of her before she
could call it back.
His head dipped toward her. "My vocabulary almost fails me."
"Do try."
The words dripped from his tongue like honey. "Dark, rhythmic, writhing, slick, and hot."
Francesca looked up at him sharply. He'd claimed to know her, but had he any true idea, he'd
realize she was not so easily seduced by warm, scandalous whispers in her ear.
And he left no doubt that seduction was his aim.
The clenching of low and luscious muscles belied her thoughts, and she decisively ignored them.
Drake interpreted her glare correctly and straightened. "Drum music pervades these traditions," he
explained seriously. "Ye'd find an entire town, the lords and ladies, the peasants and the priest
dancing around a bonfire or two. I imagine a woman like ye has never seen the like."
She loved to dispel the preconceived notions of a man with little imagination. "I have, in fact."
"Oh?" That spark returned to his eyes. The honest one. "Do tell."
"In the Carpathian Mountains lives a tribe of nomads who are only half Romani. The other half are
picked-up vagabonds and vagrants from every corner of the Continent and beyond. Their drums are
vast and varied. Their dances unlike any you've seen in this world." One night, the rhythms of the
Romani had taken her away from herself, had woken the woman inside of her. She felt those beats
rise within her now. Thrumming a thread of temptation she'd ignored for so long.
Serana had told her to beware a man who could weave such masculine magic. For he was a tiger,
and she was a dragon.
The two were opposing forces. They'd destroy each other in the end.
"Is that where you went? The Carpathian Mountains?"
She blinked up at him. "I'm sorry?"
"After ye left England, as a girl," he prodded. "The ton has been talking of little else but yer return
to London. But when they discovered ye alive … alive and far away all those years ago, speculation
abounded."
Something told her to tread carefully here. "I spent some time in boarding school in Lake Geneva,
where I met the Duchess of Redmayne and Miss Teague. After that, we studied at the Sorbonne for a
time, but I found a scholarly life and I didn't suit. I wanted to see the world. I lived in Morocco for a
while, Algiers, St. Petersburg, and the Far East to name a few."
"How very strange."
"Strange?"
"Most women travel to Paris or Rome or Milan. New York, perhaps. Egypt, if they're feeling
adventurous."
Her chin lifted a notch. "I am not most women."
"Nay, nay ye're categorically not." A shift in his voice made it impossible for her to look up just
then. Some strange meaning as rich and thick as Devonshire cream. "What brought you back home, if I
may ask?" The question lightened his tone, and she was grateful to follow suit."Weddings."
"Yer own, I heard whispered."
"Obviously not." That painted a smirk on her lips. "Never my own."
"Never?" He raised a brow at that.
"I'm more stallion than broodmare, I'm afraid. I'll never be saddled with a husband."
A dimple appeared next to his mouth, softening the hard lines slightly with brackets of levity. "One
need not be saddled to ride."
She bit down on her cheek, fighting the response he so expertly evoked in her. An answering
mischief, a womanly wickedness.
"I ride with a firm hand." She met his eyes with challenge. "I fear you'd have a difficult time
keeping up."
"Some men enjoy a firm hand." He leaned down, his every muscle tense as he pulled her hips
scandalously close to his. She'd branded him a hard man, and now he branded her with his intimate
hardness through their unimaginable layers of clothing. "I've been told a night with you is
incomparable," he murmured boldly.
She covered the effect he had on her with her razor tongue. "Strange, I've never been told anything
about you."
To punish her, or maybe to demonstrate his strength, the Marquess Drake twirled her and led her
through a complicated bout of steps that brought them physically even closer together at the finish.
A group of sparkling revelers burst into applause.
"It was ye, my lady, who turned to find me in the crowd," he reminded her.
"I sensed you." Oh Lord, she'd said too much. "I sensed you watching me. Staring."
"What sensation did I evoke?" he queried. "A chill?"
Quite the opposite, though she'd die before admitting it. "Why did you approach me?"
"I only answered the invitation in yer eyes."
"Don't be obtuse." She rolled said eyes and maneuvered much-needed distance between their
bodies. She couldn't think with him so close. She never had a difficult time keeping her wits about
her, but at the moment, if she began a battle of wits with Lord Drake she would be outgunned,
outmaneuvered, and outmatched.
And that just wouldn't do, not until she'd regained her composure.
"I wanted to know who ye were looking for, that's why I was staring."
The honesty in his voice gave her pause, likely because it was the first time she'd truly felt it from
him.
"What makes you think I was looking for someone?"
"Were ye not?"
"What business is it of yours?"
His voice dropped. "Were ye looking for me, Francesca?"
"Hardly." She tossed her head and snorted with a laugh that was meant to be insulting. Had she
been searching for him? Had she been looking for one man who would tip the world off its axis with
little more than a dance?
No. No, she didn't need a distraction. Didn't want a flirtation. Not a real one. She had work to do.
"You are too familiar, Lord Drake, as I've not given you leave to use my name."
"I apologize once again, my lady," he said unapologetically. "Perhaps ye can tell me who it wasye were searching for. I could help."
"You don't seem like a man who helps anyone but himself."
"Allow me to surprise ye, then."
Francesca famously kept her cards close to her chest. No one peeked at her hand until she played
it. But what if … this once … she could glean information by giving it? "I imagine you've heard about
the fire in which my family perished some years past."
Though his face remained carefully blank, she noted the spark of interest in his hazel eyes. "Aye.
Everyone from here to Peru has heard about it."
"Well, I am still investigating it."
"Ye believe it was set on purpose?" His brow wrinkled as if she'd been the one to surprise him.
"I always thought it might have been."
Her awareness of him sharpened, focused. "Did you?"
"I wondered, how did an entire household perish in a fire in the middle of the day, with no
survivors? Not one person had the time to run out, to break windows? Doesna seem likely."
"There was one survivor," she murmured, keenly feeling the weight of guilt she'd carried around
for decades now.
"How?" The word was the first raw sound made by his throat, which had seemed coated in silk
until this very moment. "How did ye survive?"
"That's not a story for a waltz," she said. "But I will say you're the first person I don't believe is
an absolute idiot in a long time."
"That was almost a compliment, my lady."
She looked up at him then, stared at him with the same intensity. Studied him. Absorbed him.
Admired him with unrepentant candor. "So it was."
He leaned in, the fragrance of clean cedar and a hint of musk eliciting a deep breath. "I'd kill for
another," he said in a dangerous voice.
Would he? Something about him seemed lethal, which bemused her utterly. He was the very
picture of an elegant lord. And yet … to imagine him slicing through his enemies wasn't at all a
stretch.
She conjured a compliment. A safe one. "You are … deft on the dance floor."
His victorious smile caused her stomach to flip. "I'm deft at just about everything."
"Except modesty," she said wryly, trying not to be charmed by his confidence.
"Modesty is tripe," he declared.
"Is that what you really think?"
"Aye, a man is his achievements. So why must he hide them? Why must he pretend they belong to
someone else, or that he hasn't earned his accolades? I find that weak."
"One must wonder if you hold the same standards for a woman?"
His smile dimmed. "What do ye mean?"
"We are categorically expected to be modest, in every sense of the word. Some of our attributes
we are born with, and others we must work very hard to attain. But a woman must reject her
compliments. Must act and dress with modesty above all else … or she is ruined."
"There's no reason for ye to be modest," he said earnestly. "Especially not with me." He twirled
her again, angling for a corner of the dance floor. "In fact, I'd be grateful if ye were the opposite of
modest, as I'd like to discover every one of yer attributes.""I think you are proposing something, my lord Drake," she said rather breathlessly.
His eyes darkened, deepening as the onyx of his pupils dilated with powerful emotion. "I can offer
ye no proposal, but a proposition."
She let out a noise of surprise. "You are bold."
"Are ye?"
"Infamously so."
"Good."
Francesca found herself swept from the dance floor with a well-timed whirl. She couldn't say how
he threaded them through the throng of people, but suddenly they were bursting forth from French
doors onto a garden patio dripping with gardenias, lilacs, and hydrangeas, their sultry nectar
perfuming the chilly night air.
Francesca had no time to enjoy the respite of the out of doors before she found herself crowded
between a rock and a hard place. The rock being the stone of the manse, and the hard place the
entirety of Lord Drake's body.
She barely had a moment to take a breath before that hard mouth clamped over hers.
Francesca stilled. She'd been kissed before, of course she had. She'd kissed a number of men
recently, because the situation called for it. Because she needed what they could give her.
Information. Confession. A weapon to use against them in condemnation.
But this was different. Her first kiss, truth be told. The first kiss she'd given to a man for no other
reason than she wanted to. And oh, how she wanted to.
Especially now.
His mouth, that hard, stern mouth, was both ardent and coaxing upon hers as he immediately
nudged her lips open with passionate impatience.
Once his tongue swept inside, however, a tenderness emerged in his kiss that both thrilled and
addled her. He secured her firmly between his body and the wall, though his arm burrowed beneath
her, supporting her head and protecting her from the abrasive stone.
What did she do with a gesture like that? She'd always assumed consideration and passion were
mutually exclusive. Men tended to shore up that opinion with every interaction.
But this. This was … extraordinary.
His tongue caressed her everywhere in warm sweeps of silken exploration. He kissed as though
they'd shared this intimacy before, and an intimacy far beyond this. He kissed like a lover, like a man
who'd claimed her already and promised to do it again.
Francesca found she had no idea what to do. She generally controlled a kiss, maneuvering her
utmost to keep an unwanted tongue from finding its way down her throat or unwanted hands from her
breasts.
But his movements were neither too busy nor too wet. His breath was sweet and intoxicating, his
scent blood-heated and masculine among the blossoms.
The bristle of his chin scratched at her cheeks as he dragged his mouth across her lips, eliciting a
quivering little moan from her chest. It escaped as a soft breath, and he drew it into his own lungs,
releasing a dark sound in reply.
She felt that sound echo in the deep places of her body that ached to contain him.
Francesca couldn't regain control of this kiss because he dominated it. He drove his need into her
mouth, her body, against her hips.Suddenly overstimulated, Francesca might have turned away, but his hand slid up to her jaw,
cradling it as he devoured her mouth, her will, her wits, and every coherent thought in her head.
He was a marauder, this man. He consumed everything about her and replaced it with a wanton
desire for more. More of him. Of this. Of them.
Had she gone mad? Had he?
His hands were suddenly everywhere, his kiss becoming a wild thing, losing that sense of
seduction and control and bleeding into the barbaric. His fingers trailed pathways of shimmering
sensation down her neck, her clavicles and shoulders. Hot and restless thrusts of his tongue almost
distracted her from their journey to her breasts.
At that, awareness slammed back into her. Awareness that she was outside in a garden instead of
where she needed to be. That this was not the man whom she should be kissing and coercing. That she
couldn't seem to stop riding his thigh as his lips dragged from hers to paint a moist trail to her throat.
"Tell me yer name," he said in a soft groan before he bent his head to taste the leaping pulse at her
neck.
"F-Francesca Cavendish." Lord, but she almost forgot her name when his mouth skimmed her
collarbone, trailing the essence of heat across her skin.
"No, my lady," he murmured. "Tell me who ye really are."