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A sound, he would later learn, that would follow him to bed that night and haunt his dreams.

  The grand façade of Hellfire appeared ahead, a porticoed palace amid the squalid dwellings. A steady stream of people passed through the grand double doors even at this time of day. Vowing to think of her no more and put his mind to more important matters of business, he entered the hell. The whirring of roulette wheels filled his ears as he stepped within the marble-floored interior. This, he mused, was all he needed. All he had left in the world.

  “Miss Laurent! What a lovely surprise. Dear me, how long has it been?”

  Lord Sommers swept inside the salon with a grace borne from years of aristocratic upbringing. His grandmother—may she rest in peace—had been a dowager marchioness and the most exalted patient Marguerite had ever served.

  “Lord Sommers,” she greeted.

  He proved every inch of his breeding as he politely bowed before her. Not even in the deep brown of his gaze did he betray the awkwardness of their last meeting, that uncomfortable encounter when he dropped to bended knee and begged her to become his paramour. Indeed not. To stare into his eyes, one would never recognize what must be his undoubted surprise at finding the woman who so coolly rebuffed his advances and declined his proposition calling upon him in his drawing room.

  Marguerite assessed him, trying to judge whether he could be the fine specimen Madame Foster described. His jacket required no padding. He was fit and fair of face, but possessed a somewhat weak chin and thinning hair.

  The seer’s affected accents rolled through her head. A fine specimen, to be sure, mad over you. Yes, you’ll have a grand time. Romance, adventure, and marriage. You will definitely wed.

  A frisson of alarm coursed through her, which she quickly dismissed. Certainly that fellow could not be Lord Roger Sommers. The nobleman would never offer marriage to the likes of her—even if he did once upon a time harbor a tendre for her. She was safe on that score. He could not be the one. She drew a deep, relieved breath, filling her lungs. Already she was averting the fate that would lead to her death … according to Madame Foster, at any rate.

  As she surveyed him, an image of the brute from St. Giles rose in her mind. Now he had been a fine specimen. She gave herself a swift mental kick. Roger scarcely—thankfully—did not look the sort capable of beating a man senseless in the streets, deservedly or not. Nor would he manhandle a woman and accuse her of enjoying it, wanting it. He wasn’t that coarse, that brutish … that raw.

  She pressed her fingers to her throat, noting the jumpy thread to her pulse there. Her body betrayed her, tightening at the core with the memory of being in the close confines of the hack with that scoundrel.

  Shaking all thoughts of the stranger free of her thoughts, she answered Roger’s original question with more bluntness than intended. “We’ve not seen each other since you visited my room in the dead of night a week after your grandmother’s passing and requested that I become your mistress …” She paused to lick her lips, adding a courtesy: “My lord.”

  The young man’s face burned brightly at her candid speech. He tugged at his cravat. “Ah, yes. I recall now …”

  It had been over a year. She’d found the situation entirely embarrassing. Unprecedented for her. Such occurrences had been commonplace for Fallon. With her striking presence, men flocked to her like bees to the honey pot. But not Marguerite. She did not inspire those types of urges in the opposite sex. At least she had believed so until Lord Sommers.

  His infatuation and subsequent proposition had taken her unawares. She had not even shared the details with Fallon and Evie, simply wishing to put the incident from her mind.

  “As it turns out, I’ve reconsidered your offer and should like to accept, if you’re still agreeable to an arrangement.” Chin held high, she marveled that injecting passion into her life should sound like such a negotiation. So officious and formal. Was this how it was usually done?

  “Er.” The viscount blinked owlishly and looked her up and down. “Can you be serious, Miss Laurent? I felt certain I had offended you with my proposition.”

  She had been offended at the time. Naturally. But that Marguerite seemed quite different from who she was now. The new Marguerite lived each day as if it might be her last.

  She nodded briskly. “I am quite serious, my lord.”

  “I … see.” Not the ardent response she had been anticipating.

  “Have I changed so much then?” She spread her hands out before her, glancing down as if she might see something offensive. “Am I no longer appealing to you?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that.” He tugged at his cravat again and swept her a look of longing that made her feel once again certain of herself. “I’ve always had a penchant for dark-haired females. Sweet, biddable, and mild-mannered girls such as yourself … You quite fit my tastes.” He frowned, and she shoved aside the sensation that he was describing his preferences of horseflesh.

  She stared down at her hands, unliking the notion. His next words snapped her attention back to him.

  “Forgive me for saying, but I can’t seem to recall you being this forthright.”

  “Well, yes, on that score, I have changed.” Not that she would have termed herself as mild-mannered before, but she would not dispute the point. If that’s what he thought of her, then let him think it. “I’ve simply decided to make certain things happen in my life before—” She caught herself. The word die had almost slipped past.

  “Before?” he prompted.

  She wet her lips and adjusted herself on the settee. “Before I miss any opportunities.”

  He nodded, apparently satisfied with her vague reply. “I see. Well, I am quite taken with you. That has not changed.” His gaze skimmed her. “Should we have a contract drawn up? I’ve a nice house in Daventry Square. Modest but quite above the cut.”

  She shook her head. “No. That won’t do.”

  He blinked. “No?”

  “I have requirements, my lord, and should you agree, I’ll take you at your word. No contract necessary.” She would rather not leave a written record of her moral descent. If she lived out the year—when—she would not continue on as a rich man’s mistress. Marguerite would prefer the world know nothing of her adventure. The life of a paramour had been her mother’s life-long vocation. Not hers. No, the handsome lord would do for her purposes for a while. For now.

  “What is it you want, Miss Laurent?”

  This time when he asked, his gaze was sober, focused and intent as any man entering a business deal. Again, she felt that stab of disappointment. Where was the passion she sought?

  “I wish to spend the winter in Spain. Three months, to be exact. I don’t require a house, nothing permanent in nature. Three months. You. Me.” She looked him starkly in the face. “I want adventure. I want passion. And after that …” her voice faded.

  Courtland’s face chose that moment to flash in her mind. Blast the man. Who was he to invade her thoughts? She supposed it was his virility, his very maleness. When she thought of passion, his unwelcome image rose in her head.

  Lord Sommers’s eyes warmed as he looked at her. “How can I refuse such a request?”

  She released a shaky breath, not realizing until then how nervous she had been. “You agree with my requests then, my lord?”

  He cocked his head, studying her. “I’m long overdue a holiday, and with Christmas upon us, well, I dread this time of year … all the blasted relations swarming the place. I would much rather escape to sunny Spain. With you, my dear. The notion strikes me as providential, in fact.”

  She winced at the description, deciding it either oddly apt or blasphemous.

  Lord Sommers moved then, lowering himself down beside her, rearranging his bright blue jacket around him with a fastidiousness to rival any lady. She tried not to flinch when he lifted her hand from her lap and held it in his cold fingers. “How soon shall we do this?”

  “I’m ready now. We can leave at once.” Then she remember
ed she still needed to visit her sisters. She didn’t care that she had vowed to do everything in opposition of Madame Foster’s predictions. She could not not meet them. They were her sisters, the family she had always longed for. One brief meeting would not hurt.

  He answered her before she could retract her statement. “I cannot leave until the following week, I’m afraid. I’ll need some days to set my affairs in order and make arrangements for us.” He grinned then, all at once boyish. “Sunny Spain! What a brilliant idea.” His attention fixed on her, his gaze lowering to her lips. “And I cannot think of a better companion. We shall have a grand time of it. You’ll have your passion. That and more, I daresay.”

  She smiled. More was what she was counting on. More was precisely what a dying woman craved, needed.

  As he leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, she tried to convince herself that she felt alive, electrified at the touch of his lips—a bit like how she’d felt when that scoundrel from the rookery put his hands to her. A lie, unfortunately.

  She felt nothing.

  Still, she returned his kiss, determined to feel something. A fraction of the fire that sparked between her and Courtland.

  Nothing.

  When he ended the kiss and pulled away, she sighed. He apparently mistook the sound for rapture of his mediocre kissing.

  “There will be more of that later, love,” he promised.

  She nodded and forced a smile. “I’m counting on it.” Counting that next time it would be magic.

  That night she dreamed. An uncommon occurrence.

  Usually, she slept hard, a dead sleep, with no memory of dreams the following morning. They faded like wisps of smoke. It had been that way since Penwich. Weak and hungry, she’d always fallen into sleep like a rock dropped into deep water. Always waking in the exact position that she touched down, curled on her side, her night rail not even so much as tangled around one calf.

  But this night was different. This time, she was alert to her dream. Her senses hummed as she lived it, feeling, tasting as a participant.

  She was still in her room. At the boardinghouse. In her same bed, which might lead her to think she wasn’t caught in the throes of a dream, but in all actuality awake. And yet she knew she dreamed. For no other reason would she have been sitting naked at the edge of her bed. Sitting, not lying down.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  Strange, that. The only soul ever to occupy the room with her had been the proprietress, Mrs. Dobbs. Stranger yet, she held herself boldly, proud and comfortable in her skin, in her nudity. Poised at the edge of the bed, sitting still and ready, she pressed her hands against her thighs. And watched.

  With her stare fixed straight ahead, she watched the large, shadowed shape by the window. The curtains fluttered behind him, moonlight streaming in pale ribbons, the streaks of light illuminating his dark trouser-clad legs.

  Fear didn’t exist at all. Even as she told herself to get up, to move, to rise. To demand that he leave her room. She couldn’t voice the words. She couldn’t budge. She couldn’t even care enough to lift a hand and shield her nudity.

  It was as though she gave herself permission to do anything, to do everything. In this dream that didn’t feel like a dream, anything was possible.

  He stepped forward with easy, decided steps. He wasn’t even dressed properly. She saw that. No jacket. No vest. The lightness of his lawn-colored shirt matched the moon’s glow. The fabric opened down the middle, leaving a deep vee of shadow. His trousers were dark, lost against the night, as obscured as his shadowed face.

  He stopped before her. And yet she didn’t move. Not even when his hands fell to her shoulders, drifting inward to her collarbone, stroking the delicate lines. Her breath escaped in a small gasp.

  His broad palms fell to her shoulders again. With a single push, he forced her back down.

  Cool air wafted over her breasts. Her nipples hardened, chilled and achy as she descended to the mattress.

  He came over her so completely, like an enveloping blanket. His mouth closed over one nipple, drawing it deep as his hand gripped her other breast. She moaned, arched, dug her hand into silken hair. Even as her breasts tingled and throbbed, she looked down, stared at the dark golden head feasting on her breast. Her belly tightened, twisting with heaviness.

  He lifted his mouth, blew warm air against the engorged tip, and raised his head to look at her, holding her gaze.

  She released a strangled sob at the darkly familiar eyes. Taunting demon eyes. Devilish and seductive.

  He shouldn’t be here. It should be Roger, not him. Not him!

  But it was just a dream. A mere dream. With that whisper coaxing its way through her head, she relaxed back on the bed again and accepted the magic of his mouth and hands, the delicious weight of his large body bearing her down.

  Moaning, she let her head drop to the side, fisting the coverlet. And she saw the other pair of eyes then, watching from the dark still of the corner, a voyeur of her most intimate tryst. A chill chased through her at the flaming white eyes set in a face shadowed beneath a deep hood.

  Gasping, she jerked upright, pushing at the warm male chest too muscled to belong to Roger. But not another. Not a certain brutish man of the streets.

  “What? What is it?” her lover whispered, his hand skimming down her throat, focused on only her.

  “Him.” She pointed a shaking finger at the cloaked figure. So tall and thin, she doubted whether anything thicker than a rail stood beneath the voluminous folds of the cloak.

  “Oh, him.” Her lover’s voice was all nonchalance. “He can wait. For now.”

  A niggling awareness curled with the rippling heat coursing through her body, distracting her from the full pleasure of her lover.

  Her attention strayed back to that watchful figure, so stark, dark and faceless save the glowing eyes. He spoke to her. But not in any tangible way. Not with words. His voice reached inside her, into her mind.

  I’m here for you … soon now … soon …

  Understanding slammed into her with gale-force power.

  She lurched upright, screaming, ready to flee, to run as far from that dark figure as her legs would carry her, even if it meant losing the lover whose mouth and hands worked magic upon her. It wasn’t worth it. Not if it brought Death.

  She blinked in the suddenly altered air, the scream still caught in her throat. She looked about her wildly, serrated breath tripping from her lips. She skimmed a hand down, feeling her night rail covering her body. Just a dream.

  The curtains at her window fluttered as if a wind had just blown through. With the mullioned glass sealed tight?

  Her flesh puckered to gooseflesh. She chafed her arms, running her hands over them, concentrating on steadying her hammering heart.

  A swift rap sounded at her door. She jumped, swallowing down another cry.

  “Miss Laurent!” Mrs. Dobbs’s disembodied voice drifted through her bedchamber door. “Are you well?”

  Marguerite cleared her throat, managing strangled speech. “I am fine, Mrs. Dobbs. Simply a nightmare. Forgive me. I did not mean to disturb your rest.”

  “Not at all, dear. Only wanted to assure myself you weren’t being murdered in your bed.”

  She bit down on her fist at Mrs. Dobbs’s flippant remark, feeling the words like a barb to her heart.

  Not murdered. Not dead. Not yet, at any rate.

  “I am well,” she called again.

  “Good night then, dear.”

  Marguerite fell back on the bed, sighing deeply as her head sank into the pillow. She listened to the heavy tread of the proprietress fade down the corridor. In the distance, a door opened and shut, the sound desolate as it echoed through the night.

  Rolling to her side, she burrowed beneath the coverlet, seeking warmth, grasping the fleeting scraps of her resolve to do everything in her power to seize her life and mark it as her own, to avoid a fate like the one Madame Foster had described.

  Chapter 6


  Ash sat upright in bed and glared down at the large, blinking blue eyes of the tousled female beside him. “What did you just say?”

  “Easy there, love.” Mary smoothed a hand over his bare shoulder, her gaze hungrily following the stroke of her hand on his flesh, like she wanted her lips there instead, tasting everything she touched.

  He leaned forward, draping his arms loosely upon his propped knees, and stared dazedly ahead as he absorbed her words, his blood simmering to a furious burn in his veins. “Are you certain it’s true?”

  “Aye.” Mary fell back on the bed, mindless of her nudity. She and Ash had been lovers off and on for years. Long before Jack made him a partner. Hell, back when he was just one of Jack’s managers. Their long-standing friendship made her someone he could trust. A girl brought up alongside him on the streets, in the days when he picked pockets to survive, would always have his back.

  “The great Jack Hadley has gone and gathered his entire flock. All girls. Daughters, can you believe it? It’s almost amusing. For all his procreating, he never fathered a son. Suppose you’re the closest he’ll ever have to that.”

  With a growl, he shook his head. Not a son. A son was told things and kept apprised, and Jack had kept him in the dark over the matter of his daughters. Not an oversight, Ash was certain. Everything Jack did was with methodical deliberation.

  Not that it shocked Ash to learn that Jack had fathered offspring. He only felt shock over the fact that he was suddenly interested in claiming his progeny—that they suddenly possessed value in his eyes.

  Jack was no sentimentalist. He did nothing without benefit to himself. For no other reason had he made Ash his partner. He saw the advantage in it. Claiming his illegitimate offspring had to provide him with something. Ash knew Jack well enough to know that he cared for no one more than himself.

  The sounds from his gaming hell floated from below stairs. The buzz of conversation, laughter, the occasional shout from a victor, all acted as a balm to his nerves. Even though he owned a grand townhouse in the City, he stayed at Hellfire, craving the sounds, the smells. His townhouse sat a lonely shell across the river, shrouded in silence. Only solitude and thoughts best left alone awaited him there.