The former prizefighter belonged in London society as much as a bear belonged at an afternoon tea. He was unmannerly, unrefined, and untamed.
During their first encounter, he’d granted her an audience while attired solely in his shirtsleeves and snug-fitting breeches. He hadn’t even attempted to cover himself or to apologize for his near nudity. He’d been perspiring as well. His deep mahogany hair had been tousled into damp waves that curled at his temples, the thick cording of his throat exposed for all the world to see, and the open neck of his shirtsleeves revealed a rise of heavy muscle swathed in dark hair. Why, he’d looked positively primitive.
It still made her blood hot simply thinking of his audacity.
Reaching up, she lifted the fine chestnut-brown tendrils off the nape of her neck and felt the cool relief of the spring breeze. Then, the man himself appeared in his doorway, filling it with uncivilized brawn.
He must have sensed her ever-fixed animosity aimed in his direction.
Without even glancing at the broom-toting chimney sweep passing in front of him, or to the rambling traffic of carriages, drays, and hackney cabs between them, his gaze cut directly to Ainsley.
She lowered her arms. Her pulse kicked shamefully at the sensitive flesh of her throat, and all she wanted to do was turn around. But there was no point in that. He’d already caught her staring in his direction. To look away now would be an admission of guilt, a white flag of surrender—which was something she would never, ever give to Reed Sterling.
Even from this distance, she would lay odds that he wore his usual half grin, his mouth curling up where a tiny scar notched his upper lip near the corner. When he inclined his head, her stomach did a strange little flip, seating itself directly beneath her lungs, making her breaths come up short.
The symptoms of pure abhorrence, she was sure.
Instead of offering her nemesis a greeting in kind, she snubbed him with a sniff. Only then did she turn around to deal with her daily chore—cleaning up the filth that traveled from his doorstep to hers.
All manner of handbills for boxing lessons, hazard tournaments, and dancing ladies littered the whitewashed steps. If only his wealthy patrons were as eager as his rubbish to make it inside the agency.
Of course it was doubtful she could make viable matches for any of them. Rogues and wastrels were not the sort of men she would recommend to any woman. But she wasn’t above taking their money. In fact, if Mr. Sterling—the devil himself—should like a subscription, she would even take his application.
After all, as the most practical member of the family, it was her responsibility to keep the agency in candles and coal. She did what had to be done. If it were up to Uncle Ernest, he’d spend every farthing on the endless list of women he wooed, as the bills from the flower shop and confectioners could attest.
Issuing a sigh, Ainsley bent down. Rain had come and gone in the hours before dawn and the handbills were plastered to the steps. She had to peel off the pages, one by one, and drop them into the rusted rubbish bin she brought out each morning.
Dark runnels of ink coasted down the sloped stair tread, leaching into the hem of her burgundy day dress. Silently, she gave Reed Sterling a piece of her mind.
She was just inching backward when she heard a familiar jaunty whistle. And the sound was closer than she would have liked.
Glancing over her shoulder, she spied Mr. Sterling crossing the street between a carriage heading in one direction, and a horse cart filled with fragrant flowers bound for market. They swerved to avoid him, his tune muted beneath the jangle of rigging, sharp whinnies, and shouted cursing. But he did not alter his strolling pace. In fact, he took a second to bend down and pick up a stray primrose, twirling the butter-yellow blossom between his fingers.
Pinched between such large, brutish digits, the dainty stem didn’t stand a chance. And before she could stop herself, she wondered how much damage hands like those might do to a woman’s slender throat.
An icy shiver rolled over her, a dark memory stirring in the corner of her mind like a sticky cobweb disturbed by a draft. But she closed the door on it before it could take hold.
She was no longer the weak, pathetic young woman she’d once been. That person lived in a small hamlet in north Hampshire. Her reborn, stronger self lived in London and was determined to make the family matchmaking business a success.
She found solace in that, if nothing else.
Straightening, she watched Reed Sterling step onto the pavement and into the long shadows in front of the agency. He stopped whistling, his broad mouth frowning as he openly studied her countenance as if she were a Captain Sharp at one of his tables.
She kept a mask of impassivity in place. Whatever cards she held, she’d keep to herself.
Boldly, she stared back into the most peculiar eyes she’d ever seen. His irises were near perfect spheres of dye-dipped indigo, all except for one smudge in the left eye and only the left. That strange top quarter portion appeared singed to a bright copper color, like an ember that refused to cool.
An ember that might catch fire at any moment.
Ainsley could almost feel the heat of it warming her cheeks. But that was silly, of course. The discoloration wasn’t anything more than a form of heterochromia—a term she’d learned shortly after they’d met, finding it among the pages of a medical journal at the lending library.
It always made her feel more centered and in control when she could define something she didn’t understand. This was especially true in matters concerning Reed Sterling.
“I believe you’re on the wrong side of the street, Mr. Sterling. You won’t find anything of interest over here.”
If there was any confronting to be done, she would prefer to be the one to do it.
He held her gaze for a moment without responding, then turned to squint at the front of her family’s rented townhouse. “Wouldn’t be too sure. Had to stroll over to see what my prim and proper little neighbor hung on her door, didn’t I?”
Her stomach, which had been seated high beneath her lungs, suddenly dropped at the sound of his gravelly, uncultured drawl, her skin drawing tight over her frame. It was the queerest sensation. Why it happened whenever he was near, she could not fathom.
Her inner repulsion working its way to the surface? Most likely.
She abhorred him and everything he stood for—all manner of savagery and unabashed wickedness.
Doubtless, he awoke with a checklist of sins to complete by the end of each day. He’d begin with gluttony, breaking his fast with a dozen coddled eggs and an entire loaf of toasted bread. Then he’d slather each piece with honey, so thick it would overflow and drip down his chin.
She slid a cursory glance to that part of him, over the square edge of his jaw, and past a small red nick over the shadowy endysis of whiskers lurking beneath the shaven skin.
Her gaze strayed to the bare expanse of his neck. Of course, his cravat was absent. Again. She shouldn’t be surprised to find a sticky amber-colored droplet resting in the hollow beneath the protrusion of his Adam’s apple. Regrettably, the errant thought caused her mouth to water, her tongue tingling with an imprudent craving for sweets.
Ainsley swallowed. “No, you certainly did not have to, because the sign is of no concern of yours. Besides, you’re not even respectably attired for venturing out of doors.”
He dismissed her comment with a mocking sideways glance. “Unlike you, I didn’t inherit my grandmother’s wardrobe, complete with an array of neckerchiefs and brooches. I think you might have a new one for every day of the month.”
She stiffened. “Hardly. I wore this the day before yesterday.”
“You’re wrong.” He faced her again, speaking with a conceited degree of certainty that abraded every nerve in her body.
“Wrong, indeed! I should think I would know better than—”
“Two days ago, you railed at me for the snuff box you found on your doorstep,” he interrupted. “And that neckerchief was
the color of milk and it had a wavy sort of edge.”
Absorbing his declaration, she dimly lifted her free hand and splayed her fingers over this morning’s pale lace. Drat! He was correct. She’d worn the white silk with the scalloped edge that day. But what sort of man was he to take note of such a small detail?
Gathering ammunition against his enemy, even by way of criticizing her attire? Undoubtedly.
“It is a fichu,” she corrected, enunciating the word clearly. “And I dress to demonstrate the respectability of my position. Being a matchmaker is an important occupation. A client’s quality of life is dependent on what I do.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, the primrose disappearing into his fist. “A real man knows how to find his own woman. All you haughty Bournes are just playing at games you don’t understand.”
A buildup of exasperation burned the inner lining of her lungs. She held it at bay, letting it come to a full boil before she unleashed it upon him. She’d heard enough of Mr. Sterling’s opinions on her profession in their previous—almost daily—encounters to know that he loathed her as much as she did him.
He seemed to think that her life was an endless array of privileges. As if all she had to do each morning was to fling off her coverlet and a team of servants would swoop in—bringing order to her life, balancing the accounting ledgers, finding a way to pay her uncle’s debts and have enough to put food on the table and fires in the hearths. He had no idea of all the sacrifices she’d made over the years.
“Whereas you dress as if your occupation were at the docks, unloading barrels of ale, one under each needlessly burly arm,” she hissed.
But she made the mistake of letting her attention drift along his throat, to the dark springy curls above the open neck, and over to the bulge of muscle straining the sleeves of his coat. Doubtless, if she compared his arms and her thighs, side by side, she would find that their circumference was the same. It was almost tempting to untie her garter ribbon and measure him, right then and there. He would have to remove his coat, of course, and . . . and . . .
Somehow, she lost her train of thought.
When she met his gaze again, he grinned, the notch at the corner of his mouth mocking her. “You don’t seem too offended by the sight of me. Those eyes of yours are greedy things this morning—they’ve gone dark and hot as fresh coffee.”
“Hardly likely,” she said, her voice oddly hoarse as if she’d just woken from sleep. She cleared her throat. “I’m certain they are still just as brown as they have always been. No more, no less.”
Again, he shook his head and took a step toward her, crowding her. “No. They’re usually brownish-gray and silky looking, like an otter’s pelt.”
The nerve of him for comparing her eyes to an animal! Of the two of them, he was most certainly closer to crawling around on all fours.
And did he have to stand so close? At once, her corset felt too tight, her skin too hot, her fichu clinging to the vulnerable skin beneath the modest neckline of her bodice.
She took a step back. “For your information, I was merely noticing that you have a cut on your jaw. You should tell your valet to sharpen the razor for next time. And if I’m fortunate, he’ll press a little harder on your jugular vein as well.”
“You’d like that, would you?”
“Immensely.”
He cocked a disbelieving dark brow over that copper-scorched iris. “I don’t have a valet. I’m not some pampered fop that needs someone to wash and dress me.”
The image he conjured—him in the bath, dripping wet—was not one she particularly wanted flashing inside her mind. When it did she felt her lungs react, hitching in one steamy breath. She made an awkward move to cross her arms over her chest, only to realize she still held that dripping handbill.
She had the urge to fling it directly at the open neck of his shirt. “I beg to differ.”
“Are you offering, then?”
“Of course not. I’m merely pointing out that a man of two and thirty ought to know how to see to those matters himself. Somedays I even wonder how you manage to make it out of your be—”
She stopped abruptly, her cheeks catching fire. He was steering this conversation onto unfamiliar avenues, taking control of the ribbons. She didn’t like it one bit.
His grin widened slowly, his eyes looking warm and drowsy as they dipped to her lips. He chuckled when she pressed them together.
“My bed?” He looked as smug as a bull let loose in a pasture full of milk cows. “I’d wager that’s not all you wonder about me.”
“Clearly, you’ve received far too many blows to the head in your little boxing exhibitions. It knocked all the sense out of you, if you ever had any in the first place.”
She cast him a flinty-eyed glare, but he missed the effect by turning away, angling toward the stairs.
“If I had any sense left, I would’ve bought this house from the duchess before you moved across the street. Every day since has been pure hell.” He expelled a breath and bent down, swiping up a number of soggy handbills and tossing them into the bin.
Was he cleaning up, then? This was a first. As far as Ainsley knew, his only skills consisted of leaving messes for someone else to tend and bludgeoning men inside a boxing ring.
Though, grudgingly, she admitted that he must be something of a good businessman, for there was a queue of carriages out front every evening. She’d heard that he had all manner of depraved enticements to lure the wayward through his doors. All for a price, of course.
She had a feeling that, with Reed Sterling, everything came at a price.
Absently, she watched him drag a large hand over the stone tread. Between his shoulders, the black wool of his coat tightened into long horizontal furrows, his collar rising to trap thick curls of brown hair. She had a peculiar impulse to reach down and free them.
Puzzled, she shifted her attention to the topiary beside her, lifting her gaze to the top of the evergreen spire. “If I had my way, I’d run you out of business. Close the doors of Sterling’s forever.”
There. That ought to get a rise out of him and have him storming off across the street. There was nothing he loved more than his precious gaming hell.
But he had the nerve to chuckle at her instead. “You seem to forget that I was here first. Yet, even after you met your unsavory neighbor, you still chose to live across from me. Why is that, by the by?”
There hadn’t been another option—she’d had to escape Hampshire. Her life had depended on it. Though only Uncle Ernest and she knew the reason. They’d even shielded Jacinda and Briar from the full truth.
No one needed to know about Ainsley’s shameful secret.
Gradually, she became aware of wetness leeching through to her stocking. Looking down, she saw that she’d squeezed the handbill dry until it was like a stone in her fist. She dropped it into the bin and shook out her skirts where the muslin had turned a dark, angry red.
Not wanting to let on that she’d been woolgathering, she issued a hollow laugh and evaded his question. “Are you worried that I spend my day plotting to steal your depraved clients and turn their minds to the wholesomeness of matrimony?”
Hmm . . . actually, that wasn’t a terrible notion. She could start a campaign to save the floundering family business—Subscriptions for all Sinners.
And if it took money away from that despicable gaming house, then all the better.
“You’re hardly a threat to me, and I never said anything about marriage being wholesome. It’s a cruel business, what you do, taking people’s money before you rob them of their souls.” Straightening to face her again, he had the nerve to cluck his tongue, the scar on his upper lip practically winking. “And you do it to your own kind, too. For shame, Miss Bourne. I guess that makes my gaming hell the more respectable business. After all, at least I’m honest about cheating the snobbish prigs that walk through my doors.”
She gasped . . . or tried to . . . but outrage clogged her throat. Was he cal
ling her the thief? How dare he! For a moment, she couldn’t say a word. She just stood there, staring at the challenge in his mismatched eyes, her mouth agape like a freshly caught trout.
The blackguard took her silence as an invitation to goad her. “You can’t even deny it, can you?”
“I am,” she croaked, recovering. “Your half-brained assessment is the furthest from the truth. You prey upon people who are weak in spirit. Your currency is sin, whereas mine is sanctity. I should hardly call us alike. When our times come and our lives are at an end, you and I will be standing at opposite gates and I will have a lovely view of the ones encrusted with pearls.”
“Ah. So that’s why you’re here, then—to bring salvation to London? Well, you might be onto something. I’m sure many of the clients you marry off will be on their knees, praying for death by the end of the first year of their life sentence. You’re a veritable queen of torment.”
He laughed up to the heavens, throat exposed, a hearty rumble rolling out of his broad, burly chest.
The sound seemed to vibrate the air inside her own lungs, spreading out in tiny tingling pulses through the rest of her body. She wanted to chafe her hands over her skin to quell the provocative sensation. Cover her ears. Run in the opposite direction. Do anything to rid herself of it.
“If you abhor the idea of matrimony so much, I have to wonder why you even dared to cross the street to stand so near our door. You are welcome—nay, encouraged—to leave at once.” With an impatient swipe of her hand, she pointed across the street.
“You’re the one who invited me,” he said with a shrug, amusement still tucked into the corners of his mouth.
She scoffed at his unbelievable amount of hubris. “I did no such thing.”
The Rogue to Ruin EPB Page 2