by Cheryl Holt
“I always get my way,” he said, “so if you don’t confide in me, I’ll badger you until you relent.”
“Why would you automatically assume I was driven away from Cliffside?”
“Why else would you have left?”
“You don’t know everything, Mr. Scott. Sometimes there’s no explanation. Sometimes a fact just is.”
“I can keep a secret, and I’m a good listener.”
“I don’t have any secrets, and I doubt that listening is what you do well at all.”
He clutched a teasing fist over his heart. “You wound me, Miss Wells.”
“You need to be brought down a peg or two.”
“I’ll just poke around until the servants spill the whole, sorry tale. Wouldn’t you rather give me your version before I hear it from them?”
“The servants would never gossip about me,” she absurdly stated.
“If that’s what you suppose, then you’re sillier than I imagined you to be.”
“You imagined me to be silly? I can’t fathom why you’d have been contemplating me at all.”
“Apparently you made an impression when you visited me in London.”
He shifted and leaned in so he was touching her all the way down. His behavior was rude and brash, and she should have shoved him away, but to her eternal disgust she didn’t.
She been kissed a few times—by Gaylord years earlier—but the embraces had been quick pecks of lips to lips, with no hands or bodily parts involved. So she’d never been intimately connected to a man.
Mr. Scott was large and virile and all male, and his proximity had her pulse racing. She was experiencing so many wild and unusual sensations that she felt dizzy.
Was this why women swooned? Was this why they became overheated and lost all reason? Surely she was made of sterner stuff.
After Gaylord had betrayed her so hideously, she’d sworn off men. She would never trust a man again, would never be enticed, would never be sweet-talked or seduced, would never…care.
Gaylord had shown her that she had a very tender heart, and she would never let it be broken again. So why was she dawdling in the dark and allowing Mr. Scott to snuggle her to a gazebo post? Why was she enjoying it so much? Why was she being overwhelmed by him?
She had no idea.
“I’ll be here for a week,” he said.
She sighed with exasperation. Were all the guests staying for a week? How could Pamela afford it?
“Why would you stay so long?” she asked. “Don’t you have crimes to commit in London?”
“Not at the moment, but I’m certain there will be plenty waiting for me once I get back.”
“I’m certain there will be too.”
He reached out, and her initial reaction was to flinch away but she didn’t. She wasn’t about to exhibit any weakness.
A lock of her hair had fallen from its comb, and he twirled it around his finger and used it as leverage to pull her closer. His face was inches from hers, and he was staring at her so intently that she wondered if he might kiss her.
She didn’t know why the peculiar notion would have entered her mind, but oddly she seemed able to read his thoughts. He was really and truly considering whether to kiss her.
What if he tried? What if he succeeded?
She suspected he’d probably be very adept at kissing and as she recollected the trollop in his office, she figured he’d kissed dozens—nay, hundreds!—of women.
“I’d convinced myself that I didn’t like you,” he said. “You’re bossy and rude, and you assume you’re smarter than everyone else. I hate that in a female.”
“If you keep flattering me like that, I’ll get a big head.”
“But”—he raised a brow, looking wicked and handsome and very, very dangerous to her equilibrium—“I might have been wrong.”
“About what?” Her voice was breathless and ragged and sounded nothing like her own.
“About you. I think we’re going to be very good friends.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yes, but I’m always right, and I always get my way. Remember?”
With that parting quip, he stepped away and left. She watched him depart, not glancing away until he disappeared around a corner.
She wanted to call to him, to hurl a pithy remark, to have the last word, but she couldn’t devise a comment that would have been sufficiently clever or biting.
She staggered over to the bench where he’d been sitting, and she plopped down. For several minutes she tried to relax, but his essence lingered like a tangible object, and there was no respite to be had.
Ultimately she rose and went back to the house, but she decided she wouldn’t return to the party.
If she did, she was positive she’d run into him. He had an ability to fluster her, to leave her bewildered and feeling as if she was young and foolish and ridiculous, and she’d never let a man have that sort of power over her.
She sneaked in a side door and climbed the servants’ stairs to her room.
CHAPTER THREE
“What do you think?”
“Bugger them all.”
“My feeling exactly.”
Michael Scott grinned at his friend and partner, Ramsey Scott.
They shared the same last name, but they weren’t related. The orphanage where they’d lived off and on as boys had been owned by a man whose surname was Scott, and he’d given every child his name. It had been an establishment filled with little Scotts.
People occasionally asked if Michael and Ramsey were brothers, but Michael had never understood why. They looked nothing alike and had nothing in common—other than their ability to run scams and make lots of money. And Michael thought he might have had a brother once, but it hadn’t been Ramsey.
They were out on the verandah at Cliffside, their hips balanced on the balustrade as they stared into the parlor. Music wafted out, and dancers promenaded by.
Gaylord Farrow was over in a corner, his wife Pamela whispering in his ear, their heads pressed close. Whatever the comment, Gaylord responded quietly but viciously, and Pamela slithered away.
Clearly matters were tense in the Farrow-Wells household, husband and wife so at odds that they would bicker in front of the guests.
Michael figured he should have been suffering a spurt of conscience over what would become of the unhappy couple after he was through with them, but he didn’t remember ever having a conscience. If he’d once possessed one, he’d lost it somewhere along the way.
“No mercy?” Ramsey inquired.
Michael scoffed. “Gaylord Farrow is an ass. He doesn’t deserve any.”
“He wants to introduce you to his sister-in-law, Rebecca, so you can take her riding in the morning.”
“She’s the slender brunette? The birthday girl?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t fraternize with children.”
That wasn’t precisely true. His likely fiancée, Lady Felicia Gilroy, was eighteen.
“Rebecca just turned twenty-two,” Ramsey said.
“She acts as if she’s ten.”
“She doesn’t look ten. She appears all grown up to me.”
“Leave her alone,” Michael cautioned. “I won’t have you causing trouble before we leave.”
“You mean besides foreclosing on their home, their property, and everything they own?”
“Yes, besides that.”
They chuckled then were silent, sipping their whiskey. It was a companionable interval, and Michael recalled—as he always did—that the best times were when he and Ramsey were together, just the two of them with no business to distract them.
Michael’s first genuine memories were of Ramsey, but before the orphanage—long before—there had been a chaotic night, a huge fire, crowds running and screaming. Michael had stood in the street with people shouting and asking him his name, but he’d been too terrified to reply.
Then…quite a bit later, he’d been older and with Ramsey at the or
phanage.
He never felt he was supposed to have ended up there, because sporadically other memories surfaced. Siblings maybe? A father? He recollected a large, jovial man who used to grab him and toss him in the air. Who could it have been but a father?
How are my boys? You got so big while I was away! You’re all grown up!
The ancient comments flitted by in his head, and he shoved them away.
He often heard whispers and saw visions that made no sense. Sometimes it seemed as if he was staring through another man’s eyes and reading his mind. Sometimes they were together in the same dreams. Sometimes he jolted awake from a deep sleep, certain that an arm or a leg was missing, that part of him had been stealthily cut away while he’d slumbered.
Sometimes he wondered if there was madness in his blood.
He glanced over his shoulder again, hoping to observe Miss Wells walking back from the gazebo. She was probably safe enough. After all, they were at a country estate in the middle of nowhere, and Cliffside was her home. What could happen?
Still though, he shouldn’t have walked off without her. Then again, with such a prickly personality, what harm could befall her? A miscreant might approach with bad intentions, be impaled by her sharp tongue, and he’d move on to find an easier, quieter victim.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Ramsey asked.
“Remember that harpy who stopped by the club last week?”
“Miss Magdalena Wells from the Vicar Sterns Rescue Mission?”
“Yes. She’s Farrow’s sister-in-law.”
Ramsey scowled. “What are the odds of that?”
“I bumped into her out in the garden, and I left her out there by herself. I’m watching for her to return.”
“How gallant of you. Was she bitching and complaining?”
“Worse than ever.”
“Figures.”
“She’s prettier in a party gown.”
“Wouldn’t any girl be?”
They sipped their drinks again, studied the dancers again.
After a lengthy interval, Ramsey said, “If you weren’t considering that deal with Lord Stone over Lady Felicia, Gaylord wouldn’t be throwing Rebecca at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gossip has spread that there’s a heart in that empty chest of yours.”
Michael snorted with disgust. “I have no heart.”
“You and I know that, but Lord Stone has been telling people he’s coerced you into an agreement.”
“Let him. Why would I care?”
Lord Stone was Felicia’s father. His real estate was entailed by his title, so he couldn’t gamble away his houses or land, but he could gamble away everything else. And he had. To Michael. Lord Stone’s holdings had included a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica, ships that sailed to and from America, a gold mine in Africa, and a coal mine in Cornwall.
Michael could return some of it in exchange for Felicia’s hand in marriage, but he couldn’t decide what he thought about the proposal. It would be amusing to marry into the aristocracy. For some reason, he felt he belonged in that exalted company, and it would serve Lord Stone right for being such a profligate idiot.
Yet Michael had never planned to wed, even though—deep down—he secretly yearned for a home and family. It was an ache that was very much like the sensation of his having lost a limb. It seemed he might once have had a stable, happy life, but it had slipped through his fingers when he wasn’t looking.
He enjoyed ruining rich assholes, taking what they had, making them pay. He never bothered with men who were friendly or courteous, but if a man was arrogant and unbearable, he ought to watch his back around Michael.
Lady Felicia hadn’t been apprised of her father’s fiscal troubles, but if Michael accepted Lord Stone’s offer her father would order her to wed Michael, and she was an obedient daughter. She’d probably be a good sport about it, and if she wasn’t, Lord Stone was the sort who’d beat a concession out of her, so Michael hoped she wasn’t too obstinate.
He’d been introduced to her, and she’d been cordial and polite, but there was no telling how she’d act if she was informed that Michael was to be her husband. She’d likely spend every night weeping into her pillow, having assumed her father would arrange a grand match for her, that she’d have had a highborn oaf for a husband. But her father was an irresponsible wretch, so she might get Michael instead.
The barbarian was at the gate!
He smirked, relishing a vision of the family dinners he’d attend. His presence at Lord and Lady Stone’s table would send Lady Stone to an early grave, and the notion made Michael even more inclined to follow through.
“Gaylord is such a prick,” Ramsey said.
“Never met a bigger one,” Michael concurred.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he offered you Rebecca’s chastity in case it might convince you to cancel a couple of his markers.”
“She seems awfully flirtatious to me. Why would you think she still has any chastity for him to offer?”
Ramsey chuckled caustically. “Ooh, a low blow.”
Gaylord Farrow had already lost everything to Michael. It had been a slow process, his debts mounting for the prior year as he’d dug himself into a hole, and he could never have dug himself out. With an opponent as loathsome as Farrow, Michael wouldn’t have allowed Farrow to best him. He won fair and square, or he cheated to win.
The obnoxious Mr. Farrow hadn’t stood a chance, and all that remained was to negotiate the transfer of occupancy. Michael was happy to give them a month to vacate, and the ladies could keep the clothes on their backs—even though he owned their clothes too.
Rebecca Wells took that moment to prance by the window in the line of dancers. Ramsey came to full alert, like a hunting dog scenting the fox.
“I’m going in to dance,” he said.
“You hate to dance,” Michael told him.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Don’t involve yourself in a mess with her where I’ll end up having to drag you out of it.”
“She winked at me a bit ago over by the buffet table.”
“It was a trick of the light.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Ramsey insisted. “Something tells me she’s no better than she has to be.”
He strutted off, and Michael was alone in the quiet. He gazed out at the garden, and someone was approaching on one of the paths. Shortly he could see it was Miss Wells, but she didn’t notice him lurking on the verandah.
She didn’t return to the party, but skirted the house and disappeared into the shadows. A door opened and closed, and he peered up at the mansion. Before too long, a candle flared in an upstairs bedchamber.
He stared at it, stared at the dancers in the parlor, stared at her window again, and he shrugged.
What the hell? Why not pay her a visit?
She still hadn’t confided why she was in London, why she worked at the mission, and he was dying to know the whole story. He suspected it would have very much to do with Gaylord Farrow, and if so, the details would add to the reasons Michael detested the man.
He downed his whiskey, then pushed away from the balustrade and walked down the verandah until he located the door she’d used. He climbed the stairs and wandered down the hall, peeking into rooms until he found the correct one.
He sneaked in and dawdled for a minute, assessing the décor and trying to decipher what it revealed about Miss Wells.
It was a small suite, with a sitting room and a bedchamber beyond. No doubt there would be a dressing room beyond that. A candle burned in the bedchamber, so there wasn’t much light, but even so, he noted that there weren’t any personal items, no family portraits on the fireplace mantle, no bric-a-brac on the tables.
The sitting room had a French window that led out onto a narrow balcony. Through the gauzy curtains, he could see Miss Wells was standing outside and gazing up at the sky. To his delight, she’d taken down her hair. It was an unusual and vibrant sha
de of auburn, and the lengthy tresses fell to her bottom in a curly wave.
Was she wishing on a star? If so, what would she request? He was extremely curious about the answer to that question, which was definitely interesting.
He never bothered much with women. They served only one purpose, that being sexual relations, and he gladly paid for the services that were rendered. He was surrounded by trollops, so when he was in the mood he never lacked for lewd companions.
But other than a quick tumble, he rarely thought about women at all. His world was a world of men, of violence and betrayal and strife. He was besieged by adversaries, enemies, and competitors who would love to see him brought low, or even murdered if they believed they could get away with it.
Of course if he was ever killed, Ramsey would learn who had harmed Michael, and Ramsey’s revenge would be swift and brutal. He had fewer scruples than Michael, and while Michael would occasionally relent and grant mercy, with Ramsey there was only retaliation and vengeance.
So it was odd to find himself mulling Miss Wells, and he was confused as to why she’d captured his notice. He’d always hated the country, with its quiet lanes, fancy houses, and manicured gardens. Most likely he was merely bored to tears and hoping she’d enliven what was otherwise a very dull evening.
Stealthily he shut the door and spun the key in the lock. Lest she not welcome a visitor, he removed it and stuck it in his pocket. Then he tiptoed over to the balcony and slipped through the curtains.
“Hello, Miss Wells,” he said from directly behind her.
She didn’t shriek with alarm, but she leapt with such fright that he had to grab her arm so she didn’t topple over the rail.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded when she could speak again.
“I have no idea.”
“You can’t stay.” She pointed into the sitting room. “Get out.”
“No.”
She shoved by him and stomped into the suite, hurrying to the door and turning the knob.
“You stole my key?” she fumed as he sauntered in after her.
“Yes.”
“Give it back to me.”