Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover

by Sarah MacLean

  His gaze narrowed. “Perhaps,” he said, the word dark and liquid. “It’s a wonder that Chase allows it.”

  “I do not belong to Chase.”

  “Of course you do.” He paused. “We all do, in a sense.”

  “Not you,” she said. He was the only person who was not beholden to her. This man, whose secrets were as well kept as her own.

  “Chase and I need each other to survive,” he said, “just as it seems you need him.”

  She inclined her head. “We are all in this boat together.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her. “You and I are in the boat,” he said. “Chase may have built it and set it on its course. But it is our boat.” The words were punctuated by the sound of his wool coat sleeve shifting. He lifted his hand and brushed a curl back from her neck, sending a thrill through her. “Perhaps we should sail away. How do you think he would like that?”

  She caught her breath. In all the time that they had worked together – in all the time they’d spent passing messages back and forth from the mysterious, nonexistent Chase – he’d never touched her in any way that could be considered remotely sexual. But that was about to change.

  She shouldn’t allow it. She’d never allowed it before. Not with anyone.

  Not since —

  But she’d wondered about it. She’d wanted it.

  And if she admitted it, she’d wanted it from this man, handsome as sin and twice as brilliant.

  This man, who was offering it to her.

  “He wouldn’t like it,” she whispered.

  “No, he wouldn’t.” His fingertips a lick of heat following their path as they stroked along her jaw, down the edge of her neck to where her shoulder gave way to the hollow of her throat. “How did I fail to see it before?”

  The words echoed the caress, soft and tempting, and her breath caught there, beneath his fingers, as they retraced their path up the column of her neck and tilted her face to his. She watched his beautiful mouth as he spoke. “How did I not notice it? The scent of you? The curve of your lips? The line of your neck?” He paused, and leaned in close, his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. “How many years have I watched you?”

  Good Lord, he was going to kiss her.

  She wanted him to kiss her.

  “If I were him,” he whispered, so close, so quiet that she fairly ached in anticipation, “I would not be happy at all.”

  If he were whom? The question formed and dissipated in an instant, like opium smoke, taking thought with it. He was drugging her with words and looks and touch.

  This was why she stayed clear of men.

  But just once, just this time, she wanted it.

  “If I were him,” he continued, his thumb stroking high across her cheek as he cupped her head and brought her to him. “I wouldn’t let you go. I would keep you. My lady.”

  She froze at the words, fear and panic threading through her. She looked up at him, finding his clear, intelligent gaze. “You know.”

  “I know,” he said. “But what I do not understand is why?”

  He did not know everything. He did not understand the life that she had chosen was not Anna, but Chase. Not the lightskirt, but the king.

  She told the truth. “Power.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Over whom?”

  “Over everyone,” she said, simply. “I own my life. Not them. They think me a whore, why not play one?”

  “Under their noses.”

  She smiled. “They see only what they wish to. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “I saw you.”

  She shook her head. “Not for years. You thought I was Anna, too.”

  “You could own your life beyond these walls,” he argued. “You do not have to play this part.”

  “But I like this part. Here, I am free. It is Georgiana who must scrape and bow and beg for acceptance. Here, I take what I want. Here, I am beholden to none.”

  “None but your master.”

  Except she was the master. She did not reply.

  He misread the silence. “That’s why you seek a husband. What happened?” he asked. “Has Chase tossed you aside?”

  She pulled away from him, needing the distance between them to return her sanity. To take her next steps. To craft her careful lies. “He hasn’t tossed me aside.”

  His brows snapped together. “He cannot expect your husband to share you.”

  The words stung, even as they should not. She’d lived all of this life in the shadows of The Fallen Angel masquerading as a whore. She’d convinced hundreds of London’s aristocrats that she was an expert in pleasure. That she’d sold herself to their most powerful leader. She dressed the part, with heaving bosom and painted face. She’d taught herself to move, to act, to be the part.

  And somehow, when this man acknowledged the reputation she had worked so hard to cultivate, the façade she had built with care and conviction, she hated it. Perhaps it was because he knew more of her truth than most, and still, he believed the lies.

  Or perhaps it was because he made her wish she did not have the lies to tell.

  No. She was falling victim to the hero in him, to the way he’d leapt to her aid only minutes earlier.

  She caught her breath at the thought.

  Only once he knew the truth. Her other identity. Her other life.

  Anger flared alongside disappointment and something akin to shame. “You wouldn’t have saved me.”

  It took him a moment to follow the change in topic. “I —”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she said, one hand flying up as if to stop the words on his lips. “Don’t insult me.”

  “I came after Pottle,” he said, raising his own hand, brandishing knuckles that would be sore in the morning. “I did save you.”

  “Because you knew the truth of my birth. If I’d been Anna alone… just a woman with a centuries-old profession. Just a painted whore —”

  He stopped her. “Don’t speak like that.”

  “Oh,” she scoffed. “Do I offend?”

  He ran his bruised hand through blond locks. “Christ, Georgiana.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He laughed, the sound humorless. “What should I call you? Anna? A false name to go with your false hair and your false face and your false…” He trailed off, one hand indicating her bodice, padded and cinched to make her ordinary bosom look extraordinary.

  “I am not certain that you should call me anything at this point,” she said, and she meant it.

  “It is too late for that. We are together in this. Bound by word and greed.”

  “I think you mean deed.”

  “I know precisely what I mean.”

  They faced each other in the dim light, and Georgiana could sense his anger and frustration, matched by her own. How strange was this moment? Born of his protection of one half of her because of the existence of the other?

  It was mad. A wicked web that could not be unwoven.

  At least, not without ruining everything for which she’d worked.

  He seemed to understand her thoughts. “I would have stepped in,” he insisted. “I would have done the same.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could believe you.”

  He took her shoulders. Met her gaze, serious in the dim light. “You should. I would have stepped in.”

  Her heart pounded. “Why?”

  He could have said a dozen things. But she did not expect: “Because I need you.”

  There was a little twinge of sadness at the words, so cool and collected. He needed her, but not in the way men needed women – impassioned and desperate. Not that she should care.

  “Need me for what?”

  “I want Lady Tremley to receive invitation to the ladies’ side of the club. I want the information she offers for entry. And for that information, you get your payment.”

  She should have been grateful for the change of topic. For the movement to safer ground. She wasn’t. She heard the frustration in her words when she
said, “You mean Chase gets his payment.”

  He smiled. “No, I mean you.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Me.”

  “I get my information, you get Viscount Langley. My papers, at your disposal. Or, at Georgiana’s disposal, at least.”

  Tit for tat.

  Understanding flooded through her – understanding and respect for this man who so easily manipulated every situation to suit himself. Her match in power and prestige.

  “Or what?”

  He raised a brow. “Don’t make me say it.”

  She lifted her chin. “I think I shall.”

  He did not waver. “Or I shall tell the world your secrets.”

  She narrowed her gaze on him. “Chase may not care.”

  “Then you shall have to make him care.” He started to push past her and she hated the movement. Hated that he was leaving her. She wished he would stay, this man who seemed to see so much. “You need my power,” he said quietly. “Your daughter needs it.”

  She winced at the reference to Caroline here, in this place, in this conversation, as he continued, “You think they won’t see it?” he asked. “You think they won’t notice the way I did? That your two masks bear a striking resemblance to each other?”

  “They haven’t before.”

  “You weren’t news before.”

  She met his gaze and told him the only thing she knew was certain. “People see what they wish to see.”

  He did not disagree. “Why risk it?”

  “I wish I did not have to.” Truth.

  “Why now?” The questions came fast.

  “One cannot live a lifetime in my profession.” Either of them.

  He didn’t like that. She could see it in his eyes. “So, how will it work? Instead of giving you a house in the country and enough money to last a lifetime, Chase has given you a dowry? It’s not your brother’s money, is it?” he asked, the words full of understanding.

  Ironic, that, as he did not understand at all.

  I give it to myself.

  He laughed, and the sound lacked humor. “He cannot give you what I can give you, though. He would never reveal himself with such public deeds. You need me to give you the reputation. You need me to land you Langley.”

  “Something for which you appear to be charging a handsome fee,” she said.

  “I would have done it for free, you know.” There was disappointment in his words.

  “If only I’d been the little lost girl you thought I was hours ago?”

  “I never thought you lost. I thought you strong as steel.”

  “And now?”

  He lifted a shoulder. Dropped it. “Now, I see you are a businesswoman. I will help you for payment. And you are lucky for that, or else I’d be done with the lot of you. I do not typically get into bed with liars.”

  She gave him her most coquettish smile, desperate to shield the way his words stung. “No one’s invited you into bed.”

  She did not expect the air to shift, nor did she expect him to return to her, pressing her back against the wall, hunting her. She’d never in her life felt as she did now, her power stripped from her along with her lies. Most of her lies.

  All but the biggest one.

  His hands pressed against the mahogany on either side of her head, his arms caging her. “You’ve invited me into your bed every time you’ve looked at me for years.”

  She hesitated, not knowing what to say. How to proceed with this man who was so different than he’d ever been. “You’re wrong.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m right. And to be honest, I’ve wanted to accept. Every… single… time.”

  He was so close, so warm, so devastatingly powerful that for the first time in her life, she understood why women swooned in men’s arms. “What has changed?” she said, hearing the breathlessness in her tone, brazening through. “A taste for innocents?”

  “We both know better.”

  She ignored the sting of the reply. The way they made her wish she did not masquerade as a whore. The way they made her wish he knew the truth. Instead, she soldiered on. “Then nothing has changed.”

  “Of course it has.”

  Now she was Georgiana.

  “You like the idea of a ruined aristocrat,” she said, blood pounding in her ears. “What did you call me? Terrified? What is it… you think you can save me every day? Every night?”

  He hesitated. “I think you want saving.”

  “I can save myself.”

  He smiled then, all wolf. “Not from everything. That’s why you need me.”

  She had more power than he could ever imagine. More power than he could ever know. When she lifted her chin and spoke, it was to prove it. “I don’t need you.”

  He found her gaze, close and hot. “Who will save you from them then? Who will save you from Chase?”

  She did not look away. Did not wish to. “I am in no danger from Chase.”

  His hand was on her again, cupping her jaw, tilting her head back. “Tell me the truth,” he commanded, refusing to let her hide. “Can you leave him? Will he allow you to walk away? To start a new life?”

  If only the truth were that simple.

  He saw the hesitation. Closed the distance between them and hovered a breath away from her. “Tell me.”

  How would it feel to lean into him? To let him help? To bring him into her inner sanctum and tell him everything?

  “You can help by getting me married.”

  “You don’t want marriage. Not to Langley, at least.”

  “I don’t want marriage at all, but that’s irrelevant. I need it.”

  He considered her words, and she thought that he might fight her. Might refuse. Not that he should care. Not that any of it should matter.

  After a long moment, he closed in on her, one hand moving from the wall to the side of her face, caressing her jaw, lifting her chin. His brown eyes searched hers, and when he spoke, it was in a low, dark whisper, demanding honesty. “Do you belong to him?”

  She should say yes. It would be safer. It would keep West at arm’s length if he thought for one moment that Chase might fight him for her. He needed Chase and all the information garnered and protected by The Fallen Angel.

  She should say yes. But in this moment, with this man, she wanted to tell the truth. Just once. Just to know what it was like to do so. And so she did. “No,” she whispered. “I belong to myself.”

  And then his lips were on hers, and everything changed.

  Chapter 6

  … And yet, there is a mystery to our Lady G—. One that forces even the staunchest of aristocrats to raise her lorgnette and consider the girl across the room. Is it possible that we have heaped her with false disdain all these years? Only the Season will tell…

  … Young ladies of London, heed our call! By all accounts, Lord L— is on the hunt for a wife. His list of desired attributes no doubt includes beauty, good humor, and proficiency with a string instrument. Alas, those who are not exceedingly wealthy need not apply…

  Pearls & Pelisses Ladies Magazine, April 1833

  He didn’t care that she was lying.

  Didn’t care that she had been protected for years by the most powerful, secretive man in London. Didn’t care that a man with that kind of money would not take kindly to anyone touching that which was his.

  He didn’t care that she was nothing she seemed – that she was somehow neither whore, nor ruined aristocrat, nor innocent.

  All he cared was that she was pressed against him in this empty space, all long limbs and soft skin, and, for a fleeting moment, she was his.

  The kiss was sin and innocence, like the lady herself – at once all experience and none at all. Her hand came to the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair with remarkable purpose while she gasped against his lips as though she’d never been kissed.

  Christ.

  It was no wonder she was London’s most coveted companion. She was red silk and white lace. Two tempting, unbearab
le sides of one coin. And for this moment, she belonged to him.

  But first…

  He pulled away barely, giving her a scant inch to breathe as he whispered, “I would have stepped in. Either way.”

  He hadn’t liked her implication that he’d only pummeled Pottle because she was from an aristocratic family. It had grated to think that she would imagine that he’d have left any woman to be mistreated so roundly. But more importantly, it sickened him to think that she believed he’d have left her if circumstances had been different.

  He didn’t know why it was important to him that she believe him. That she believe he was the kind of man who would fight for a woman. Any woman. Her. But it was important. “I would have stepped in,” he repeated.

  Her fingers danced at the nape of his neck, playing with the curls there and making him want her with their innocent, teasing promise. “I know,” she whispered.

  He captured the words with his mouth, stealing her open lips and taking the kiss deeper. Longer. More.

  Information or no, arrangement or no, double identity or no, this woman was irresistible. He would never betray her secrets. Not now that he knew she was so much more than she seemed.

  He wanted her without quarter.

  He caught her by the waist, pulling her closer, pressing one leg into hers, tangling in her skirts, in her scent, in her seduction. And she seduced him just as he did her. He’d never felt so well matched in his life.

  She leaned into the kiss, taking as he took, reveling as he reveled. And the sounds she made – the little sighs and gasps and pants – she was glorious.

  He lifted her in his arms and turned her, walking her to the opposite wall of the alcove as his lips trailed across her cheek and captured the lobe of one ear. “You’ve wanted this for years,” he whispered, teeth worrying the soft flesh as her fingers spread across his shoulders.

  “No,” she said. And in the lie, he heard such truth.

  He grinned against the skin of her neck, running his teeth down the glorious column. “You think I haven’t seen you? Haven’t felt you watching?”