She felt her legs released suddenly and then heard the sounds of a violent scuffle, the table overturning and glass breaking. She pushed herself into a sitting position. Then there were running footsteps and a clatter in the stairwell. She sat up and took a moment to catch her breath. Mr. Renquist. He had come to her rescue. Oh, bless him!
One set of footsteps returned from the hallway and came toward her. “Are you injured, madame?”
That voice… Lord! The McHugh. Could her luck be worse? She shook her head, still trying to clear her vision through the veils. “Oui,” she croaked, her throat raw.
He cupped her elbows and helped her to her feet, then left her leaning against the wall as he went back to lock and bolt the door. “I don’t think the son of a…blackguard will come back, but if he does, let’s not make it easy for him, eh?”
“No,” she gasped. Where had he come from? What was he doing here? Had he been watching since leaving Aunt Grace’s last night?
“Damn!” he swore, combing his fingers through his hair. “I’d have gone after him but I was afraid you…”
“Would escape?” she finished for him.
“Needed help.” He advanced on her, reaching out to take her arm. “Here. Let me see.”
She spun away and moved toward the fireplace. Her skin was humming again, with no more than the brush of his hand and the timbre of his voice to start it. Oh, what was wrong with her? Seeking refuge in anger, she asked, “Why would you care what becomes of me, m’sieur? You ’ave declared on our last meeting that you wish to destroy me, no?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “And I still do. But I would prefer to do it myself.”
She took another step backward. “Now is your chance. We are ’ere, alone. The door is locked and no one will ’ear. Do it then.”
He frowned. “Do not tempt me, madame. It would not take so very much. A little squeeze on your windpipe. A little twist of your neck. Or perhaps—” he bent and drew a wicked looking dirk from his boot “—the slightest pressure against your throat.”
She knew she should be terrified, but the attack had pushed her past reason. “Oui. And why, m’sieur? I am sorry for your loss, but your wife made the choice, no? And she took your son with ’er. That is ’er shame, not yours, and certainly not mine.”
“No, madame, ’tis yours. And I hold you responsible for my brother’s fiancée’s defection, as well.”
“Oh, le pauvre bébé. ’E did not get what ’e did not want. Quel dommage!” She ridiculed the concept, given what she’d observed of Douglas’s infatuation with Dianthe.
“Quel dommage? What a pity? Are you mad to mock me so?” He took a few steps closer, his size and presence menacing.
One last step backward brought Afton’s spine against the wall. No more retreat. There was nothing left but to stand her ground. “So. Madame is to blame because she said some words that Lady McHugh took wrong. Not for the first time, m’sieur, and certainly not the last. Where was ’er responsibility in all this, eh? ’Ow is she not accountable for ’er decisions, and yet I am?”
He matched her retreat with his advance, step-by-step, until he was close enough for her to see the rise and fall of his breathing. Slowly, inexorably, he reached out and fingered the fine silk of her veil.
“Do not do this, m’sieur.” She hadn’t the physical strength to stop him, and had too much pride to fight a losing battle. She was no match for his determination.
He lifted the fabric slowly, prolonging the moment when she would be fully exposed—his moment of victory. “I have been waiting for this, madame. Once I see your face, I will know you anywhere. You will never escape me, never be free of me.”
She closed her eyes as he lifted the veil, not wanting to see his anger.
It could not be! Not Afton. Please God, not Afton.
But it was. That flawless face framed by shining copper hair, those brilliant eyes now shrouded by dusky lids edged in feathery black lashes, was bared to him, and the vision cut like a knife through his heart.
The how of it, the why and what of it, became jumbled in his head, demanding answers or explanations, but he could not frame the questions. He could only think of one thing: Afton. Sweet, straightforward, honest Afton was Madame Zoe. The woman he was destined to love was the woman he had sworn to destroy.
Those impossibly long lashes fluttered and opened to reveal eyes dilated with fear. Her lower lip trembled as if she wanted to speak, but he could detect no other trace of emotion. It would seem he did not know her at all.
“Explain yourself,” he said in a voice that was harsh to his own ears. He dropped his hands to his sides, fighting the impulse to shake her until her teeth rattled.
“I—I…” She blinked and swallowed. “What do you want me to say, Lord Glenross?”
“The truth,” he prompted. “And call me McHugh. God knows you’ve earned that right in the last few days.”
“I…I don’t know what—”
“Do not lie, Miss Lovejoy. I still have the taste of you on my tongue. Your scent still fills my nostrils. My hands remember the feel and weight of your—”
Pink flooded her cheeks. “Yes, then. C’est vrai. I am Madame Zoe.”
Bloody goddamned hell! Then everything else was a lie! Everything! He couldn’t trust a single word she’d said, a single emotion she’d revealed in his arms. He couldn’t trust that she hadn’t been horrified by his scars and willing to love him anyway. He couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen something vile and repulsive when he’d let his passion show. Aye, the night in his room, she’d come to search it, not to be with him. She was a consummate actress in her roles of Madame Zoe and would-be lover to Lord Glenross. The sting of her betrayal was all the worse for her counterfeit affection.
The cold shock was wearing off and fury was building in its place. He turned away from her and fisted his hands at his sides. “Good God, madam! I can scarcely credit your duplicity. All this time you’ve been playing a double game! Playing me for a fool.”
“That was never my intention,” she exclaimed. “But you deceived me, too. You said you wanted to know the future, and all along you only wanted to entrap me. You have been trying to destroy me, McHugh, without a care as to what will happen to Dianthe and Bennett.”
He couldn’t believe she would try to turn this debacle on him. “I had no idea Dianthe and Bennett had any connection to Madame Zoe,” he snarled, “though it would have made little difference to me if I had. Then any means, fair or foul, were justified in your mind?”
“Means? What means? I did nothing but keep my identity secret. What harm have I done you?”
“My wife and son, madam, are dead because of you. My brother is bereft because of you.”
“Your brother has cast his attention elsewhere already, McHugh,” she reminded him.
“To another damn Lovejoy!”
“He could do worse. Beatrice Barlow would have bored him within months. Dianthe, I’d wager, would have kept him interested at least a year. But a man of Douglas’s ilk hasn’t a constant bone in his body.”
“That is not the point!” Rob roared.
“What is?”
“You are a charlatan. You dupe the ton, then dance with them at soirees and the like. You perpetuate the myth that you are omniscient, and give advice as if you were an oracle. You lead poor, pathetic, vulnerable people to bad decisions, and then trade on it and collect money. You encourage people to place their trust and faith in you, Miss Lovejoy, and betray that trust. Who the hell do you think you are to play God?”
Afton dropped her gaze and shook out the coils of her hair to remove the pins that had held the veil in place. They scattered across the floor, freeing long strands of copper that glowed like banked embers in the firelight.
A watchman’s bell rang in the street and the guard called that all was well. Somewhere in the distance a church bell rang seven times, and she glanced up again to see huge, heavy flakes falling as thick as eiderdown outside the window. Co
aches would stop service and horses would be stabled soon.
She sighed. She supposed she could inform McHugh that she hadn’t told Maeve’s fortune, but what good would that do? She was guilty on all other counts, including the telling of Bebe’s. Yes, who the hell was she to play God?
She hesitated a moment too long in her reply and McHugh stepped closer again. The scent of his shaving lotion made her head swim and melted her inside. Her heart thumped against her rib cage and she couldn’t catch her breath. “I am no one, McHugh,” she whispered.
“Then why?”
“To eat.”
“Balderdash!” he replied, obviously struggling to keep his anger in check. “Mrs. Forbush would never have let you starve. She is quite fond of you.”
“She offered. I refused.”
“Pride has a price, Afton.”
“And you are here to collect? What do you mean to do, McHugh?”
His voice when he answered was a low angry purr, working its way under her skin, setting it to humming and tingling again as it had since the night in his hotel room. “What could you possibly have to interest me, Afton?”
Her gaze snapped up to meet his icy eyes. There had been a challenge in his voice, and an insult. He could never love her, and that ripped at her insides. On the verge of crying and screaming with frustration, she realized that she loved him, needed him as he could never need her.
Even worse, she could not rid herself of the memory of the sensations he had evoked in his hotel room and again in the closet at her aunt’s house. Afton kept returning there in her thoughts, wanting more, needing more, and knowing she could never submit to such intimacies again if they did not come from him.
She lifted her chin in defiance, daring him to carry out his threat, both dreading and needing the answer to her question. What did he mean to do?
He closed the remaining distance between them and pulled her roughly against him. “Damn it! You know what I want, Afton. You’ve always known, and you’ve used it against me.”
She sighed. “How could I when I wanted it, too?”
“You’re a bloody deceitful liar. I cannot trust anything you say.”
He had backed her against the wall and she had to lift her arm up and push against his chest to look into his eyes. The pain and betrayal she saw there made her gasp. Darkness ran deep in his soul, and she doubted she could ever reach him. But she couldn’t think about that when he was standing so close and looking so wounded.
“You can trust this,” she murmured, coming up on her tiptoes and lifting her lips to his.
He met her challenge with intensity. His mouth closed over hers, demanding that it open, finding and entering in a ritual marking of his territory. His kiss was angry and fierce, and Afton met it with her own frustration, slipping her arms around him and pulling him closer when he would have drawn away.
His muscles tightened and he lifted her so that her face was level with his. “Don’t do this, Afton,” he growled.
“I cannot stop.” The naked truth of her answer astonished her as much as it did McHugh.
His eyes darkened further and he leaned into her, pinning her against the wall. His hand slid down her back and cupped her buttocks. In a very few motions his other hand dragged her skirts up and bunched them around her waist, drawing her knees up to wrap around his waist. Once that was accomplished, he moved his hand back to the vulnerable heat at her center.
She exhaled with an involuntary cry of encouragement when his fingers found her passage. She tightened her legs around him and made mewling sounds each time he invaded and withdrew again. Her breathing quickened until she was panting, unable to catch her breath for the tumultuous sensations washing over her. She did not know where this would lead but she was willing to follow wherever it took her.
McHugh’s voice rasped against her ear in short breathless gasps. “My God…you are…so hot and ready…you melt on my hands.”
“Ready,” she repeated, grasping that word as her means of finding the end of this unrelenting need. “What is next, McHugh? Show me what’s next.”
“Y’ve gone too far t’ stop me this time.”
“Then dinna stop,” she whispered in his own brogue.
His answer was a deep groan, as if he were giving up his last hold on control. His hand left her long enough to fumble with his own clothing, and then something hard and thick took the place of his fingers. He rocked against her, slowly letting her slide downward.
She drew her breath in a gulp as that other object pushed and probed her vulnerable core. Aunt Grace’s words came back to her: Rob McHugh is…generously equipped to do something about it. Aunt Grace was right.
Afton had been prepared, ready for days, and after a few tentative probes, he slid inside her with one sure stroke. She cried out in surprise at the sharp pain that shot through her, but McHugh’s voice would not let her dwell on the meaning of that.
“Hold tight, Afton. Wrap y’self around me. Le’ me bear yer weight.”
He withdrew slowly, causing her to shudder, and when he rocked upward again, he filled her with an exquisite thickness that sent chill bumps up her spine. Oh, yes! This was what she needed—this melding of flesh and heat.
Then his stroke quickened, leaving her to ride the crest of his passion, on the verge—ever on the edge—of knowing the reason for all these overwhelming emotions. She was speeding to an unknown destination and desperate to arrive.
McHugh’s breathing became shallow and quick, keeping pace with his penetrations. “Little Miss Lovejoy…my lying little…fortune-teller,” he murmured. “Ye feel like a velvet fist around me. Hot, tight, greedy. But can ye take all o’ me?”
“Aye,” she vowed with an uncertain laugh.
He covered her mouth with his as he drove deeper, impaling her to his hilt and swallowing her surprised squeal. She threw her head back and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying out. The pain dulled to an ache, then rapidly built to need again as his rhythm drew out desire. A deep shudder went through him and he stilled, the tension leaving his muscles.
Afton’s own breathing slowed, her breasts aching, her skin humming. She still felt vaguely unsatisfied. The quick and violent nature of the coupling had left her trembling and weak, but she was not repulsed. Not remorseful. She knew full well what she’d done, and she’d do it again. She was still yearning, her body questing for something more—there had to be more.
Slowly, he withdrew from her, his arms tightening to support her weight as he stepped back from the wall. He carried her to the little cot in the alcove and laid her carefully upon it, smoothing her skirts down over her legs. He adjusted his own clothing and sat on the cot beside her.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, Miss Lovejoy, shall we get down to business?”
Chapter Fourteen
“B-business?” she repeated.
McHugh gazed down at her, his face unreadable. “What we just did, Afton, does not change anything. Don’t mistake me—I took great satisfaction from it, and given a chance, I’d do it again in a second. A lovelier piece of arse I’ve never had, and the fact that you are Madame Zoe just sweetens the pot. There’s something poetic in it, wouldn’t you agree?”
Tears filled her eyes and she turned away, blinking them back frantically. He mustn’t see how deeply he’d hurt her. She couldn’t bear to look that big a fool. Everything had just changed for her, and it meant nothing to him. He’d warned her not to trust him, but she’d listened to her heart—her blind, foolish heart. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. Never again.
“Yes,” she mumbled. “Poetic.”
“So, what shall we do with you, little Miss Lovejoy? It was always my intention to expose you for the charlatan you are. But now that I know your identity, I cannot do that without damaging other people. People who don’t deserve the disgrace you’d bring to bear. Mrs. Forbush has never had a breath of scandal attached to her name. Your sister, though innocent, would share your dishonor. She is innocent
, is she not?”
A cold shock went through Afton. Dear Lord! He would not turn this on Dianthe, would he? “Yes,” she squeaked. “She knows nothing of this. She thinks I have been clever with our little stash of money. Do not tell her, McHugh. Please do not tell her.”
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “And your brother? Well, he might never recover from the public humiliation. His future was made from swindling the ton of their hard-earned money. What would they make of that at Eton, I wonder?”
“McHugh—”
“How have you sunk so low? Why do you do it, Miss Lovejoy? The truth, damn it.”
“M-my father was not a wise investor, especially after Mama died. Then, when Papa… We were very frugal, but the inheritance was eaten by death taxes and expenses within two years. ’Twas then that Auntie Hen came to town and began telling fortunes. She and I fabricated a tale that she had hired out to wealthy widows as a traveling companion and tour guide. Thus Dianthe and Bennett did not ask to visit her, and we were able to keep the scandalous details of our finances secret.
“I stayed in Little Upton with them, selling what produce we could grow, and bartering for goods and services. Dianthe made jams and jellies to sell at market. Bennett carved and painted signs before we saved enough to send him to Eton. That paid our expenses in Little Upton, but it did not pay Bennett’s tuition or for Dianthe’s season. Grace offered to help but we refused. She is not actually our aunt, only our mother’s cousin. But when she offered to hire me as her companion, it came as a godsend. I arrived in London and—”
“And turned to fleecing the ton,” he finished for her. “A good plan, Afton, until I came along. Now what am I to do? How shall I acquire my ‘pound of flesh’?”
Her heart sank. “I am certain you must have something in mind.”
“Why, yes, I do.” He smiled.
“What is it you want from me, my lord?”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “Damn near everything. But let’s start with your promise to cease fortune-telling immediately.”
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