She whirled around and slapped him hard across the face. “Get out.”
He straightened but made no move to leave.
Cate strode across the small room and pulled back the latch. He slammed his hand against the door. The man was a predator. So why didn’t she scream for help? He had always thrilled, down to her raw, disfigured ballerina toes. Even now, he was the most masculine, feral creature she had ever encountered. And inglés to boot.
He leaned in close. A gentle nuzzle, just to take in her essence. And she could not help but return his interest. Hesitant at first, like two wild creatures meeting in the forest. She inhaled whiskey and bitters, hints of soap and—his scent. She looked up into heavy-lidded eyes that were far from languorous. He examined her carefully. “When I returned to Barcelona, why didn’t you meet me at Café Almirall?”
She was almost grateful when anger bubbled up inside. “You used me to get close to my brother. Then you followed him to France, where he and his compadres were murdered in—asesinado en sangre fría, sangre fría, monstruo—by you and those bloody French!”
“I do not deny we used gunfire”—he leaned an elbow on the door behind her and rubbed his temple—“but they were blown up by their own explosives.”
“They were surrounded by British and the French agents. You knew there was dynamite in that farmhouse. And still the bullets flew.” Her fists pummeled his chest.
“Slow down, Cate. Lento, retraso, por favor.” Firmly but gently, he grasped both of her hands and held them to her sides. Crushed between her brutish intruder and the door, she used the most insulting words she could think of. “Hijo del perro de una puta.”
His eyes crinkled. “I’d nearly forgotten about that Catalan temper of yours.”
A heavy pounding rattled the wood panel under her back. “I say, what goes on there? Miss de Dovia, are you all right?”
He pressed against her. “Sorry to see me, Cate? Worried I might interfere with your duties outside the corps de ballet?”
She stopped writhing and blinked. “What nonsense you’re talking—” She exhaled. “Please leave me alone, Hugh.”
“Actually, Hugh Curzon is a name I use on the Continent—”
She angled her pointe shoe and kicked him in the shin. “Ouch,” he yowled.
Cate tossed her head back. “Pointe slippers can torture more than my toes, señor.” She turned the knob and started to open the door. He slammed it shut and threw the latch. She thought her heart might find a way to leap from her chest. He pushed her back against the door and placed a hand on each shoulder.
“What do you want?” She swallowed, looking up at him.
“One kiss.” His demand knocked the breath from her. She pushed away, but the more she wiggled, the more they rubbed against each other.
She had forgotten, no, she had pushed him out of her mind—what a wild and woolly creature! His hair a leonine mass of thick brown waves, his body hard and unyielding. Her gaze fell to his mouth, possibly his most intriguing feature. Well-defined lips that were full and sensuous, and when they touched hers . . .
His mouth closed in, causing a flutter of anticipation. In fact, she very much wanted his kiss. She tilted her head to give him access, but he did not take her greedily. He brushed gently, capturing her mouth in a grazing caress of soft, sensuous bites—then he licked. She shivered in his arms. Glorioso.
“I give you pleasure, señorita?”
She opened her eyes. “Cerdo asqueroso.”
His languid gaze traced over her features. The corners of his mouth turned up a hint of smile. “Disgusting pig . . .” The words buffeted against her cheek. “Rather enchanting in Spanish.” He remained close, nuzzling, taunting, until her lips opened again for him.
This time he slid his tongue into her mouth and boldly took what he wanted. Cate closed her eyes and let him do as he pleased. In no time, he was groaning and kissing her tenderly, passionately, and, God help her, she returned his ardor with a surprising amount of intensity. Her tongue tangled with his in a thrilling chase that was . . . muy delicioso.
The tingle turned into a surge of desire that coursed through her body. Her knees would have buckled if he hadn’t kept her pressed firmly to the door. Slowly, he released her and fell back an inch or two. Glassy-eyed, they shared each other’s breath, neither able to find words.
“Madre de Dios.” Blindly, Cate flailed about and threw the latch. To his credit, he stepped back and she opened the door. He exited the dressing room quietly—this man whose tongue had just ravaged her mouth in the most sinful way possible.
She eyed him cautiously. “By what name do you call yourself in London?”
It appeared their brief argument had captivated everyone in the salon. Cecil blurted out her answer. “Phineas Gunn?”
Her dressing room intruder approached her openmouthed dinner date. “Rather daring of you to carry on with a ballet girl, Burleigh. Hoping for a prenuptial fling?”
Cecil poked his chin out. “I am no more engaged to Daphne than you are to Muriel Villers-Talbot.”
“And according to Muriel, who so dutifully keeps me informed, your fiancée is in Paris, is she not? Purchasing her trousseau.” This man with a new name towered over Cecil. “At least my so-called fiancée hasn’t sent out the wedding invitations.”
Cecil glowered.
Torn between raising a brow or bursting into laughter, Cate pressed her lips together and tried very hard not to chuckle. Much to her dismay a rather loud snort escaped. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Cecil. I’ll be ready in a dash.”
She opened the lid on a jar of cold cream and spoke to the wide-eyed miss in the mirror. “So, the Baron Burleigh is engaged.” Based on the few strained words between the men, it would seem Mr. Gunn was nearly spoken for himself.
She closed her eyes and ran the soothing cream over darkened eyelids. When attending soirees with Cecil, she had always assumed the raised brows were due entirely to her avocation. Obviously, there was another layer here. Cate used a soft cloth to wipe away the greasepaint.
If a man was a philanderer before marriage, what might a girl look forward to afterward? She almost felt sorry for the fiancée. Daphne, he had called her.
Though her experience with stage-door gentlemen could hardly be called extensive, she knew enough to be quite sure of one fact. Men didn’t change—not much anyway. They were either trustworthy or they were not. She hardly knew which one of the posturing males outside her dressing room was worse. Cecil Cavendish or Phineas Gunn, as he now called himself.
“Phin-e-as.” She whispered the name under her breath. New name, same old deceiver. A man who played false for a living could never be trusted. So why then did her lips still burn from the heat of his kiss?
She once believed they had met by accident on the Passeig de Gràcia. Lugging along two large hatboxes, she had given up on a cab and decided to walk to her aunt and uncle’s home. The fashionable avenue in Barcelona was as broad as the Champs-Élysées. A favorite place for aristocrats to display their riding skills and expensive carriages.
“Perdón, señorita. Estoy . . . buscando la casa de Gaudí?”
Shading her eyes from the low rays of the sun, she peered up at a magnificent horse and equally imposing rider. “You are English, señor?” Drawing closer, Cate made out a charming grimace from a strikingly handsome man.
“Pardon my poor Spanish. I’m looking for a new residence designed by Gaudí. I believe it is on Carrer Nou de la Rambla—” Distracted, his eyes narrowed and shifted away.
Cate followed his line of sight to a teetering pony cart, driven by a chubby-faced, curly-haired child, that was traveling at a dangerously fast pace down the broad street. Wide eyes accompanied the girl’s panicked expression and whimpering cries. Cate’s heart accelerated even as the Englishman pressed his mount into action and overtook the out-of-control pony. Leaning far over his seat, he grabbed hold of the reins and slowed the animal.
Cate dropped her hatboxes and ran
onto the boulevard. She positioned herself alongside the cart just as the flushed child burst into tears. A tired old groom trotted up to join them. “Madre de Dios, Madre de Dios. Gracias, señor.”
“If the child cannot control the animal, you’d best take hold of these.” With quite a singular glare, the gentleman on horseback handed the reins to the groom.
Cate replaced the Brit’s glare with a smile and translated. She added an eye roll and shrug. “Inglés.”
The groom tugged on the pony’s head. “¡Adelante!” The elder man admonished the child gently, and led the pony and cart away. The little girl wiped off a tear and stuck her tongue out at them.
“Well done, sir,” she murmured. “Even if your damsel in distress thinks you a spoilsport.”
He had studied her a moment before dismounting. “You speak in a decidedly British vernacular. Are you a native of Spain?”
“A Spanish mother—and my father was an Englishman like yourself.”
“Was?”
“Both my parents were killed adventuring in South America.”
“Sorry to bring up a sad subject.”
“It happened quite some time ago.” She reached to scratch the muzzle of his horse. “You have a magnificent mount, sir.”
“So I’ve been told.” Amusement flashed in his eyes, and something else. Something much more unsettling. There was a kind of intimacy in those liquid brown orbs—as if he understood her secrets, her most personal desires.
“His name is Bhai Singh, but he answers to Sergeant MacGregor.” The burr in his r and the soft g in MacGregor instantly brought out the Scot in the man.
He tipped his hat. “Hugh Curzon, here in Barcelona on business.”
“Catriona Elíse de Dovia Willoughby.” She smiled at his reaction. “It seems your horse and I answer to a mélange of names.”
“And which do you prefer?”
Actually, she preferred to change the subject. “You asked about Palau Guëll, designed by Gaudí. You are an architect?”
“I studied architecture at university. Love to have a look at those parabolic arches and hyperbolic capitals . . . under construction.” His eyes traveled over her gently. Not in a lascivious way by any means, but with definite interest. “I am fascinated by curves.”
She half-smiled when she shouldn’t have. She should have said buenos días and pivoted on her heel. Instead, she offered her escort. “I live quite near Carrer Nou de la Rambla. Why don’t I show you the way?”
A sharp rap at the dressing room door snapped Cate out of her reverie. “So sorry, mademoiselle, but I had to repair a torn skirt.” Lucy, her dresser, swept into the room and finished unhooking her costume.
With her face cleansed of its theatrical mask, Cate dusted a bit of powder over her nose. Lucy added a pale brush of peach to each cheek and a tint of rose to her lips. “Just enough, not too much,” Lucy said. Cate undressed and slipped into a simple gown. Her dresser dug in the costume chest and added a smart velvet riding jacket and silk evening hat.
“You have a flair for styling, Lucy.”
The girl beamed. “Dancers can’t afford much finery. I do what I can to help the corps dress for their engagements with gentlemen.”
“If you can call them that.” She kissed the girl’s cheek and winked.
Hugh Curzon had acted the perfect gentleman that first afternoon in Barcelona. After rescuing the ungrateful child in the runaway pony cart, he’d gently prodded both packages out of her hands. She’d watched him juggle reins and hatboxes. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “Lead the way, Miss Willoughby.”
His large hunter ambled along behind as they spoke of the weather and points of interest. All the things people talk about when they don’t know each other well but might wish to know the other person . . . better.
When they reached her aunt and uncle’s residence, he handed her one hatbox at a time. “The Güell palace is just around the corner.” She pointed down the lane.
He tipped his hat, turned away, then swiveled back. “Would you . . . have dinner with me tonight?”
She clearly remembered the flush of heat on her cheeks. “Regretfully, I have a dance lesson this evening. Besides, my aunt and uncle are very old-fashioned. I’m afraid they would insist on a chaperone.”
He arched a brow. “Dance lesson?”
“While I am here in Barcelona, I wish to study the Catalan dances—the zambra mora, bolero, fandango.” She remembered smiling up at him. “You are interested in the old gypsy dances, Mr. Curzon?”
“I am interested in you, Miss Willoughby.” He appeared to consider what she had just revealed to him. “And if you were not here in Barcelona, where might you be?”
She smiled. “Paris. I dance with the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique, monsieur.”
He stepped closer, his resonant voice huskier. “And if your aunt or uncle were by chance . . . out of town?”
“Then . . . I would ask you to meet me at nine o’clock in the square—the Plaça Reial.” She dipped a brief curtsy and slipped inside the courtyard. But she hadn’t missed the flash of light in his eyes. “I must go. Talué, señor.”
THAT EVENING, AT dance class, she could not get his unsettling, deep brown gaze out of her mind, especially when she emulated Doña Margarita’s sway and roll of the hips.
Cate opened her dressing room door and shut down the memories. All that lovely romance wasted on a professional liar. And the discovery came just days after she had given herself to him. Hugh Curzon, or rather, Phineas Gunn was a British spy. A man who could not be trusted.
THE GENTLEMEN OF SCOTLAND YARD SERIES
BY JILLIAN STONE
An Affair with Mr. Kennedy
A Dangerous Liaison with Detective Lewis
A Private Duel with Agent Gunn
We hope you enjoyed reading this Pocket Star Books eBook.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jillian Stone
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition November 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4516-9832-9
Table of Contents
Cover
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
‘A Private Duel with Agent Gunn’ Excerpt
Copyright
A Lesson in Chemistry With Inspector Bruce Page 13