She’d heard that sniffle often.
Victoria ducked her head but, woeful truth, it was hard to hide from a person who’d wiped your bare bottom and witnessed every dreadful decision since.
* * *
“Trust me,” she whispered. “Just this once.”
Agnes snorted. “How many times have I heard that in my life?”
Victoria tugged her collar past her chin until only her eyes were visible. A drunken shout and the shatter of glass on the main thoroughfare had Agnes bumping against her until they were huddled in the gaming hell’s side entrance like cornered animals. She felt cornered by Finn Alexander and his blasted presumption. The ridiculous invitation had arrived this morning and was burning a hole through her cloak.
Or maybe the heat was just anger.
She raised her hand, took a breath. Glanced at her feet, her slippers now splattered with grime. Moonlight registered as a slimy wash on the cobblestones beneath them, but just barely, and the smell—
She grimaced behind her gloved hand. No need to inventory the aroma.
A part of London her brougham typically increased speed upon entering for sound reason.
“Go on, girl, or we’ll be getting right back in that hack. Paid him threepence to wait on Jermyn, we did.” Agnes huffed a clove-scented breath that charged past Victoria’s cheek as London’s brume swirled and settled around them. “As if a lady of your station should be traveling in a hired rig in the dead of night to what is just one step up from a slum. Agree with this I did. Daft! My good sense be beat to death by all your shenanigans—”
“Hush, Aggie,” Victoria whispered, resisting the urge to send her beloved maid’s thoughts on temporary holiday. A swift pinch to her wrist would do the job. Agnes would return unsure of what she’d said. Better yet, of what Victoria had done. Except, after the last debacle, Victoria had promised not to incapacitate her ever again.
Regrettably, her parlor trick hadn’t worked the night before with Finn, a rare episode that had shaken her to her bones, though she’d hidden it well. “I’m not going to knock. I’m going to ring this delightful bell.” The newest accessory in the locality, she’d bet, bright copper with nary a dent, it issued a single dull clang when she tapped it. The door opened almost immediately, the hulking porter taking one look at the shivering female package on the doorstep before slamming it shut in their faces.
“He’s got the right of it,” Agnes muttered.
Victoria dinked the bell again and was making a third attempt when the door reopened.
And there he was.
Out of breath, a miasma of moonlight and fog cocooning him as he leaned into the night, the magnetic eyes that were the talk of London highlighted in the splash. She wanted to deny their exquisiteness, as the man needed admiration like he needed a knock upside his head, however…they were extraordinary upon close study. Azure, cobalt, and as he tilted his head, a frown ripping across his face, sapphire. Stormy sunsets, twilight skies, shallow oceans. Eyes to lose oneself in, lose oneself over. As women did daily, tripping on loose stones and wrinkled Axminster, practically falling at his feet.
Victoria had laughed at their foolishness, but now that she found herself pinned by that stunning gaze, declaration, argument, and logical assertion were nowhere in sight. It was senseless. Almost as if she’d turned her parlor trick on herself.
Silent, Finn stared, the affable mien he usually sported replaced by cold determination, until sweat coated the nape of her neck and her knees began to tremble beneath copious layers. Or perhaps it was his lack of clothing heating her up like she’d pressed her back to a hearth. Dressed as informally as any man she’d ever seen, he looked like he’d been roused from bed. Flowing cream linen open at the neck, no waistcoat to conceal the sleek musculature of his chest or place barriers between them as directed, his hair a dark, desolate tangle, his cheeks covered in a light dusting of stubble. A ridiculously looped tie around his neck, the wrinkled ends dangling. Helplessly, she tracked a puckered scar severing the vee of his shirt, the only imperfection she noted on the man.
Patience incarnate, he studied her without moving a hairbreadth while she studied him.
What was he looking for? Dear God, what would he find?
He knows, is all she could think. He knows.
“I’m not going to yield, Blue,” she whispered, a statement she hoped met his ears only. The words were ragged, her mind full of dread, but if she could only touch… Ah, a second of insanity as she followed the impulse to trace that angry slash on his chest. And do what after, she had no idea.
“Yield?” Stepping out of reach, he whistled through straight white teeth and tugged her by the braided edge of her cloak into the narrow vestibule. “As if I’d be so lucky.”
With a gasp, Agnes shoved herself inside the entranceway with them and executed a shaky curtsy, as if to say, you’re not going without me.
Finn’s gaze snagged on the shivering maid, and he suddenly seemed to comprehend the indecency of his attire because he frowned, a dimple lancing his cheek as he glanced down. “Apologies for my casual attire, but you are uninvited—and on my turf.” Then he quietly shut the door behind them and gestured to a staircase leading into the bowels of the building, as pretty as you please.
Victoria complied, Agnes a clinging vine by her side, as an argument in a gaming hell foyer would benefit no one. She took in everything as unobtrusively as possible, surprised despite herself. The carpet muffling her step was plush, the furnishings stately, not what she would have expected to grace a lower-level gambling establishment. Except for the sounds—the buzz of voices, slurred shouts and raucous laughter, a muted, manageable intrusion—she could almost pretend she was in the belowstairs of her home in Belgravia.
At the top of the staircase, Finn pointed to an open door leaking light into the hallway. Victoria stepped inside, halting so abruptly, Agnes stumbled into her. Pale moonbeams shot across the room, the lustrous wash revealing not a sitting area for visitors but a very personal space. His space. Housing a worn leather sofa big enough to seat five, overflowing bookcases, curio-stuffed shelves. A fire blazing in a bricked hearth. She turned a slow circle. Artwork. Rustic landscapes and portraitures covering every wall. Her gaze fixed on a side door. A bedchamber, she assumed, the postulation sending a warm spiral through her belly.
With a soft grunt, Agnes gave her a nudge as they were backed up in the entryway like carriages on Bond Street.
His fragrance immediately overtook her senses as she moved further into the study: leather, cardamom, ink, man.
While she tried to establish the most proper place in the room to settle, he strode to a narrow sideboard set against the far wall, elegance personified. An exceptional skill for a man of such breadth and height to move like a panther and look so adept while doing it. “Tea?” he asked and brushed his fingertip across a teapot to test its heat, as if she’d dropped her card with the majordomo and all was right in the world. As if they were preparing to discuss the upcoming regalia or the new apothecary on Pall Mall. “I fear it’s cold. Guests were not expected.” He glanced over his shoulder, one of the many smiles he held in reserve curling his lips.
She was coming to doubt the sincerity of those smiles, a hint of self-mockery bleeding through hadn’t been evident before.