What had the woman seen? What had she heard?
Why was she here?
The heat leached from her limbs, scalded her cheeks with a vicious blush when she realized the woman stood in front of a secret passage from, presumably, her rooms to Redmayne’s.
Passages she’d quite obviously used before to gain entrance to his bedchamber.
“He’s changed since his return, I assure you,” Rose purred, touching her hair with the tip of a gloved finger. “More than just his features, I imagine. We should compare him sometime, the body I’m intimately familiar with, compared to the one he has now.” She raked him with a lascivious glare that lit a fire of antipathy in Alexandra’s belly. “I’m certain you’re getting the better bargain.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Piers had never been violent with a woman. Had never before been so utterly tempted. The inferno in his blood, ignited by the innocent ardor of his lovely intended, flared to a volcanic temper at the appearance of his former betrothed.
How dare she? How dare she invoke the pall of suspicion into Alexandra’s eyes. How dare she make use of the passages he’d made available to her when their relationship had been definite and their passion had been new.
Containing the rage seething beneath his skin, Piers slid Alexandra’s bodice back in place and pulled her in against him to reach around and adjust the laces he’d loosened.
Alexandra’s breaths lifted her shoulders against his chest in small, rapid bursts, as she fought a valiant battle to retain her poise. He’d thought he hated Rose before, but now the bitter emotion that welled within him was amplified a thousandfold.
Damn her scheming hide.
“I need you to go,” he managed through clenched teeth.
A grim determination compressed Alexandra’s soft mouth into a hard line as she seemed to gather courage from him. “Yes, it’s best you leave,” she addressed Rose stiffly.
Piers was proud of her, shy little bird that she was, but she’d mistaken his meaning.
He cupped her face in both his palms, her skin hot with mortification. “No, darling, I need you to go.”
Her neck tensed, and her amber gaze sharpened. “Me?”
“Yes.” He kissed lips now stiff with distress before he could bring himself to look at Rose, who glared at them with raptorlike interest. “I don’t want you to have to see this.”
Her chin moved against his hand in a short nod, and when he looked at her, the uncertainty in her eyes nearly broke his heart. Christ, but she was beautiful, her peach lips glowing red from his kisses, the skin around her mouth lightly abraded by his beard.
Her lashes swept down, and she worried her lip, as appeared to be her habit when she had a question she didn’t want to ask.
“I’ll come find you, once my business here is finished,” he promised, pressing his lips against her forehead.
Mutely, she nodded, trailing her skirt of moonbeams as she glided out of his chamber with her spine held perfectly erect.
“Alexandra Lane?” the viscountess scoffed, relieving herself of her black gloves by pulling at her fingers one by one. “Really, Piers, how utterly you’ve shocked us all. If you’re marrying to make me jealous, you might have picked someone younger. Or at least wealthier.”
Piers’s fury struck him momentarily speechless. Were she a man, he’d have thrashed her soundly and thrown her out. “You will keep her name off your venomous tongue. Do I make myself clear?”
He took distinct relish when she hesitated, a spark of fear igniting at the bite in his words. She masked it instantly, wandering into his chamber.
Revulsion slithered through him. How had he ever thought her beautiful? The most desirable woman the ton had to offer? Her dark, exotic almond eyes had held him in their thrall. She’d enticed him with long, insolent gazes and silent, sensual promises.
She’d a fine-tipped elfin prettiness, coy and mysterious, all bashful lashes and sharp features.
Now, all he could find were her flaws. Her imperfect teeth. The beauty mark below her eye that would become an unsightly mole with age.
Her faithless soul.
She had the temerity to perch on the edge of one of the chairs across from the fireplace, her every motion posed and calculated.
She wanted to remind him that he’d fucked her on that chair.
He wished to God he hadn’t.
She’d always loved to goad him. To push him beyond his limits of patience and control. To find his dark places and banked fires and fuel them with her subtle manipulations. Oh, he remembered how she liked him feral. Like an animal. She wanted bruises and marks, and fast, hard fucking.
She wanted him angry.
The purple skin stretched tight over his bruised knuckles as he reined in his temper and addressed her with a chilly calm belying the inferno raging within him. “I’d be tempted to brick over that passage,” he said casually. “But since you’ll not receive further invitations to Castle Redmayne, such action won’t be deemed necessary.”
“I’ve come to make peace, Piers,” she said as though he’d not spoken.
He silenced her with a sharp gesture. “You will address me as Your Grace, or not at all.”
The jut of her chin was the only indication his imperious command had affected her.
What a perfect little actress she still was.
“Surely what the peasants and patricians in this part of the world have taken to whispering about you isn’t true.” She smoothed her hands down her skirts, molding them to her thin legs as she flicked a glance at the door Alexandra had vacated. “That you’ve developed a taste for virgins?”
“I’ve a taste for the woman I’d make my duchess.”
Another hit. She’d been unable to conceal her wince.
“It’s almost cruel to thrust that mantle upon her. That woman is a mouse. She may be the daughter of an earl, but it was plain tonight that she’d neither the wish nor the proficiency to fill such a responsibility.”
“And that is one of the many things my intended and I have in common.” Somehow, discussing Alexandra with Rose already felt like a betrayal.
Standing, Rose swayed toward him with careful, measured steps. Her pale shoulders thrust back, her breasts clad in barely there black proudly displayed. “I know you’re angry with me, but I’ve never had the chance to defend myself. Don’t you think I’m owed that? Don’t you wonder why I did what I did?”
“You married the heir to my title little more than a month after you received my letter informing you I would likely die,” he said drolly. “Your reasons would be obvious to a blind man.”
“That isn’t fair.” She pouted. “Patrick and I both loved you—love you—it was our grief that drove us into each other’s arms.”
He speared her with his most imperious glare. “A shame it didn’t keep you there.”
“You’ve always been beastly.” She lifted her hand to shape it to his scarred jaw, but he jerked his neck away, capturing her wrist. “And now you look like one.” Her tone became acerbic. “You’re many things, Your Grace, but you’re not stupid. Everyone knows the Lane family is destitute. She’s marrying your fortune. How does that make her any different than what you accuse me of being?”