Читать книгу The Deadliest Sin - Caroline Richards - Страница 6

“Who are you?” Julia asked.

He went by many names in many languages, one more profane than the next, and every last one deserved. He listened to her staccato breaths, and breathed in the faint scent of her perspiration and floral toilet water mingling with her panic. The darkness suited him perfectly. He found daylight generally unhelpful in such endeavors.

He didn’t answer her question. “Unfortunate, your outburst last evening. There was little choice but to place you here, where you wouldn’t attract undue attention.” The outrageousness of his statement rang in the enclosed space. He knew the power of fear, that great equalizer. He couldn’t see her, but imagined her expression of anger and dread. His ears picked up a hesitation as though she was trying to find words that wouldn’t come.

“What did you expect? For me to simply acquiesce, follow you blindly into that den of iniquity? How long have you been in this room, alongside me?” Her voice was halting, with a slight hoarseness to it, as though weakened from disuse.

His ear, trained to exotic languages, detected the faint tremor. He remembered her eyes from the night before, wide and shadowed under the brim of a spectacularly ugly bonnet. “It’s of no importance,” he said finally, feeling her balled fists leave his chest.

“To you.”

He shrugged his shoulders, well aware that she couldn’t see but surprised by the spirit of her rejoinder. She was disoriented, a good thing. He knew the feeling, having once spent three days in complete darkness in the caves of Pashtun after running afoul of a caravan and a sheik who had misinterpreted his interest in the sheik’s cargo. Miss Woolcott, he’d wager, was not seasoned in quite the same way, despite her momentary bravado.

He had been expecting a spinster, redolent of moth balls and camphor oil, a type with which, despite his travels, he’d had mercifully scant experience. “I believe we’re well beyond niceties such as formal introductions,” he said. He’d always felt a certain tedium when it came to women of his own class, who, for the most part, believed the world extended no further than the Thames. But then again, he should probably be grateful. Thus far Miss Woolcott had substituted a surprising penchant for violence for the more predictable histrionics. The footman had not emerged unscathed in their scuffle.

“You are entirely too cavalier,” she said, sharply. Her voice was uncommonly low with none of the breathlessness so common to young women. “You will have to forgive my earlier behavior,” she continued, and he wondered briefly how she was going to explain her surprising attack on the footman. In his experience, Englishwomen dealt with the unwelcome by reaching for the smelling salts rather than the pointed end of a letter opener. “I’d been led to believe that I was to meet with Sir Simon Wadsworth, to take photographs of his estate, his gardens. Instead, I find myself here.” As far as she was concerned, she might have found herself in the steppes of Russia instead of a windowless, cork-lined room in the English countryside.

He took a step toward her, knowing the impact enforced proximity carried. He didn’t have to touch her, not yet, at least.

She did not back away. Bolder than she had any right to be, she continued undaunted. “There was obviously some mistake.” She was dissembling but it was of little import in the grander scheme of things. “I wish you to clarify this situation or at the very least offer an apology. A case of mistaken identity, perhaps?”

His silence was worse than any answer.

It must cause her some pain, he acknowledged impartially, the gash in her leg. Unfortunate, that injury, but she had struggled more than anyone had anticipated, regrettably attracting the attention of the overzealous footman. He couldn’t really fault the man when she’d seized the letter opener in a pitiable attempt at self-defense. Entirely unexpected.

Her voice shook. “You’re clearly unwilling to provide me with answers.”

He smiled in the dark.

Her skirts rustled, as though she was drawing herself up straight. The small movement made her wince. “I’ve spent the last I don’t know how many hours in this suffocating room. All I can recollect is receiving Sir Wadsworth’s commission, making arrangements to travel to his country estate, arriving and then—” She broke off mid-sentence.

“And then?”

She let out a hiss of breath. “I refuse to put into words what I saw.”

“So you do remember. Fortunately, I can put it into words, if you feel it beneath you.”

More silence, although her breathing had accelerated.

“I take it you’re appalled, Miss Woolcott.” He could just picture the thinning of her lips, the tensing of her shoulders. In general, Englishwomen were willfully ignorant of nature and its carnal imperatives. He, however, was not discomfited in the least, with the tenor of that discussion.

“I should like to leave this place.”

“I’m certain you would. And to have your injury seen to.”

No tears. No importuning. Interesting. Miss Woolcott appeared to have been hiding a spine under all the hectares of gray wool, not to mention some spirit under that singularly heavy bonnet that had shielded her face from his eyes. For some reason, he remembered the feel of her thin shoulders, like bird bones, beneath his hands.

“Where is my photographic apparatus? It is of great value to me.” Her tone had taken on the impatience of a stern governess.

He’d rather face a stampede of wildebeests. And had, as a matter of fact, not so long ago on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

The heap of chests, bandboxes, and her camera, like a giant spider on three legs, had been swept from the main hall, along with its owner. “It is secure.” Although you are not. Far from it, he wanted to add.

“As though I should believe you.” She paused in the darkness. “If you refuse to give me answers, I should like to leave now,” she repeated, as though to a child reluctant to give up his toy. Her low voice vibrated with suppressed fear.

“My apologies.” He didn’t attempt to keep the sarcasm from his voice, nor his desire to shock. It had been some time since he’d had direct contact with the rarified, hot-house type of well-bred Englishwoman. If he listened carefully, he could hear the pulse of narrow-mindedness throbbing. “I am clearly remiss in my duties. Therefore, you may like to know this room where you have spent the last five hours was constructed by the great grandfather of our present host, Sir Wadsworth, who, when not disporting himself at debauched masked balls over which he presided with salacious enthusiasm, spent time here. History tells us the illustrious Lord Edgar Wadsworth provided the most exacting specifications for this project. He preferred to partake of his pleasures in sound-proofed surroundings. One can only speculate as to why.”

Her breathing stilled. He wondered whether she was a virgin. It would make things somewhat more difficult.

She digested his statements before adding a challenge of her own. “Before setting out on my journey, I made some of my own inquiries, learning of the estate’s history. I did not believe the present Sir Wadsworth shares in his ancestor’s unfortunate proclivities. Clearly, I was mistaken,” she said tightly, reluctant to refer more specifically to what she had seen the previous evening. “As a result, I should still like to leave. Now,” she repeated.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “If we leave, you will go quietly? The injury you sustained could have been far worse.”

“As though that would have mattered.”

“Actually, it does matter. I’m to keep you in good health, for the next day or so.”

She approached him in the darkness. It took courage, he conceded. Her soft breath fanned his throat where the top two fastenings of his shirt lay open. He was surprised to find his body tightening in response to the scent of lavender floral water.

“And what comes afterwards?” There was pain in her voice, a strangled quality that spoke not just of her injury and incarceration but of something else.

“Why make the situation more difficult for yourself, Miss Woolcott? Oftentimes, knowledge can be distressing.” What a liar he was—knowledge was everything. Knowledge was power.

He sensed a renewed tension in the confining space as Miss Woolcott began facing the implications of what she’d seen upon her arrival at Wadsworth’s estate. As far as he was concerned, not much had changed since he’d left England five years earlier. The lives of the aristocracy were still devoted to, in no particular order, hunting, whoring, and billiards. From his vantage point, the middle-aged rutting—a confirmed group sport among the male upper classes—was as ingrained as cannibalism in pigmy tribes or riding to hounds among the gentry.

The best he could hope for, when the Wadsworth debauchery concluded, was not to be forever haunted by the specter of sagging jowls, swollen paunches, and worse, bent over their pleasurable labors. He surmised that the female guests were harvested from the countryside surrounding Wadsworth’s Eccles House or let from the demi-mondaine or the theater.

Miss Woolcott had yet to back away from him. “I am assuming,” she said, “or rather hoping, that this was all a misunderstanding. That Sir Wadsworth had no intention of inviting me to his”—she paused—“soiree and that, in my confusion and shock, I panicked and, as it turns out, unreasonably struck out at a footman before I could think…before I knew….” She trailed off, unable to convince herself to continue.

He made a low sound in the back of his throat. “Whatever gives you most comfort, Miss Woolcott. It doesn’t truly signify. You’re here now.”

“Why?” That one word whispered through the dark.

“I don’t know why.” It was a lie and it was the truth. They both knew it.

The dark was strangely liberating for Julia. “I find that difficult to believe. Your tone leads me to surmise that you’re not the type of man who does anything on a mere whim. Why not simply put me in a carriage and allow me to return to London?” She was standing so close to him, her skirts brushing his knees, that he could simply encircle her neck with his hands and end it there, if it were not for his overly precise instructions and the convincing tableau he was to construct.

He laughed, an incongruous shot in the dark. “You’re in no position to inquire, Miss Woolcott.”

“I’d hazard a guess that being one step away from certain death entitles one to ask questions, sir.”

“Certain death? That’s a trifle melodramatic.” Only it wasn’t.

“Is it?”

“You’re convinced that someone wants you dead. Now why is that?” Miss Woolcott knew far more than she was willing to disclose.

“You can hardly expect me to believe Sir Wadsworth invited me to join in…in his…peculiar…gathering.”

He decided to continue the game. “Why is that so improbable?”

Heat emanated from her, from the masses of fabric, crinolines, and whalebone that encircled her body. She could be developing a fever, courtesy of the wound no doubt beginning to suppurate on her lower leg.

“I am a woman of a certain age and disposition, hardly the sort to participate in…”

“Participate in what, precisely?”

“Whatever it is that you must keep me in good health for.” She took a step away from him and into the darkness. “Please let’s dispense with this unfortunate misunderstanding,” she added, suddenly all crispness and efficiency, lying to him and most of all to herself. “I shall tell no one about your involvement, rest assured. After all, I don’t even know your name or circumstances.”

It would be better to keep her compliant, he decided. The truth would come, right at the end. He closed the space between them and took her arm. She flinched away from him. “Let’s have a look at the cut on your leg, shall we, before we decide upon anything else.”

He pulled her none too gently behind him, his hand reflexively finding the seam in the wall a few feet before them. Sliding his fingers beneath the hidden hinge, he felt the clasp release. The door swung open, the soft light of dusk as harsh as the noon sun after an eclipse.

He watched Julia Woolcott turn her face to the light pouring through the casement windows, her eyes squinting against the assault, and he wondered suddenly how he could have ever considered her plain. Her violet eyes were set wide and tilted between arced brows. She had a straight, assertive nose, a subtly clefted chin, and a mouth too wide for true beauty. Her features communicated a wary vulnerability and an unsettling intelligence. The mahogany hair that had been strictly scraped into a low chignon fell loose.

She tried not to favor her leg but he could see the spasms of pain tighten her features. Soon, the pain would be gone, he silently promised her.

“And now?” she asked, not bothering to struggle from his grip.

There was no answer that she would want to hear. He knew she remembered what she’d attempted to forget—the women and the men in the glittering salon with its unforgiving chandeliers illuminating every dark corner of lust and licentiousness. It was important she be seen that evening, at one of Wadsworth’s infamous country-house weekends, that there be witnesses to her outrageous behavior as a more than willing participant.

A spiral staircase waited at the end of the hallway, leading to a suite of rooms, a copper tub, appropriate clothing. He would ensure that her wound was taken care of, that she was costumed and prepared in a few hours’ time. There would be no more mistakes. No more struggles.

He would see to it himself.

Julia wished the staircase would go on forever, despite the jolts of fire at every step she took. She watched the broad shoulders looming before her, leading the way to what she was certain would be her doom. A large hand still spanned her arm, and she imagined those fingers could choke the life from the most powerful of men. Despite his voice and disengaged manner, she sensed a heavy undercurrent. His size alone prompted claws of fear to tear at her belly.

A pulse pounded in the back of Julia’s eyes as she wondered what her sister would make of her present predicament. You’re ever so bookish, Jules. Put down your spectacles and come riding with me! Rowena, just a fortnight ago, exhorted Julia to rouse herself from her ink-stained studies. How many governesses had paled under the onslaught of that head-strong willfulness?

What Julia would do to have her small, tightly constrained world returned to her. A life punctuated by visits to the vicarage or closely chaperoned outings to London with their aunt. She was the careful, patient, older sister who spent most of her time attending to detail, on the printed page or on her copper plates. In this, at least, she had some small advantage.

Julia’s eyes swept over the broad back and the arrogant tilt of the head in front of her. Dressed simply in trousers and a white shirt, he was not what he seemed: a wayward rogue of Sir Wadsworth’s unsavory circle. She recognized the man was of another sort of Englishman, with his aggressive jaw, the slight hook of his nose, and the gray eyes whose intensity was unseemly. Built like a fortress but with the sleek movements of someone half his size, he was no ordinary man subject to a quotidian world.

That he was sent by Montagu Faron was a certainty. The name soured on her tongue. Unbidden, Meredith’s alarms rang in her head.

The man stopped, on the landing, and she nearly tripped on her skirts and catapulted into his broad back. She froze and moved as far away as his grip would allow. She was gazing up at an enormous hall, two storeys high, with vast oriel windows facing gardens on both sides. Four colossal fireplaces framed priceless chairs and banquettes, richly panniered in dark red velvet. It was the room she had glimpsed the evening before. Luscious silk damask curtains, lined in bronze and white brocade stripes, had been tied back with huge silk tassels to better frame entangled limbs and flashes of skin. It was empty but she sensed they were far from alone.

Walking down corridors she realized the house was ostentatious, even by the standards to which she was accustomed at Montfort.

Moments later, after being abruptly left alone by her captor, she surveyed the vastness of a room dominated by a raised four-poster bed. He had left her there without a word, and she reveled in the luxury of being alone and unobserved. A fire roared in the corner in front of which a mobcapped maid filled a copper tub with water. Not meeting Julia’s eyes, she carefully placed folded linens on the rosewood vanity table. The young woman looked vaguely familiar and Julia wondered whether she had glimpsed her freckled countenance in the debauched scene the evening before. Dismissing the thought as unproductive and heeding the need to collect herself, she watched the maid’s plump backside retreat from the room and then quickly divested herself of her soiled clothes, ripping at the stays pinching her ribcage, struggling out of her sorely used chemise. Layer after layer was removed and thrown in a heap, until she stood in her plain white cotton shift and silk stockings.

Leaning on the edge of the tub, she carefully peeled down her stockings, wincing as the gossamer fabric clung to the crusted gash on her calf. She shuddered at the memory, at her loss of control, at the recollection of lost hours in that hideous, cork-lined room. Where had it come from, that feral panic, so unlike her customary calm demeanor?

She lingered but briefly in the fresh, warm water, as she had no desire to be interrupted by the man she was convinced had been sent by Faron. She would be able to think more clearly when she’d bathed and had something to eat. Swallowing more nervousness, she wondered why the strange man, as she now called him, would leave her to her toilette for so long. Darkness would come soon, she saw by the fading light spilling through the tall, mullioned windows. The fire had made the room overly warm and she longed to throw the windows open wide but was certain they were locked.

She dried herself quickly and took up the fresh muslin shift the maid had left on the four-poster bed. Her leg began to throb again, weeping a thin stream of blood, as the shift dropped over her head and skirted her legs. Fresh weariness invaded each and every muscle of her body. Lowering herself to the edge of the bed, she smoothed a palm over the cool sheets. Perhaps she would allow herself just a moment to close her eyes and sort out the madness of the last twenty-four hours.

None of it made any sense. The pulse continued to pound behind her eyes like a hammer on a blacksmith’s anvil. Even if he were connected with Montagu Faron, why would Sir Wadsworth invite her to a sordid country-house weekend? Meredith had been frantic with worry at the invitation, urging Julia to ignore the summons with its elaborate script and aristocratic seal. Questions crawled into every corner of her mind, forming a thick web of confusion. And fear. Pulling the feather pillow over her head, Julia buried her face, and her uncertainties, in the softness.

When she opened her eyes again, it was dusk, the air thick, heavy, and eerily still. For a moment, she thought she was back in that horrid place, Sir Wadsworth’s perverse chamber. She wasn’t certain what had awakened her. She lifted a hand to sweep aside the tangle of her hair, then froze.

She surged upright, fists twisting into the sheets, unwelcome pain shooting through her calf. “What are you doing?” she asked, knowing very well whom she was watching—certainly not a serving maid, but him, dark hair falling across his brow, as he finished winding a clean linen bandage around her bare calf. “How dare you!” She tried a fresh assault while attempting to pull her leg beneath the counter-pane, despite the numbing pain.

He ignored her and leaned forward to strike flint to steel and light the bedside lamp. In the dim glow, his features were drawn, pulled taut across his cheekbones and shadowed by a day’s growth of black stubble. “I dared,” he said, “in order to keep the wound clean. It didn’t require stitching. Consider yourself fortunate.”

In the lamplight his eyes were brilliant, and she could see they were an unusual shade, more gray than green, but not decisively either color. They were deeply set in a long face punctuated by a wide, spare jaw. Her eyes swept closed when she again felt the gentle pressure of his fingers on her leg, where a pulse throbbed fiercely and with rhythmic intensity. Not exactly in pain but something else. She couldn’t stop time by closing her eyes so she stared at the opening of his shirt, the same one he’d worn earlier. She fought the urge to leap from the bed and seek haven in the farthest corner of the room. She was a woman nearing her third decade, educated better than most men, but nothing had prepared Julia for this.

She was all but naked and alone with a man for the first time in her life. She bit her lower lip to halt her traitorous thoughts and to keep from crying aloud. The last thing she wanted to admit to herself was what she’d always known. Her life with Meredith had been a prison, albeit a gold-plated one, built to keep evil out, to contain a malevolence that threatened, however subtly, every waking hour. It had required a watchfulness as unrelenting as the queen’s royal guard. Against all good judgment and dire warnings, Julia had forced her way out, providing the crumb on the trail that had allowed the man—and Faron—to find them.

“Sir Wadsworth’s invitation was a ruse, wasn’t it?” she blurted out. Heat swept up her neck and flooded her cheeks.

He released her leg, placed it back under the sheet with cool efficiency, and settled into a chair by the bed with a confidence that Julia found appalling. “You are searching for answers, but you will find none, Miss Woolcott. You’ll discover I’m a man of few words, a predilection which, trust me, works in your favor. Now, would you like something to eat?” he asked, gesturing to a tray at the foot of the bed.

She would get little from him, that was clear. She tamped down her anger with herself by pretending to eat, picking at the morsels, eyes lowered to her plate of chicken, cheese, and bread. The situation was untenable. Impossible. Rage seeped into her consciousness against the backdrop of guilt and self-recrimination. She would simply not allow it. She chewed mechanically, the food in her mouth tasteless.

He was quiet for the moment, watching her profile, watching her eat. Lamplight cast half his face in shadow.

Suddenly, she wanted to lash out. “Would you at least tell me your name?” she demanded when she could stand it no longer, lifting her eyes to his. “It doesn’t have to be real—I would not even expect it to be.”

She was pretending to brush the crumbs away from her lap and into her cupped hand when he abruptly stood. She jerked her head up to see him move to the fireplace mantle and pour two glasses of wine from an opened bottle. Because she was too anxious to keep her thoughts from straying, she found herself distracted by the way his shoulders moved beneath his shirt, and by the stretch of his back narrowing to his waist in perfect proportion to his long, muscular legs.

With an impartiality that surprised her, she conceded that her captor was a beautiful man. Her eyes, so accustomed to peering through a lens, were startled by reality. Her mind raced ahead, searching for something of use. He moved with an expansiveness that was unfamiliar to her, fluid but powerful, as though more accustomed to the outdoors than confinement in drawing rooms and parlors. His tones were educated and well modulated but told her little more than that he was not from the lower classes.

He turned toward her, placing a glass on the tray. “Drink your fill. You appear as though you need it.”

Her fork clattered against her plate, her nerves stretched taut. “Need it for what, sir? You prevaricate, and your insinuations are becoming tiresome. Name or no name, there is little you can do to convince me of this charade involving Sir Wadsworth. It’s simply preposterous, your keeping me here against my will.”

He inclined his head a fraction of an inch, fixing those pale gray eyes upon her. “Alexander,” he said.

At last, like a wretched bone thrown to a dog. Surname or Christian name, it probably didn’t matter.

“You’re the one making insinuations,” he said softly, watching her carefully.

She pushed aside the tray, leaving the wine untouched. Her fingers moved unsteadily to the high neck of her shift. “I have little enough information. While you—”

“Really?” His tone stilled her fingers on an ivory button.

“You know my name,” she snapped, thinking of the invitation that had arrived at Montfort. “Of that, at least, I’m certain.”

He arched a brow. “Miss Julia Woolcott, amateur botanist, photographer, and recently published authoress of a monograph entitled Flowers in Shadows: A Botanical Journey.”

Julia could not keep herself from flushing. She was inordinately proud of her work. It was unseemly, indeed. Had she been able to hold her pride in check, she would not be there, at that moment, with that man. She tamped down her frustration. “A mere trifle, as you are most likely aware. There are possibly hundreds of women devoted to this respectable pastime. I am someone of no rank or importance. A country mouse.”

An unidentifiable expression crossed his face as he leaned forward to clasp the back of the chair. She found herself unaccountably staring at his hands, large and long fingered. “Ah yes,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Botany is an acceptable womanly pursuit that fits within a woman’s sanctioned role as helpmeet of man, educator of children. Botany poses no danger of inflaming the imagination, unlike, shall we say, a radically new creation like photography.”

Julia would curse the moment of weakness later, but she couldn’t deny the pull of curiosity. “And what do you know of it? I believe that dabbling in the fine arts is generally acceptable among ladies of leisure,” she countered. He wore no rings and carried no timepiece, she noted, before returning her eyes to his.

“Daguerreotypy requires a special knowledge of chemistry and a certain manual dexterity, hardly ladylike accomplishments.”

That had not stopped any number of women from completing outstanding series of photograms of plant specimens. “And what of it?” She sat up higher in the bed, pulling the sheet closer around her shoulders. “This discussion is not helpful in the least. It brings us no closer to resolving this situation.”

He smiled slightly.

More impatient than ever, she pressed on. “If it’s money you want in exchange for my freedom, I can arrange—”

His gray eyes widened speculatively, the pupils flared.

Julia froze. Dread filled her chest. Trying to keep calm, she studied the man the way she would any of her projects, placing him in an imaginary frame, looking for useful details, but finding none.

“You should not have changed the subject,” he said, his tone even. “There is no possibility of negotiation.” His gaze stripped away every last layer of reserve she possessed. “It’s for your own good,” he said softly.

The lamp glowed low, throwing his solid, hard body into shadowed relief on the wall. Unwillingly, she inhaled his scent of smoke, forest, and desert. An exotic, contradictory combination and far outside her ken. Who was this man sent by Montagu Faron?

Julia swallowed the thickness that welled unexpectedly in her throat. Memories of a childhood spent in blissful but willful ignorance, cocooned in the warmth of Montfort, flooded over her. She blinked rapidly at the pain in her heart, at the sense of sudden, poignant loss. At that moment, it seemed the entirety of her life was a palimpsest, fragile truths built upon layers of secrets and lies.

Meredith’s warnings rang in Julia’s ears. Meredith had never before spoken directly of her past, or of the shadow that Montagu Faron had cast over her life. It was the unholy power of secrets—what was left unsaid.

Julia had made a fatal error in ignoring the threats. But Faron would get no closer to her aunt or her sister despite her own lack of judgement, her uncharacteristic impetuousness. Staring into the shadowy depths of the room, Julia had never been surer of anything in her life. Meredith, who had given her shelter, given her back her life, was under threat of this man. Faron. Her gaze rested on the bank of windows, each and every one surely locked against her, and she came to a decision.

“I shall do it,” she said abruptly, bracing her back against the pillows, bracing herself for battle. “I shall attend this debauchery.” Her words shattered the silence like stones dropped into a pool.

Alexander’s eyes narrowed, his gaze holding hers. “Why the sudden change of heart? It’s difficult to believe you’re suddenly keen to accept Wadsworth’s invitation.”

“My motivation should be of no interest to you.” She was tired of hiding—she, her sister, and her aunt so fearful of stepping out into the world. There was always a threat, something, someone—Faron—holding them back. She remembered the argument with Meredith, her aunt’s insistence that publication of her photographs would lead to unwanted attention. Guilt and then a fierce protectiveness flooded Julia’s heart.

“Fair enough,” he said, finally looking down at her with a cynicism that was galling. He didn’t trust her.

Laughable, given the situation, she thought, tensing her shoulders. As though she could trust herself or even begin to explain her actions. Ignoring Meredith’s warnings. Accepting Wadsworth’s invitation. Launching herself at the footman. It was all a form of madness.

She shook her head silently and slanted a look at her adversary, his hands resting on the back of the chair. She expected him to reach for her at any moment. Nothing about him suggested inaction.

“At least we can dispense with force,” he said with a trace of a smile in his voice. “I’m much relieved.”

“I’m sure you are,” she said, suddenly suspicious. She eyed the tray at the foot of the bed. “I take it the wine was not laced with opiates?” Despite the mockery in her tone, her stomach tightened further.

“Entirely unnecessary, as it turns out,” he said lightly, straightening away from the chair. She noticed again how tall, how broad he was. That this Alexander was anyone’s lackey, even a man as powerful as Faron, was preposterous.

She stared at him, her suspicions lending her courage. “So what will it be? What is expected of me?” She forced out the words, pulling the sheet over her shoulders. Her mind cringed at what was in store for her. “Attend a few hours of this wretched evening, feigning enjoyment?”

“You may surprise yourself,” he said, appearing unmoved, as far from mortification as the sky was wide. He was utterly at ease in the outrageous, dangerous situation.

Blood drained from her cheeks. “I’m not entirely the country mouse you take me for, sir. I have heard of this unfortunate taste for licentiousness among the upper classes.”

“Truly? I’m amazed.”

Unreasonably irritated, she said, “I have read de Sade, Laclos and the like. My aunt saw to it that my sister and I received a thorough and comprehensive education. She does not believe women should be kept in ignorance of the world.”

“Your credentials are impressive.”

“You would mock me.” She wished she could order him to quit the room. As though that would do a whit of good. “I am simply well read,” she said, hating the pinched tone of her voice.

“Clearly,” he replied, and miraculously retreated from the massive bed. He strolled toward the windows hung with heavy damask curtains, casting a quick glance to the courtyard below. When he looked up again, he said, “If you permit me to say it, you are an unusual woman, Miss Woolcott. Shy and retiring on the one hand and yet ready to take up a letter opener upon the slightest provocation.”

“Provocation? I should say in self-defense.”

“You appear to be a creature of extremes, Miss Woolcott. You have just assured me of your familiarity with what many would deem salacious texts, yet you cringe like an untried maiden at the specter of carnal behavior.”

Carnal behavior. The room might as well be spinning out of control. Taking a deep breath, Julia schooled her features into passivity. She prided herself on her breadth of knowledge. “I am, of course, familiar with Ovid and Catullus.” She had the uncomfortable sense that he meant to test her.

His glance was assessing. “One cannot hope to learn everything from books or from the Western canon of knowledge. We seldom think to include the knowledge and wisdom of the East.”

Needing to defend her scholarship, she sat up straighter, ignoring the numbness in her leg. “Of which you have some small knowledge, I am persuaded to believe?”

“Yes, some small knowledge.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his trousers and looked at her expectantly. For one moment, she believed she’d seen a glimpse of something personal in his eyes.

She gave an unladylike puff of derision. “Here we sit discussing the merits of ancient texts whilst Sir Wadsworth’s evening unfolds below. I assure you, if you’re at all concerned, I shan’t dissolve into vapors at the first glimpse of”—she broke off awkwardly at the sight of his arced brow—“at the first sight of a well-turned ankle,” she concluded. “I am hoping to make short work of the evening and then make a hasty retreat. I take it you’re to be my escort.”

“Something like that.”

Julia could not trust herself to meet his eyes. Instead, she glanced at the ornate ormolu clock on the fireplace mantel. “Let’s be done with it, then, sir,” she ground out. “Send me a serving maid and the clothes you promised and give me twenty minutes more.”

It was the only way. To become the hunter and not the hunted.

She wrenched her eyes back to the window. Not for the first time, she was aware of an acute need to watch him, to study his face, the gray eyes that gave nothing away, his preternatural calm. This lackey of Faron’s required her unadulterated attention.

He was her link to Montagu Faron, her escort to his underworld.