Daniel folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, stopping himself from ripping the stick from Mortimer’s hands and breaking it over his knee. “Who lives here?”
“I do,” Mortimer said. “I mean—I own the house. At least my family does. We let it to Madame Bastien and her daughter. For a slight savings in rent, they agreed to entertain me and my friends anytime I asked it.”
“Including the middle of the bloody night?”
“Especially the middle of the night.”
Mortimer smiled—self-satisfied English prig. They had to be courtesans. He’d reduced the rent so he could obligate them to pay in kind, so he could rub their noses in his power anytime he wished.
Daniel turned back to the landau. “This isn’t worth two thousand, Mortimer.”
“Patience, patience. You’ll see.”
The rest of Mortimer’s friends had arrived and hemmed them in, blocking the way back to the landau. The bone-breaker was still in attendance, hovering in the shadows a little way down the street.
The door opened. A maid who’d obviously dressed hastily stepped behind the door as she opened it wide and let the stream of gentlemen inside. The drunker lads of the party wanted to pause to see what entertainment she might provide, but Daniel planted himself solidly beside the door, blocking their way to her. They moved past, forgetting about her the moment they turned away.
Mortimer led the way to double pocket doors at the end of the hall, and pushed them open. Daniel caught a flurry of movement behind them, but by the time Mortimer beckoned Daniel in, stillness had taken over.
A fire danced on the hearth behind a long, empty table, the walls covered with a pale blue, gold, and burnt orange striped wallpaper. The gas chandelier above the table hung dark, and one solitary candelabra with three candles sat on the table. A young woman was just touching a long match to the candlewicks.
When the third was lit, she blew out the match and straightened up. “So sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen,” she said pleasantly enough in a voice very faintly accented. “I’m afraid my mother is unable to rise. You will have to make do with me.”
She bathed them in a smile.
Whatever Mortimer and the other gentlemen said in response, Daniel didn’t hear. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything either, except the woman who stood poised behind the candelabra, the long match still in her hand, the smile of an angel on her face.
She wasn’t beautiful. Daniel had seen faces more beautiful in the Casino in Monte Carlo, at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. He’d known slimmer bodies in dancers, or in the butterflies that glided about the gaming hells in St. James’s and Monaco, smiling and enticing gentlemen to play.
This young woman had an angular face softened by a mass of dark hair dressed in a pompadour, with ringlets trickling down the sides of her face. Her nose was a little too long, her mouth too wide, her shoulders and arms too plump. Her eyes were her best feature, set in exact proportion in her face, dark blue in the glint of candlelight, and framed by lush black lashes.
They were eyes a man could gaze into all night and wake up to the next morning. He could contemplate her eyes across the breakfast table and then again at dinner while he made plans to look into them all through the night.
The young woman wasn’t a courtesan, however. Courtesans began charming from the moment the gentleman walked into the room. They leaned slightly forward, they gestured with graceful fingers, implying that those fingers would be equally as graceful traveling a man’s body. Courtesans drew in, they suggested without words, they used every movement and every expression to beguile.
This woman stood fixed in place, her body language not inviting the gentlemen into the room at all, despite her words and the smile she’d thrown at them. If her movements were graceful as she turned to toss the match into the fire, it was from nature, not practice.
She wore a plain gown of blue satin that bared her shoulders, but the gown was no less respectable than what a lady in this neighborhood might wear for dinner or a night at the theatre. Her hair in the simple pompadour had no ribbons or jewels tucked into it—the unaffected style hinted that the dark masses of hair might come down at any time over the hands of the lucky gentleman who pulled out its pins. She wore no jewelry at all, in fact, except for one silver locket that nestled at her throat.
The young woman spread her hands at the now-silent men. “If you’ll sit, gentlemen, we can begin.”
Daniel couldn’t move. His feet had grown into the floor, disobedient to his will. They wanted him to stand in that place all night long and gaze upon this woman.
Mortimer leaned to Daniel, his eyes glittering. “You see? Did I not tell you she’d be worth it?” He cleared his throat, straightening up. “Daniel Mackenzie, may I introduce Mademoiselle Bastien. Violette is her Christian name, in the French way. Mademoiselle, this is Daniel Mackenzie, son of Lord Cameron Mackenzie and nephew to the Duke of Kilmorgan. You’ll give him a fine show, won’t you, mademoiselle? There’s a good girl.”
The man Mortimer called Daniel Mackenzie came around the table and boldly stopped right next to Violet.
The other word that came to her was
Mr. Mackenzie topped most of the other gentlemen here by at least a foot, had a hard face, a nose that would be large in any other man’s face, and eyes that made her stop. Violet couldn’t decide the color of them in this light—hazel? brown?—but they were arresting.
So arresting that she stood there staring at him, not taking the hand he held out to her to shake in greeting.
“Daniel Mackenzie, at your service, mademoiselle.”
He gave her a light, charming smile, his eyes pulling her in, keeping her where he wanted her.
He kept a barrier in place behind his eyes, she saw when she risked a look into them, a closed door. This man gave up his secrets to very few. He would be hard to read, which could be a problem.
He did nothing but stand waiting with his hand out. Violet finally slid hers into his gloved one, making the movement slow and deliberate.
“How do you do,” she said formally, her English perfect. She’d discovered that speaking flawless English reinforced the fiction that she was entirely French.
Daniel closed his giant hand around hers and raised it to his lips.
The quick, hot brush of his mouth to the backs of her fingers ignited a spark to rival that on the match she’d tossed away. Her nerves tightened like wires, forcing the deep breath she’d been trying not to take.
The little gasp sounded loud to her, but Mortimer’s cronies were making much noise as they shed coats and debated where each would sit. Daniel’s gaze fixed on Violet over her hand, challenging, daring, knowing.
Violet was supposed to be thinking that about
Within a few moments of studying a man, Violet understood what he loved and hated, what he wanted with all his heart and what he’d do to get it, what made him happy, and what hurt him. She’d learned these lessons painstakingly from Jacobi in the backstreets of Paris, had been his best pupil.
But not Mr. Mackenzie. He did not let anyone behind his barriers, not easily. But when he did…
When he did, worlds would unfold.
Violet snatched her hand from his grasp. “Please, gentlemen,” she said again, striving to maintain the cheerful note in her voice.
She moved to sit down and found Daniel Mackenzie’s hand on the back of her chair. She forced her gaze
