Chapter One
Mrs. Angelique Breedlove stared at the little token—a sort of half unicorn, half lion—nestled in the man’s palm. The firelight nicked a glint off the signet ring gleaming around one of his long fingers.
The kind of fingers poets and musicians are said to possess.
And excellent lovers.
Also, probably stranglers and pickpockets.
For God’s sake. Fingers were just fingers. It was just that staring at the token was easier than looking into the man’s face. She still had vertigo from the last time she’d done it—thirty seconds ago.
“I don’t knowwhathe is, Mrs. Breedlove, but I don’t think I shall ever forget seeing him” was how their maid Dot had described the man when she’d admitted him to The Grand Palace on the Thames all of minutes ago.
Normally Angelique and Delilah would meet with potential new guests in the reception room, but in the parlor across the foyer the party celebrating three marriages was still underway, and everyone was just drunk enough to think that a round of pianoforte and singing was a good idea. She turned her head and was treated to a view of the vast dark O of Mr. Delacorte’s wide-open mouth, through which a surprisingly decent, albeit loud, baritone poured. Everything Mr. Delacorte did lacked nuance.
She’d warrant the man in front of her was all nuance.
Suddenly the black-and-white marble foyer floor between her and the party and the parlor seemed like an ocean.
She cleared her throat. “I’ll allow this token bears a close resemblance to half of the token Mrs. Hardy and I have in our possession here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, sir. Of course, I suppose it’s always possible you’ve murdered our mystery guest and stolen his half of the token, and then came straightaway to The Grand Palace on the Thames to take up our best room.”
Well. That emerged a little more waspishly than she’d intended. Apparently her senses were overwhelmed and were mounting a defense.
“Do I look as though I’m capable of such a thing?”
He sounded as though he genuinely wanted to know.
Angelique raised her eyes and found his expression oddly grave. His eyes were a crystalline green, like moss agate, or mist over a moor. It was as peculiarly difficult to hold his gaze as it was to hold a lit coal. It was far too...alive... and complicated. He aimed this gaze out over cheekbones that called to mind a pair of battle shields arrayed side by side. His mouth was a long, sensual curve. Not a classically beautiful face. It was something better, or perhaps worse: it was fascinating.
She flicked her thoughts away from that notion the way she would flick her skirts away from an open flame.
“Rather,” she said shortly. “But then, I suspect we all are, given the right circumstances,” she added. “Humans are capable of so many things.”
“You begin to interest me, Mrs....”
She tipped her head pityingly. “Begin?”
Was she flirting? Surely not. She would no sooner do that than blithely step out in front of a runaway barouche. In her life, the consequences would have been identical, at least metaphorically.
But all at once she could feel the difference in the quality of his attention. As if someone had lit a candle in a pitch-black room.
When he began to smile she redirected her gaze to a safer place, which turned out to be the flowers in the vase on the mantel, which were drooping as if they’d all been dosed with laudanum. She enjoyed a bracing dose of exasperation for Dot, whose job it was to make sure they were fresh.
Where the devilwasDot?
Ah, she could hear her now, as a rattle of teapot and cups on a tray approaching. It was a perilous journey for Dot every single time. Dot and gravity had an uneasy alliance.
At last she appeared in the doorway.
Thus began the slow, delicate journey to settling it on the table between the settees.
The man watched this with apparent fascination.
“I don’t believe you mentioned your name, Mr....”
“It’s Lord, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, of course it is. Who but a lord would find it amusing to communicate through tokens.”