His face had the stark drama of a landscape shaped by elemental forces, battering seas and brutal winds and the like. Shadows lurked in the little valleys beneath cheekbones hard and high as fortress walls. Black whiskers glinted on his box-cornered jaw. Thick, dark brows hung over deep-set eyes. A majestic nose presided over all of this.
And a bright, white scar snaked like lightning from the corner of his eye to nearly his chin.
Perhaps that’s how he’d gotten so adept at knocking knives from hands. Someone in his history hadn’t missed. He’d probably decided that was never going to happen again.
His mouth—long and surprisingly beautifully shaped, the lower lip unequivocally sensual—curved in a patient, sardonic smile.
He likely knew what she was thinking and gave not one damn. There probably wasn’t a thing or a person a man like this would need to worry about.
What an enviable condition.
His expression gave no clue as to what he thought of her.
She suddenly felt small and ridiculous and plain next to him. As if the two of them were costumed for a pantomime. But who was she anymore, after all? She’d slipped and lodged in that awkward gap between social strata. Tumbling down further was unthinkable; her efforts to extricate herself merely seemed to wedge her in more tightly.
He turned away from her and inspected the room into which they’d been ushered.
It was soft and pink as a maiden’s blush in the firelight and so achingly cozy a lump formed in her throat.
The crystal chandelier had fallen in love with him: it picked out a blue gleam in his hair, the glint from the gold hoop in his ear, and sprinkled a few rainbows on his black coat. His hair fell to his collar and was tucked behind his ears.
“It looks like a granny’s house,” he murmured, bemused. “This place was once called The Palace of Rogues. It used to be a bordello.”
She recoiled. “You thought you were escorting me to abordell—”
They pivoted at the soft swish of wool skirts and the brisk click of heels on marble. A blond woman and a brunette, side by side, wearing welcoming smiles.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Shock fleetingly warped the room before hereyes. Then it merged with disbelief and shame and embarrassment before they all settled in an icy-hot pool over her heart.
Of all the things Daphne dared to waste a moment wishing for over the years—that Henry would have been an only child, for instance, so that his brother would never had needed a governess, that her father had never learned how to play five-card loo—this wish was perhaps the most fervent of them all: that a trap door would open beneath her. Because her pride was an open wound. She sincerely felt she hadn’t the strength.
And yet, like all the moments that had preceded this one, she would need to face it anyway.
“Good evening. Welcome to The Grand Palace on the—”
The dark-haired woman stopped abruptly and her hand flew to her mouth in shock.
She slowly lowered it.
“Oh, my goodness,” she breathed. “Lady Worth?Daphne?”
Chapter Three
Daphne’s body knew what to do before she knew which words to form; her knees dipped in a curtsy.
“Delilah! Oh, my goodness... what a pleasure... I cannot believe... that is... it’s been so long. Forgive me... ought I to call you... Lady Derring?”
Mortified heat rushed into her face. What an appalling hash of a sentence.
There really was no gracious way to say, “The last time I saw you, you were about to marry an earl, and now look at you! Here at a boardinghouse by the docks not one hundred feet away from where I was nearly robbed.”
It had been perhaps eight years. Funny how time races when juggling one disaster after another.
And to think her life had once been orderly and elegant and scripted. Belatedly she realized it was because she’d seldom been presented with social situations that defied convention.