Author: Anne Stuart

“And what is it you wished to accomplish?”

He set the pen down and leaned back. “Your family’s misery,” he said frankly. “In particular your older brother’s, but I’d be happy if the entire family suffered the torments of the damned.”

It felt like a knife to her heart, she thought dazedly, trying to compose herself. Her friend, her lover, the lover who’d never touched her, never said anything but who was, nevertheless, her love. “Me included?” She managed to keep her voice steady even as she was breaking inside.

His eyes met hers. “Actually not,” he said. Watching her, and there was an odd expression in his pale eyes. “I thought I’d marry you.”

His arrogance took her breath away, and her grief vanished, replaced by a cleansing anger. “I think not.”

“Do you? You forget: I always get what I want, sooner or later. Call it payback for what happened to my sister.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“She was my half sister and my only living relative. Genevieve Compton.” He said it as if he expected it to mean something to her, but she simply shook her head.

“I’ve never heard of Genevieve Compton.”

“Your brother Benedick’s fiancée? Granted, you were a child at the time, but I can’t believe you weren’t aware of the scandal.”

“Our family is always embroiled in scandal. My parents did their best to shield me from some of the more salacious stories. What did my brother do to your sister?”

“He cried off from the engagement and she killed herself.” The words were flat, emotionless, and Miranda stared at him in shock. The stories of the mad fiancée she vaguely remembered now made sense. “He told her he was going to break the engagement, so she arranged to meet him at Temple Bar to discuss it with their lawyers, and when he arrived she took a gun and blew her brains out in front of them all.”

“That is truly tragic,” she said, horrified. “But your sister was said to have been mad—she threatened him with the very same gun.”

His mouth thinned. “It’s of no consequence. He took my sister. I thought I’d return the favor.”

She didn’t move, afraid if she did that she’d attack him. She’d never been so angry in her life—she almost trembled with it. “No.”

His smile, the one that she’d found so charming, now infuriated her. “Yes.”

“This isn’t medieval England, you lying skunk,” she said with something close to a snarl. “You can’t marry an unwilling bride.”

“You’ll be willing.”

“And what miracle or force of nature would ensure that?” she snapped.

His voice was simple and direct. “If you don’t I will challenge your brother Brandon to a duel, and I will kill him.”

Automatically her eyes fell to his leg. “You can’t …”

“I will arrange it so that your brother is the one who calls me out, and it will be my choice of weapons. I’m an expert marksman—I will put a bullet directly between his eyes with no effort at all.” He rose, moving around the desk, holding his cane but barely leaning on it. “You see, I can do anything I want. I’m giving you a chance to save your brother, but I’m just as happy slaughtering him. Anything to take a beloved sibling away from the Rohan family. Taking a sister has better symmetry, and the advantage with you would be that the pain would be lifelong. Once you marry me you’ll never see them again.”

She wanted to throw up. The thought of her darling baby brother lying cold and dead in the predawn light horrified her, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that this vile man meant it.

She couldn’t show weakness. “I think your brain must be as disordered as your sister’s, my lord,” she said with a foolish lack of tact. Except she didn’t believe he was mad at all. Cruel, determined, but perfectly rational. “Why in the world would you want to be saddled with a wife you despise?”

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t despise you, my precious. I find you quite … irresistible. My original plan had nothing to do with marriage at all, but a few minutes in your delightful company and I decided you were just what I needed. I need an heir, after all, and I have to marry sooner or later, and if I marry you it will be forever. You’ll never be free.” His smile was positively angelic. “At least with you I won’t have to worry about foolish conventions.”

“Such as pretending to be in love?”

“Exactly. I rather thought we’d present your family with a fait accompli. There will be nothing they can do about it—they certainly can’t kill their brother-in-law in a duel. All they can do is … miss you.” There was no pain beneath his smooth voice, and yet for a moment she thought she had a glimpse of what drove him.

“No.”

He looked at her tenderly. “The ton will be astonished. Who would have thought a soiled dove would make such an excellent match?”

“You bastard.”

“Not in fact, but in nature, absolutely. I have a special license already in hand. I think distance would be a wise idea when your family hears about our elopement. We don’t want our honeymoon interrupted by a brawl.”

“I won’t marry you.”

He came toward her, and she noticed his limp was far less apparent than it had been. He came close and she wanted to flinch, but she held herself still. She gripped the seat of the chair as his fingers ran down her cheek and along the side of her neck, dipping inside her collar for a brief, shocking moment. “Oh, my precious,” he said softly, “of course you will.”

She shivered. Shivered because he was touching her, shivered because she reacted to it, to the caress. But she didn’t move, and her eyes flashed fire.

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“You think not? I had no qualms about endangering your life with a carriage accident. Trust me, the name Scorpion isn’t an accident. I’m cold and lethal—society shuns me for good reason.” He leaned his face down, and brushed his lips against her cheekbone. “I’m sorry I’m such an ugly brute, my precious, but you can always close your eyes and pretend I’m someone else.”

She did close her eyes then. Not because of the scars—those she’d ceased to notice long ago. The sight of his betrayal was new, though, and she couldn’t stand it.

“So what’s it to be, my darling? Your brother’s life or marriage to me? I do promise that I’ll grow bored of you very quickly and you will live a pleasant life out in the country, with more than enough money to indulge your every whim. Look at it this way—your life will be very much like it is here. You’ll be free to do what you want without a thought to the ton. You’ll simply be a bit more isolated. Make your choice.” The soft, caressing voice ended on a note of steel.

He’d won, as he’d known he would. She knew Brandon too well—he’d rush into a confrontation and Lucien would kill him without hesitation.

“Yes.” Her voice was cold.

He laughed softly beneath his breath. “I warned you I was ‘determined to be a villain.’ I may look like foolish Caliban, but my soul is far blacker. You just refused to see it.” He pulled back. “I’ll have the horses put to.”

“What? I have no clothes, and my servants will have no idea where I’m gone …”

“Leopold will see to your servants. In fact, he’ll see to everything. As for clothes, you won’t be needing any. You’ve been dancing on the edge for long enough—we may as well seal our devil’s bargain immediately.”

“But where are we going?”

He shook his head. “I think you’re better off not knowing. But you’ll be pleased to know I’ll ride while you have the carriage to yourself. I think I’d find the trip a bit too … arousing. And I certainly don’t want this to remind you of your last elopement.”

“It’s exactly like my last elopement,” she spat. “I was abducted against my will that time, as well.”

“But at least I’ll marry you,” he said in a silken voice. “Whether you want me to or not.”

And a moment later he was gone.

9

Lady Jane Pagett was not having a good day. Ever since the night at the Carrimores’ ball she’d been in a terrible state of upheaval. Half the time she didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Despite Miranda’s warnings, all she wanted to do was think of the tall man who’d kissed her, and wrong as it was, she wanted to lie in bed and touch herself through her fine lawn nightdress and pretend they were his hands on her body. She didn’t want to think about Mr. Bothwell and his chaste, dry kisses, she didn’t want to think about her future life in the dreary north. She wanted to dream of pirates and smugglers and wicked licentiousness that nevertheless felt so good.

Because the truth was, all her life, beneath her timid exterior, beat the heart of an adventuress. She wanted to travel to strange and distant places, she wanted wild adventures and passionate love. Instead she was marrying Mr. Bothwell because no one else had wanted her.

She was tall and thin and plain and shy, doomed to an ordinary life with an ordinary man, and just once she wished she was brave enough to have even the mildest of adventures. The kiss in the dark had been a taste of all the richness life offered and she was denied.

The fact that she hadn’t been able to get the blasted diamond ring off her finger didn’t help matters. Nothing worked, not soap or duck grease or sheer force. It seemed stuck for good, and she didn’t dare return home to her family with it adorning her hand like a blazing sign of her wickedness.

She’d summoned up enough courage to have Miranda ask the Earl of Rochdale about it but he’d denied any knowledge of jewel thieves, and she was half tempted to believe him, if he weren’t known as the Scorpion, with the reputation to match. A pirate indeed, but a little too frightening even for Jane’s wild fantasies. She wanted the man in the dark.