Even though he deserved it.
Of course, he hadn’t known that.
He hadn’t killed her.
The realization remained a shock.
He hadn’t known. All those years—he’d lived with the idea that he might have been a killer. All those years.
She’d stolen them from him.
A wave of anger washed through him, hot and uncomfortable. Vengeance had never been his nourishment, and now, even as he could not resist it, he tasted the bitterness of it on his tongue.
He snapped his attention to her. “What happened?”
Her eyes went wide. “I beg your pardon?”
“Twelve years ago, at Whitefawn. On the eve of your wedding. What happened?”
She hesitated. “You don’t remember?”
“I was quite drugged. So, no, in fact, I don’t remember.”
Not for lack of trying. He’d played the evening over and over in his head, hundreds of times, thousands. He remembered scotch. He remembered wanting a woman. Reaching for one. He couldn’t picture a face, but he remembered strange eyes and auburn curls and pretty curves and laughter that was half innocence, half sin.
And those eyes. No one could forget those eyes. “I remember you were with me.”
She nodded, and pink scored her cheeks again.
He’d known it. It was one of the things he’d never doubted. He’d been young and full of liquor and had never met a woman he couldn’t seduce. Of course he’d been with her.
And, suddenly, he wanted to know everything. He moved closer, noting the way she stiffened, pressing back against the door. “And before you set me up—before you faked your death and ran like a coward—we were alone?”
She swallowed, and he couldn’t help but watch the muscles of her throat, the way the muscles there betrayed her nerves. Her guilt. “Yes.”
She looked down at her skirts. Smoothed them. He noticed she wasn’t wearing gloves—same as the prior evening. As in his dream. But now, in the light of day, he saw the marks of work on them: blunt, clean nails; sun-worn skin; and a ghost of a scar on her left hand, just pale enough to have been long healed.
He did not like that scar.
And he did not like that he’d noticed it.
“For how long?”
“Not long.”
He exhaled a humorless laugh at that. “Long enough.”
Her gaze flew to his, wide and open and filled with . . . something. “Long enough for what?”
“Long enough for you to incapacitate me.”
She exhaled, and he knew she’d hidden something from him. He considered her for a long moment, wishing he were in the ring. There, he saw his opponents’ vulnerability, open and raw. There, he knew where to strike.
Here, in this strange building, in this strange battle with this strange woman, things were not so easy.
“Tell me one thing. Did you know who I was?” For some reason, it mattered.
Her eyes met his, and there was truth in them, for once. “No.”
Of course she hadn’t. So what had she done? What had happened in that pretty yellow bedchamber all those years ago?
Dammit.
He understood combat enough to know that she wouldn’t tell him. And he understood it enough to know that if he showed his interest, she held the power.
And he’d be damned if he gave her any more power.
Today was his. He changed tack.
“You shouldn’t have returned. But since you did, your mistake is my reward. And the world will know the truth about us both.”
Mara was never so grateful in her life as she was the moment he shifted the conversation away from that long-ago night, and back to the matter at hand. She could handle him here. Now. Angry.
But the moment the present clouded over with past, she lost her nerve, uncertain of how to proceed with this enormous brute of a man and the years that had passed since the last time she’d seen him.
She resisted the thought and returned her attention to the matter at hand. “Then you are ready to negotiate?” Pretending not to be overwhelmed by him, she returned to her desk. Sat. “I shall draft the letter to the News today, assuming you are ready to clear the debts in question.”
He laughed. “Surely, you did not think it would be so easy.”
“I would not say easy.” It would not be easy. She’d written the letter a hundred times in her head. A dozen on paper. For years. And it never got easier. “I would say quick, however. Surely that is of interest.”
He raised a brow. “I’ve waited twelve years for this. Neither ease nor quickness is paramount.”
She asked the question despite knowing the answer. “Then what is?”
“Retribution.”
She huffed a little laugh to cover the way the words unnerved her. “What do you plan to do? Parade me through the streets? Tarred and feathered?”
“The image is not entirely unpleasant.” He smiled then, and she imagined he’d smiled that particular smile a hundred times in his club. In his ring. “I do plan to parade you through London. But not tarred and feathered.”
Her brows rose. “What, then?”
“Painted. And primped.”
She shook her head. “They won’t have me.”
“Not like the wealthy heiress you once were, no.”
They’d barely accepted her then. She’d been a threat to everything they were. Everything they had. The pretty young daughter of a wealthy working man. She might have been rich enough, but she’d never been good enough for them.
“They won’t have me in their company.”
“They shall do what I say. You see, I am a duke. And, if I remember correctly, while killer dukes are not favored by the doyennes of the ton, those of us who have not committed murder tend to be well received.” He leaned closer. “Ladies like the idea of dukes.” The words were more breath than sound, and Mara resisted the urge to touch the exposed skin of her neck, to at once rub them away and to keep them there. “And you are mine to do with as I please.”
Her brows knit together at the words. At the way they spread through her, hot and threatening. “And what is that, precisely?”
“Precisely, whatever I desire.”
She stiffened. “I shan’t be your mistress.”
“First, you are in no position to make such demands. And second, I don’t recall offering to have you.”
She went hot with embarrassment. “Then what?”
He shrugged, and she hated him in that moment. “I don’t trust you anywhere near my sleeping form . . . but they needn’t know that.”
The words stung. “Mistress in name only?”
He came closer, close enough to feel the heat of him. “Twelve years of lying to my detriment has no doubt made you a convincing actress. It’s time to use all that practice to lie for my benefit. As I please.”
She straightened her shoulders and tilted her face up to meet his gaze. He was so close—close enough that at another time, in another place, as another woman, she might come up on her toes and press her lips to his.
Where had that thought come from?
She wanted nothing to do with kissing this man.
He was not for kissing. Not anymore.
She pursed her lips. “So you wish to ruin me.”
“You ruined my life,” he said, all casualness. “I think it only fair, don’t you?”
She had been ruined for twelve years—from the moment she’d bloodied the sheets and ran from that room.
She had been ruined before then.
But she’d hidden it well, and she had a houseful of boys to care for. Perhaps her ruin was his due. Perhaps it was hers as well. But she’d be damned if he’d ruin MacIntyre’s and the safe haven she’d built for these boys.
“So I will have to leave. Sta
rt over.”
“You’ve done it before,” he said.
As had he.
Vengeance was a pretty thing, wasn’t it?
She straightened her shoulders. “I accept.” For a half second, his eyes went wide, and she took pleasure in his shock. Evidently, he’d underestimated her strength and her purpose. “But I’ve a condition of my own.”
Tell him.
The thought came from nowhere.
Tell him Christopher’s debt included all the orphanage’s funds.
She met his gaze. Cold. Unyielding. Uncaring. Like the eyes of the boys’ fathers.
Tell him that what he does threatens the boys.
“I see no reason why I should allow for any of your conditions,” he said.
“Because you haven’t a choice. I disappeared once. I can do it again.”
He watched her for a long moment, the threat hanging between them, his gaze going dark with irritation. With something worse. Something closer to hate. And perhaps he should hate her. She’d crafted him with the skill of a master sculptor, not from marble, but from flesh and blood and fury. “If you ran, I would find you. And I would take no prisoners.”
The promise was thick with anger and truth.
He would stop at nothing to exact his vengeance. She was at risk, and everything she loved.
But she would not put the boys at risk.
She threw herself into the fray, already considering her next steps . . . how she would protect the boys, the house, and its legacy if he made good on his promise. She straightened her shoulders, and entered the fray. “If you treat me like a whore, you pay me like one.”
The words stung him. She could see it, the blow there and then gone, as though they were in the ring where he reigned. When he did not retaliate, she threw her next punch. “I shall do whatever you ask. However you ask it. I shall play your silly game until you decide to reveal me to the world. Until you decide to send me packing. And when you do, I shall go.”
“For your brother’s debt.”
“For whatever I wish.”
One side of his mouth kicked up in a fleeting half smile, and for a moment Mara thought that in another place, in another time, as another woman, she might have enjoyed making him smile.
But right now, she hated it.
“He’s not worth you.”
“He’s not your concern.”
“Why? Some kind of sisterly love?” His eyes blackened, and she let him believe it. Anything to keep him from the orphanage. “His is a face badly in need of a fist.”
Retribution.
“And yet you will not fight him,” she said, feeling angrier than she would have imagined. “Are you afraid to give him a chance?”
He raised a brow, but did not rise to the bait. “I’ve never been bested.”
She smiled. “Did I not best you last night?”
He stilled at the words, then looked up. She saw shock in his black eyes, in the way they widened just barely for just a moment. She resisted the urge to grin her triumph. “You gloat over drugging me?”
She shook her head. “I gloat over felling you. That is the goal, is it not? You owe me the money.”
“In the ring, Miss Lowe. That is where it counts.”
She did smile then, knowing it would annoy him. Hoping it would annoy him. “Semantics. You’re embarrassed to admit I beat you handily.”
“With the help of enough narcotics to take down an ox.”
“Nonsense. A horse, maybe. But not an ox. And you are embarrassed. I work with boys, Your Grace. Need I remind you that I know one who is embarrassed when I see one?”
His gaze grew dark and serious again, and he leaned in, closer to her. Close enough for him to tower over her, more than six feet of muscle and bone, power and might, scars and sinew. He smelled of clove and thyme.
Not that she noticed.
And then he whispered, so close to her ear that she felt the words more than heard them as they sent a chill down her spine. “I am no boy.”
That much was true.
She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came.
It was his turn to smile. “If you wish to fell me, Miss Lowe, I encourage you to meet me in the ring.”
“You will have to pay me for it.”
“And if I don’t agree? What then? You haven’t any choice.”
Truth.
“I also haven’t anything to lose.”
Lie.
“Nonsense,” he said. “There’s always something else to lose. I assure you. I would find it.”
He had her in his trap. She couldn’t run. Not without making sure the boys were safe. Not without securing the money that Kit had lost.
She met Temple’s black gaze, even as he seemed to read her thoughts. “You could run,” he whispered, “but I would find you. And you wouldn’t like what happened then.”
Damn him.
He wasn’t going to agree.
She wanted to scream. Nearly did, until he said, “You won’t be the first woman I have paid to do my bidding . . .”
A vision flashed—arms and legs tangled in crisp white sheets, dark hair and black eyes, and more muscle than one man should have.
“ . . . but I assure you, Miss Lowe, you will be the last.”
The words fell between them, and it took her a moment to refocus her thoughts on them. To realize that he’d agreed. That the orphanage would be saved.
Its price, her ruin. Her life. Her future.
But it would be saved.
Relief was fleeting, interrupted by his low promise. “We begin tonight.”
Chapter 4
“And who is able to tell me what happened to Napoleon after Waterloo?”
A sea of hands shot up inside the small, well-appointed schoolroom of the MacIntyre Home for Boys. Daniel did not wait to be called upon. “He died!”
Mara chose to ignore the positive glee oozing from the young man as he pronounced the emperor dead. “He did, indeed, die. But I’m looking for the bit before that.”
Daniel thought for a moment and then offered, “He ran weeping and wailing from Wellington . . . and died!”
Mara shook her head. “Not quite. Matthew?”
“He rode his horse into a French ditch . . . and died!”
Her lips twitched. “Unfortunately, not.” She chose one of the hands straining for the ceiling. “Charles?”
Charles considered the options, then chose, “He shot himself in the foot, it turned green and fell off, and then he died?”
Mara did smile then. “You know, gentlemen, I am not certain that I am a very effective teacher.”
The hands lowered and a collective grumble went through the room, knowing that they would be required to learn an extra hour of history that day. The boys were saved, however, when a knock sounded, and Alice was silhouetted in the door to the boys’ schoolroom. “Pardon me, Mrs. MacIntyre.”
Mara lowered the book she held. “Yes?”
“There is . . .” Alice opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “That is . . . someone is here to see you.”
Temple.
He was back.
She glanced at the clock in the corner of the room. He’d said tonight. As it was still today, she could only assume that he was a blackguard and a cheat. And she intended to tell him such.
Just as soon as her heart ceased its racing.
The air seemed to leave the room as she looked over the sea of little faces around her and realized that she was not ready to tell the world the truth. She was not ready to be Mara Lowe again.
She wanted to remain Mrs. MacIntyre, born nowhere, come from nothing, now governess and caretaker to a motley group of boys. Mrs. MacIntyre had purpose. Mrs. MacIntyre had meaning. Mrs. MacIntyre had life.
Mara h
ad nothing.
Nothing but truth.
She forced her legs to move, to carry her through the collection of boys to meet Alice. To face the man who had returned to the house, no doubt with a plan in place to change both their lives. Once at the door, she turned back to her students.
“If I . . .”
No. She cleared her throat. Tried again.
“When I return, I expect to hear what happened to Napoleon.”
Their collective groan sounded as she pulled the door shut with a snap.
Alice seemed to know better than to say anything on the walk through the dark, narrow hallways. Mara appreciated the young maid’s intuition—she was not certain that she would be able to carry on a conversation with her heart pounding and thoughts racing.
He was there. Below. Judge and jury and executioner, all in one.
She descended the stairs slowly, knowing that she would never escape her past, and that she could not avoid her future.
The door to the little study where they’d spoken earlier that morning was ajar, and it occurred to Mara that the two-inch gap between door and jamb was a curious thing—eliciting excitement or dread depending upon the situation.
She ignored the fact that somehow, in this moment, it elicited both.
He was not even a little bit exciting; he was entirely dreadful.
She took a deep breath, willing her heart to cease pounding, and released Alice from duty with a halfhearted smile—the most she could manage under the circumstances—before pushing the door open to face the man inside the room.
“You saw him.”
She stepped inside and closed the door firmly. “What are you doing here?”
Her brother came toward her. “What are you doing approaching that man?”
“I asked first,” she said, meeting him at the center of the room in two short strides. “We agreed you’d never come here. You should have sent a note.” It was the way they’d met for the past twelve years. Never in this building, and never anywhere that she might be recognized.
“We also agreed we’d never tell that man that you were alive and living right under his nose.”
“He has a name, Kit.”
“Not one he uses.”