heard a bolt being drawn back and, as the door opened, she sprang round to face it.
Alec Stewart walked slowly into the room, loosening his necktie with his right hand. There was an unreadable look in his hard dark eyes, and somehow the sheer physicality of him, the extremity of male power emanating from that rangy, muscular body, slammed the breath from her lungs. She was reminded, in a surge of excruciating emotion, of the sweet knowingness of his kiss. The melting ache of his fingers on her breasts.
Then she realised he was holding that piece of paper.
He kicked the door shut with his booted foot and just looked at her. Rosalie hitched up her chin. ‘Locking up women now,’ she declared with scorn. ‘What right have you to keep me here against my will—Captain Stewart?’
He ignored her question. ‘I’ve been making enquiries,’ he said. ‘About who you are. You’re versatile, aren’t you, Athena?’ He stepped closer and pointed at the finger on which she wore the cheap little wedding band. ‘You weren’t wearing that last night. Does your husband know you were playing the whore at the Temple of Beauty?’
Fiddlesticks. She should have taken the stupid thing off. She jutted her chin. ‘I’m a widow, as it happens!’
‘My condolences.’ His sympathy was shortlived. ‘And your real name is …?’
‘R-Rosalie.’
‘Rosalie,’ he echoed thoughtfully. ‘And do you by any chance pen scurrilous articles for a rag called The Scribbler?’
Oh, Lord. ‘I don’t see why you should—’
He waved the sheet at her. ‘Fellow about town. That’s how the journalist Ro Rowland describes himself—or should I say herself? I wasn’t born yesterday; I am acquainted with London’s gutter press.’
The colour drained from her face. That meant Helen was being dragged into this! This was just what Rosalie had wanted to avoid; this was one reason why Rosalie had never told Helen or anybody the name of Linette’s seducer, even though she’d realised it might have hastened her search … Helen, I’m so sorry.
She squared her slender shoulders. ‘Sometimes, I’ve written pieces for The Scribbler. But often I just make notes—like the ones your men stole from me!—for my own interest. And what I’m doing isn’t against the law!’
‘It is if you’re intending to print lies. Defame my reputation.’
‘Reputation! Oh, believe me, I could write so much more about you that you wouldn’t like, Captain Stewart!’
She saw the gleam in his steely eyes and dragged air into her tight lungs. Too far. Too dangerous, Rosalie. You cannot possibly tackle him right here in his stronghold.
He was still staring thoughtfully down at her. ‘Is that so? Might I suggest you can hardly afford to take the high moral ground, Mrs Rowland, since I could retaliate by asking—what the hell were you doing last night, parading on that stage half-naked?’
‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business!’
‘Unfortunately it is, since you’ve set yourself in judgement on my affairs. You were putting yourself up for sale at Dr Barnard’s—why? To dig up filth for your news rag? Is that why Dr Barnard was after you?’
Rather too close to the truth, that. ‘I was not for sale!’
‘All right, I correct myself.’ One dark eyebrow arched. ‘You were, in my case at least, offering it for free.’
She gasped and struck out at him. But he caught her hand in an iron-hard grip.
Blue eyes, turquoise-blue eyes, whose bed did you sleep in last night? Yesterday Alec Stewart had found himself rather hoping that there was some reason—and not the obvious one—for this girl to be appearing on stage at the Temple of Beauty.
Well, perhaps he’d found that reason and he didn’t like it one bit. She made money out of digging up prurient details of other people’s lives. Hence her appearance at Dr Barnard’s, hunting, he guessed, for lurid gossip about the visitors to that seedy place. Hence her temerity in coming here, to cast her blue eyes boldly over Two Crows Castle, while carrying in that bag of hers some nasty notes about the crimes of a so-called rackrenter. Yet—how stunned she’d looked when she realised he was the owner of Two Crows Castle! And why was it that everything she did, or said, challenged all his preconceptions of her?
He remembered the way she’d reacted to his kiss last night. Even now he caught his breath at the way her silvery-blonde hair tumbled like a silken waterfall around her shoulders, at the way her drab cloak had fallen apart to allow him a distracting glimpse of the small but ripe breasts that were prominent beneath her shabby gown.
Very pretty, and very professional. Get a grip, man. Not only is she a courtesan, but she writes for a news rag. She’s damned dangerous.
As if to confirm his every suspicion, she made a dart for the door. He grabbed her easily with one outstretched arm. Still she struggled, panting to get away. He pulled her closer and his physical desire reared inevitably at the sensation of her warm body agitating against his. ‘Little fool,’ he uttered. ‘Little fool, stop that. Or I won’t be held responsible for my actions, do you understand?’
That quietened her. Her turquoise eyes flew up to his in shock and she went very still. Then she tossed back her glorious hair. ‘You need not think, Captain Stewart,’ she shot up at him, ‘that I’m afraid of you and men like you!’
‘Then you damn well ought to be,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Though to be fair, you dealt with Dr Barnard’s customers—myself included—most professionally last night.’
She gasped. ‘Last night was a mistake! If I’d known everything about you …’
‘Known what, exactly?’ he drawled.
‘Do you deny that you pack this—this hideous old ruin with impoverished ex-soldiers?’
Frowning, he let her go. But now his broad shoulders and back were planted solidly against the door and he made a formidable barrier indeed to any thought of escape. ‘My friends know the truth.’ His eyes blazed danger. ‘Write what you like, Mrs Rowland, and be damned to you.’
‘I will, if I choose! And I could also write about the way you expect young women to just melt at your feet! How you promise them—promise them …’
His eyes gleamed. ‘Promise them what, exactly?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. Oh, Lord. She should not have said that.
He was drawing nearer. ‘Promise them what, Mrs Rowland? I want to know.’ Now a truly wicked smile was curving his lips. ‘Money? Pleasure? Perhaps you’re more tempted than you care to admit by what you think our encounter last night promised?’
She gazed up at him, speechless. It was impossible. It was incredible. Yet—desire, raw and primitive, flooded her veins. Her breasts ached traitorously for his knowing touch. Her eyes were locked with his as she wildly sought inspiration that didn’t come. And he was drawing nearer, a wicked light in his gaze.
