planned to move back to England some day. So she decided to take us—’
‘Us,’ he broke in. ‘Do you have brothers? Sisters?’
Oh, a blunder there. ‘A sister. One sister.’
He drank his wine, still carefully watching her. ‘And did your little family find a friendly welcome at this cottage in Oxfordshire?’
This time she met his brooding gaze steadily. ‘Thanks to the war, my mother’s nationality was regarded as little short of a crime. And the cottage turned out to be almost a ruin. Yet my mother would not leave—partly because she had nowhere else to go, but also because it had been my father’s dying wish that she come to the place he’d loved …’ She paused to fight back the ache rising in her throat.
‘And now your mother is dead. Your husband, too.’ His voice was soft.
Oh, Lord, her lies. ‘Yes, indeed!’ She drank some wine—she certainly needed it.
He met her eyes calmly. The light from the candles defined anew the sculpted planes and angles of his lean, square-jawed face. He continued, ‘So you decided to come to London. As a writer of scandal-broth, or as a prostitute at the Temple of Beauty?’
She should have expected it. She should not have let it wound her so. But it did, oh, it did.
She tossed her head in defiance. ‘Well, both, of course! I really do not see why I should not make extra money out of my experiences with the gentlemen of the town, by writing a piece or two!’
‘I can see why not,’ he broke in flatly. ‘It could be damned dangerous. Men don’t like their secret lives exposed.’
She gripped her wineglass. Was he warning her not to dig too deeply into his private life? ‘Oh, I make sure everything I write is completely anonymous!’
She laughed, as if it were all very amusing, but she could see he wasn’t amused in the slightest, because he cut in, ‘Somebody is worried about you saying too much, clearly.’ His eyes were fixed, darkly, at some place below her throat, and she realised that her fichu had fallen to display a disgraceful amount of bosom. Colouring hotly, she snatched it back up.
‘You’re thinking of that threat,’ she whispered.
‘Naturally. And there’s not only the threat, Mrs Rowland.’ His features were sombre. ‘My men have been offered money, to turn you and the child in.’
‘They’ve—’ The food she’d just taken stuck in her throat.
‘That’s right. There’s an underworld reward out for you. The usual sort of thing, all done anonymously. The word has gone round the lowlife drinking dens that if you and your child are delivered up at a certain time and place, the money will be handed over, no questions asked.’ He paused while the shock surged through her. ‘I know, by the way,’ he went on, ‘that Katy is not yours.’
This time she had to grip the table for support. Her stomach knotted. ‘What makes you think …?’
‘How do I know you’re lying? First: you seem to have no idea when her father died—in-deed, you’re not even certain of the child’s age. Second: I’ve noticed that whenever Katy sees you she says, ‘Mama?’—but she’s looking for someone else. Three: she was not with you when you first arrived in London.’
She stared at him, stricken.
‘Enough, enough,’ he said with a gesture of dismissal. ‘I have no right to question you so, and I assume you are looking after Katy for the best of reasons. Now it’s your turn—ah, how your writer’s mind must be whirling with curiosity. “What was it like being born into a rich family, Alec? And how, for God’s sake, did you manage to make such an almighty mess of it all?” Admit it, you’re just longing to know!’
‘I think perhaps you’ve already told me,’ she said tightly. ‘That you and your father are estranged.’
‘Indeed. And of course it’s the custom of the aristocracy anyway to leave everything to the oldest.’ He drank more wine.
‘But surely you could have married …’
‘Married into wealth? Ah, yes, once I was betrothed to the granddaughter of a duke. But she was in love with a make-believe hero—and, by God, she must count herself lucky to have broken it off, now she sees that I run a damned seedy fencing school in Spitalfields packed to the rafters with destitute ex-soldiers—out of whom I make absolutely nothing.’
A reminder of yet another of her errors. She bit her lip. ‘But surely,’ she began, ‘you would have had other choices! There can be no need for you to—to …’
‘To live as I do? Mingle with men of the lower class?’ His voice had become softly lethal. ‘For a courtesan and a pedlar of news sheets, you’re rather pompous, aren’t you, Mrs Rowland? Perhaps it’s your mother’s French blood showing through—’
He broke off, because she’d put her knife and fork down suddenly. There were small spots of colour burning in her cheeks. ‘Please do not insult my mother. You may say what you like about me—but not her!’
Alec looked at her, just for a moment. Curse it, this had been a stupid idea to bring her here. Doomed from the start. Furious with himself, he pushed back his chair and stood. ‘Come,’ he said. His dark eyes were shuttered. ‘I’ll take you back. Time we were leaving.’
She tilted her chin. ‘Very well. But I will get changed first. I do not wish to wear this gown a moment longer.’
‘As you wish.’ Swiftly he came round to draw back her chair and help her to her feet.
But the sudden warmth of his hand on her slender arm unsettled her so badly that she tripped as she rose and stumbled against the table, and worse was to come, for she realised in horror that the cursed fichu had slipped down, almost baring her breasts. Even as she dragged it up again she saw the look of scorn in his eyes. He thought she’d done it deliberately.
‘Well, Mrs Rowland,’ he drawled, ‘you’re playing dangerous games today.’
She whirled on him. ‘A gentleman, Captain Stewart, would have turned his eyes away!’
‘Oh, did you want me to?’ he asked softly. ‘I rather thought all that was part of your plan.’
She tried to push past him, head held high. He stood in her way. Her voice shook slightly. ‘Please let me pass. I just want to go and get out of this—garment. And return to Katy.’
He captured her shoulders, his long fingers warm and sensuous through the fabric of her gown. ‘Playing games,’ he repeated softly.
‘I think,’ she said steadily, ‘that you are the one playing games. And aren’t you enjoying them?’
‘Very much. Aren’t you?’
The air around them changed. Tightened.
‘Alec,’ she began, her insides suddenly lurching, but she had no idea what she meant to say. All she knew was that his arms were around her, his chest like a wall against her soft breasts. All she could see when she looked
