Tempting Fortune (The Malloren World #2)

Chapter 1

Moonlight shafted into the chilly hall, making mysteries of quite ordinary things.

Surely it was that moonlight, thought Portia St. Claire, that made the intruder look like the Prince of Darkness. White, blade-fine features of eerie beauty; dark leathery wings trailing behind…

She jerked her heavy pistol to point at its heart. “Stop!”

The figure stopped. Hands appeared. Long-fingered and elegant, they rose slightly in a pacifying gesture, and the movement showed that the black wings were merely a long dark cloak.

Portia sucked in a shuddering breath. That meant the ghostly features must be flesh and blood. It was a common housebreaker, that was all.

Of course, that meant her impulsive action had brought her face to face with a criminal. A wiser woman, hearing breaking glass, would have hidden under the bed. Portia had grabbed her brother’s pistol, checked that it was loaded, and crept downstairs to see what was going on.

Her motto was “A fear faced is a fear defeated,” but now she wondered if that always held true. This dark intruder did not appear particularly defeated, and having stopped him, she had no idea what to do next.

Beneath his cloak the intruder’s clothes must be dark too, for the only places lightened by moonlight were his watchful face, his fine hands, and the froth of white lace around them.

Expensive lace.

He wore a ring on his left hand. The large stone was dark, but something in the way it caught the weak moonlight told her it was a precious jewel. A glint beside his face suggested another expensive ornament, a jeweled earring.

Not a common housebreaker after all.

“I have, if you will notice, stopped.” The tone was courteous and his accent spoke of wealth and breeding. His voice carried the drawl of a man of fashion, but was un-fashionably deep, and used softly in a way that did not calm her agitated nerves.

“You have stopped,” Portia said sharply. “Now you will turn and leave.”

“Or?”

“Or I will summon the Watch, sirrah! I heard breaking glass. You are quite patently a housebreaker.”

She saw the flicker of movement that was a smile. “I suppose I am. But how do you intend to summon the Watch while guarding me, mignonne?”

Portia clenched her teeth. “Leave. Now!”

“Or?” he asked again.

“Or I will shoot you.”

“Much better,” he approved. “That you could do.”

Bryght Malloren was amused.

He had not expected to be amused by this mission but now, faced by this valiant defender of hearth and home, he was hard pressed not to laugh.

She’d probably shoot him outright if he laughed at her.

She was so tiny, though. Perhaps five foot to his six. Despite full skirts and drowning layers of woolen shawls, he could tell she was lightly built. Certainly the two hands so resolutely gripping the large pistol were small and delicate.

But delicate was not the word that came to mind.

Resolute, perhaps.

Or sizzling.

Energy—part courage, part anger, part fear—crackled from her like sparks from green wood on a fire. He couldn’t tell the color of the hair that flowed loose down her back, but he suspected it would be red. She really would shoot him if he provoked her, and that alone was enough to intrigue him.

It was also inconvenient. He did not have much time in which to complete his mission, and this tiny warrior seemed determined to prevent him. He tried reason first.

“I confess to having broken the kitchen window in order to gain access, madam. But no one answered the door.”

“And do you always break into houses when no one answers the door?”

He considered it. “Generally speaking, the houses whose doors I knock upon seem to have servants. You have no servants?”

“That is none of your business.”

But he’d hit a nerve. Who the devil was she? This house in Maidenhead had been rented by the Earl of Walgrave to act as a prison for his daughter, Lady Chastity Ware. Bryght had expected to find it empty now Chastity had escaped.

The young woman raised the pistol a threatening inch. “Leave, sirrah!”

“No.”

Bryght heard her hiss of irritation and awaited events with interest. It took a truly callous soul to shoot a stationary person in cold blood, and whatever her qualities he didn’t think this pocket was callous.

He was proved correct. She did not pull the trigger.

“Now,” he said. “I have a reasonable purpose in being here.”

“What reasonable purpose can excuse housebreaking?”

“I have come to collect a document left by a recent occupant.”

She didn’t waver an inch. “What recent occupant?”

“You are full of questions, aren’t you? Let us say, a lady.”

“What lady?”

“I prefer not to answer that.” Tiring of the game, he stepped forward to disarm her.

He saw her suck in a breath and raise the gun an inch farther. Damn. He threw himself at her legs just as she squeezed the trigger.

Portia was flat on her back, squashed under a giant.

Her hands felt numb from the kick of the pistol, and her head was ringing where it had connected with the tiles of the hall floor.

Or perhaps it was ringing with the thunder of the pistol shot.

She had never fired a gun indoors before. It made a lot of noise.

She stared up dazedly and saw that the house-breaking devil seemed rather concerned.

He raised some of his weight on his arms and she took a deep breath. “How dare you!”

“I could hardly let you shoot me.”

“Then you should have left.” Portia heaved to try to throw him off but immediately realized that it was a very bad idea. He was lying between her legs and her simple dress with but the one petticoat was a flimsy barrier.

The way his elegant lips twitched at her predicament made her want to scratch his all-too-handsome face. No one had a right to features which so closely resembled an amused Lucifer, especially a bullying, house-breaking wretch.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Bryght Malloren, not precisely at your service. And who are you?”

“That, sir, is none of your business.” She tried to wriggle from under him, but he had her trapped.

“Then I will call you Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.” He brushed back a tendril of hair that had fallen over her eyes, and the gentleness of the gesture disconcerted her. The same gentleness was in his voice when he said, “Do you always fight against the odds, Hippolyta?”

His dark hair was disordered, too. It was escaping its ribbon and falling in wavy tendrils about his face. The informality was disarming.

“I had a pistol,” she pointed out.

“Even so.” And he grinned.

Portia growled. The wretch was laughing at her. “Get off me.” She made each word clear.

“Not until I claim my forfeit.”

“Forfeit?” Portia felt the first touch of real fear. She had been alarmed to hear breaking glass. She had been almost horrified at first sight of the dark creature coming down the corridor toward her. But in some way while bandying words with this man she had not been truly afraid.

Now she realized she was at his mercy. She was not missish by nature, and in her salad days had been a tomboy, but she had never before been unprotected in a strange man’s power.

“Forfeit,” he said, and the gentleness did not reassure her scurrying heart at all. She found herself staring at his earring—a discreet but expensive-looking jeweled stud. Only the wildest wastrels wore such outrageous ornaments, and only a wealthy one could afford that jewel.

She was in the power of a wealthy, dissolute rake.

He smiled, and it was a devil’s smile. “I always claim a forfeit from women who try to kill me.”

Portia started to fight in earnest, but her hands were tangled in her three woolen shawls. By the time she’d dragged them free he was ready to capture her wrists.

“Do you ever stop fighting?”

“Would it help?” She twisted against his grip, but it immediately tightened. “You’re hurting me!”

“Then stop fighting me.”

“I’ll cry.”

“Can you really do it on demand? I’d be interested to see that.”

Portia hissed with exasperation, but her fear was ebbing like the tides. For some reason she simply could not be truly afraid of this man. It was most peculiar.

She became aware that his weight over her—mostly carried by his arms—was almost comforting, and that she was warm when before she’d been chilled.

Faint scents came to her, too. Lavender, she thought, from his linen, and a perfume such as men wore, but a subtle one.

Not the heavy sort used to cloak dirt and disease…

“Can you not force even one tear?” he teased, and Portia snapped her wits back into order. She tested his grip again, but he immediately tightened it just enough to control.

“You don’t think I have reason to cry?” she spat.

“I don’t think you’re a weeper, my , unless you see it as a weapon.” And he kissed her.

In all her twenty-five years, Portia had never been kissed like this. Not with a man’s hard body pinning her to the floor and his hands confining her for the assault of his mouth.

But it was a tender assault.

Braced as she was for something much worse, the tenderness almost trapped her. She remembered in time that he was her enemy, and held herself still and unresponsive beneath him.

He drew back, and she heard humor as he said, “What a range of weapons you have, my warrior maid. If I give you the victory in this, will you allow me to collect the document? It can be no concern of yours.”

“No.”

He laughed and rocked back onto his feet, then helped her up. While she was still finding her balance and gathering her tangled shawls, he sidestepped her and ran lightly up the stairs.

“Stop!”

Portia raced after him, shedding shawls, her shoes clattering on the bare wooden treads. He moved swiftly as if he knew the house, and headed straight for the back bedroom.

That showed he didn’t know the house at all. That room was empty, stripped of every item of furniture. Perhaps he had the wrong house after all.

She fell into the room after him and grabbed his cloak. “There see. There is nothing here.”