The Dove and the Rogue (The Doves of New York #3)

Prologue

L ord David Felding sat across the carriage from Jenny. His gaze pierced through the darkness, lighting her up in ways that were unseemly.

“I’ve asked you to meet me because I have a proposition to make you and we’ll need privacy to discuss it.” It was the only reason she’d ask a known rake to meet her at midnight outside a nearly deserted train station.

“Privacy?” She loved the way he said that. She’d heard enough English accents over the course of the past months that she should have been immune to it, but this was him and everything he did resonated with her in a different way. “I’m intrigued,” he added.

“Good, because I’m afraid you won’t have very much time to consider your answer.”

She had decided on the train that she might as well tell him everything.

It was only fair that he knew what he would be getting into if he agreed.

She began to launch into the story, to tell him everything that had happened with Simon and her sister—that Simon was being hunted by the criminal who’d raised him, that Eliza planned to call off her wedding to a viscount to marry the bare-knuckle brawler—but David shook his head and sat forward and she stopped speaking.

The rich fabric of his suit rustled and seemed louder in the confined space than it should have been.

His scent wafted over to her. It was the same cologne he usually wore, a lightly spiced scent that she hadn’t yet been able to place.

She only knew that she quite liked it. Something about it rustled through the butterflies in her stomach.

The carriage light that hung outside the window caressed his face with soft amber color.

Her breath caught at how beautiful she found him and she forced her gaze to the empty space beside him.

He wasn’t even that handsome, not objectively when compared to someone like Devonworth, her new brother-in-law, who was golden and perfect.

Lord David had a sensual quality that weighted the air around him and he managed to take it everywhere he went.

The eyes that looked at her across a formal dining room table would be the same eyes that looked down at her in bed.

She’d never tested this theory, of course, but it was plain to see his effect on women.

Being near him was a sensory experience for her.

She shifted and pressed her thighs together.

No doubt her absurd reaction to him now was because of what she was willing to offer him, should he accept.

“Before we go further, I’d like to know what I shall receive in return, should I agree to this proposition.”

“Don’t you want to hear what I’d like you to do first?” He was a curious man.

“Later. First, what will be my reward?”

Her lips parted, but she couldn’t speak. Her mouth had become the Sahara. She glanced away again. Twenty other options played out in her head, but she’d already examined and discarded them all. He was her only hope. Picking at her skirt so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes, she said, “Me. ”

The air was still and silent, broken only by his harsh exhalation of air. “Say more.”

She couldn’t look at him. Her eyes found the black velvet tie that held back the curtain. “A night with me.”

“One entire night?”

She nodded.

“One entire night in bed with you?”

He was making a meal of this. “Yes, but only the one,” she clarified.

“Forgive me, but I want to be very precise about this. One night to fuck you?”

That word lit a fire inside her. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, which was why the blaze tore through her so quickly. Her gaze shot back to his. “I knew that you would make this vulgar.”

He wasn’t smiling or smirking or anything near what she’d thought she would see on his face. Instead, he was very serious. His gaze held hers with a steadfast intensity.

“But that is what you intend?”

“Yes.” The word was a hiss as she tried to ignore what his eyes were doing to her.

He sat back, pondering her all the while, the shadows reclaiming him. “Go on then, Miss Dove, tell me more.”

But she couldn’t answer. Sex had been spoken between them.

It had always simmered beneath the surface—the way he would hold her closer than was appropriate when he twirled her around a ballroom, the way his eyes would eat her alive as they laughed together at the ridiculous way snooty old Lord Bolingrave waltzed.

Their flirtatious game had been just that, because she refused to become another one of his conquests, and he’d seemed to accept that.

Now, however, she’d offered herself up to him on a silver platter. Their desire had been given life and was free to electrify the air between them. He sat over there, imagining all the ways he would bed her, and something perverse inside her liked it.

She could hear her own heartbeat.

“Eliza is about to make a very big mistake. She’s in love with Simon Cavell and wants to marry him. He’s in debt to a very bad man but he’s penniless, so they plan to flee to San Francisco. I can’t let them move so far away with no money and a criminal after them.”

“But you’re heiresses. Cavell can pay off his debt with her inheritance once they’re married.”

That was the rub. There would be no inheritance if they married. “Our guardian, Charles Hathaway, has declared that we’ll only receive our inheritance if we marry men that meet with his approval. Aristocrats. Mr. Cavell comes from Whitechapel.” A nobody in Mr. Hathaway’s world.

“Ah, yes, Devonworth mentioned something about a mercenary condition when he married your eldest sister. I’d forgotten.

” They turned a hard corner that sent the carriage swaying.

The light shifted over his features, emphasizing the hollows of his cheeks and the deep set of his eyes.

A tremor stole down her spine. “What does this have to do with me?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. Though she had rehearsed this many times, it was so much more difficult to say.

“I need you to marry me.” Now that the words were out and she hadn’t incinerated, her voice firmed.

“I believe Mr. Hathaway will give Eliza his permission to marry Simon if he knows he’ll get you, a future duke.

” Jenny had sworn to not be bound by Mr. Hathaway’s terms. She’d rather not marry than marry a stuffy aristocrat who wouldn’t allow her to pursue her true love of singing.

But she couldn’t stand by if this would help her baby sister.

“And that’s all?” he asked. “We marry and live happily ever after? ”

She flushed. “No, of course not. You get on with your life and I get on with mine. I do plan to pursue my career. That’s a condition of this. I’ve been offered a starring role in an opera in Paris this autumn and I’ve already accepted it.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment. She couldn’t begin to fathom what was going through his mind. “I accept that condition. I presume there are more.”

“We are both free to live our separate lives. After our wedding and our night together, I’ll return to Paris to perform. You return to…whatever it is that you do.”

“We make no demands on the other?”

She nodded. “We’ll divorce after an appropriate amount of time.”

“Divorce? What of the scandal?” He sounded bored, rather than alarmed.

“You’ll be marrying an opera singer and an American, at that. I think a divorce scandal is the least of our worries.”

“My my, Miss Dove, you certainly know how to make things interesting.” He chuckled softly and then went quiet again, his gaze roaming her face through the darkness. “What made you choose me for this proposition?”

She couldn’t tell him that truth…that he was the only one she wanted. Instead, she said, “Because you court scandal like it’s a sport.”