Chapter One #3
She frowned, realizing he was toying with her. “Isn’t that what you do for Jackson Dorsey and his Rookery Rebels? Who’s to say you can’t advise an old friend about ways to wisely invest a newly acquired windfall?”
“My clients are more of the lawless variety, Lady Persephone, not daughters of dukes.”
“Well, I’m closer to that ilk now,” she said and brushed lint from her sleeve like losing her social standing wasn’t a catastrophe of the highest order. “Quite unwelcome in Mayfair and beyond.”
His temper flared, as it often had with her, against his hope that it remain bubbling but well hidden.
“Did you do this on purpose?” he bit out, leaning in until the full effect of her struck him.
The freckles she’d loathed and he’d loved dancing across her nose and cheeks.
The flecks of amber in her eyes. The bottom lip strangely more slender than the glorious top.
A body that had changed in ways he suddenly ached to explore.
“Take a thousand steps down to bring yourself closer to me?”
“Oh, you are as much of an arrogant beast as they say,” she snapped, kicking at his boots until he was forced to tuck them against the velvet squab.
“My father forced my hand, you blackguard. I told him about the manuscript, insurance against an arranged marriage I didn’t want, a life intolerable to me.
I would have hidden it forever had he heeded my counsel and allowed me to marry for love.
What did you think I was doing keeping these records if not creating a way out? Some form of protection.”
Honestly, he’d never once been clever enough to imagine her writing had been strategy, not mischief.
Laurence unwound his fingers from his tightly drawn fist and dropped the crushed remnants of the cheroot to the floor. “Marriage to whom?”
Either because of his pretty accent—and after years of practice, it was pretty—or his frankly possessive tone, she smiled, pleased. Damn her. “The Marquess of Banterborne.”
“Banterborne,” he murmured, sinking back on the seat. He’d have nabbed her from the chapel before he’d have let her wed that bounder. The marquess had extremely singular tastes known to every madam in England.
Tupper knocked his bootheel against the roof to let Laurence know they were nearing her residence.
Time was short, and he wanted more of the story before he decided what to do about this muddle she’d dragged him into.
“You dangled your book before your father for years to keep him at bay,” he said, brushing tobacco from his thigh.
“Then called his bluff when he called yours and you’ve been expelled from his home. That about sum it up?”
Her gaze dropped to his lap, her cheeks going rosy all over again. “Yes,” she said, glancing again to the window.
“You brazen chit,” he whispered as the carriage jerked to a stop. “Rebelliousness like you possessed when we were children. Most people lose such daring with age.”
After a startled moment, she dipped her head and laughed into her cupped hands.
Her hair was a damp mass, the mahogany strands springing loose from their jeweled pins to halo her beautiful face.
Sitting there dazed by her, when he was never bewildered by anyone, Laurence realized he’d been right all along.
Class difference aside, she was enough to match him—and more.
She was, in fact, quite perfect.
Shaken, he waited for Tupper to open the door, not making a move, lest he risk touching her. A drink (or five) was in his future, where he’d make a diligent effort to forget Persephone Lathbury before he stumbled into bed. God knows, she’d haunted him enough.
Tupper caught his eye as he lowered the carriage steps. Laurence shook his head—I’m staying—ignoring his driver’s frown. He was known as a rake, though usually a well-mannered one.
Snatching his escape from him, on the stairs, Persephone turned to grip the doorframe, leaning back into the brougham. Rain pelted the carriage and flowed in tantalizing rivulets down her cheeks, the damp soaking her bodice. She’d grown up very nicely.
Laurence felt a surge of need for a myriad of unreachable things.
“You’ll help me, then?” she asked.
His anger was palpable and immediate, directed mostly at himself. “Do I have a choice?”
Her fingers tightened on the doorframe, knuckles bleeding white. “You always have a choice, Mr. Thorne.”
Meaning he’d had one before and disappointed her that time.
“My turf, not yours,” he growled, crafting rules while he could. Laurence had no doubt she’d take control soon. Also, he wasn’t risking time spent in her home, learning more about her while drowning in the nearness and scent of her.
She exhaled, shoulders dropping in relief. “Just send your coachman ’round for me. I’m without staff, as I mentioned. Until I have a bank account and such. The first venture you may assist with.”
“I can hardly wait,” he murmured, sitting back, signaling an end to the conversation.
What more was there to say? She’d won, hadn’t she? He would help her and thereby create a thousand fresh memories to agonize over.
Before she closed the door, Persephone popped her head into the carriage, her smile blinding. “Until tomorrow, Laurie.”