Chapter 4

A short time earlier…

Fast was getting his knob polished when an ear-piercing scream came from outside his window and almost rendered him a eunuch.

“Bloody hell!” he shouted when the Countess of Mansfield’s otherwise velvet mouth deployed some very un-velvet-like teeth on the head of his cock.

The countess jolted at his yelp, mercifully halting the clenching of her jaws before irreparable damage could be done.

Grimacing, Fast carefully extricated his prick from her mouth.

“Oh, Fast! I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?” Lady Margaret Mansfield caught her full lower lip with the same pearly white teeth that had just been clamped around the most vulnerable part of his body.

Fast examined his rod, which had shrunk with alarming, but prudent, speed when faced with an almost full set of ivories. There were distinct indentations, but no blood.

A sharp rap on the door interrupted his examination. Before he could shout just a moment , the door opened a crack and Gregg, Fast’s closest friend and erstwhile first mate, peered through the gap.

“Sorry to interrupt, my lord, but I heard your shout.” Gregg’s keen gaze slid from the kneeling peeress to Fast’s prick—nothing Gregg hadn’t seen in the past as the two men had whored across half the world together—and lifted an eyebrow. “Er, everything still intact?”

Fast was in no mood for Gregg’s clever tongue. “Get your arse outside and find out what the hell made that noise.”

“Aye, sir.”

The door shut with a snap and Fast turned back to Meg, who reached for his softened cock. “I feel dreadful about what I almost did to you! Please let me—”

He laid a staying hand over hers. “Er, thank you, but I believe we are finished for tonight, love.” He quickly tucked himself into his breeches and then stood and helped the peeress to her feet.

She pushed out her lower lip and pouted up at him. “Are you angry with me?”

“Of course not.” Fast leaned low and claimed her mouth with a deep kiss to demonstrate there were no hard feelings.

When he pulled away, she sighed and gave him a wry look. “You’re going to send me home, aren’t you, you stubborn, gorgeous man?”

“ Mmm-hmm ,” he murmured, kissing her lightly on the nose while sliding his hands beneath the loose robe she wore and cupping her generous breasts. “That I am, love.”

She rubbed a hand over his breeches, cupping his cock, which had bedded down for the night. With her other hand she gestured to the messy four-poster bed, where Fast had spent several pleasurable hours making Meg scream—with pleasure rather than pain—earlier in the evening. “It hardly seems fair that you’ve done all the work tonight and were finally receiving your reward when we were so rudely interrupted.”

“Oh, darling, if you think I don’t enjoy worshipping your delicious body then I must not be doing it right.”

She gave a husky laugh. “If you did it any righter, I would not be able to walk at all, Fast.”

He grinned, released her breasts, and nudged the robe off her shoulders. “You must get dressed. I’m going to have your carriage brought round.”

She grumbled but moved toward the pile of clothing he’d stripped off of her several hours earlier.

While she dressed Fast opened the door that led to a private entrance reserved for this suite of rooms. A maid named Dora dozed in front of the barely glowing fire.

The brothel madam, Mrs. Marlowe, had assured Fast that Dora had been sternly cautioned against gossiping about her master’s secret visitors.

“Dora?”

She opened her eyes and blinked blearily at him. “Yes, my lord?”

“Go have Mrs. Smith’s carriage brought round and then hurry back so you can escort her to it. Quickly now,” he added when she stared woozily at him.

She scrambled from the chair. “Of course, my lord.”

Fast shut the door and turned back to his guest.

“Help me with this,” Meg commanded.

This was her black satin stays, which she’d slipped on over a black silk chemise. Neither of the rather unconventional garments matched the demure gown she’d worn to the brothel, which looked a great deal like the one that Dora wore.

Regardless of the simple gown and cloak, the countess’s regal deportment made a mockery of her humble disguise. Anyone with a particle of sense would know she was a peeress and not a housemaid.

“You shouldn’t come here, Meg. It’s not safe,” he chided as he tightened the laces on her corset.

“I would not get to see you if I didn’t take the risk, Fast. You’re never at your house.”

It was because of Meg—and several other ton ladies who’d decided that Fast was their entertainment this Season—that he had stopped staying at his family’s house on Berkeley Square.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy indulging in affairs with mature, sensual women who knew what they wanted from a lover and didn’t develop any expectations , but he had a great deal to do and only a short time in which to do it. It was difficult to get anything done with a constant parade of well-known society matrons lined up outside his bedroom window.

Of course he could hardly say that to her.

Instead, he said, “These newspapermen have been hounding me night and day since I’ve returned. They are thickest around Grandon House, but there are a goodly number of them sniffing around The King’s Purse, too. Your reputation would be ruined if any of them saw you in this part of the city.”

That was putting it lightly. Meg might be a wealthy widow, but her brother was the Duke of Margrave and a stern stickler for convention.

If Meg embarrassed His Grace by visiting brothels, Margrave was the sort of man who’d exercise his considerable power as her closest male relative and curtail her liberty, demonstrating just how un-free she was—generous jointure, or no.

“Oh, fiddle,” Meg said as Fast helped slip her gown over her head. “You are such a celebrity that having my name linked with yours would likely increase my social credit, Fast.”

He took her shoulders and turned her to face him, staring hard at her beautiful, willful face. “Being seen entering or leaving a brothel will destroy even your sterling reputation, regardless of whether I’m here or not. Don’t come here again, Meg, or you will put me in the unpleasant position of denying you admission.”

She pulled a face. “Oh, very well. I won’t come here. But only if you promise to attend my house party.”

Fast stifled a howl of frustration. This was easily the tenth invitation he’d received to a bloody house party, an activity he had no time for. Even if he did have time, no matter which invitation he accepted, he’d be insulting somebody else if he didn’t accept their offer, as well.

He forced a smile and lied, “I shall consider it.”

“But—”

“Meg.”

Her lids lowered and she shivered. “Oh, I do love it when you employ such a stern, masterful tone. Perhaps I need a spanking to encourage me to obey?” She gave him a hopeful smile.

Fast snorted. “You must go,” he said, draping the plain gray cloak over her shoulders and tying it shut.

He’d just finished when there was a soft knock.

“Yes, come in,” he called out.

The door opened a crack and Dora hovered on the threshold. “The carriage is ready, my lord.”

He turned back to Meg, drew her hood up until only the tip of her nose was visible, and kissed said nose. “Off you go.”

“Think about my party,” she urged, and then hurried from the room.

Fast exhaled heavily once the door closed behind her, his thoughts turning back to the scream and crash. What now?

He pulled a shirt over his head, opened the door to the main corridor, and was just about to shout for Gregg when the door to the servant stairwell opened.

Fast gave a rude laugh at he saw who Barker was cradling in his arms. “Why, look who has come to visit! What a delightful surprise,” he said in a tone indicating the exact opposite was true.

Miss Fontenot pursed her lips and glared, her face the color of a beet.

Fast shook his head; bloody incredible! The woman wasn’t content to savage his tattered reputation in the scandal sheets, her screeching had almost been responsible for the savaging of his cock, as well.

“Where did you find her?” he asked Gregg.

“She’d stacked up enough crates to see in the second-floor window,” Gregg said, and then grinned. “Er, this room’s window, my lord. She’d probably still be out there watching like a hole-and-corner pervert if Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones hadn’t interrupted her ogling.”

“ Pervert ?” Miss Fontenot struggled to sit up in Barker’s arms.

Fast was truly at a loss for words. The utter and complete gall of this woman!

Her green eyes blazed at him. “My lord, I demand—”

“You are in no position to demand anything,” Fast said icily. “Indeed, you will be fortunate if I don’t summon a constable and have you tossed in gaol.” He opened the door to the bedchamber wider and pointed toward the red velvet chaise longue. “Put her down over there, Barker.”

As annoyed as he was with Miss Nosy Fontenot, he couldn’t help enjoying the sight of the disheveled woman in the middle of the whorish room. She was dressed like a nun and the juxtaposition between all the red and gold and her prim, high-necked gown made his cock—which he’d believed too terrified by its recent brush with mutilation—stir.

Lorelei Fontenot might be the human equivalent of a burr in Fast’s arse, but the woman was a beauty. She was a strapping dark-haired, green-eyed lass who possessed the sort of dangerous curves that could lure a man to his doom.

Too bad she was such a prying, lying, relentless harpy.

She clasped her torn bodice closed with one hand and tugged at her tattered skirt with the other. Both gestures were largely ineffectual as he could see the strap of her chemise and more leg than a woman of her class typically exhibited. A remarkably shapely leg it was, too, sheathed in white cotton, the sort of stocking he’d not seen in…

Hell. Fast couldn’t recall when he’d last seen something so demure. His women of choice—generally older, more experienced females—wore undergarments that reflected their sexual sophistication. Frilly, silky things with lots of lace, much like Meg had hidden beneath her maid’s outfit.

Fast hadn’t realized that plain white cotton could be so damned erotic.

“May I please have something to cover myself,” she demanded through gritted teeth.

“No.”

Her plump lips parted in an unwittingly suggestive way that made him harden. While he was grateful to discover that his equipment still functioned, he was annoyed by the source of the stimulation. But then his cock never had possessed any judgement when it came to amorous matters.

“You can go,” he said to Barker and Gregg, both of whom looked ready to settle down and enjoy the entertainment. “Oh, and see that Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones is amply rewarded for his vigilance after you find out why none of my human guards noticed a newspaperwoman scaling the building.”

“Aye, my lord,” Gregg said, not sounding half as cocky as he had only a moment earlier.

Fast waited until the door closed and then crossed the room and took the woman’s chin in his fingers, tilting her face toward his. “Well, Miss Fontenot, alone at last.” He smirked as her green eyes widened at his cavalier treatment. He tipped her head to the side. “You’ve managed to hurt your pretty face. Tsk, tsk, ” he murmured, shaking his head at the scrape and bruise on her lovely cheek. “We’ll need to clean that up.”

She jerked away from his touch and Fast let her go. He dropped into the chair closest to her, amused when her nervous gaze flickered over his shirtsleeves, worn buckskins, and bare calves and feet.

Something about his state of undress must have reminded her of what he’d been doing in this room before her rude interruption. Amusingly, her cheeks flushed a fiery pink as her striking eyes flickered around the room, darting from Fast to the closed door, back to Fast, and then to the bed, and finally back to Fast again.

“I do not like being alone with you, Lord Severn.”

He laughed. “You should have thought about that before you decided to trespass and spy on me.”

“Bringing me here to your lair of depravity is not proper,” she persisted.

“No, darling, it most certainly isn’t.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, bristling like an angry cat. “Since you agree with me, you should let me go.”

“Should I? Because I don’t see it that way. At all.”

Her fetching little chin jutted aggressively. “What way do you see it?”

“You should have thought about the ramifications of your actions before you scaled the walls of my establishment and peered into my bedchamber.” He gestured to the gaudy room around them. “You wanted to look in here so badly. Well, here it is.” He cocked his head. “Tell me, did you see anything that interested you while you were peeping?”

Her skin flushed crimson one moment and then paled just as suddenly, her lush lips pinching into a prunish moue that communicated prim horror as effectively as if she wore a placard around her neck that said: Disapproving Prude .

“I saw enough to tell me that your sobriquet is well-deserved.”

“Oh? And what sobriquet is that, pray? There are so many, you see.”

“None so apt as King of the Rakes .”

Fast gave an appreciative chuckle. “Now there is an ancient cognomen. I’ve not heard it for at least sixteen years.” Once, long ago, the moniker had possessed the power to annoy and even pain him. But now it amused him to hear the old nickname trip off Miss Fontenot’s prim little tongue.

“I don’t know why you look so proud, my lord.”

“No? Do I?” he mocked.

“Although”—she broke off, scrutinizing him with an arch look.

“Although?” he urged.

“I don’t think the name is exactly accurate.”

“Really? And why is that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“A rake is a philanderer, but the female I saw kneeling at your feet and—and servicing you is one of society’s downtrodden wretches. A woman who has absolutely no choice in her depravity. That sort of behavior isn’t rakish, Lord Severn, it is predatory.”

It just so happened that Fast agreed with her assessment. He’d not fucked a whore since his very first time with a woman, when he’d been fourteen.

He could have admitted as much, but Miss Fontenot was a spying, prying, judgmental little scold who’d not earned the right to know his opinions about prostitutes or any other matter.

Besides, teasing her was fun. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d met a person who lunged so enthusiastically for every baited hook he cast out.

“Predatory? Is that so?” he taunted.

Her look of scorn should have burnt the hair off his body. “How like a man to believe that a woman reduced to selling herself to keep body and soul together actually desires one of her abusers and takes pleasure in such debasement.”

He laughed, thinking about the wealthy, sensual woman who’d just been kneeling for him.

Miss Fontenot gave him a look of pure loathing. “I’m so pleased that you find the thought amusing.”

Yet again, he could have easily set her straight. Lady Mansfield was surely one of the wealthiest peeresses in England and was greatly enjoying her widowhood. She wasn’t in any hurry to remarry after she had only just liberated herself from her husband a few years earlier. Fast wasn’t her first or only lover and he knew he wouldn’t be her last.

If either of them was exhibiting predatory behavior, it was Meg, who had no compunction about regaling all her friends with explicit tales of her amorous exploits with Fast.

Fast, on the other hand, was not the sort to kiss and tell.

Had he not respected the countess’s privacy, he could have shared Meg’s identity and wiped the sanctimonious scowl from Miss Fontenot’s face.

But he didn’t have the desire to set Miss Fontenot straight in her misapprehension; largely because it amused him to see the way her eyes spit fire.

“You seem to know a great deal about the subject of servicing men, Miss Fontenot.”

Her lips thinned and her jaw muscles knotted with visible effort. For once, she remained quiet and did not snap for the bait.

Fast smiled at her in a way he knew to be maddening and said, “It seems only fair that since you interrupted my entertainment with my tart ”—he’d have to remember to share that description with Meg the next time he saw her—“that you should make amends.”

Her eyes widened with confusion. “Amends?”

Fast spread his thighs wide and pointed to the floor between his bare feet. “Yes— amends. Kneel for me, open that pretty mouth of yours, and suck—”

“Lord Severn!”

He ignored her gasp of mortification and gestured to the bed a few feet away—he’d seen the way she’d been sneaking nervous glances at it—which was well-mussed from his pleasurable labors with Meg earlier that night. “If you’d rather, we could retire to the bed. You could strip off what remains of that gown, get on your hands and knees, and let me have my rakish way with your delectable body.”

Her eyeballs threatened to roll right out of her head as she gawked at the huge four-poster bed and the sensual red and gold velvet coverlet.

“You are—” her voice broke and she cleared her throat, her pulse fluttering wildly beneath the thin skin of her throat.

“Well?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “What am I, pray?”

Her emotions were as easy to read as a child’s primer and Fast could see the exact moment when she recognized the seriousness of her predicament. She was half-naked, captive in a brothel, and utterly at the mercy of a man she believed to be completely depraved.

“Are you going to—” again she broke off, moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, and opened her mouth.

“Am I going to fuck you?” he asked before she could speak, purposely employing vulgar phrasing.

Her jaw sagged even lower, and her horrified expression was so comical that it was almost painful not to laugh.

“You wouldn’t !”

“Only if you beg me.”

Fast had not believed it possible for her to look even more appalled.

“I—you—how—”

As amusing as her horror was, he decided to have mercy on her. “You needn’t worry, Miss Fontenot: I do not, as a rule, fuck virgins, so you are quite safe here.” When she merely gawked, Fast gave her a look of exaggerated surprise. “Why, Miss Fontenot! Is that disappointment I see on your face?”

The mocking words acted like the prod of a red-hot poker, and she jumped to her feet, forgetting the state of her gown in her outrage. “It most certainly is not disappointment—it is disgust!”

Fast stood and gazed down at her, allowing himself a nice long look at her lush bosom, which was quivering with each labored breath, her ripe breasts threatening to escape her plain white stays.

“Lord Severn!”

“Hmm?” He reluctantly pulled his gaze from her delicious tits and stared into her furious green eyes.

“You—you cannot do this to me!” she sputtered.

“I can’t? Because it seems to me that I can do whatever I wish to you.”

“I—I—”

“You are in this situation thanks to your own reckless behavior, Miss Fontenot. I didn’t force you to sneak onto my property and spy in my window.”

“I demand you release me, my lord. Immediately,” she added, her voice high-pitched but admirably stern.

“No.”

She made a half-yelping, half-snarling sound but appeared to be stricken speechless.

He gestured to the chaise longue. “Sit down, Miss Fontenot.”

She held her ground for at least a minute before giving an irritated huff and dropping gracelessly onto the chaise.

Fast resumed his own seat. “What do you want, Miss Fontenot?”

“I want you to release me!”

“And I want you to tell me why you are following me. Watching me. Bothering me and interrupting my amorous entertainments.”

“I am a newspaperwoman, my lord. I am only doing my job. ”

“And that means you are allowed to invade my privacy?”

“I did not—”

“Why were you spying on me tonight?”

She glared mulishly, her lips tightly compressed.

Fast leaned closer, resting his elbows on his thighs. “If you don’t give me some answers, I will have you thrown in gaol, Miss Fontenot.” He had no intention of doing any such thing, but her reaction to that news—fearful yet rebellious—told him that she believed he would.

And yet instead of capitulating, as he’d expected, she said, “I am not at liberty to say, my lord.”

Fast snorted. “Let me hazard a guess, then. Parker is eager to get revenge after he was forced to print that humiliating retraction last year.”

“Not so much the humiliation as the monetary punishment, which almost drove him out of business,” she conceded, not looking terribly torn up over the matter if Fast was any judge.

“I am delighted to hear that,” he said dryly. “Parker is bloody fortunate that he was not compelled to pay any more than he did.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to say, “As it happens, I agree with you.”

As tempted as he was to ask why she was still working for the scoundrel if that was her opinion of him, he stifled the question and instead said, “And yet even though Parker has been publicly rebuked and financially chastised he is still selling sensationalized accounts of my life to the scandal mongers and generally making my existence a misery.”

Once again her cheeks flushed scarlet—a humorous response from a so-called hardened journalist—and she blurted, “I didn’t have anything to do with that story he published about you and the twin p-prostitutes from Paris.”

“Didn’t you?” he couldn’t resist teasing, amused by her stammering.

“I swear I did not!” Her brow furrowed deeply, and she added, “I do not understand why you did not bring a defamation action against him for that, as well.”

“Because the truth is always a defense to libel, sweetheart.”

“You mean—”

“I mean that being a twin, myself, I’ve always had a fascination with other twins.”

Her jaw sagged and she gaped wordlessly for a moment. “That—that’s—you are revolting.”

It was all Fast could do to keep a straight face. “As much as I’d like to sit here and discuss my sexual proclivities with you, I still am waiting for answers, Miss Fontenot. The fact that you are currently sitting in my boudoir—at my mercy—suggests that Parker is employing you to pry into my affairs.”

“Er, affairs?” she repeated.

He couldn’t help laughing. “If that was meant to sound innocent, you failed spectacularly.”

Her lips quivered slightly at his accusation, but she quickly masked her amusement.

Fast sighed. “What do I have to do to stop your relentless snooping, Miss Fontenot?”

Her expressive eyes suddenly lowered to the V of bare chest that his shirt exposed. More blushing ensued and she seemed to have difficulty looking him in the face.

“Answer me, Miss Fontenot!”

The sharp command jolted her from her fugue, and her eyes lifted to meet his. Rather than look shy or ashamed, she raised her chin and demanded, “Why do you live in a brothel when your family has a perfectly respectable house on Berkeley Square?”

“Why the devil do you deserve to know—or indeed care— where I live?”

She winced at his angry tone but quickly rallied. “I care because it sells newspapers.”

“Oh, is that what those rags are called?”

“Call them whatever you like; that is how I earn my living.”

“I wouldn’t be so proud to admit that if I were you.”

“I don’t care what you’d do if you were me,” she shot back. “Trust me when I say that you do not have a clue as to how you’d go on in life if you were a woman.” She gave the room around her a scathing glance. “Do you think that you would enjoy earning your crust on your back—or your knees—like the women you employ? Do you really believe they like servicing you and your associates?”

“I find it fascinating that you can’t seem to stop talking about me and the women who service me, Miss Fontenot.”

Again, her cheeks darkened, but she ignored his taunt. “Why are you staying so close to the waterfront? What sort of activities require a lord’s presence at a brothel?”

“Why is Parker hounding me?” he countered. “I’ve been gone for more than a decade and a half. I am old, stale news. Is there nobody else in England on which he can focus his salacious imaginings?”

“I’m not at liberty to—”

“Bollocks!” he shouted, any amusement he’d been feeling vanishing. “What does he want from me, Miss Fontenot? Tell me now, or you will join Parker on my list of people who’ve sorely displeased me. That list is a short one, by the way, so I will have plenty of time to devote to making you very, very sorry you ever met me.”

***

The room rang with Lord Severn’s threat, making Lori accept that the man across from her had been prodded beyond endurance.

So much for his reputation as a cold, emotionless rake. Something told her that the rage he was now exhibiting so openly was not new, but something that always simmered just below the surface of his civilized facade.

Given his occupation these past sixteen years—that of privateer—Lord Severn should have brought to mind a pirate. Instead, Lori visualized him sheathed head to toe in metal and mounted on a giant black charger. A warrior knight from a bygone era: implacable, relentless, and unstoppable.

And—right now—furious. At her.

Lori moistened her dry lips as she contemplated what to say. What could it hurt to tell him the truth? At least some of it.

David would not agree!

That was true, but Lori wasn’t sure she agreed with all David Parker’s actions, either.

She cleared her throat and said, “Mr. Parker received an anonymous letter indicating that your brother didn’t k-kill himself.” The last words were scarcely a whisper as Lord Severn’s huge hands fisted at his sides. If she’d thought him angry before she had been sorely mistaken. The very air around them crackled, like the atmosphere during an electrical storm, causing the small hairs on her arms and neck to stand on end.

He dropped his voice so low that she could barely hear it. “Are you actually admitting to poking your nose into my dead brother’s suicide?”

Well, when he put it in those words, it did sound rather appalling.

And cruel.

All the moisture drained from her mouth at the danger glittering in his eyes, which seemed to have lost any hint of blue and were the steely gray of a winter sky.

“Peop—” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “People deserve to know the truth.” Even to her own ears it was a pathetic excuse, so she wasn’t surprised when he gave a disbelieving snort. “And you should want to know it too,” she added desperately. “If somebody was responsible for his demise then they should be brought to justice.”

“You are spying on me in a whorehouse because you want justice ?”

Lori’s face flamed at his derisive laughter—which she most certainly deserved—and she recoiled from his obvious abhorrence.

“You don’t give a damn about justice. You just want to rake up the muck and see what shit floats to the surface. You just want to sell newspapers.”

“No—that’s not true,” she said, almost as horrified by his vulgarity as she was by his accusation.

“It might not be true for you—although I have my doubts on that—but I know it’s true for Parker. The bastard hated me before I slapped him with that defamation suit and he hates me even more after I won.” He stood and closed the short distance between his chair and the chaise with one stride, towering over her.

Lori craned her neck and stared up at him. She wanted to stand but he’d not left enough room to ensure she could do so without their bodies touching.

He pointed a finger at her. “I told you at Avington’s betrothal ball—when you had the temerity to accuse me of stealing and selling children into prostitution—that I would not tolerate any more of your prying.” He cocked his head. “Or did I dream that conversation with you, Miss Fontenot?”

Lori scooted back on the chaise, away from him, or at least she tried to, but there was nowhere to go. “Um, no, we—”

“I understand you were once an English teacher?”

She blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Er, ye—”

“Did I use any words you didn’t understand? Do you need me to define any of them for you?”

His condescending sneer ignited her anger and Lori pushed to her feet, not caring about their proximity.

At least she didn’t care until her breasts pressed against his impossibly hard chest and she had to bend her neck to an even more uncomfortable angle to hold his gaze.

“I understood what you were saying perfectly well, my lord. Perhaps it is you who do not understand?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that so? Why don’t you explain matters to me.”

“Just because you give an order does not mean everyone must obey it. Let me make my point clearer”—she poked him in the chest with her index finger, earning a disbelieving scowl and a sore finger for her effort. “I am not one of your dependents who is obliged to grovel and leap to do your bidding. And I am not a—a whore or a servant in one of your grand houses. I pay my own way in this world, and I do not answer to any man.”

“Except Parker, it would seem.”

Lori ground her teeth at the accusation, which was truer than she would like. “He is my employer , my lord. When a person works for their crust, they invariable must obey somebody. Of course you wouldn’t know anything about that,” she couldn’t resist adding.

His lips twisted into a truly malevolent smile. “You should have considered what I said at Avington’s ball more in the way of a warning, rather than an order, Miss Fontenot.”

“Well, fine then. Consider me warned.” She crossed her arms over her chest. She had hoped the gesture, which caused her elbows and forearms to shove against his hard-as-iron torso, would make him step back. But he didn’t budge so much as a hair.

He nodded slowly, menacingly. “Fair enough, Miss Fontenot; I consider you warned. You share lodgings with Lady Winifred Sedgewick?”

She frowned. “Why? What has that to do with this?”

His smile widened, until he seemed to have twice as many teeth as other people, and then he turned and strode toward the bed.

“What are you doing?” she demanded shrilly.

And then felt like a fool when he merely pulled the velvet servant cord hanging beside the bed. His sardonic expression made her face scald. “More wishful thinking?” he taunted. Before she could answer, he said, “You will wait here, and Mr. Gregg will take you home.”

“I don’t need his escort. If you just—”

“Don’t come back here, Miss Fontenot.” He opened a door that had been made to look like part of the wall paneling and closed it soundlessly behind him.

Lori’s ears buzzed in the sudden silence, her thoughts as torn and tattered as her gown.

What had just happened?

And exactly what did he mean by asking where she lived?