CHAPTER1
He had just lost more blunt on one week with an earl’s daughter than he had ever spent in his bleeding life. But the need for revenge was a damned cruel mistress, and Hart Sutton was determined to seize vengeance using every means at his disposal. Including the masked woman who had joined him in the Rose Room at The Garden of Flora. A woman who ought to have been gliding through a ballroom at Rivendale’s on the other side of London, holding court as she sipped lemonade and waved her fan.
Instead, Lady Emma Morgan was scantily dressed, her bare feet pale and absurdly elegant, devoid of stockings. Madame Laurent, the bawd who owned and operated the exclusive house of ill repute in which they stood, had dressed Lady Emma in a revealing gown reminiscent of a Grecian goddess. The pale mounds of her breasts were on display, a slit in her gown opening to reveal the luscious curves of her calf and thigh. Her golden curls were unbound, streaming down her back.
He had no doubt that every man in the room where her virginity had just been auctioned off had desired her. But Hart alone would have her. Not because he wanted her or because he was beset by some perverse desire to despoil an innocent.
Rather, it was because of who she was and what she represented.
Lady Emma Morgan would bring him one step closer to finding his missing brother, Logan. Or at least aid Hart in discovering what had happened to him.
“You are staring, sir,” she observed, her dulcet voice soft and hesitant.
For some reason, he had imagined she would speak coldly, with the crisp accent of an aristocrat born to look down her nose at the world around her.
“Can a man not admire that for which he has paid?” he asked curtly, reminding himself that, whatever happened between himself and Lady Emma, he was not meant to find any bit of this business pleasant. “And so dearly, too. Quite a price for one week of a woman’s commodity.”
He was being crude, but he could not afford to show her kindness.
She stiffened, her lashes lowering to veil her thoughts. Although the silk mask she had worn on the dais to guard her features remained to shield her face from him, beneath it, her full, pink lips thinned. No one was meant to know she was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Haldringham. And no one did except Hart and Madame Laurent. Lady Emma’s wicked secret remained safe.
For now.
“Of course you may look your fill,” she said then, her lower lip trembling ever so slightly.
Why did he feel as if he had just kicked a puppy?
She held herself so stiffly, immobile, as if she were fashioned of porcelain rather than flesh. Telling himself he would show her no mercy, he clasped his hands behind his back and paced in a slow circle around her. It was his intention to unnerve her. To harden his conscience against what must be done.
He had a moment to admire the glossy fall of hair down her back and the flare of her hips, lovingly outlined by her gown, before she cast him a curious glance over her shoulder.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.
There was a bit of boldness in her, then. Some bravado. Interesting. But he was the one in control here, not her.
He continued his perambulation, stopping before her again, and decided to ignore her query. “What I do is none of your business. Remove your mask.”
“I…” Her words trailed off, and her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “Madame Laurent assured me I would be entitled to remain anonymous.”
He closed the polite space between them, trying not to notice the scent of jasmine teasing his senses. “You were to remain anonymous for the auction, my dear. Not to the man who owns you, body and soul, for the next sennight.”
The sharp hiss of her intake of breath was his sole gratification. Otherwise, Lady Emma remained stoic and proud.
“You do not own me,” she denied at last. “I fear you have mistaken the manner of auction this was.”
“No.” He flashed her a grim grin. “I haven’t, my dear. But fret not. I very much look forward to spending the next week proving otherwise.”
She swallowed, the only sign of her discomfiture. How poised she was, he thought as he tracked the movement to the hollow at the base of her throat. For a brief, mutton-headed moment, he found himself wondering how silken her creamy skin would be if he pressed his lips there.
“What am I to expect, sir?” she asked next, chasing his thoughts with her continued daring.
As before, he chose not to answer, telling himself the deep and abiding need to see her face without the barrier of her mask was down to his desire to undermine her confidence and nothing else. “The mask. Remove it.”
“And if I do not?”
He could not lie. Her bravery simultaneously pleased and irritated him. Think of Loge, he reminded himself sternly. Of who her father is and what he has done.
“I’ll do it for you,” he snapped, losing his already limited patience.
This was not meant to be an even exchange between them. This was war in its ugliest, cruelest form. Plain and simple. He reached forward, catching the ties on her mask, and undoing them with one hand.
“Please, sir.” She scrambled for it, but her movement was too slow.
Too late.
The scrap of silk fell to the carpets, revealing her face in full.
Floating hell, she was beautiful.