Chapter 1
Maidenhead, England, November 1761
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.
