His voice dripped with undisguised suspicion.
She glanced back over her shoulder.Howhad he discovered her surname was false? Or—she narrowed her eyes—was he just guessing?
“Why would I lie about my name?” she asked.
“Why, indeed.” He lifted a brow, not in the least cowed nor convinced by her insouciance. “I was merely making sure I remembered correctly.”
She smiled, briefly and innocently. “Allow me to reassure you…your memory is sound.” She tilted her head in a pitying manner. “My father had trouble remembering things in his later years, too.”
Without waiting to see his reaction, she returned her gaze to the door and quickened her pace.
Obviously, all was not going to be well.
She could carefully advance across this checkered board while employing every ounce of competence and skill she possessed andstillfind herself ruthlessly knocked aside. This man wasn’t a pawn. He wasn’t even a rook, a knight, or a king.
This man wasthe player.
And his presence challenged everything.
ChapterTwo
Aresonant hum droning in Hurtheven’s mind spread outward from his shoulders until even his toes prickled. He’d wanted challenge. Challenge had obligingly answered his call. He cleared his mind with a forceful headshake.
How long had he been standing there, staring at the closed door? One minute? Two?
Double damnation.
What waswrongwith him today?
He’d bungled the dates of Ash’s party. He’d ruminated on parts of his past best forgotten. He’d reacted to Pen—initially, anyway—as strongly as ever.
Excessivedread—and then anger bordering on rage—had seized him when he’d caught sight of Fee’s slight form wandering alone in a hedge, reminding him of the way he’d been found after his parents’ accident. And now, a single, over-the-shoulder glance from his godchildren’s nursemaid—accompanied by a scathing bit of mockery—had rendered him mute.
And, if he were to be honest, electrified.
Utter madness.His journey had ended.Breathe. His reaction to Pen had tempered as they’d spoken.Breathe. Fee was safe.Breathe.And insubstantial memories could not harm him.
As for the nursemaid...
He frowned down at the mud bubbling up around his boots before slogging over to the kitchen steps. Which onlyhappenedto be in the directionshe’dgone.
...Impertinent little minx.
Then again,littlewas hardly an apt description of the woman. She’d been tall. And, though not in the first flush of youth, far younger than he’d expected.
How young had she been?
Well, younger than himself, certainly. Which, devil take it, wasn’t as uncommon as it used to be. He braced himself against the kitchen doorframe and scraped his sole across a bar fastened to the walkway. Leather rasped against metal as the damp gravel peeled away in thick, ugly clumps.
So, the nursemaid was tall, and youthful, and—oh, very well—comely. With a scandalously tucked up skirt and a clear, perceptive, deeply distrustful, blue gaze. And one, temptingly errant, red curl.
He sighed.
One,molten lavacurl, spiraling out from beneath the confines of her hideous cap, left to waft lightly against her skin. Skin raised with gooseflesh and marred by a blush of heightened awareness. Awareness—was saying so self-flattery?—of him.
Anticipatory heat quickened ominously downward, exactly as it had when?—
Good God, no.
