“—from Dewhurst,” wafted up an unfamiliar feminine voice.
“What is the message?” Corvindale replied, his words rising clearly.
Maia crept back across the landing and started down the next flight, aware her feet would be in view of whomever was in the foyer should they look up.Don’t look up.
“He bids you come retrieve the girl,” said the woman, who was obviously the messenger. “From Black Maude’s.”
Corvindale’s curse was sharp and vulgar. “She’s at Black Maude’s?”
Maia saw the top of his head as he whirled and started off, presumably back down the corridor in preparation for leaving.
“Wait!” Maia said, surging faster down the steps.
He turned up his face and their eyes caught as she hurried down, and for a moment, Maia felt the breath knocked out of her.It was him.
No, impossible. She forced herself to breathe, to pull her attention from his glittering dark eyes. He was dressed in a white shirt that sagged and a loose neckcloth, as usual.
“Miss Woodmore,” he said, but his voice wasn’t nearly as cold as it usually was. “I presume you heard the conversation.”
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“No,” he began, but she interrupted.
“Yes. She’s my sister. She might need me. Who knows…” Her voice threatened to break, a combination of desperation and fear weakening it. “Who knows what he’s done to her.”
Corvindale held her gaze for much too long and then snapped, “You have three minutes to dress yourself appropriately.” He turned away and stalked off.
Maia looked down, having momentarily forgotten her state of dishabille, and realized the moonlight streaming over her had highlighted the flimsy fabric of her summer night rail and her bare feet.
Three minutes wasn’t nearly enough time, but she would manage it. She had no doubt that Corvindale would leave without her.
Dimitri hadn’t expectedthe ever-proper Miss Woodmore to meet his deadline, so he was surprised and annoyed when, precisely three minutes later, she came tearing down the stairs. That was the thing about her. She was constantly surprising him with her stubbornness and, much as he hated to admit it, her wit. Even when he became his most earlish, she didn’t back down.
A quick glance told him that she actuallycarriedher shoes, and that some loose cloak-like garment was draped over a frock that he suspected wasn’t completely done up, for Luce’s sake, and he had a moment of serious regret.
If he’d given her a bit more time, she might not have presented herself partially clothed. Although whatever she’d donned would be an improvement over the transparent pink thing she’d been wearing earlier.
Which he wouldnotthink about.
Without a word, he gestured for her to precede him out the side door, where his footman was waiting with the landau. He’d chosen to be driven in the closed carriage rather than to drive himself for a variety of reasons—the least of which was the benefit of having another set of male hands if assistance was needed to procure Angelica—but now as he climbed into the very small, close space with Miss Woodmore and they started off, he regretted that decision. He should have had Iliana join them, for she was nearly as welcome a set of hands as a man. As well, she wielded a stake rather well for a mortal woman.
His companion, a very different sort of mortal woman than Iliana, but no less stubborn or intent, was busy putting her shoes on. The cloak had slipped from her shoulders confirming that, yes indeed, her dress sagged because it wasn’t properly done up in the back. From what he knew of current fashion, it was unlikely she’d had the time or ability to even pull on a corset, andthatwas not a comforting thought.
Dimitri settled into his seat across from her and focused his eyes anywhere butthere.
The aversion of his gaze didn’t help matters much, for in such an enclosed space the blasted woman’s presence was not to be ignored. The essence of a spice like cardamom, or perhaps something even more exotic, mingled with some sweet floral like lily of the valley, along with female musk and the crisp, clean cotton of her frock, creating that potency he found impossible to dismiss. How in the bloody hell could a woman smell like a damned spice cabinet and a garden and still be so enticing?
Either slumber or her hurried dressing had mussed up her hair so flyaway strands sprung from the braid that hung over one shoulder.
One ivory-blue shoulder, bared and pristine.
Elegantly curved. Brushed with a swath of moon, and then shadow, and then streetlight with the motion of the carriage.
Dimitri jerked his gaze away. He swallowed hard, felt the throbbing of his gums as he tried to keep his fangs sheathed and the rest of him from stirring. Satan’s black bones, he was as bad as a green boy with his first whore.
Pressing himself back against the seat squab, he angled his left shoulder so the hard edge of the cushion frame dug into the throbbing, painful Mark on his skin, adding to the constant agony with which he lived. The deep, sharp response was a welcome distraction.
Yet…his thoughts would not be suppressed so easily. It would be nothing to reach across and close his hands over smooth, fine skin. Lower his face to hers again, taste her lips again, fill his hands with soft, silky flesh.Heaven.His nostrils flared automatically as she moved, sending a renewed waft of her scent into him and her gown shifting tauntingly.
