She drew her shoulders up and skewered him with a glare. “What business is it of yours?”
“You made me a promise, and you didn’t keep it,” he said mildly.
“I made you no promise! Youassumedthat you could order me about,” she snapped. “Now kindly make yourself scarce as I am expecting someone—”
“Daltry’s not coming.”
“How would you know?” She blinked. “What do you mean he’s not coming?”
“He’s having some problems with his carriage, I’m afraid.”
Suspicions collided like carts on Covent Garden market day, words scattering from her.
“Did yousabotageDaltry’s vehicle? That guard back there,” she cried in outrage, “he’s not even an employee of the Pantheon, is he? You set this all up!”
The stranger regarded her. “The man is a guard, actually. I bribed him.”
“Of all thenerve.” She marched up to him, jabbed a gloved finger at his chest. “For the last time: who in blazes are you, and why do you insist on ruining my future?”
“I told you: I’m a friend. My sole purpose is to protect you.” His dark gaze was steady, mesmerizing in its intensity. “Daltry will cause you pain, my dear.”
“He is an earl, possessed of one of the oldest titles in the peerage,” she said acidly. “I’ll take the torture, thank you very much.”
“He has three by-blows. By three different mistresses. None of whom—mother or child—he treats with any degree of responsibility.”
The revelations were made more shocking by the emotionless tone in which they’d been uttered. Ruthlessly, Rosie pushed them aside to deal with later.
“It’s easy to talk about a man’s sins when he’s not present,” she scoffed.
“If you don’t believe me, ask your mama. Or your father. He’s an investigator, isn’t he? I’m sure he can have the information verified.”
“I’m not going to discuss Daltry’s by-blows—allegedby-blows, I mean—with my parents!”
“Don’t you think they’d want to know the character of their potential son-in-law?”
Thelastthing Rosie wanted was to place Daltry beneath the parental magnifying glass. Mama already thought he was aroué. Papa always agreed with Mama.
Switching tactics, she said, “If you’re a friend, why won’t you reveal your identity?”
Shadows ghosted through his eyes. “Because you shouldn’t know a man like me.” His jaw tightened. “And you wouldn’t have to, if you would only behave.”
Behave?Her head jerked at the insult. “I am not a witless child, sir, to be ordered about!”
“To the contrary, discipline is what you need. You’ve been given too much latitude, which has resulted in you running about pell-mell, courting disaster at every turn,” he said grimly. “A young lady’s reputation is her most precious and irreplaceable commodity, Miss Kent, and you are dangerously close to losing yours.”
His words struck with the precision of a sniper’s bullet, hitting the bull’s-eye of all her failures. In a single stroke, he shattered her defenses, her pretty composure cracking like porcelain, shards slicing into her heart. Her wicked, ugly self was bared, and it snarled, fighting back against the exposing light.
“How dare you speak to me that way? Idespiseyou.” She raised her fists.
He caught them. Panting, she struggled to free herself, but she was trapped by his superior strength. She fought and fought and still his hold on her wrists didn’t budge. As her energy sapped, something else began to flow in its place. Something dark and terrifying, as if she’d been walking on the edge of a dormant volcano, and it was suddenly rumbling to life.
To her horror, humid heat surged against the back of her eyes.
She hadn’t cried in ages. Not when she’d discovered that yet another gentleman had been dallying with her, not even when that literary “masterpiece” about her had been published for the world to see. Now, tears leaked down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.
His arms enveloped her, the comfort so absolute that she had no choice but to surrender. To bury her face into his solid strength. To allow her disappointments and humiliations to soak into the spice-tinged wool of his jacket.
After the jag ended, she felt lighter—but perhaps that was because she was no longer wearing her bonnet. It had tumbled to the ground, the sight of the scattered cherries bringing her back to reality. What had just happened? Why had she abandoned herself in the arms of a stranger—andthisstranger, no less?
