Amelia scoffed. “They say blood is thicker than water. From what I’ve seen of my brother, the only thing that runs in his veins is wine. I have a brother, technically, but I donothave one, if you understand.”
He pursed his lips, nodding thoughtfully. “I understand.”
“Now…” She took a step forward, folding her arms. “Why don’tyoutellmehow you know so much about my family? What connection do youhave to Viscount St. Louis?”
There was a long silence before he responded, long enough for Amelia to think that he wasn’t going to answer her at all. When he did finally speak, there was a rough, strange edge to his voice, as though he were holding back a powerful rush of fury.
“The Viscount once took everything from me,” he murmured. “Everything.”
She frowned. “Your money? I don’t understand.”
“I do not want you to understand. It’s better that you don’t. I didn’t bring you here to pry into my private affairs.”
“No, apparently you brought me here to poke around in my ancestry,” she responded sarcastically.
Anger flashed in his eyes, a pure gleam of green fire. Before she could blink, his fingers had wrapped around her wrist again, hauling her toward him. She bounced off his chest, as before, but this time he did not let her stagger back. The muscles in his arm bulged, straining against the material of his jacket sleeve.
Again, his grip was not bruising. She already knew there’d be no marks where his fingers had pressed into her flesh, but she also could not wriggle free. There was an odd cool warmth to his flesh, not too cold and not too hot, but certainly not clammy, either.
Perhaps the temperature of his skin explained why goosebumps ran across her own skin when he touched her.
“I wondered for a long time how I should get back at him,” he whispered, his voice catching in his throat. “Perhaps if I took his sister, we would be even.”
Amelia’s eyes widened. “You aren’t talking of taking revenge on my father, are you? It’s mybrotheryou hate.”
A slow, vulpine smile cut across his face. This close, she could see flecks of gold in his clear green eyes. She could trace the kink in his nose with her gaze and found herself, shockingly, longing to trace it with her fingertip.
“Clever,” he remarked idly, loosening his grip enough for her to wrench her arm away.
“Hardly,” she shot back. “It’s a simple deduction. I ought to tell you not to make it public that the new Viscount and I are siblings. Perhaps you seek to humiliate him, but you will only succeed in humiliatingus. Men can weather such scandals, you know. As for my sisters and me, he…” She paused, swallowing hard in a last-ditch attempt to compose herself. “He will ruin us, quite frankly.”
Stephen blinked, a faint line appearing between his brows. It was as if he had not expected to hear this.
“Ruin you?” he echoed.
She nodded tightly, fidgeting with her sleeve cuff. The pad of her thumb ghosted over where he had touched her wrist. She could feel her pulse hammering.
What is wrong with me? Why am I reacting this way? I’ve encountered plenty of men before without such a reaction. True, none of them have pulled me around and chased me as hehas, but that should make me like him less, not more.
“And why does your brother want to ruin you?”
She dragged her gaze upward, bewildered, and met his.
“Do you really have to ask? His father had a second family. A woman he considered as a second wife, to say nothing of three daughters. What child would like to knowthatabout their father? I don’t know whether he blamed his father, but I knowhe blames us. He probably wishes us dead at the bottom of the Thames.”
Stephen blinked, biting his lower lip. “Ah.”
“In fact,” Amelia continued, warming to her theme, “he sent me a note the day of Mama’s funeral, informing me that not only had she received her just rewards in this life—that is, dying in poverty, ignominy, and shame—but she would doubtless be punished in the hereafter, too. He added a postscript to remind me that when I burned his letter, as he knew I would, I could think of my mother burning in hell. He is an evil man, and I wish him all the harm in the world. And I am sure that he wishes me just the same.”
Stephen let out a slow breath. “I am sorry to hear that. To say such a thing…” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“It did not rattle me,” Amelia responded, as calmly as she could. “I know my mother is not in hell. She was a wonderful woman and the best mother we could have asked for. We mourn her every day.”
“You are lucky, then,” he said. “You had at least one good parent. Many people are not so lucky.”
She shrugged. “At any rate, you know how much hatred my brother harbors toward us. He’ll make us suffer, I’m sure of it.”
She had not expected his hand to shoot out at that moment. For one awful half-second, Amelia was sure she was about to be struck. Instead, his warm fingers curled around her chin, tilting her face up until she was staring directly into his eyes.
