She tightened her hands into fists at her side. It ends tonight. She would know the hand behind the scheme—the shadow who held her family in its grip. Basil had grown ever more withdrawn, his temper unpredictable. Guilt had hallowed his eyes or perhaps it was fear or some dreadful combination of the two. He would never to confide in her. He didn’t even know she knew something of the truth. Her brother was in danger of ruin unless she stopped it herself. The fool clearly was not capable of doing it himself.
She would stop it. She must. If only her thoughts did not insist on straying to him—Leander.
The very name unsettled her composure.
Leander Ashby, the Duke of Lionston—soldier, scoundrel, childhood friend, and now an inconvenient determined presence in her life. She had hoped—truly, fervently hoped—that he would not attend the ball.
She was not meant to be that fortunate.
He would come—the acceptance of his invitation had been received. He always did whenever fate—or some devilish mischief—placed an obstacle in her path. And he would watch her with those fathomless green eyes, as though he could see past every mask she wore. As though he still had the right. Sabrina drew a sharp breath and moved toward a footman arranging candles along the wall. “Those must be placed evenly,” she instructed. “A crooked taper invites disaster.”
The footman bowed and hurried to obey.
Disaster. Yes, she was well acquainted with that. Leander’s presence alone would be enough to unravel her tonight, of all nights. For he had a way—a maddening, skillful way—of catching her off guard—of reading the thoughts she guarded most fiercely. And when he called her Sabella…
Her heart did something traitorous and soft within her chest.
No. She would not allow that. She would not allow him.
Her life would be infinitely simpler if he had stayed away—as he had for years, fighting in the war, far removed from her heart, her home, her troubles. What cruel twist of fate had brought him back into her orbit now, when she could least afford distraction?
He suspects.
She felt it. In the way he looked at her. In the quiet, piercing questions he dared to ask. Leander was no fool. A man did not survive the battlefield by ignoring danger. And somehow, he sensed it clinging to her, no matter how carefully she tried to shield him from it.
“Lady Sabrina?” A maid curtsied before her, worry tugging her mouth. “Shall we begin arranging the musicians’ platform?” Sabrina nodded, though her mind was elsewhere—pulled in two directions at once. Duty and danger in one hand… and in the other, the man she could not seem to banish from her thoughts.
The man determined, for reasons she could not fathom, to force his way back into her life. Why, Leander? Why now, when she had no strength to spare for old wounds? For old memories? For the tender, impossible ache he stirred in her heart?
She straightened her shoulders with renewed resolve. Tonight she would uncover the truth. She would protect her brother. She would not—could not—allow the Duke of Lionston to derail her. No matter how gently he spoke her name. No matter how fiercely her heart remembered. No matter how dangerous it felt to want him near.
She had one goal to see to its end, and Leander had no place in those plans. Sabrina would do her very best to pretend he did not exist. Her future, her brother’s life, and her family’s reputation depended upon it…
Seven
The strains of a quadrille drifted through the open doors of the ballroom, ribbons of music spiraling upward toward the glittering chandeliers. Sabrina Fairchild stood at the edge of the floor, pretending to study the dancers while her attention remained fixed—pointedly, unwaveringly—upon her brother.
Basil had not danced once. Not so much as a reel. Instead, he had paced, lingered, and surveyed the room with a tension that only a sister who’d known him all her life could recognize. Something troubled him. Something continued to trouble him. And Sabrina had had quite enough of being told to let it be.
Her spine straightened when he slipped from the ballroom—quietly, without ceremony, as though hoping no one would notice.
But she did.
Sabrina gathered her skirts and followed, keeping a careful distance as she slipped into the dim corridor beyond the ballroom. The hum of conversation dulled behind her, replaced by the low flicker of sconces and the faint echo of footsteps—his.
She pressed herself behind a marble statue as Basil paused near the far end of the hall. Her breath caught. He was not alone. A woman stepped out of the shadows to greet him. A woman Sabrina had never seen before.
There was something undeniably enchanting about the woman with Basil. Though it was difficult to say whether it lay in her beauty or in the mystery that cloaked her. She was tall and willowy, and she seemed to carry herself with a serene elegance. Her hair was a lustrous shade of raven black that was gathered in an intricate coil that showcased the graceful line of her neck. Her eyes were a deep twilight blue and so expressive. There was something in her gaze that suggested that she possessed secrets she would never willingly share. There was a seductiveness to her smile that seemed to sway Basil toward her. The woman was wrapped in midnight-blue silk that shimmered even in the weak corridor light the exact shade of her eyes. When she spoke—a soft, lilting French accent echoed around the corridor.
“Basile,” the woman murmured, resting her gloved hand on his sleeve with unsettling familiarity. “You must calm yourself.”
Sabrina nearly fell from her hiding place. Who was this woman and why was her brother meeting with her? Was she the reason that made it possible for Basil to be blackmailed? What did she know and how did it pertain to England and her brother. There had to be a connection. She just did not know what it was—yet.
Her brother stiffened. “How can I, when the situation is worsening? I should never have allowed it to go this far.”
The woman shook her head with gentle certainty. “Non. You fret over shadows. I assure you—there is nothing to fear. Nothing will come of it.”
Nothing to fear? Nothing to come of it? What the bloody hell was going on here? Sabrina’s blood ran cold. This woman—this stranger—was not the person who had been blackmailing her brother. She could tell as much from his tone there was no desperate edge to his voice. No, with her he seemed almost—besotted. No, this was something else entirely. Another secret. Another lie. This woman was his downfall—her family’s ruin. She knew it but she could not prove it. Not yet. But her instincts had never failed her before, and she did not doubt them now.
