And his face…A wave of warmth caressed her from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Long dark lashes brushed over brilliant green eyes. Eyes that most women would kill for. But no woman would call him pretty. His cheekbones were too stark. His jaw too strong.
A compelling face, arresting,sensual. He had a masculine beauty that was nearly otherworldly.
But there was a cynical bend to his left brow. A tilt to his head. A jaded expression that said he knew the exact reaction his looks provoked.
One dark brow rose higher.
She blinked, heat suffusing her as she realized she’d been blatantly staring.
“I need to speak with Mr. Noble. Please. I know it is late, but…”
Women likely threw themselves at this man’s feet every day, but that didn’t cure her embarrassment nor assuage her desperation. Unless he could charm the guards into releasing Kenny, or stop the mobs from tearing anyone associated with him apart, this man’s beauty would do her little good.
Unreadable green eyes surveyed her. She met his stare, forcing the heat from her cheeks. She would not back down. Noble was her last resort. Her last bastion. The one sliver of hope she had left.
He gestured with his arm and pivoted, striding down the hall, the prized card that had gained her entrance loosely clasped between two of his fingers. She hesitated for half a second, then followed.
He led her into a dimly lit study. A fire crackled in the hearth. Papers littered a deep mahogany desk, piles of books and documents stacked haphazardly across the surface. He flicked the card onto the desk, and it was instantly swallowed.
He pointed to a chair and then disappeared back into the hall without another word spoken.
She tentatively perched at the edge of the burgundy chair. Perhaps the man was a relation? An odd valet? The cut of his clothes was fine, even in dishabille, but his mannerisms were reminiscent of a butler. How he pointed to her chair, the motion to follow from the hall. The way he walked, as if attempting to blend into his surroundings, andalmostsucceeding. A task of Sisyphean proportions. Not with that face. Not with the way he filled his clothes or held himself.
The beautiful man strode back through the door, grabbed a tome from one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and rounded the desk. The book thumped onto the tottering stack.Debrett’s Peerage. He dropped into the large chocolate leather chair and leaned back, drumming his fingers on the only uncovered portion of mahogany.
“Now, what is it you need so desperately that you had to appear at such an hour, Miss…?”
She was speechless for a moment. “I need to speak with Mr. Noble.”
“Then congratulations, you have achieved your purpose. Shall I see you to the door?” He motioned behind her, his eyes piercing. His body was languid in the chair, belying his expression and the tilt of his dark head. Commanding, yet dissolute.
Her shoulders tightened. “You are Mr. Noble?”
“I am.”
Her breath caught at the formal admission and expression in his sharp, abnormally vivid green eyes. The mannerisms he had displayed before seemed ludicrous all of a sudden—an impulsive flight of fancy on her part. The man seated in front of her looked as ruthless and capable as she’d been told.
Something in her rebelled. “But you answered the door. And your dress.” She waved a hand at his simple white shirt, loose and slightly rumpled above black trousers.
His brow rose and he picked up a half coiled piece of wire and began winding it around his finger. “It’s the dead of night. My butler, and two of my footmen, are out on a task for me. If we are making assumptions…”
His eyes passed over her mussed hair, which had long since escaped its pins, to her clutched hands and battered reticule, down to the mud-stained hem of her dress. “You look as if you are two steps from being a washerwoman, yet your bearing speaks otherwise. You hold your head as if you possess breeding. Not that a member of the—” He gave her another once over. “—gentry, is it?—would be afforded more goodwill from me than a washerwoman. I’ve often found the opposite to be true. A washerwoman earns her place in this world, after all.”
She had a sudden fierce desire to show him what she could do with theearnedpistol hidden in her torn dress pocket.
“How did you come across this card?” He plucked it from the mess, twirling it negligently between his fore and middle fingers. “Rockwood’s card. One would assume he gave it to you.”
“How did you…?” There had been no identifying marks on the card. Nothing to say Rockwood had possessed it. It had simply said mr. noble in a gilded but plain script.
“What is your name?” he asked, instead of answering.
His eyes held a vast well of impatience, but there was a hint of something else there that gave her the slightest bit of hope. Curiosity.
She cleared her throat. She wanted to hold onto that slice of hope. She didn’t want to give him her name. The dried spit on her hem and scrubbed tomato splotches on her back and knees were reminders of what happened when she did.
“Marietta Winters.”
His eyes narrowed and the tips of his fingers whitened around the card. “I see. And what, Miss Winters, are you doing inside of my study at this hour?”
