“And I have made certain Sundenbury has been safe, have I not?” He cocked his head, surveying her, his eyes sweeping over her form in a way that made her feel uneasy and scorching hot all at once.
Her brother was safe. Adele, however, was not. She had never been more certain of that than she was now. There was no one here to save her. Oh, she could raise a cry and Mr. Devereaux Winter, not far, would rush to her aid. But nothing stopped a man like Dominic Winter from getting what he wanted.
“I paid dearly for it,” she countered. “I owe you nothing now, Mr. Winter.”
“Once, you called me Dom,” he reminded her, his perusal taking on a far more sensual quality. “You moaned it, in fact. While you were in my bed. Do you remember?”
Her ears went hot. She was flushed, from head to toe. Of course she remembered. She had thought of nothing else since. The memory of his touch haunted her. She longed for him. Ached for him. But she was no fool. There could be no future between Lady Adele Saltisford and London’s most dangerous crime lord.
“You are vulgar, sir, and I need not subject myself to more of your taunts.” She moved to leave, but he stayed her, catching her elbow in a firm grasp.
“I can be much more vulgar than this, love.”
His voice was laden with dark promise and wicked intent.
The same part of her that had been drawn to him before burst into flame. Adele wanted to kiss him and run from him, all at once.
“Did you truly journey to Oxfordshire in the midst of winter to take me to task for misleading you?” she demanded, cursing herself for the breathlessness in her voice.
For her reaction to him, the awareness flaring to life like a slow and steady flame bound to consume her. Why had she ever believed she could bargain with a man like Dominic Winter?
* * *
Two long months of scouring London to find her. An equal amount of time spent ensuring his plan would succeed. One treacherous journey to the country. An unpleasant interview with his arsehole of a half brother. It had all led Dom to this moment. Victory would soon be his, in more than one sense. The first was here and now; the second would come later.
Lady Adele Saltisford was close enough to touch.
Her scent wrapped around him. Her lips tempted him.Soon, he promised himself.Cling to your anger. Show her what happens when you make a fool of Dominic Winter.
“Of course I did not come all this way to take you to task.” He could not resist reaching out and touching her.
Just a skim of his bare fingers on her jaw. The contact between them gave him the same rare jolt it had two months ago.
Curse her.
“I am here because your brother has once again been plagued with ill luck at the tables,” he drawled. Never mind that he had made certain of it. She was not the only one who excelled at keeping secrets. “He is in a great deal of debt, and his safety is in jeopardy.”
She went pale. “How much debt?”
“Twenty thousand pounds.”
“I cannot repay you as I did before,” she rushed to say. “I should never have done so then.”
“I did not ask for your services now did I, Duchess?” He was being cruel and he knew it. But a man who had mercy on the streets was a man who had nothing. “Before you deny me, mayhap you want to hear the cost.”
“There can be no cost.” She stepped away from him, severing their connection at last. “I have nothing left to say to you, Mr. Winter.”
The hell she did not.
They had only just begun, Dominic Winter and Lady Adele Saltisford.
Dom chased her, catching her elbow once more and staying her when she would have fled the room. “A handsome cove, your brother. Do you think the ladies will still fancy him if he has but one eye instead of two? Or one hand? Fingers are easily broken or cut off. Toes, now those are a deuced thorny proposition. Cut off the wrong one, and a man loses his balance forever. Left Leg Louis has never been the same since it happened to him, not even after the cobbler fixed him special crabshells.”
Her eyes widened. “Crabshells?”
“Shoes, Duchess.” He flashed her a slow, grim smile. The one he gave to the men who betrayed him just before he ground them to dust beneath his boot heel.
“Y-you would not do my brother such violence,” she protested. “You would be arrested.”
