“No. Not quite the same, after all.” He released her chin to trail his fingertips down her cheek. His touch was gentle, deceptively so, for his words were cruel. “Beautiful still, of course, but I find myself curiously unmoved, Lady Hadley.”
He waited for another flash of temper in her eyes, but she might have been a marble statue or a porcelain doll, for not a ripple of emotion disturbed her blank face. “Ah, well. It’s for the best, I suppose. It didn’t end well for me when my face did move you, did it, Captain West?”
His hand dropped away from her cheek. “Have you rewritten our history, my lady? As I recall it didn’t end well for either of us—”
“Charlotte!” A loud thump at the door made them both jump. “Are you in there?”
“Hush, Aurelie!” another voice hissed. “Or you’ll have dozens of whores and their bare-arsed lords out here with us.”
Someone rattled the handle, but the door remained firmly shut. “That devil has her locked in there with him!”
Another thump, this one followed by an incredulous laugh. “Lissie! Do you intend to knock down the door with your slipper?”
“I suppose you have a better idea, Annabel?” This question was accompanied by another dull slap on the door, then a shockingly unladylike curse.
“Well, yes. We’ll have Charlotte let us in.”
“But that devil must have restrained her,” wailed the first lady, “or she’d have answered our knock by now! He likely has her secured to a chair, or worse, to the bed!”
There was a brief pause, then a smothered laugh. “That could be worse or better, depending on what he looks like. Did either of you see him?”
“That isnotamusing, Annabel. Charlotte! Can you hear us? Maybe he has her gagged.”
Julian raised an eyebrow.Gagged?
“Hush!” snapped the one called Annabel. “I think it far more likely we have the wrong room.”
“But the blond-haired doxy said it was the last door on the left.”
Thud. This time the door shuddered in its frame. The one wielding the slipper—Lissie—must have exchanged her shoe for her fist. “She must have lied. No doubt he paid her well to do so. Aurelie, go back down and give her a guinea.”
There was another pause, then, “Oh, dear. I don’t have a guinea. Do you suppose she’ll take a crown and a half-smoked cheroot, instead?”
“What’s a whore going to do with a half-smoked cheroot, for heaven’s sake?”
“I don’t know. Smoke the other half?”
Julian retrieved his cravat from the floor and looped it around his neck. “You’d better let your friends in.” He plucked his waistcoat from the bench at the end of the bed and withdrew the key from his pocket. “Quickly, before they tear down the door.”
He handed Charlotte the key, donned his waistcoat, snatched his coat up from the bench and braced himself for the inevitable uproar as all three ladies tumbled into the room at once.
“Charlotte! Oh,dieu merci!” The petite blonde rushed forward and clasped Charlotte in her arms. “We thought you were right behind us earlier! We would have missed you sooner, but when we got outside Lord Devon was waiting for us, and what do you think? The wicked man tried to argue we hadn’t won the wager because Lissie didn’t smoke her cheroot, and—”
“I bloody well did smoke it! Let Devon sniff my breath if he doesn’t believe me.”
The tall, slender blonde closed the door behind them, strolled into the room, and stopped in front of Julian. “Shall we discuss it later? I’d like to be introduced to this, ah, gentleman first.”
The redhead, Lissie, placed her hands on her hips. “Right. Who the bloody hell areyou?”
Julian shrugged and began to button his waistcoat. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m the devil who locked the door, secured Lady Hadley to the bed, and gagged her.”
“Iknewit!” Aurelie crowed.
Charlotte glared at him, then turned to Aurelie. “For goodness’ sake. You can see for yourselves that’snotwhat happened.”
The taller blonde continued to eye Julian. “I see. Was yours a random attack, sir, or do you often force your attentions on unwilling ladies?”
“Ladies?” Julian gave her a bland smile. “Need I remind you you’re in a brothel? Generally speaking, whores are willing to receive a gentleman’s attentions.”
