“On a first name basis, are we?” Gray eyes holding a glint of amusement, Sterling lowered his arms and took a casual sip of ale. “I thought you didn’t fancy her.”
“I don’t,” Kincaid said shortly. “But that doesn’t mean you get to.”
As far as he was concerned, no one did. Joanna wasn’t his. He didn’t claim her. He didn’t want her. But neither could anyone else have her. If they tried, he’d kill them. Including Sterling. It was as simple—and bloody complicated—as that.
Scowling, he reached for his ale. Only to grunt in annoyance when he realized he’d already finished it off.
“Here,” Sterling said, sliding his tankard across the table. “Have mine, although I don’t know how you drink the stuff. Tastes like lukewarm piss.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That’s troubling. Speaking of piss, I’ll be right back.”
While Sterling went to relieve himself, Kincaid finished off the remainder of the ale and considered his soup, but the talk of Lavinia had soured his stomach.
She was a dark spot he couldn’t scrub out. A stain he couldn’t erase. A blemish he couldn’t fix. If only he’d never met her. Never tried to help her. Never fallen in love.
In a way, however, he supposed it was good that he had. The consequences of his affair had taught him a valuable lesson. A difficult lesson, but a valuable one nevertheless. Because of Lavinia, he knew how easily a man could be destroyed from the inside. Because of Lavinia, he knew the sharp, slicing pain of betrayal. Because of Lavinia, he knew he could never give the broken shards of his heart away. Not even to Joanna. Which was why he had been trying his damned best to ignore her.
And failing miserably.
A man could no more ignore Joanna Thorncroft than he could his next breath. A single kiss, and he craved her lips as much as he craved oxygen to breathe. He wanted her. Heneededher. Which was exactly why he couldn’t have her.
Need was an opportunity for exploitation.
Need was a vulnerability.
Need was a weakness.
And he’d made himself a promise. A promise that he would never be vulnerable or weak ever again. A promise that he intended to keep…no matter how strong the temptation was to break it.
He rubbed the sides of his temples where a dull ache had settled. The only solution, as he saw it, was to find Joanna’s ring and get her the hell out of England. With an ocean between them, maybe he’d finally be able to stop thinking about her every bloody second of every bloody day. Because he couldn’t go on like this.
Not unless he wanted to drive himself completely mad.
When Sterling returned, complaining of the ungodly stench radiating from the water closet, Kincaid’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Despite his best efforts, he hadn’t yet made any headway on tracking down the ring or the man who had given it to Anne Thorncroft. TheQueen Mary’smanifest hadn’t given him any clues, nor had his usual connections turned anything up. But his connections only extended so far, and given the ring’s presumed origin, it may have simply been that it was in the hands of someone too far above his reach.
“I may need your help with something,” he told Sterling. “A case.”
“A case?” Visibly intrigued, the duke slid into his chair. “What sort of case?”
“The one that brought Joanna Thorncroft and her sister here.”
“There’s a sister?”
“No.”
“But I haven’t even—”
“No,” Kincaid said firmly.
“All right,” Sterling muttered. “What can I do?”
In short order, Kincaid explained the ring’s history. How Joanna’s mother had traveled to England when she was a young woman, and had an affair with a man who then gave her the priceless ruby before she’d returned to America and married Jacob Thorncroft.
“Wait,” Sterling interrupted. “Then Joanna is really the illegitimate daughter of a British nobleman?”
