Lily Lang (15 page)
Authors: The Last Time We Met
“Late for what?”
She didn’t let the hard jolt of panic that clenched her chest show on her face. “I’m going to have tea with my mother.”
“The mad one?”
“The very same.” Her heart leapt into her throat. She wasn’t normally reckless when it came to her mother.
He let silence spin through the air between them, though the wheels kept churning over rough roads. They came to a halt in traffic, and costermongers and rag-and-bone sellers called out their goods. Outside the window, a boardman had hanging from his shoulders a two-sided ad for the smallest chimneysweeps in London.
“I’d like to go with you.”
“No.”
The carriage turned down Cheyne Walk. She didn’t have much longer before she could wave him away. Time with her mother could be fraught for many reasons, but at least she could always be herself. What parts of herself she wanted to be, that was.
He leaned forward to look out the window. His collar pulled at the back, revealing skin barely warmed by the sun and the ends of his dark hair. “I wouldn’t have expected you’d live in Chelsea.”
“My mother insists.” She said the words with a smile and a light air, but that was usually enough. She never had to lie—no one ever bothered to ask further. They took her surface explanations and everything was fine.
But Ian transferred that intense gaze to her. His mouth stilled for a moment, as his exacting gaze scanned her from head to toe. “And your father? He goes along with her?”
She swallowed. Once, twice. A strange knot lurked at the back of her throat. The street turned relatively quiet as they drew to a halt before gray stone and the green-painted front door. “What Mother wants, Mother gets.”
“But you called her mad.” When the door opened, he put one hand out. The footman hardly blinked, but Lottie flinched. He turned his hand, held it palm out. She liked his long, graceful fingers. This was a man who should play the piano. Or a woman.
“I called her mad because she is.”
“Insane, you mean?” He leaned forward. “Not angry?”
She pushed past him and stepped down. The sun was low in the sky. Across the street was the Thames, but before her was the building she both loved and dreaded. She smoothed her skirts. “I meant exactly what I said.”
“Yet you and your father let her determine where your household resides.” Then he did something she’d never expected—stepped down from the carriage. His top hat tilted at a rakish angle, he looked up at the tall building. “I think I’d like to meet her.”
“Not a chance in hell.” Her heart flipped in her throat. She couldn’t breathe.
“Such rudeness.” He smiled a slow-burn grin. “Will you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
The Last Time We Met
Lily Lang
He was her first—and only—love.
Miranda Thornwood is desperate. Her brother, accused of murder, has lost the inheritance that would buy him a proper defense. There is only one man in London rich and powerful enough to help. Jason Blakewell, owner of the St. James gambling empire…the man she once betrayed.
Jason is stunned to find Miranda on his doorstep. Once he was a stable boy, wildly in love with her—believing she loved him in return. Until, on the brink of eloping to America, she betrayed him to her father. And Jason was sent to the hulks.
For ten years he has dreamed of revenge, and now she is handing him his chance on a silver platter. His price for giving her aid? She must become his mistress.
But when their lips meet, he tastes something other than revenge. He tastes the passion that never died. And now he is tempted to lay aside his thirst for revenge and risk his heart a second time in the greatest gamble of all.
Warning: This book contains handsome stable boys, French pastries, high stakes gambling, and odious uncles.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Last Time We Met
Copyright © 2013 by Lily Lang
ISBN: 978-1-61921-476-7
Edited by Christa Desir
Cover by Kim Killion
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: May 2013
