My Notorious Gentleman (31 page)
Sneak Peek!
Keep reading to find out what happens next to
Nick, Baron Forrester,
as
The Inferno Club
continues . . .
A Proposition from a Lady
“Visitor!”
Shit.
Nick wasn’t sure which was worse, being banished down here to this hellhole by himself or having to face his friends on their occasional visits after how he’d let them down.
Their generosity in bothering with him at all still humbled him, however. It gave him the strength to tuck his despair away and put on a smile.
As the sound of the guard’s heavy footfalls grew louder from the black tunnel that housed the stairway, Nick tossed aside his latest reading, sent to him by Trevor, the first published account of the journey of Monsieurs Lewis and Clark into the American wilderness.
He’d read the whole thing five times now. No wonder his eyes were smarting from the dimness of the feeble candlelight in his cell. He whipped off the small spectacles that he needed in order to read these days, a damned worrisome development for an expert sniper.
No doubt his long-range vision would be ruined, too, the longer he stayed in this dungeon. Not that he deserved to be anywhere else.
He took a deep breath and rose from where he’d been sprawled out on his cot; dragging a hand through his hair in a halfhearted effort to make himself presentable.
He wondered who was coming. Probably Beauchamp back from France, he thought. But then, just a heartbeat before the warden emerged from the tunnel, Nick cocked his head to listen to the second pair of footsteps trailing the guard’s heavy-booted clomps.
A light, whispering prowl of a stride.
A rustle of satin, a whiff of perfume on the dank air.
Good God!
His eyes widened, but he ignored the guard as a gorgeous, pale-skinned woman stepped into view.
“Hm, cozy,” she remarked with a glance around at his cavelike quarters.
Nick barely heard. It was the first time in months he’d seen a female of any kind, and this one was . . . spectacular.
“Visitor, you scum!” the guard informed him.
“So I see.” Nick looked her up and down. When his stare came to the silky V of her chest displayed in a tailored white shirt, layered beneath her dark-hued gown, and opened low enough to show off exquisite cleavage, he reckoned that she was lucky there were iron bars between them.
His mouth watering, he gripped the bars and offered her a smile, praying—in vain, he feared—that she was a harlot, generously sent to him by Beauchamp.
But she merely arched a brow in cynical amusement at his leer; the air of command in the jut of her chin and the even hold of her steely blue eyes made him doubt this woman had ever been for sale.
“Whenever you’re ready to put your eyes back in your head, Baron Forrester, we can get down to brass tacks.”
“Mind your manners!” The guard banged his truncheon on the rusty bars of his cell for good measure.
“Of course. Apologies, madam. You make a charming chaperone,” he told the jailer, then he looked at the woman again, still grinning at her tart rebuke.
The torchlight danced in gold and ruby spangles on her dark auburn hair. She had long, velvety lashes, and plump, sensuous lips . . .
“Who are you, then?” he asked in a cheeky murmur.
She glanced around again at the grim accommodations housing one of the Order’s former top assassins. “I am Lady Burke, and I’m here with a proposition for you.”
His mind instantly went to the gutter. “Go on.”
“If you agree, I can get you out of here. Today.”
“I see. So you’ve come to get me killed. What can I do for you, darling?”
“I could use a man of your skills, but my main interest is in some of the underworld connections you developed in the field.”
This gave him pause. “Which connections?”
She deigned not to answer. “The mission won’t require more than a month of your time. After that, the Order has agreed to put you on parole.”
“How did you do that?” Nick blurted out in astonishment. The Order had ignored similar pleas for Nick’s freedom, or semifreedom, from all of their top agents, his friends. But again, she left him in the dark.
“Once you complete the mission, you’ll be a free man—for as long as you behave like a law-abiding citizen. From your reputation, I know that’s asking a lot of you,” she added wryly. “But those were the Order’s terms when I spoke to them on your behalf.”
“Why would they listen to you? Who are you?”
Lady Burke gazed at him with an odd mix of pity and mistrust. “If you agree to take this mission—and I can’t imagine why any sane man would refuse, given the alternative—you must understand you’ll be taking your orders from me. Will that be a problem?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Depends on what you want me to do. I’ve given up killing, you know.”
“It’s not a hit. As I’ve said, it’s information I’m after. The people who hold the answers I need don’t trust just anyone. Only people they already know, like you. But I must be frank with you, Lord Forrester—may I call you Nick?”
“You can call me anything you like, love.”
“I’ve done my research on you, you see. I already know your tricks—”
“Do you, indeed?”
“So don’t even think about trying to deceive me,” she finished.
He frowned, warily considering her request.
She folded her slender arms across her chest. “We shall get on handsomely, as long as you’re a very good boy and do exactly as I say.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll shoot you in the head,” she replied with a smile that held not a trace of humor.
Nick was fascinated. “Who are you, exactly?”
“Virginia, Baroness Burke. My poor baron, alas, is dead,” she said rather boredly.
“Sorry,” Nick managed. “I’ve heard the name, though I don’t believe I ever met him.”
“You weren’t missing much,” she said under her breath.
“Was he—an agent?”
“God, no.”
He paused. “Are you?”
There was an edge to her smile. “You know the Order does not allow women to serve in that capacity.”
“Then who the hell
are
you?” he exclaimed.
She finally relented, lowering her mask of cool control just a little. “Very well. My mother’s the Countess of Ashton. Her lover, my natural father, was Virgil Banks.”
Nick’s jaw dropped.
“Now will you work with me or not?”
Virgil’s daughter?
He just stared.
“Foley’s storytelling is consistently entertaining—and her lovers so warm and attractive—that it’s easy to get lost in the
romance. And that’s the best gift a writer of happily-ever-after love stories can
give her readers.”
Lifetime TV Books blog
GAELEN FOLEY is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of nineteen historical
romances set in the glittering world of Regency England. Her award-winning
novels (Bookseller’s Best, National Reader’s Choice Award, NJRW Golden Leaf, CRW
Award of Excellence, the Beacon, Holt Medallion) are available worldwide in
sixteen languages. Gaelen holds a B.A. in English Literature and lives in
Pennsylvania with schoolteacher-husband, Eric, with whom she also co-writes
children’s fantasy adventure novels under the pen-name E.G. Foley. She spends
her days reading, writing, and catering to a ridiculously cute bichon frise
named Bingley.
Visit her website at www.gaelenfoley.com to
learn more about her books and sign up for the newsletter to be notified when
her new books are released.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MY NOTORIOUS GENTLEMAN.
Copyright © 2013 by Gaelen Foley All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2013 ISBN: 9780062075772
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-207595-6
FIRST EDITION
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