Winter's Touch (The Last Riders Book 8) (24 page)

“I cannot meet new people?” she challenged.

He leveled her with an amused and suspicious expression. “You have not spoken with a single person here, have you?”

“What do you mean? Of course I have!”

“The hostess doesn’t count.”

“It is really none of your business,” she muttered.

“Perhaps,” he said after a disconcerting moment of studying her. “It could be because you have not had the opportunity. Allow me to begin introductions.”

“No, I—”

“Oh, it shall not be dull,” he assured her. “I know everyone. All sorts: tailors, bankers, merchants. Madame Roux used to be a proper madame before she found religion.” He pointed to a large woman with a gaudy red dress and purple plumes sticking out from her coiffure. “Now, she could spend hours with you, explaining the mysterious ways of the Father and redemption for the fallen woman.”

“No—”

“Oh,” he interrupted with understanding. “Not exactly familiar with your priest, are you? Well, we can probably cut it short. Only an hour or two.”

Céleste shook her head worriedly.

“Yes.” He nodded, glancing about the room. “We should be able to make our way around the room by the end of the night. However, we had best leave Madame Roux for last,” he warned as he turned with her in tow.

“Wait!”

With raised brows, he turned back to her and waited. So did a few others within a rather large radius.

“I need to speak with you,” she said reluctantly.

“With me?” He pointed to his chest in mock surprise. “You came to a small parlor assembly simply to speak with me?”

Was he trying to humiliate her? Some had turned away, but many were watching as though they were putting on a performance, and he certainly seemed to be!

When she nodded very slightly, he dropped the act and smiled.

“I am astonished. Honored, but astonished. Normally, I would assume the lady is after a paramour, but our last attempt did not go so well, and I am afraid my pride could not take the chance of failing a second round. Not to mention, it is widely known that you have not taken a lover since…” He puffed his cheeks out on an exhale, looking up toward the ceiling and squinting as though he were searching for an elusive memory. Then he looked back at her expectantly.

“Really, you are too much,” she ground out.

He raised his brows.

“I have never taken a lover,” she muttered with a slight blush. “Nor do I have need of one.”

“Uh-huh,” he said quietly. “So, what do you want with me, Lady Dumonte?”

“Is there somewhere we might speak more freely?”

“I am afraid not. You shan’t find as much as a mop closet without ears.”

“Then perhaps you would call on me tomorrow,” she said doggedly.

“Lady Dumonte,” Pembridge began patiently, “thank you for the generous invitation to your ball. It was lovely, and the game we played was… interesting. But that is all over now. You are still the paragon Lady Dumonte, and I am still the scoundrel you want eradicated from your assembly rooms. Now, if you will excuse—”

“I thought you wanted to stay in Paris,” she interrupted with a challengingly raised brow.

Pembridge paused mid-bow.

“It would be difficult to remain after the invitations and credit have dried up. It might even be a challenge finding a decent game of cards.”

His eyes narrowed at the thinly veiled threat as he straightened; his smile fading as he studied her.

“Shall we speak now, Lord Pembridge?” she asked, all sweetness. “Have you suddenly recalled a deaf closet nearby?”

“Indeed. If you would follow me?” he offered with a glaringly disingenuous yet still somehow charming smile. His eyes had lost their warmth and hardened, giving Céleste a strange, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had never seen blue eyes actually
look
cold.

Still, Céleste nodded, and he guided her by her elbow across the room. They weaved through several small groups of men and women deep in conversation while Pembridge dipped his chin in acknowledgement to the few who noticed him passing by.

Once they left the parlor, they walked down a long hall, through an unlit room, through another adjoining unlit room, and out onto a small balcony at the back of the house.

Céleste glanced around the small space, purposely keeping her eyes off the giant figure taking up far too much of the balcony. It could not have been more than three feet wide and five feet long, but she was not about to crush her skirts against the balustrade from attempting to keep a proper distance.

“This is no closet,” she pointed out. “Where are we?”

“Where no one will think to find us. What you ought to be asking is did anyone see us leave? The answer is no. I don’t think so, but just in case…” He twisted and shut the doors to the room, seeming to shrink the outdoor space even more. “Now, what could be so important you lowered yourself to mingle with the likes of Mrs. Talbot?”

Céleste ignored the harshly disapproving tone and cleared her throat. She was suddenly anxious to speak with him considering what it might take to convince him to help her. She had used her trump card just to get him to speak with her, and she didn’t have much left to offer. Could she go so far as to use her body to entice him? Yes, she could. She was determined to find the truth, but she doubted she would be enough to tempt him, even if she wasn’t past her prime.

She forced herself to meet his gaze with all the confidence she could gather. He was a force to be reckoned with, a beast that had somehow convinced all of Paris he was a merry jester—harmless and unbothered.

He was most definitely bothered now, and she had never believed him harmless. She could feel his anger crackling in the air.

The moon was full, and a torch lit the garden just below, making him appear larger and more intimidating. It illuminated him: his hair, his eyes, his angled jaw just above the fine folds of his cravat. The way he narrowed his eyes at her made her feel like a troublesome insect he could crush at any second. No one had ever made her feel so small.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I want to engage your services.”

His hard expression held for a moment, then softened with a touch of amusement and… bewilderment? Then he smiled, and her jaw clenched.

He was far too charming when he smiled.

“You are the first,” he said. “I have been cornered in my box at the opera, pulled into a closet, had my clothes held ransom in Hyde Park—don’t ask—but you are the first to use threats of ostracizing me for a place in my bed. M’dear girl, if you wanted to be my mistress—”

“No!” Céleste burst out. “Good heavens, no. That is not what I meant.” She stopped herself and managed a scolding tone. “I understand you are a scoundrel, but I shall ask you to keep those hobbies to yourself. This is strictly business.”

“Love is a business, m’dear,” he murmured. “A lucrative one.”

She ignored him with a stern shake of her head. “I believe my husband was murdered, and I need you to find out who did it.”

* * *

N
ick had
to bite back a chuckle at her discomfort on the subject of love, but he sobered immediately at the rest.

“It was declared a suicide, was it not?”

“Well, yes, but they found no reason for it. There has to be a reason. Someone must have driven him to do it.”

“No doubt of it,” he muttered, looking her over warily. “Look here, whatever you have heard about me, it was wrong. Besides, if anything was there to find, it has long been covered up by now.”

“Béarn recommended you. Surely, it is worth your efforts for his sake if not for your own.”

Nick’s jaw tightened, and he closed his eyes on a long blink. Béarn? Why? Nick could take a joke, but this? This was blackmail… and Béarn had facilitated it.

Nick made a quick mental inventory of any factories he might have forgotten about which might have reached the duke’s attention. Maybe one or two… or three. Any with dead bodies? No. None that Nick had put there, anyway. Allard’s death wouldn’t reach the duke’s ears until next week at the earliest, and that was only if the police ever found out who owned the building. The paperwork for that shack was horrendous.

“Please,” she said, bringing him out of his thoughts. She licked her lips, immediately drawing his attention there. “I would do anything.”

Very well. He would admit the woman could surprise him, a feat very few women could pull off, and she had done it more than once.

“Is this worth so much to you?” His cock was screaming,
yes, yes, yes
, but his brain sensed a trap. Or a test. Or simply a fantastically terrible idea.

“Pierre was everything to me, and I am determined to prove he was an honorable man,” she insisted. “Was it not yourself who said there was such a thing as an honorable rake? If that is possible, then an honorable man committing suicide is not so unreasonable.”

She was being terribly foolish. She was beautiful, even more so under the moonlight on this balcony overlooking the dimly lit garden. It was damned poetic.

Had he been anyone else, he might consider risking Paris for one night with her. He might consider seducing her into his bed, to hell with Parisian fêtes and gaming. After all, there was always Venice. If only the cost were not the lives of others…

He raised one hand to tuck a dark curl behind her ear, his fingers tracing its outer ridge before he forced his fist back down to his side.

“You, m’dear girl,” he murmured, “are old enough to know better than to tempt a scoundrel.”

“I know what I am doing,” she spouted back indignantly. “I am not a child.”

“No,” he agreed easily. “You are certainly not a child.”

“Then I would expect you not to treat me like one.” Her eyes flashed, giving him a teasing glimpse of passion.

Lady Dumonte possessed passion?

Another surprise.

“Of course not.” He frowned in mock seriousness. “How should I treat you? As a lady or a mistress?”

“As a woman,” she ground out. “I am a
woman
!” Her lips pursed together as she glared up at him.

He smiled broadly; he couldn’t help himself.

“Ah, yes,” he agreed, looking her over as though he had only just noticed. “I believe you are.”

She took in a deep breath, pushing her breasts against the tight fabric of her bodice.

His cock jumped to attention.

“I was wrong about not liking you. I
hate
you!”

“And yet,” he mused with a knit brow, “you throw yourself at me like all the others. You are either in denial of your overwhelming attraction to me or a glutton for punishment. For my own complacency, I choose the former.”

Céleste shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowed and seething with anger.

“Regardless,” he continued frankly at his own peril, “you had better run along, or you may find your offer accepted, and we both know you never expected that. Your bluff has been called, Lady Dumonte. Go on home like a good girl.”

“I never bluff.”

“Never say never, m’dear,” he murmured with a purposefully wicked smile.

He’d had enough. No man could just stand there while this woman was offering herself up like a feast, especially with that temperament peeking through.

Lady Dumonte might just be quite the feisty, little cat had someone the courage and ambition to bring it out in her. Even so, that someone couldn’t be Nick. All he could do was scare her into behaving herself and leaving him the hell alone.

With that goal in mind, he let go of his restraint and touched her. She startled, but she didn’t back away. He settled his hands high on her waist and hugged her curves as they slid down to her hips, testing her figure, not that he hadn’t already known precisely how her waist curved into her perfectly rounded buttocks. To his great discomfort, he had dreamt about said buttocks the night before and had woken up irritable and unsated.

He did his best to push the memory of that libidinous dream out of his mind as he brushed the backs of his fingers just below her ear and down her neck to the curve of her bodice. He wanted to see her reaction.

She kept the same determined look she’d had before, but he could see she was wavering.

This ought to be easy. She would run, and be far too embarrassed to threaten him again.

He tipped her chin up and slowly lowered his head, stopping a hairsbreadth from her lips. “Are you sure?”

“Y-yes,” she breathed.

His eyes narrowed. “Really? The big bad wolf doesn’t scare you?”

“Of course not.”

“Even when I kiss you here?” He brought his finger between them and lightly touched her bottom lip. “Or here?” He slid his finger to her earlobe. “Or here?” he whispered, lightly stroking her neck.

Her breathing had stopped completely.

“Well?”

She shook her head. “No.”

The barely audible word was all he needed. His wolfish smile broadened, and he lowered his head and kissed her. Once, twice, three times, his lips met hers before he wrapped his arms around her, dwarfing her as he pulled her into him. He fastened onto her mouth as though she was air and he was suffocating.

To begin any bout of lovemaking in such a fashion was unpolished and gauche, but he wanted to overwhelm her. He wanted to show her that she was in over her head.