Page 55

“I do not, sir,” I said indignantly. “Let me go back inside.”

Then Mr. Pemberfield bent me painfully over and puckered his lips up to kiss me. They looked slimy and slick in the moonlight and I ducked, his kiss landing with an uncomfortable squelch on my cheek.

I was stunned with the audacity.

“You’ll be sorry when I tell my husband what you’ve done,” I said heatedly, clenching my fists together.

He only smiled at me. His teeth were mere stumps, many of them missing, and I recoiled.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

“My husband will be very angry,” I warned Mr. Pemberfield, trying to get away from him, but he laughed unpleasantly.

“Maybe your husband doesn’t mind passing you around like a common dock trollop,” he said. “He only married you out of revenge.”

I felt the tears start to my eyes in my rage.

It was true.

Hehadmarried me only out of revenge. Everything else was probably just one of his tricks.

Then I heard St. Erth’s voice.

“Don’t listen to him, Kitten.”

Then my husband was there, and with one swift motion, he grabbed Mr. Pemberfield by the hair and drove his face into the nearby marble fountain.

I staggered as this forced Mr. Pemberfield to let me go.

“Who sent you?” St. Erth asked through his gritted teeth.

The other man’s battered face split open into a grin. He reached into his pink coat pockets for a glove, then he attempted to slap St. Erth across the face with it.

“Sir, you have been challenged to a duel.”

My husband’s face didn’t change, but he laughed contemptuously, easily dodging Mr. Pemberfield.

“Give you a chance to take pot shots at my back while I’m turned around? Not motherfucking likely. Tell me who sent you.”

Mr. Pemberfield looked a little nonplussed at this, like things were not going to plan, but he rallied quickly, aiming his ham-like fist at St. Erth’s face.

“As a gentleman, you are bound to meet me on the field of honor for a duel,” he snarled.

My husband smiled and in the moonlight he was darkly beautiful and wholly savage.

“I’m not a gentleman,” he said.

Then I heard a sharp crack as he easily sidestepped Mr. Pemberfield’s fist and swung his own in a sharp, efficient motion.

I heard the other man’s ribs break with a splinter.

“Who sent you?” St. Erth asked, and I felt my blood run dry at the tone in his voice. Cold, emotionless, deadly.

When Mr. Pemberfield didn’t respond immediately, St. Erth hit him across the face again, and I heard the dull, heavy sound of my husband’s fist hitting the soft flesh of the other man’s face and knocking him to the ground.

The big bruiser moaned and stirred, and I convulsively clutched my purse tighter.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” St. Erth said, his voice silky and smooth. “I’ll double your pay and you can work for me at the same time.”