Page 7

Alistair left the Somerville dinner immediately after Violet had run from him.

He didn’t blame her. He’d acted like a complete Bedlamite.

Pulling her into the darkened library was his first mistake.

And then, before he knew it, he was cradling her hand in his.

And even through the haze of too much drink, he’d felt the thump of his heart when he touched her.

His thumb had brushed her palm when he was cleaning her wounds, and Lord help him, he was stunned to find the skin there rough and callused.

The discovery made his groin tighten, which stunned him even more.

She used those hands, unlike the other too delicate ladies of the ton, who could not be bothered to so much as lift a finger except to embroider.

Violet Goodwin worked. She knew about bullet wounds.

And when he’d questioned her about her choices, she’d dressed him down in exactly the way he deserved.

He didn’t know what to make of her or the strange pang he’d felt in his chest when she’d called him inconstant. And while he might like to think it was the whisky or the run-in with his father that had rattled him, he knew it wasn’t true. It was Violet. She’d done something to him.

He hailed a hack to carry him into London’s center, unnerved.

He’d almost kissed her again. He’d looked into her bright blue eyes and seen them change to a dark sapphire that told him she was aroused.

He wanted to know what color they were when she orgasmed.

He wanted to know what those clever working fingers could do.

He’d wanted to understand why she had become a nurse of all things when there was no reason for it.

Worst of all, he wanted to kiss her in a way that he’d never before wanted to kiss a female of the beaumonde, because the ladies of the ton were not for him.

He would not become a part of their world; that much had been clear to him when he’d fled at the age of fifteen.

And it was only that knowledge that had caused him to step back from her.

To deny them both what they’d wanted. Because in that moment before she’d closed her sapphire eyes, he’d seen the desire in her face.

Violet Goodwin would have let him kiss her. She would have welcomed that kiss.

He growled deep in his throat. He couldn’t afford that kind of distraction now.

He needed to concentrate on finding capital as soon as possible.

He’d been in town a month already and had shown nothing for his efforts but a rapidly dwindling bank account and a burgeoning issue with drink.

He couldn’t stay in London a moment longer than he had to.

Tonight would be the last night. He’d find some doxy to slake his desires, and come tomorrow, he’d press harder in his campaign to win his father’s investment.

He passed his usual gentleman’s club and burrowed deeper into the seedier parts of London.

The last thing he wanted was to spend the remainder of his evening with gentlemen from the ton.

It was other kinds of company he desired now.

Bawdy sailors, off-duty flash gentry, a willing lady.

Those who wouldn’t look twice at his rumpled, torn, and hastily re-knotted remainder of a cravat that smelled of whisky and of Violet.

The scent of her wafting up from his neck to his nostrils was driving him to distraction.

Every time he caught a breath of it, his body reacted.

But that’s nothing, he told himself, a visit to a brothel and a gaming hell can’t fix.

He knocked on the roof for the hack to stop at a hell he visited on occasion, then made his way inside to a card table.

There, he threw himself into the distraction of play and drink.

He lost hand after hand, but he didn’t care.

What better use for the last of his money than to find oblivion?

He hardly even noticed when the man seated next to him departed and the chair was immediately occupied by another the size of a small mountain.

“Careful,” Alistair’s new companion said in a heavy Scottish brogue, “or you’ll lose all your coin.”

Alistair glanced over at the Scotsman but couldn’t fully make out his features. It was dark in the hell, and the man was darkly complected for a Scot, with bright green eyes and a hint of familiarity to his face.

“It’s no business of yours what I do,” Alistair said, mimicking his father’s iciest intonation. He wanted the man gone.

Unfortunately, the mountain didn’t take the hint. “Nay. Not yet, it’s not,” he said. “But if you’ll give me a listen, Crawford, it might become so.”

Alistair folded his cards and turned his full attention to the man beside him, his muscles twitching in anticipation.

A good fight might be just what he needed tonight.

A man didn’t spend a decade aboard a ship and not learn how to use his fists.

Or to enjoy the release that could come from a good thrashing.

“How do you know my name?”

“How deep in your cups are you, to not even recognize a familiar face?” And then the Scot smiled a bright, stupid smile that was so out of place on his huge face that Alistair recognized him immediately, even in the dark room.

“McGann,” Alistair said.

“That’s the spirit, Crawford.” McGann slapped him jovially on the back. “Andrew McGann. At your service.”

Andrew McGann had been a higher up at the East India Company, a trusted captain and sailor before he’d commandeered one of the Company ships out of port and sailed it around the world, selling off its stolen cargo of silks and spices as he went.

Then he’d scuttled the frigate in Jamaica Bay before disappearing into the interior of the island.

Alistair had met the man once, briefly, before McGann had turned to piracy, or whatever it was he’d been involved in. He’d liked him when they’d spent a few days carousing together in India. No one had been more shocked than he to learn how McGann had ended his career.

Alistair nodded briskly. This was a man he’d hear out. “Should we go to my club and speak? It’s more private.”

“Your club?” McGann’s eyebrows shot up. “Not on your life. I’d not drink the swill they served there if my life depended on it. We’ll go to mine.”

“I didn’t realize you belonged to any clubs.”

“I don’t,” McGann replied. “Not any you’d recognize, anyway.”