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Five

Who was Eliza Dove? Simon racked his brain, but he couldn’t remember having any sort of interaction with the woman.

He was almost certain he had seen her at Devonworth’s residence a few days ago, but he’d barely acknowledged her then and they hadn’t spoken.

There was no reason she should be looking at him with such familiarity.

A strange sort of triumph had come over her face when he’d walked into the drawing room.

He almost got the feeling that she’d been waiting on him.

Him, specifically, not some unknown bloke who would act as her protector. Him .

But why?

As he followed Devonworth through the depths of the house to all the various entrances, he did his best to pay attention as a niggling concern wormed its way through the back of his mind.

She couldn’t be the phantom woman. He couldn’t imagine a situation in which she would have found herself in the club.

Everyone knew that Lady Devonworth and her sisters had come to London to find husbands.

The newspapers hadn’t been kind to the Americans since their arrival a few months earlier.

There had been a particularly crude cartoon in one of them that showed the sisters standing with bags of cash behind them and a line of lords before them, except instead of human heads the men had been drawn with horse heads, preening like prized stallions so that the women would pick them.

Eliza Dove would not have risked her reputation and a possible marriage to come into the club. She could not be that woman.

Thankfully, when they returned to the front entrance almost an hour later, there was no sign of her in the drawing room.

An attractive woman who appeared to be in her forties stepped out, instead.

She was dressed in a fashionable morning dress of olive green with her shining brown hair pulled up to artfully drape across her shoulder.

“Devonworth, the girls mentioned you were here.” She sailed over and leaned up to kiss Devonworth’s cheek. “This must be Mr. Cavell.”

Devonworth made the introductions and Mrs. Dove held out her hand for him.

“I’ve heard of you,” she said in a way that might have been rude coming from anyone else.

Her directness, however, was accompanied by a glint of good humor in her eye that softened her words.

“They say you’re quite the prizefighter. ”

It all clicked into place. Eliza must have heard about his reputation as a fighter.

Montague Club had formed an informal league with several other clubs.

Every few months or so they would arrange an exhibition bare-knuckle brawl for club members.

Simon had quickly become a crowd favorite because he actually knew how to fight, unlike most of the gentleman participants who played at brawling.

Several upper-class women, bored wives, had sought him out in the past year, hoping to see if his stamina in the ring translated to the bedroom.

He’d been quite happy to show them that it did.

She must have heard about his reputation and been keen to meet him.

That shouldn’t have disappointed him, but it did. He was accustomed to people only being interested in the idea of him, without caring about who he really was. Why should one slip of a girl be any different?

He took Mrs. Dove’s hand. “Undefeated, ma’am.”

She nodded, suitably impressed. “Good, then I’ll not worry about my girls. They’ll be in your capable hands.”

“I’ll do my best to stay out of sight,” he said.

“Don’t do that. The place could use a livelier atmosphere, don’t you think?”

It was rather stuffy and formal in here. Every tabletop was cluttered with bric-a-brac and curios, and the furniture was old and wouldn’t hold up to Montague Club standards. As the Hereford dower house, it likely hadn’t been updated in the past century.

Mrs. Dove was very clearly a woman who appreciated familiarity, so he said, “You liven it up all on your own, Mrs. Dove.” He was accustomed to such talk with the few women who frequented the club.

She smiled at him in a way that lit up her entire face. She was quite beautiful. Glancing to her son-in-law, she said, “Oh, I do enjoy him, Devonworth.”

Devonworth gave a long-suffering sigh. “Please, Fanny, don’t interfere—”

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering with his very important work.” The tone she used implied she didn’t think his work here was very important at all. “In fact, I am on my way out. Would you be available to drop me off at a friend’s house for luncheon?”

“Of course,” Devonworth agreed. “We were finishing here. Cavell, is there anything else?”

Simon assured him that things were well in hand and ushered them out the door.

Then he turned to take the servants’ stairs to the kitchen downstairs where he had a meeting set up to go over things with the staff.

He’d need to meet them all and make certain that he understood their schedules and that they understood that under no circumstances would strangers be allowed inside the house.

He made it as far as the butler’s pantry next to the dining room. The door to the stairwell was closed, and before he could open it, a voice stopped him cold.

“Hello again, Mr. Cavell.”

He turned to see Eliza Dove, one arm raised to lean against the doorway. She wore the same rose-colored morning dress she’d had on earlier. It was pretty on her. She was pretty regardless, but it brought out a rosy tone in her cheeks and a golden glow in her skin. “Miss Eliza.”

“You sound different.” She smiled at him, that same knowing smile from earlier, and let her arm fall to her side, as if she’d only been leaning that way for some great effect that escaped him.

Different than when he’d met her an hour ago? “In what way do you mean?”

She took a few steps into the small space, which put her close enough that he could reach out and touch her.

It was an interior room with counters and cupboards that ran the length of two walls.

The other two walls held the door that led out and the door that led to the stairs.

If she got it into her head to kiss him, then there would be nowhere for him to go.

The idea of kissing her in itself wasn’t repulsive, but he rather felt that it would be in bad form while he was working.

“I mean that on the evening we met, you sounded less formal and polished.”

Had he met her at a fight, then? He could hardly believe that a debutante would attend a Montague Club fight.

Besides, the last one had been months and months ago.

By all accounts, the Doves had only arrived in England a few months back.

She couldn’t mean one of the fights Brody arranged.

Those were always in far less fashionable areas.

“Forgive me, but I believe you’ve confused me for someone else,” he said, and turned toward the door to the servants’ stairs.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

The affectation was gone from her voice and she sounded genuinely amused now. She put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were long and gracefully formed. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and there was nary a callus to be found on her fingers. But what struck him was the rose scent that wafted over him.

That scent was familiar. It was one of the few things that had stayed with him from that night a week ago.

Rose water. Many women used it. Yet, even as he reminded himself of that, he looked back at her much as he imagined a deer that had been run to ground might gape at the hunter responsible, with fear and rounded eyes.

Sensing his alarm, she sobered and released him, holding her fingers spread wide as if to show him she wasn’t a threat.

“We’ve never met.” He stated it firmly so that she would understand the topic wasn’t up for debate.

“But we have.” She trampled all over the statement. “Last week. I met you in the service corridor at Montague Club and helped you get to your friend Mr. Du—”

He moved so fast that even he didn’t know what he was doing until he held her pressed with her back against the stairwell door. He held her upper arms in a firm grip. Her brown eyes widened, but she seemed more intrigued than afraid.

“Promise me that you won’t mention what happened that night to anyone.” He kept his voice low.

The corner of her mouth twitched upward but she didn’t smile. “Perhaps I want to tell.”

“Then you’ll give yourself away. I’ll tell your parents about how you were sneaking around where you don’t belong. I can say that a footman saw you.”

“You clearly haven’t met my mother.” She had the nerve to smirk at him. Damn her. “She would quite enjoy my tale of that night. In fact, perhaps I’ll go tell her.”

She made to go around him and he pressed her back into place before him, one hand on her arm while the other shifted to her hip to hold her there.

His fingers molded themselves to the curve of her body, and he tried to ignore how he quite liked the feel of her in his hands.

She was firm but soft, small but strong.

He could break her with his bare hands if he had a mind to, but hurting women had never been part of his job description, not even with Brody.

Her sweet scent tugged at him, and his mind began to toy with thoughts of far more pleasant things he could do with her.

She caught the change in him and her eyes widened.

The antagonism between them shifted to something charged and needy.

It was subtle but enough to make his breath waver.

He reeled in those unruly thoughts and forced himself to focus on the very real danger at hand.

From what little he’d gleaned about Mrs. Dove from their brief interaction, he was afraid she was right. The woman had seemed unconventional. “Your father, then,” he said. “No father of heiresses would condone one of them cavorting in a gentleman’s club.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I don’t have one of those.”

What sort of heiress didn’t have a father? She was so damned full of herself that he wanted to shake her. Or kiss her. She had a perfectly bow-shaped mouth with a full lower lip, and he’d had too many fantasies about the phantom woman.

The triumphant look had returned to her eyes.

He leaned down, part of him wanting to bask in the heat of that look, part of him still holding on to a shred of the intimidating bruiser he was meant to be.

“Your fiancé, then?” he whispered near her temple.

The fine hairs there tickled his mouth. “I’m nearly certain you have one of those.

” The sisters had all come here to procure one.

He couldn’t imagine one of the young lords passing over such a delectable piece.

The reminder of a fiancé made her stiffen, and goose bumps broke out on her arms.

“I don’t believe you’ll tell anyone,” she said.

Gold flecks in her eyes caught the light and twinkled up at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because there’s a reason you don’t want anyone to know that you were in that corridor with me. You tell my secret, Mr. Cavell, I’ll tell yours.” Leaning forward so that the tips of their noses almost touched, she whispered, “Or should I address you as the Duke?”

Fucking hell.

He hadn’t realized he’d revealed so much that night.

Something about his expression must have made her think she’d gone too far.

She pushed at his shoulder but he didn’t budge.

He couldn’t. He was paralyzed by her admission.

Before he could get his bearings, she stomped hard on his instep.

She was wearing heeled shoes, so a dart of pain shot through his foot and threw him off-balance.

Using that to her advantage, she elbowed his stomach and made her way past him and out of the pantry.

She was gone before he got over his shock that she’d used violence against him.

He made it to the pantry door before he caught hold of himself.

There was no point in going after her. He couldn’t chase her without bringing attention to them.

She need only scream to bring the entire household down around them.

His only hope was that she’d wait before she told anyone.

He’d have to come up with something to offer her, some incentive that would make her keep her mouth shut.

Grumbling at his own poor luck, he stormed back across the room to the stairwell and trudged down for his meeting with the servants.