Page 11 of For a Scot's Heart Only

“I wonder, if deep down, sir, you wish to be played with.”

His sculpted mouth curved, mysterious and beautiful. “That is something to ponder.”

The air taut, they considered each other. The noise, the crowded room vanished, such was the buzz in her ears. Interminable seconds passed with Mr. West’s gaze flickering over her. She took a safe half step back, a reprieve from flirtation’s crackling heat.

His smile eased, polite and congenial, and their talk steered to safer topics: the room’s abominable air, the growing crowds, and the lack of seating unless one wanted to gamble. She was thankful for Mr. West’s tacit agreement to cease their carnal conversation, yet his focused, lively eyes assured her no one else existed. In a brothel, of all places, where the other women in attendance were meant to lure men.

Looking into his eyes, she almost felt time stop.

One taste of him. That’s all I want.

What defiance, her flesh. It needed to be squashed.

In her side vision, another woman smiled benignly at her. The artist’s rendering of Betty Burke. Her shoulders sank: duty was calling. The league, her clan, the gold—her reasons for venturing into Maison Bedwell in the first place.

Her gaze dropped to the painted rosette. She’d seen enough.

She swayed closer to Mr. West, careful not to touch him. “Perhaps now would be a good time for you to escort me away from here.”

“Agreed.”

His hand was on her elbow, and she soaked up everything about him. His touch, his resolute profile, the cedarwood and musk clouding him. She smiled privately as they walked. How primitive,her scenting a man. She knew his eyes, his mouth, the angle of his scar, but she couldn’t say what Mr. West was wearing beyond his cravat and the wool she touched on his thigh—rather flummoxing for a woman who earned her coin with a needle and thread.

She was about to rectify that with a side glance when a voice intruded.

“Didn’t think you liked them so glacial.”

The dark-haired lord had spoken while perusing the cards in his hand.

“Lord Ranleigh.” Mr. West stopped their progress. “You know as well as I do, the cooler the woman, the hotter she burns... given the right touch, of course.”

Smug male laughter cascaded across the tables. A retort wanted out but she stifled it.

Did all men lose their manners in a brothel?

His lordship’s stare roamed over her, intense and interested.

She stared back.

With an arrow-straight nose, hair like polished jet, there was an air of worldly grace about him. His clothes, she noticed. Cream-colored figured silk made on a draw loom stretched across his shoulders. The costly weave was a creation from Milan or Vienna, she guessed. Privileged and insolent he might be, but his lordship had, of a sort, come to her aide.

A frisson scraped her skin when his gaze joined hers.

Elegant and deadlycame to mind. Not a man to cross.

Lord Ranleigh’s onyx stare sent a message, but shewas too new to subterfuge to grasp the meaning. Or her senses were too swamped.

His lordship flicked a dismissive lace-covered wrist. “Enjoy your evening.”

She was glad to leave, yet, when she passed through the doorway, a ghost of a chill chased her. She peered over her shoulder. Lord Ranleigh fiddled with his cards while the blonde in jackboots bent low to whisper in his ear. Her razor-sharp eyes tracked Mary.

Definitely not a woman to cross.

Chapter Three

As they reached the entry hall nearly a dozen noblemen poured into Maison Bedwell, rain spitting at their backsides. They paid the attendant and began shedding greatcoats and hats into the arms of waiting footmen. Miss Fletcher broke away from Thomas and folded her fan, the very polite and very icy version of her back in place.

“Thank you, Mr. West. Your assistance was invaluable.”