“You could not imagine the things I wish.”

She could, no doubt. “I understand that you are angry.”

The words seemed to call to him, and he came toward her, glass still in hand, stalking her backward, across the too-small room. “You understand, do you?”

It had been the wrong thing to say. She skirted around an ottoman, holding her hands up, as though she could stop him, searching for the right thing.

He did not wait for her to find it. “You understand what it is to have lost everything?”

Yes.

“You understand what it is to have lost my name?”

She did, rather. But she knew better than to say it.

He pressed on. “To have lost my title, my land, my life?”

“But you didn’t lose all that . . . you’re still a duke. The Duke of Lamont,” she said, the words—things she’d told herself for years—coming quick and defensive. “The land is still yours. The money. You’ve tripled the holdings of the dukedom.”

His eyes went wide. “How do you know that?”

“I pay attention.”

“Why?”

“Why have you never returned to the estate?”

“What good would it have done if I returned?”

“You might have been reminded that you haven’t lost so very much.” The words were out before she could stop them. Before she realized how inciting they were. She scurried backward, putting a high-backed chair between them and peeking around it. “I did not mean—”

“Of course you did.” He started around the chair toward her.

She moved counter to him, keeping the furniture between them. Attempted to calm the beast. “You are angry.”

He shook his head. “Angry does not even begin to describe the depths of my emotion.”

She nodded, skipping backward across the room once more. “Fair enough. Furious.”

He advanced. “That’s closer.”

“Irate.”

“That, too.”

She looked behind her, saw the sideboard looming. This wasn’t a very large room, after all. “Livid.”

“And that.”

She felt the hard oak at her back. Trapped again. “I can repair it,” she said, desperate to regain the upper hand. “What’s broken.” He stopped, and for a moment, she had his full attention. “If I am not dead, you are not”—a killer—“what they say you are.” He did not reply, and she rushed to fill the silence. “That’s why I’m here. I shall come forward. Show myself to Society. I shall prove you’re not what they say you are.”

He set his glass on the sideboard. “You shall.”

She released a breath she had not known she was holding. He was not as unforgiving as she had imagined he might be. She nodded. “Yes, I will. I will tell everyone—”

“You shall tell them the truth.”

She hesitated at the words, hating them, the way they threatened. And still she nodded. “I shall tell them the truth.” It would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but she would do it.

She hadn’t a choice.

It would ruin her, but it might be enough to save what was important.

She had one chance to negotiate with Temple. She had to do it correctly. “On one condition.”

He laughed. A great, booming guffaw of laughter. Her brow furrowed at the noise. She did not like the sound, especially not when it ended with a wicked, humorless smile. “You think to barter with me?” He was close enough to touch. “You think tonight has put me in a negotiating frame of mind?”

“I disappeared once before. I can do it again.” The threat did not endear her to him.

“I will find you.” The words were so serious, so honest, that she did not doubt him.

Still, she soldiered on. “Perhaps, but I’ve hidden for twelve years, and I’ve become quite good at it. And even if you did find me, the aristocracy shan’t simply take your word for it that I am alive. You need me as a willing participant in this play.”

His gaze narrowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. When he spoke, the words came like ice. “I assure you, I will never need you.”

She ignored him. Forged ahead. “I shall tell the truth. Come forward with proof of my birth. And you shall forgive my brother’s debt.”

There was a moment of silence as the words fell between them, and for those fleeting seconds, Mara thought she might have succeeded in negotiating with him.

“No.”

Panic flared. He couldn’t refuse. She lifted her chin. “I think it’s a fair trade.”

“A fair trade for destroying my life?”

Irritation flared. He was one of the wealthiest men in London. In Britain, for heaven’s sake. With women tossing themselves into his arms and men desperate to gain his confidence. He retained his title, his entail, and now had an entire empire to his name. What did he know of ruined lives?

“And how many lives have you destroyed?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to keep herself from it. “You are no saint, my lord.”

“Whatever I’ve done—” he started, then stopped, changing tack with another huff of disbelief. “Enough. You are as much an idiot now as you were when you were sixteen if you think you hold a position to negotiate the terms of our agreement.”

She had thought that at the start, of course, but one look into this man’s cold, angry gaze made her see her miscalculation. This man did not want absolution.

He wanted vengeance.

And she was the path by which he would get it.

“Don’t you see, Mara,” He leaned in and whispered, “You’re mine, now.”

The words unsettled, but she refused to show him. He wasn’t a killer. She knew that better than anyone.

He might not have killed you . . . but you haven’t any idea what he’s done since.

Nonsense. He wasn’t a killer. He was simply angry. Which she’d expected, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she prepared for it? Hadn’t she considered her options before donning her cloak and heading out into the streets to find him?

She’d been alone for twelve years. She’d learned to take care of herself. She’d learned to be strong.

He moved away from her then, heading for one chair near the fireplace. “You might as well sit. You’re not going anywhere.”

Unease threaded through her at the words. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you turned up outside my door, Miss Lowe. And I have no intention of letting you escape again.”

Her heart pounded. “I’m to be your prisoner, then?”

He did not reply, but his earlier words echoed through her. You’re mine, now.

Dammit. She’d made a dreadful miscalculation.

And he left her little choice.

Ignoring the way he waved at the other seat by the hearth, she headed for the decanter on the far end of the sideboard, pouring first one, then a second glass, carefully measuring the liquid.

She turned to face him, noting one dark brow raised in accusation.

“I am allowed a drink, am I not? Or do you plan to take that along with your pound of flesh?”

He seemed to think about his response before saying, “You are welcome to it.”

She crossed the room and offered him the second glass, hoping he would not see the shaking in her hand. “Thank you.”

“You think politeness will win you points?”

She sat down on the edge of the chair across from him. “I think it cannot hurt.” He drank, and she exhaled, staring down at the liquid, marking time before she said, “I did not want to do this.”

“I don’t imagine you did,” he said, wryly. “I imagine you’ve quite enjoyed twelve years of freedom.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant, but she knew better than to correct him. “And if I told you I haven’t always enjoyed it? That it hasn’t always been easy?”

“I would counsel against telling me those things. I find that I’ve lost my sympathetic ear.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “You are a difficult man.”

He drank again. “A symptom of twelve years of solitude.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did,” she said, realizing even as she spoke the words that they were revealing more than she’d been willing to reveal. “We did not recognize you.”

He stilled. “We?”

She did not reply.

“We?” He leaned forward. “Your brother. I should have fought him when he asked. He deserves a trouncing. He was . . .” He hesitated. She held her breath. “He helped you run. He helped you . . .” He lifted a hand to his head. “ . . . drug me.”

His black eyes went wide with shock and realization, and she shot up from her chair, heart pounding.

He followed, coming to his full height—more than six feet, tall and broad and bigger than any man she’d ever known. When they were younger, she’d marveled at his size. She’d been intrigued by it.

Drawn to it.

He interrupted her thoughts. “You drugged me!”

She put the chair between them. “We were children,” she defended herself.

What’s your excuse now?

He hadn’t given her any choice.

Liar.

“Goddammit!” he said, his glass falling from his hand as he lunged toward her, missing his mark, catching himself on the edge of the chair. “You did it . . . again . . .”

And he collapsed to the floor.


It was one thing to drug a man once . . . but twice did seem overmuch. Even in one lifetime. She wasn’t a monster, after all.

Not that he would believe that when he woke.

Mara stood over the Duke of Lamont, now felled like a great oak in his own study, and considered her options.

He hadn’t given her any choice.

Perhaps if she kept telling herself that, she’d believe it. And she’d stop feeling guilty about the whole thing.