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Dangerous Games. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.

Dangerous Games - Charlotte Mede


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would you like to make the exchange,” she asked steadily. And he didn’t believe her for an instant. She would return to look for her pistol, supposedly secreted away, only to find it missing.

      He smiled grimly. “Tomorrow evening. At your home in Mayfair.”

      She swallowed hard and her breathing was heavy with a combination of impatience and fear. Pushing her hair back from her face, she said, “I have plans for the evening. It will have to be another time.”

      “Of course. How could I forget? Your assignation with Mr. Bellamy? Are nuptials in the offing or is this a simple affaire?”

      Her eyes darkened, blue turning to a storm gray. He could tell that all she wanted to do was yell, throw something at his head, choke him with that ridiculous shawl falling across her shoulders. Instead, she took a steadying breath. “Your aspersions are reprehensible and not worth my consideration.”

      “Ah yes, the matronly airs.” He wanted to see how simple it would be to provoke her. “Although it would only stand to reason that you would be prepared to spread your legs for his protection, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the realm, after all. And a close associate of your late husband’s, if the rumors are correct.” Despite the personal insult and stinging insinuation, his tone was as even as that of a barrister from the West End.

      In an instant the tightly coiled, elegantly controlled widow was gone. She opened her mouth to scream, fingers curling into fists at her side. Her first mistake and he calculated that it would not be her last.

      Before she could make a sound, he’d dragged her flush against him, his hand clamping over her mouth. The shawl fell to the floor as she shoved against his chest trying to break the contact. He lifted her off her feet and carried her back to the Tower room, pushing her up against the edge of the glass case. The diamond gleamed spectacularly as he enclosed her thrashing arms and legs with his torso. Avoiding her knee to his groin, he deftly shifted aside.

      “What’s the difference, precisely, Mrs. Hampton, between Bellamy and me? Between what he wants of you and what I want of you?” Not waiting for an answer, he lowered his face to hers, the blue of her eyes more vivid than the facets of the diamond behind them. He was strong, too strong, positioning his body over hers and pinning her hands over her head with one arm.

      Her breathing was fractured beneath the heavy stays of her dress. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea, your screaming,” he said, whispering a fraction away from her mouth, removing his hand. “You should know far better than I.”

      “You are disgusting.” She hissed the words. “Leave me be….” She attempted to scramble away but it was impossible. Her breath was warm against his skin, the scent of rosewater and fear a peculiar aphrodisiac. Not what he expected at all from the young widow, his reaction, this sudden and unmistakable hardening in his breeches. Even under all the ruching, the bombazine, the stays, and the corset, he could feel her body writhing against his. He saw her eyes darken a moment before he covered her mouth with his.

      It stopped her words. It stopped her breath and he hoped it would stop her thoughts. His tongue slipped into the heat of her mouth while he ground his hips to push her roughly against the glass case. He felt the stays beneath her dress shifting as he slanted his lips to kiss her more deeply, more thoroughly, to obliterate her will.

      He couldn’t tell if she tried to pull away, because it was impossible, his weight holding her fast, his mouth an unrelenting assault. First hard, then soft, what began as an attack became something else.

      The pounding behind his eyes receded as his right hand burned its way down her throat, the angle of a shoulder beneath the tightly sheathed fabric, the underside of her breast hidden away beneath the stiffness of an unforgiving corset. Her lips softened, a white flag, as his mouth continued its sensual assault, his hands his weapon.

      She moaned, in desire or surrender, it didn’t matter. Reason told him this shouldn’t be happening, that this stiff, unyielding woman shouldn’t be able to ignite mindless lust in a man who had given up on such things long ago. And yet he was feeding on her tongue, her mouth, her lips, ensuring she felt overwhelmed by his size, his power, his force.

      Their desire mingled and St. Martin felt her chest against his own take several unsteady breaths as his lips wandered to her neck, the only exposed skin on her body, trailing heat just behind her left ear. She exhaled sharply, yielding to his mouth snaking along her jawline, brushing and then returning to hover again over her lips.

      And suddenly he stopped, the silk of her hair roped in his palm, reminding him of something, someone. The ties that bind, he thought, the heavy pounding in his head returning with the steadiness of a distant drumbeat. He couldn’t recall when he’d last been with a woman, or more brutally, he didn’t care to remember. The heavy silk that he now gripped in his palm burned.

      He wanted out and he wanted the cleansing breath of night air. Now. He let go of the woman in his arms but held her with his eyes, looking for submission of another kind.

      She didn’t make a sound. Slowly he moved away from her, still caging her body, still holding her prisoner. She stared at the profile above her, pale as linen save for the crimson of her lips.

      When she still didn’t move or say a word, he said, “I’ll explain. Tomorrow evening,” he added, reading her mind. “After Bellamy.”

      He stepped back and he could see confusion and fear imprinted on her face, wondering if she had hallucinated their embrace moments ago. The secretive and unbending widow and the savage and wounded man. He wondered himself.

      The damp fetid air was a contagion in the enclosed space, the diamond glistening, overt in its shameless beauty, behind them. The widow licked her parted lips and he almost looked away.

      Reason had reasserted itself. “You cannot have the plans,” she said softly, decisively. Her trembling hands uselessly attempted to pull her hair back into place. “I won’t allow it.” A curtain of heavy gold obscured her face.

      “We will speak of it tomorrow. Remember. You have no options.” He shoved a hand into his vest pocket and produced two of her ivory combs. Without asking permission, he once again closed the space between them and, despite her startled gasp, pulled her hair away from her face. Exposed, she couldn’t help but feel his gaze linger on her eyes, her lips, the curve of her neck.

      She held her breath, watching as, with careful gentleness, he traced the outlines of her features, his long fingers lingering against her skin before anchoring her hair, almost reluctantly, with first one and then the second comb. The gesture more shocking than the violence of his kiss.

      She stood motionless under his ministrations, eyes wide and searching, wariness shot through with distrust. For him, and most of all, for herself.

      “Go,” he said when he finished, pushing her toward the door with its heavy grille, the soldier still positioned outside. “And remember,” the warning deliberately cruel in cold contrast to the heat of his touch, “you’re a murderess.”

      And before she could respond, he strode out the room and was swallowed by the doorway leading to the antechamber. The small window with its loosened bars beckoned, offering the solace of cold night air and unforgiving cobblestones two hundred feet below. He didn’t look back.

      Quickly securing the rope to the remaining bar, he leaped over the sill, not for the first time wishing for death but realizing fate was seldom so kind.

      Chapter 6

      The applause, a reverberating clap of thunder, rumbled and rolled through the Haymarket Theatre, the audience demonstrating its delight with The Road to Ruin, a farce that had most of London buzzing.

      As the lights rose for the first interval, Lilly leaned back in the plush velvet seat of Isambard Kingdom Bellamy’s private box, going through the motions of clapping, her hands cold in black lace evening gloves. She observed Bellamy’s profile discreetly, the retreating hairline and the bold nose set above narrowed lips and full mustache. A handsome countenance all in all, she convinced


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