Untameable Rogue. Kelly Hunter

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СКАЧАТЬ he said. And on a more serious note, ‘I don’t poach.’

      ‘How very honourable of you. But then, I’d expect nothing less from a brother of Jacob’s. Tell him I had to be going.’

      ‘And my question?’

      Madeline considered him thoughtfully, knowing the question for what it was. A declaration of interest, an invitation to play. She’d taken only one lover in the six years since William’s death. She’d still been grieving, and in retrospect she’d wanted the comfort that came of intimacy far more than she’d wanted her lover’s love. He’d wanted a woman he could honour and respect. It hadn’t turned out well.

      What would Luke Bennett look for in a lover? she wondered. Passion? Passion hadn’t touched her in such a long time. Laughter? She could do somewhat better there. Honesty? She could give him that too, for what it was worth.

      And then there was honour, and that she could not do.

      ‘How long are you staying in Singapore, Luke Bennett?’

      ‘A week.’

      ‘Not long.’

      ‘Long enough,’ he countered. ‘A person can pack a lot into a week if they try.’ He shot her a crooked smile. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

      ‘Only because I don’t want to. Consider it one of life’s little mysteries.’

      ‘I hate mysteries,’ he said. ‘Fair warning.’

      Hard not to smile a little at that. ‘Enjoy your stay in Singapore, Luke Bennett. There’s plenty to entertain.’

      ‘There certainly is,’ he murmured.

      ‘There’s plenty of things you’d do well to avoid too.’ Fair warning. Smiling wryly, Madeline turned on her heel and let herself out.

      ‘So what’s the deal with you and Madeline Delacourte?’ Luke asked his brother as they resumed their battle with the Shaolin sticks some fifteen minutes later, this time with a watchful pickpocket for an audience. ‘You into her?’

      ‘Why the interest?’ asked Jake and followed through with a glancing blow to Luke’s side.

      Luke stopped talking and started concentrating on his defence. But the image of Madeline Delacourte—she of the knowing smile, honey-blonde hair, and long shapely legs—just wouldn’t go away. ‘Why do you think? I’m not asking for a kidney here. All I want is a straight yes or no answer from one of you.’ He really didn’t think it was too much to ask.

      ‘No,’ said Jake, blocking Luke’s next blow. ‘She’s just a friend.’

      ‘Is she married?’

      ‘Not any more.’

      ‘Engaged?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Attached?’

      ‘No.’ Jake’s stick caught him on the knuckles and damn near took his fingers off. ‘Madeline’s choosy. She can afford to be.’

      ‘She’s wealthy?’

      ‘Very. Her late husband’s family were British spice traders, back when the East opened up. They made a fortune and sank most of it into real estate. Maddy’s husband owned a string of shopping centres and hotels along Orchid Road and half the residential skyscrapers in south-east Singapore. Maddy owns them now.’

      ‘Her husband died young?’

      ‘Her husband died a happy old man.’

      Luke winced. He didn’t like the picture Jake was painting. ‘Any kids?’

      ‘No.’ More blows reached him. ‘You’re not concentrating,’ said Jake.

      ‘I’m still coming to grips with the trophy-wife thing.’

      ‘Maybe she loved him.’

      ‘How much older was he?’

      ‘Thirty years,’ said Jake. ‘Give or take.’

      Luke scowled and came in hard, peppering his brother with blows, his growing disillusion with Madeline Delacourte giving him a ferocious edge. The fighting ceased being a sparring exercise and became instead an outlet for emotion of the explosive kind as he went for Jake’s hands, the better to rid them of the long stick. Not a berserker, not quite, but a creature of instinct nonetheless and one Jake would have no peaceable defence against.

      Cursing his lack of control, Luke grounded his staff and stepped back abruptly, breathing hard as he bowed to formalise the end of the session. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and headed for the stack of towels piled on a low wooden bench over by the wall.

      Jake had walked towards Po and was speaking to him in the calm quiet way that Luke had always loved about his brother. The kid nodded once, warily, and hightailed it out of the dojo door. Jake turned his attention back to Luke after that. Luke looked away and towelled his face, not wanting to meet Jake’s condemning gaze, or, worse, his understanding one. Once a younger brother, always a younger brother, though he was not the youngest of the four boys in the family. Tristan carried that dubious honour.

      By the time he’d finished roughing the towel over his shoulders and stomach, Jake stood beside him.

      ‘You want to tell me what that was all about?’ asked Jake quietly.

      Ten rigorous years of living life in the explosive lane? Never settling down, never staying in one place for more than a few months? One too many dices with death? A volcanic recklessness that had been building and building and needed an outlet before it blew him apart? ‘I changed the rules on you halfway through the match and I shouldn’t have. I stopped. No one got hurt. What’s to tell?’

      ‘You let anger take hold,’ said Jake. ‘You lost your centre.’

      He didn’t have a centre. He wasn’t even sure he had a soul any more after standing witness to so much death and destruction. And the thought that Madeline Delacourte, saviour of street urchins, had sold her soul for wealth ate at him like acid. Just once he’d wanted an angel of mercy to grace his life rather than the spectre of death.

      ‘How long since you last took a job?’ Jake asked next.

      ‘A few weeks back, give or take.’ Not that he minded. Better for everyone when he wasn’t working.

      ‘You right for money?’

      ‘Money’s fine.’ Luke’s line of work had paid remarkably well over the years. He wasn’t in Madeline Delacourte’s stratosphere by any means, but he had no monetary need to ever work again.

      Jake opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. His face took on a pained expression. ‘Blame your brothers,’ he murmured.

      ‘For what?’

      ‘This. You’re not in love, are you?’

      Luke СКАЧАТЬ