Dicing with the Dangerous Lord. Margaret McPhee

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СКАЧАТЬ unmoving as if he were carved of the same Portland stone as the balustrade that contained the balcony. Her gaze moved over the dark beaver hat and gloves held in his left hand, and then on to the walking cane in his right. The tip of it touched to the leather of his glossy black riding boot and beneath his hand she could see the glint of the stick’s silver wolf’s-head handle and the glow of two tiny green gems within. And in that small moment before he moved, all of Robert’s warnings about this man and what he had done seemed to whisper in her ear, making her blood run cold. But even then she did not consider changing her mind. She stepped forwards, relishing the challenge.

      He glanced round, half turned to her.

      ‘Do you mind if I…?’ She gestured towards the coping that topped the balustrade just along from where he stood.

      ‘Not at all.’ It was a smooth, low, well-spoken voice, not harsh and cold as one might have imagined for such a man. ‘I was just leaving.’ His expression was serious, unsmiling, nothing of the hopeful flirtation that was upon every other male face within the green room.

      ‘Not on my account, I hope.’ She kept her voice low and lazy and seductive as she strolled over to the balustrade, stopping, not too close to him but close enough, and looking not at him but out over the same view he had been watching. ‘Who would have thought such a spot could offer such refuge?’ She knew the way to draw a man into conversation, to entice his interest by offering a little of herself. It was a necessary skill of any successful actress and Venetia had spent years perfecting the method.

      ‘Refuge?’ he asked.

      She kept her gaze fixed on the lamp-lit streets below. The breeze breathed its chill against her cheeks, against her exposed décolletage.

      ‘A few precious moments of calm in a night full of frenzy and demand.’ She watched the carriages and the groups of gentlemen with their mistresses on their arms. ‘I often come out here before the performance… and after. To think. I find it helpful.’

      ‘You do not enjoy acting?’

      ‘I enjoy acting very much. But not that which goes with it.’

      ‘You mean the green room?’

      ‘And more. But—’ she inhaled deeply and slowly released the breath, and the chill of the night air lent it a misty quality ‘—it is all part of my job. Written into my contract, would you believe?’

      ‘To entice and delight.’

      ‘Some may call it that.’ She leaned slightly closer to him, presenting him with a better view of her cleavage. ‘But in reality to generate interest in, and donations to, the theatre. You paid more to visit the green room than you did for your theatre ticket, did you not, sir?’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘To be seduced.’

      ‘By you, Miss Fox?’

      ‘Perhaps…’ She let the word hang in the air as a suggestion before lowering her voice as if they were two conspirators speaking secrets. ‘Or then again, perhaps not. We actresses are not supposed to tell. Such truths quite spoil the illusion.’ She smiled, but only because the role called for it, then glanced across at him, and looked at the murderer properly for the first time. At his olive-skinned face with its chiselled angles and planes that lent him a handsomeness she had not expected. At his dark hair that hung in ebony-sheened waves, and his eyes that were black as midnight and held such dark brooding intensity within that had nothing to do with their colour. His gaze met hers and it was as if he had stroked a finger down the naked length of her spine.

      She stared into those dark compelling eyes and her heart gave a stutter and her stomach turned a somersault. She stared, shocked and unable look away. The moment stretched between them and all the while he held her imprisoned in that steady, scrutinising gaze as surely as she did any other man’s. Her heart was pounding as she finally managed to tear her eyes away and lower her gaze. With a determination of iron she masked the fluster, reined herself in, but all the willpower in the world could not suppress the shiver that rippled right through her. It took every ounce of her experience upon the stage to regain her poise before she could look at him once again.

      ‘The nights grow colder and an actress can hardly wear her woollens and flannels to work,’ she said by way of excuse, knowing that he had seen the shiver.

      ‘Indeed.’ His eyes moved over her dress, over the bare skin it revealed and the pale swell of her breasts before coming back up to her face. ‘That would not do at all.’

      Play the part. It is just another role. He is just another man. ‘So… what is your excuse?’ She held his gaze, her appearance once more the cool, calm, enticing Miss Fox, but beneath the surface her composure was still ruffled. ‘Why are you braving the chill of a November evening instead of enjoying the hospitality of the green room?’

      His eyes moved back to the Bow Street view. ‘I have things on my mind.’

      ‘You disappoint me. There was me thinking that you had come outside alone to wait for me.’ He glanced round at her and she curved her lips to show that she was teasing him, even though her heart was still beating that bit too fast. ‘Things from which an evening at the theatre cannot distract you?’

      ‘Quite.’

      ‘They must be serious or perhaps it is a comment upon Miss Sweetly’s and my acting abilities.’

      ‘Rest assured your acting abilities remain unchallenged.’

      ‘You flatter me. And flattery is not permitted out here. I have a rule that it must remain confined to the green room.’

      ‘The truth is quite the contrary, Miss Fox. I enjoyed the performance very much.’

      She smiled a wry smile and let her gaze wander back to the view. ‘In that case I am intrigued as to precisely what it is that so preoccupies your mind, sir.’

      The sounds from the streets below drifted up to her. The silence seemed so long that she wondered if she had gone too far in asking so blatantly.

      ‘Trust me, you do not wish to know.’ And there was something in the way he said it, a dangerous, haunting honesty that quite chilled her to the bone.

      She turned her gaze away, watching the view once more so that he would not see the truth in her eyes. ‘We all have things on our minds.’

      ‘Learning your lines, or deliberating in your choice of Hawick or Devlin?’ he asked.

      ‘Not quite,’ she said, and thought with irony of just what she had come out here to do to him.

      ‘Then what, may I ask?’

      She looked at him across the small distance and wondered, just for the tiniest of moments, what he would do if she were to tell him and the thought made her smile in earnest. ‘You are asking me to spill my secrets and you have not even told me your name, sir.’ She arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow, the ultimate femme fatale. ‘What manner of woman do you take me for?’

      He glanced at her again, the dark eyes studying her face.

      Their gazes held and even though she was prepared this time, the same prickling sensation stroked against her nerves. Her heart was racing and not only because she feared СКАЧАТЬ