Mistress of Scandal (Greentree Sisters 3)

She was herself, and it had never bothered her before, but now she found herself wishing she was wearing the magenta taffeta she’d seen in York last month, with the matching parasol and slippers. The preposterous image of herself dressed in such an outfit, walking in the rain on the moors, made her smile.

His gaze was roaming her face. “Last night, when I was trapped in the mire, I was dreaming of a beautiful woman. I thought I was dreaming of you, but I see now it wasn’t you.”

Francesca stiffened. “I’m so sorry I don’t measure up to your feverish imaginings!”

He realized he’d insulted her, and shook his head impatiently. “But you do. That is my point.”

“I do?”

“My ‘feverish imaginings’—I do like your turn of phrase—didn’t do you justice. I can see that now. Who needs blue eyes and a perfect nose and—” He stopped hastily. “You are my dream.”

“I think you must be delirious, Mr….” She laughed angrily. “I don’t even know your name!”

“Sebastian Thorne.” He bowed like a gentleman. “From London.”

“Then, Mr. Thorne, I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” Her voice was chilly and formal, her “proper” voice. “I am Miss Francesca Greentree, of Greentree Manor. And I do not make appearances in men’s dreams, especially not yours!”

He was staring at her blankly. And then, slowly, his dark eyes lit up with an unholy amusement, and his mobile mouth was smiling again.

“Miss Greentree,” he repeated. “Miss Francesca Greentree. I feel as if I know you already.”

Chapter 3

The woman of his dreams was watching him as if she wasn’t at all certain of his sanity. She was right. He was wondering about it himself. She was Aphrodite’s daughter—his client’s daughter—and although he hadn’t known that at first, he did now. It made no difference. Just as it made no difference that she wasn’t strictly the woman of his dreams. Her hair was too curly and unrestrained, her eyes were brown and not blue, her nose was tip-tilted, and her mouth was lush and too wide, although the color was right. But none of that mattered.

He wanted her.

Wanted her with a feverish single-mindedness he usually reserved only for his prey. Perhaps he had lost his mind as well as his scruples during the night in the mire? Death had breathed upon him and left him with an unquenchable thirst for life. And Miss Francesca Greentree was life.

He took off his jacket, every muscle and sinew tired and aching, and shook it hard. Clumps of mud rattled to the ground. He reminded himself that he was a sensible man, most of the time anyway. A practical and hardheaded man, with no time for romantic fairy tales. With gritted teeth he put his jacket on again, straightening the cuffs and the lapels with determined tugs.

And all the time he was aware of her, like the sun at his back. The softness of her flesh beneath him, cradling him, was burned into his brain. No corset. He couldn’t remember a woman of her class not being properly tucked in and turned out, but he wasn’t shocked, far from it. He wanted to lie down upon her again and feel every inch of her responding to him, while he kissed those luscious lips. How was it that such a proper woman had such an improper mouth…

His practical voice said, This is lust, Sebastian. The sort of lust that makes fools of the rich and powerful, the sort of lust that topples governments. The sort of lust that can cause Mr. Thorne to lose his focus. Hal and his cohorts are out there somewhere and they must be found.

“What is it that brings you onto the moors, Mr. Thorne?” Miss Francesca Greentree questioned him in her melodious voice. Ah, that voice. It sent a tingle all the way down to his groin.

Sebastian turned to look at her. She had the same unruly dark hair as Aphrodite, and the same wide, dark gaze that seemed to pierce him as if he were an insect on a pin, but she was also different in ways that were entirely her own.

“Mr. Thorne? I asked you what you were doing out on the moors? How did you come to be here in the first place?”

Sebastian ran an impatient hand through his matted hair. “I was lost. I thought I’d take a shortcut, and the next thing I knew I’d fallen off my horse. If not for that branch I would be dead now, with no one the wiser.”

He was watching her carefully to see if she believed him.

She didn’t, but she was clever enough not to say it aloud. Apart from a quick upward flicker from the corners of her eyes, she did not give herself away. If he hadn’t been adept at reading faces he wouldn’t even have noticed.

“Emerald Mire has a reputation for swallowing up everything and everyone who wanders into it,” she said, staring ahead now. “Sometimes they come up again—days, even months later—sometimes they don’t.”

“You paint a grim picture,” he replied.

She gave him a frowning look, making him wonder what he’d said wrong. But all she said was, “We must hurry,” and looked up at the sky.

He, too, stared up at the darkening heavens. The energy he had used to escape from his muddy prison had taken its toll, and he only hoped he could persuade his aching body to carry him to shelter before the storm broke. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to sit in a comfortable chair in front of a roaring fire, with a glass of brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other. His rooms in Half Moon Street, and his manservant Martin, were his one indulgence, his one concession to the past.

But he couldn’t go home, and he couldn’t collapse in his bed at the inn. There was Hal to deal with. He and his conspirators would be imagining him dead and themselves safe, and Sebastian must strike while they were still laboring under that delusion. There was no time to be lost.

As if on cue, lightning streaked from the glowering clouds, turning the moors a sickly yellow. It was frightening and elemental, and wonderfully invigorating.