London, March 1814
Flickering firelight cast a golden glow over Dare's nude body as he stood before the bedchamber hearth, yet no flame could warm the chill in his heart. His mind flooded by thoughts of a beautiful, deceptive enchantress, he stared down at the playbill advertising her latest performance at the Drury Lane Theater.
Julienne Laurent.
He didn't need the artist's sketch to prod his recollection, for everything about her was burned into his memory. Images of her assaulted him: her exquisite body arched in passion. Her sleek limbs wrapped around him. Her luxurious hair like a mantle of sable fire about her shoulders. Her skin so flawlessly white, it looked like fine porcelain. Her laughter and her smile. Her keen wit. Her dark, luminous eyes with their incredible sensuality…
It was all branded upon his memory with a sharpness and clarity that still seared.
"What a bloody fool you were," he murmured, the accusation hoarse in the quiet of the bedchamber.
Dare locked his jaw, distressed that Julienne's sudden appearance in London had awakened emotions he'd presumed long dead. He'd thought himself over her years ago. Free of the tormenting memories, free of the regrets and loneliness that plagued him.
Yet given the savage pain that lanced through him now, he knew he still hadn't fully recovered from his shattering encounter with Julienne. Apparently the adage was true-that a man never forgot his first love.
He hadn't intended to lose his heart to her. He'd been young and hot and full of himself, eminently secure in his powers of seduction. But the girl he set out to conquer had become the woman who taught him about love. About betrayal.
The first time he'd laid eyes on the beautiful French emigre, Dare knew he had to have her. He'd come to Kent in June for a cousin's wedding, putting up at his grandfather's estate of Wolverton Hall near the small seaport of Whitstable, where Julienne's millinery was located. He'd wound up staying for the entire summer, intent on wooing her.
His intense attraction had surprised him. He'd had dozens of women as alluring, in countless affairs that had never touched his heart. Love for him had never been fiery and urgent, as it was with Julienne.
He'd wanted her far beyond the usual dalliance or casual taking. He wanted to possess her, to give her everything in return. His heart, his body, his very soul.
He hadn't known she lied as easily as she breathed.
Bitter memories of her rushed through him, centering on their final shocking encounter… Julienne's look of dismay to have been discovered in the arms of another lover; his own anguish when he comprehended the depth of her deception. He hadn't believed it until he saw it with his own eyes, heard Julienne's admission from her own lips.
Against his will, Dare traced her sketch with his fingertips. His grandfather had claimed the Earl of Ivers was her lover, but he'd scoffed in the old man's face. After stalking away from another violent argument with the marquess, Dare had sought Julienne out at her millinery, where he'd caught her with Ivers.
Only the slightest hint of remorse had shown on her patrician features when Ivers revealed they were longstanding lovers, and no remorse at all when Julienne had curtly ended their betrothal.
With her simple declaration, Dare felt as if his heart had been ripped from his chest. Her pretense of virginal innocence had been a sham from the very beginning, he realized. Her professed love for him merely a charade.
Only afterward had he put the pieces together and understood how completely he had been played for a fool: Julienne had wanted greater riches than he could give her if his grandfather disowned him. It was even possible she had plotted to wed him from the first but reconsidered when his grandfather's wrath rendered his inheritance uncertain. Perhaps she'd even planned to share the spoils with her lover-
Dare's throat tightened on the razor-sharp edge of memory.
Admittedly, though, he was glad to have discovered the truth about her before he threw his entire future away.
"A scheming French jade," his grandfather had called her, but Dare hadn't listened. He'd been remarkably stupid to fall for her display of virtue, or to believe she could be faithful. He should have known better. His own mother had enjoyed too many lovers to count, making a mockery of the word fidelity. He had thought Julienne cut from a different cloth, but she had deceived him so thoroughly, he'd never suspected her treachery until he felt the knife sliding between his ribs.
Dare cursed again beneath his breath. Julienne had vowed to love and cherish him, yet she had shattered those promises with lies and deceit.
He wondered if she regretted her choice now. He finally had come into the title of Marquess of Wolverton, along with the vast Wolverton fortune, for his hated grandfather had died the previous year.
But more than half a decade would have been a long time for a scheming fortune hunter to wait. She apparently had been busy meanwhile developing a successful acting career.
And no doubt cultivating other lovers. Dare had seen her in the park today for the first time, holding court for her love-struck swains.
The sight had rocked him to his core, for until two days ago, he hadn't even known she was in London. He'd been away for weeks, first on an assignment in the north, then on an unrelated mission to Ireland. He'd returned to discover Julienne Laurent the toast of the town, being pursued by a multitude of bucks and dandies. London's brightest new Jewel was how she was being termed. Reportedly every man wanted the dazzling actress for his mistress.
Hiding the unexpected pain knotting his chest at the sight of her, Dare had shifted his attention back to his companion, Lady Dunleith. Moments before, the lovely widow had beckoned to him from her carriage as he rode through the throng gathered in Hyde Park for the social hour.
When he questioned Lady Dunleith about the ton's latest novelty, she was cheerfully forthcoming.
"Miss Laurent? She hails from York, I believe. She is all the rage, but deservedly so. She sings like an angel, and she is quite an accomplished actress. Not in the class of Mrs. Siddons, perhaps. But Edmund Kean himself praised her last dramatic performance when she played Desdemona to his Othello."
Dare's mouth tightened. He would have to agree that Miss Laurent was an accomplished actress, although he had yet to see her upon the stage. During their enchanted summer together, he had never once suspected that the same sweet lips that promised him love would betray him so completely.