Desire (Notorious 3)

Chapter Eight

Despite his best intentions, Lucian felt his heartbeat quicken with anticipation as he mounted the front steps of his London residence. His desire to see Brynn was a powerful yearning inside him-a yearning he had vowed to crush. He wouldn’t allow his craving for his beautiful wife to make him shirk his duty again.

“Welcome home, my lord,” his butler intoned, stepping back to permit him entrance.

“Thank you, Naysmith.” Lucian glanced around him as he handed the servant his hat and gloves, repressing an unreasonable disappointment that Brynn wasn’t there to greet him. “Where is my wife?”

“Her ladyship is not at home,” Naysmith answered.

Lucian raised an eyebrow. His secretary had sent him two different reports of Brynn over the past week, but there had been no mention of any social functions that would keep her out at this late hour.

“She is attending a soiree with Miss Kendrick, I believe,” was the butler’s explanation. “At the home of Lord and Lady Sinclair.”

“Ah.” Damien Sinclair was one of Lucian’s closest friends and one of the few peers who usually remained in London during the warm summer months. Like Lucian, Damien had governmental responsibilities he couldn’t forsake simply for personal convenience, although Damien’s skills lay in the area of finance, not espionage.

“Will you be joining Lady Wycliff, my lord? Shall I order your carriage?”

Lucian considered a moment, then shook his head. It was nearly ten o’clock, and he’d sworn he would try to distance himself from Brynn, try to quell his obsession. It would hardly be in keeping with his new resolve to go running after her the moment he arrived home. “No, I won’t be going out again. I’ll spend the remainder of the evening in my study.”

“Very well, my lord.”

Naysmith preceded him into the study to light the lamps and pour a glass of brandy. He left the hearth untouched, since the August evening was too warm for a fire.

Accepting the crystal snifter, Lucian dismissed the butler and settled in his favorite leather armchair. Yet his thoughts were too restless for him to enjoy the peace and comfort of his home.

His fury and frustration had only grown over the past week. The investigation into the murders and missing gold had reached a dead end, while his search for the elusive mastermind, C

aliban, had been just as fruitless.

His ineffectiveness galled Lucian. He had vowed to find and punish the ringleader, but meanwhile the only action he could take to prevent further thefts was purely defensive. He’d ordered a new schedule of gold transfers drawn up, a schedule that only a handful of people would be privy to this time. But that still couldn’t guarantee the gold would be safe in the future, or that he could avert further murders.

For a moment Lucian shut his eyes, unable to drive away the images in his mind-the bodies of the dead guards littering the road like refuse. The slaughter had left him shaken.

Lucian took a deep swallow of brandy, welcoming its fierce burn. Guilt was a familiar companion to him, he reflected darkly. It had driven him to join the intelligence section of the Foreign Office nearly six years ago, eschewing the self-indulgent, frivolous life of a wealthy nobleman. He’d taken that unusual course to relieve his conscience; he’d felt a vague shame that he had lived while so many others had not.

Many of the dead had been friends-some killed in battle against the French while serving in the army or navy, others while engaged in the dangerous business of espionage. And then, during his last visit to France, he’d experienced the ultimate guilt: killing his friend Giles with his own hands.

Lucian flinched at the memory, even as his mouth curled with cynical self-reproach. He had always possessed the devil’s own luck. He’d been involved in any number of dangerous situations and escaped entirely unscathed-until he’d confronted Giles, barely eluding death himself. Since then his luck had changed radically. He felt it in his soul. And in his dreams. The dreaded nightmare had recurred last night: the stark vision of his own death, Brynn standing over him, her hands wet with his blood.

Lucian stared into his glass, scoffing at his own fanciful imagination. Brynn was no assassin. She was merely a dangerous enchantress who would cause him to shirk his duty if he allowed it.

But he wouldn’t allow it. He would keep his distance emotionally, maintain a cool reserve even in their most intimate moments. He still badly wanted a son, but enjoying the physical pleasure of getting her with child didn’t necessarily mean succumbing to her unquestionable allure.

Even so, Lucian realized as he recklessly downed the last of his brandy, he found it impossible to quell his sense of anticipation at the thought of seeing her again, of crossing swords with her, of surprising a quick smile from Brynn, perhaps even winning a laugh. He missed her rapier wit and her tart tongue. He missed her vibrancy.

His near brush with death had made him yearn for life, to feel alive. Brynn made him feel alive. Everything about her set his nerve endings singing, from her sensual beauty to her spirited defiance to her fiery hair.

A dangerous sentiment, he knew. Brynn was an unmistakable danger to him, curse or no curse.

Yet despite his vow to remain detached, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her, craving her, or from fantasizing about taking her in his arms and rousing her to passion.

“His lordship awaits you in his study, my lady,” the butler said, admitting her to the house.

Brynn froze in the act of surrendering her wrap. Lucian was here? Feeling a moment of panic, she thought about fleeing upstairs and taking refuge in her rooms. But he would know she had returned home, and she was not ordinarily a coward… Not that these circumstances were ordinary. She had to face a husband she barely knew, one who had coerced her into marriage and then promptly deserted her.

All the resentment Brynn had kept banked during the past week came surging to the fore.

Steeling herself for the encounter, she made her way to his study and found Lucian sitting before a cold hearth. When he looked up and met her eyes, Brynn felt her heartbeat falter. The impact of his crystalline blue gaze was as breathtaking as she remembered, his stark handsomeness just as riveting-devil take him.