“Eve.”
She looked up and met his eyes and again felt the shock like a physical blow.
“Rowarth.” She was proud that her voice was so steady. “What an unexpected…surprise.”
His lips curved into a smile that was sinfully wicked but not remotely reassuring. “Is there any other sort?” he murmured.
“There are nice surprises,” Eve said.
“And then there is meeting me again.” His smile deepened. “Which I imagine falls into a different category given the alacrity with which you ran away from me.”
Pain twisted in Eve, bitter and sharp, not even slightly blunted with the passing of time. Yes, she had run from him. She had had no other choice in the world. And now, five years later, the mere sight of him could still affect her so profoundly that she felt faint and light-headed, her emotions stretched as taut as a wire.
But Rowarth’s measured tones had nothing but coldness in them for her now. Whatever feelings she still had for him, so deeply held that she had never quite been able to banish them, were not shared. Mistresses came and went, after all. He had been everything to her and there had never been anyone else for her since, but she could hardly expect it to be the same for him.
The crowds had melted away, leaving them alone. People were still staring, though from a discreet distance. Women were staring. But then, Eve thought, women had always stared at Alasdair Rowarth. Women had always wanted him. He was handsome, he was rich and he was a duke. What more could one ask for?
“You must let me escort you home,” Rowarth said. He was steering her across the market square and down Fortune Alley, one of the twisty little lanes that led away from the main thoroughfare. Already they had left the bustle of the main streets far behind.
“There is absolutely no need, I thank you,” Eve said. “I am sure that you have more pressing business.” It was impossible, she thought, that Rowarth had come to Fortune’s Folly to seek her out. A part of her longed for it to be true; when she had first seen him she had hoped for one heart-soaring moment that he had come looking for her because he still cared for her. Yet even in that moment she had known deep down that it was a foolish thought. The cynic in her, little Eve Nightingale, who had grown up on the streets of London and struggled to survive, knew enough of life to see that as the fairy tale it was. Besides, if by some miracle Rowarth had sought her out, that could only bring more lies and more heartbreak. There was no going back.
No, this could be no more than a coincidence. Fate was laughing at her, bringing Rowarth to this little town, miles from anywhere, where she had thought herself safe. In a moment he would excuse himself and be gone from her life a second time and she would have to try and forget him all over again.
“There was a time when you found my company a great deal more attractive.” Rowarth was making no secret of his amusement at her blatant attempt to dismiss him. “Though of course,” his tone chilled, “your affections lasted only as long as it took you to find someone you preferred.” He looked around at the dingy back streets with their rubbish in the gutters and the smell of rotting vegetables in the air. “What happened, Eve?” he said softly. “I hardly expected to find you here. Did your new lover leave you without a feather to fly?”
“That is none of your business, Rowarth.” Eve tried to speak lightly, dismissively, but the words stuck in her throat. In the note she had left him she had told him she had found another protector. It had been the only way she could think of to make him hate her—to make certain that he would not follow her and demand the truth. It had been the only way to set him free.
Rowarth squared his shoulders. “You mistake.” His voice, smooth and deep, cut across her thoughts. “It is my business. In fact I have no business here other than to see you, Eve.”
For a moment Eve’s foolish heart soared again at the thought he might, against the odds, care for her still. But there was something in his voice that warned her; in his tone and in the cool, appraising look that he gave her. And frighteningly he had read her thoughts and seen how vulnerable she was to him, for he smiled again with grim pleasure.
“Have no fear that I am about to importune you with impassioned declarations of love,” he said drily. “Nothing was further from my thoughts. This is business only.”
Eve felt a little sick at the contempt she could hear in his voice. “What possible business could you have with me after all this time?” she questioned, still striving to keep her voice light. “We have no more to say to one another.”
“We’ll talk of that in private.”
“No, we shall not.” Suddenly furious, she freed herself from his grip and spun around to face him. “We shall not do that just because you dictate it, Rowarth. You always were arrogant.”
Once they had laughed together about his innate confidence and the way in which people deferred to him because of his position. Eve remembered with a pang what it had been like when she had been his mistress, beside Rowarth on those occasions when they had visited the opera or the theater or a ball. There was a dizzy glamour that had been attached to his title and his status, a glittering, raffish fascination that had beguiled her. When they had lain together, tangled in her sheets in the rapturous aftermath of making love, she had teased him about his importance and his arrogance and the way that people fell over themselves to please him, and he had laughed and kissed her and they had made love again through the hot summer nights. She had loved the fact that behind the closed doors of her boudoir Rowarth
was hers, and hers alone, that she was the only one who truly knew him.
Perhaps it had been an illusion, but for a brief time it had made her happy. She had thought that they had both been happy. From the start there had been an instant attraction between them, blazing into vivid life the very first night they had met at the Cyprian’s Ball. She, the newest of new courtesans, had been feted and courted as the gentlemen waited to see upon whom she would bestow her favor—and her innocence. Her price was high. And then Rowarth had arrived, cutting through the throng, and everyone else had faded away, pale imitations of men in comparison with his natural authority and overwhelming charm. She had been his from that first moment and miraculously, it seemed, he had been hers. She was not merely his mistress; they had shared everything. It had been so wonderful that for a short while even she, raised on the London streets, the illegitimate child of a seamstress and a sailor, abandoned as a baby and forced to fight for everything she had ever had in her life, had started to believe in happy endings. She had thought that there was more to their relationship than mere lust. She had felt that they had had an instant affinity.
Eve swallowed what felt like an enormous lump in her throat. Those days and nights had been full of color and excitement and joy, so far removed from her existence now that they had been another world, a fading memory but one that was so laced with pain that it could never quite die.
“And you were always the only one who dared oppose me.” There was an odd note in Rowarth’s voice now. For a moment it sounded almost like regret. “But in this, Eve, you cannot.”
“Watch me.” She was so cross now that she was prepared to argue with him in the street. She started to hurry away; he followed, effortlessly matching her step, not even remotely out of breath.
“With pleasure, as always.” He sounded as imperturbable as ever. “But it will make no odds.”
“You are as persistent as a stray dog.”
“A charming analogy. You always liked animals, as I recall.”
They had almost reached the pawnbroker’s shop that Eve now ran. It seemed that Rowarth knew exactly where she lived and what she now did to earn that living. A shiver of apprehension racked Eve as she wondered what else he knew and what he might do with that knowledge. His reappearance in her life was not only shocking, it was dangerous as well. She had lived like a nun since coming to Yorkshire. She had buried her past as Rowarth’s mistress and that was the way she was determined it would stay. Small towns were notorious for gossip and she was determined that nothing was going to ruin her reputation or her livelihood.