She could feel Rowarth’s gaze search her face, shrewd, perceptive and as tangible as a physical touch.
“I know you are determined to believe the worst of me,” she said bitterly, “but you should at least get your accusations straight. Either you suspect me of being Sampson’s mistress—in which case I would hardly be flailing around in poverty watching my business fail but rather enjoying his vast wealth in comfort and privilege—or you think me a blackmail victim. Neither is correct.” She snapped a pencil fiercely between her fingers. “You can take your base suspicions and put them in your ducal—” she broke off, in danger of reverting to the street slang of her childhood “—pipe and smoke it,” she resumed. “You can prove nothing, for there is nothing to prove and so you may tell Lord Hawkesbury.”
There was another silence and then Rowarth shifted, stretched. “What you have told me may well be true, Eve, but at the very least, you have committed a crime and that is proven. You have stolen goods sitting in your shop.” He gestured toward the hairbrush. “This piece here, and the candlesticks I saw in the window will, I suspect, match an inventory of goods taken from Broughton Castle two weeks ago. You could be hanged for that alone.”
Eve’s heart started to thud. She wondered for how long and how often Warren Sampson had been using her shop to launder his stolen goods. His associates had brought the items to her and she, in her ignorance, had paid for them, giving money for items taken by theft. She had been so naive and now her entire life teetered on the edge of extinction. Once again Rowarth’s gaze appraised her and Eve had the strangest sensation that he was probing her soul. Would he really condemn her to death? She could not, would not believe it. Yes, he had changed—he had a harder edge than the man she had once known—but surely that would be beyond him.
“Then have me arrested,” she challenged him. Their gazes clashed, blue eyes and dark. “Send me to the executioner if you can.”
There was a long and painful silence and then Rowarth shook his head slowly. “I have another purpose in mind for you,” he said, and again his tone was so cold that Eve shivered to hear it. “There is a particular piece of jewelry, a necklace of sapphires, that was taken in the same burglary as the silver. If we can prove it is still in Sampson’s possession then we will have him.”
“I fail to see how that concerns me,” Eve said.
Rowarth looked at her. “I will tell you,” he said. “There is a party at Sampson’s house at Juniper Hill tonight. You will attend with me. You will seek Sampson out and hint that you know he is using your shop to sell his stolen goods. You will suggest that the two of you go into business formally together in order to make more profit. That should appeal to him. You will ask if he has other items he could pass on to you, jewelry perhaps…” His gaze swept over and seemed to linger on the line of her mouth. “And you will sweeten the offer…”
“With the additional promise of myself?” Eve wrapped her arms about her to ward off the chill that was invading her very bones. “You are blackmailing me to make me prostitute myself to him just so that you can catch him?”
She saw a flicker of expression in Rowarth’s eyes that she could not read, and then it was gone.
“That is putting it a little harshly,” he said, “but yes, you have it precisely.”
Eve felt sick that he could not have made it clearer that she was nothing to him now other than a means to an end. “I would rather that you sent me to jail,” she said bitterly.
“I doubt that,” Rowarth said.
“I will not do it,” Eve said defiantly.
“You will.” Rowarth was implacable. “You have no choice.”
Eve knew she did not. She was trapped. And she knew Rowarth did not trust her. This was a trial; he was testing her as well as using her, for if it appeared from Warren Sampson’s reaction to her that the two of them were already in league, Rowarth would denounce her without a thought. The bitterness turned to ashes in her mouth. Once they had been so much to one another. Now there was nothing left. She supposed that she should not feel so harsh a disillusionment, for she was the one who had betrayed him originally, after all. She had deliberately pushed him away, believing she had no choice, knowing they could have no future. Even so, his ruthlessness shocked her.
She got up and moved toward the door. “I would like you to go now,” she said.
Rowarth stood up, too. Suddenly he was very close to her, so close that she could hear his breathing and smell the scent of his skin and see the stubble that darkened his chin and jaw. The light grip of his hand on her elbow sensitized her entire body. Heat scorched her like a flame, making her shake. She felt stunned, trapped and a little dizzy.
“I am sure that you understand,” Rowarth said, in a measured tone, “what Warren Sampson’s parties entail?”
Eve’s mind reeled. She had indeed heard rumors of the scandalous parties at Juniper Hill but she had forgotten about them in the turmoil and shock of seeing Rowarth again and in the horror of his accusations. With a sick lurch of the heart she realized that this would be no respectable dinner or ball. Not only would she be making Warren Sampson an indecent proposal in order to trap him, by her attendance she would be proclaiming to the whole of Fortune’s Folly just what sort of woman she was. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked up into Rowarth’s face.
“If you make me do this you will ruin me as surely as if you tell the world of my past history,” she said. She hated the pleading note in her voice but could not avoid it. “Rowarth…” She looked at him but his expression was as unyielding as granite. “If word gets about the town that I am the sort of woman to attend such entertainments,” she said desperately, “then you might as well brand me a courtesan in public.”
She knew even as she spoke that her words were falling on deaf ears and she felt desolate.
“We shall have to display a certain amount of…pleasure…in each other’s company since we shall be attending together,” Rowarth said, quite as though she had not spoken. “I trust that you will once again fulfill the role of my mistress with all the experience at your disposal.”
Pain twisted in Eve that he could dismiss their past loving as something so tawdry. She could feel him watching her, seeing too much with those dark eyes. Her feelings felt exposed, naked. Could he tell how vulnerable she felt, still so aware of him as a man despite all that had happened to divide them?
She took a deep breath, knowing that the die was cast and there was no escape for her.
“I never was a very good actress but I suppose I can pretend to an affection for you for a short time,” she said.
Rowarth laughed.
“Pretense, is it? Why, I could swear that you are not indifferent to me, sweetheart.”
He kissed her with no warning and no chance of refusal. Eve’s hands closed into tight fists against the smooth material of his jacket, only to open and slide over his chest as she was instantly seduced by the memory of what had once been between them. Hot, sweet, wicked and wanton… He did not plunder but teased, the subtle pressure of his lips tempting hers to open. His tongue caressed hers and her knees weakened and the pleasure curled down to her toes and spread through her whole body as though she was melting.
His arms locked tighter than steel about her and she leaned into him, opening to his kiss, her body quivering like an instrument that recognized a familiar touch. He tasted the same and yet the experience was so different; it shook her, making her shiver, and he held her closer still even as he took her mouth with the same thorough possession that he had once taken her body. Her mind was full of memories and deep, dark desire. She could feel the need in him, held under tight restrai