“Wait,” he whispered. “Let me look at you.”
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His gaze devoured her, her dark hair spread wild around her shoulders, gleaming hints of red in the candlelight, her strange, gorgeous eyes filled with frustration and desire. Her lips swollen from his kiss—
He took those lips again, unable to resist them. Kissed her deep and thoroughly, memorizing the sound of her sighs, the spice of her, the feel of her against him, like nothing he’d ever felt before—
Except . . .
His head snapped up, and her eyes blinked open. “You really ought to stop stopping,” she said with a smile.
He shook his head. “At the dressmaker’s,” he began, hating the way her gaze cleared of sensuality at the words. “What you said . . .”
It is not the first time you’ve seen my underclothes.
“We’ve done this before,” he said.
Her eyes flickered to his arm, to his tattoo. “Yes.”
No. It couldn’t be the truth. He would remember this—the way her mouth felt right against hers. The way she felt right in his arms.
He kissed her again, this time a test. An experiment. He would remember her. Surely he would remember the taste of her. The sounds she made. The way she somehow drove the caress and gave herself up to it.
He would remember her.
He released her mouth, directing his kiss down the column of her neck, to the hollow of her collarbone, dipping his tongue into the indentation there, tasting her. Savoring the sigh that escaped from her lips as he slid his hands to the front tie of her bodice and released the tension there, sliding his hand into the fabric to caress the straining tip of one breast.
To bare it to the firelight.
Dear God. He would remember her.
He met her gaze, glassy with desire. “We’ve done this before.”
She hesitated, and the pause sent a thread of frustration through him. He wouldn’t let her avoid him. He wouldn’t let her lie. Not about this.
Suddenly, somehow, this seemed far more important than all the rest. He lowered the layers of fabric, watching as dark dress and pale chemise gave way to even paler skin. To perfect skin, tipped with straining flesh turned the color of honey gold in the firelight.
His mouth watered, and he lowered his lips to that place where she strained for him.
Where, somehow, he strained for her.
It took all his strength to pause there, a breath from her skin, and whisper, “We’ve done this before.”
“William.” She gasped his name in the firelight.
His real name.
He froze. As did she.
“What did you call me?”
She hesitated. “I—”
No one had called him that for a decade. For longer. Few had called him that before—but he’d always liked his women to do so. He’d liked the way the familiarity of the name brought them closer. Made them more accommodating. It had been an easy way to make them love his naïve, idiot self.
“Say it.” The command was not to be refused.
“William,” she said, beautiful eyes filled with fire, the curve of the syllables on her warm lips making him at once furious and filled with longing.
Christ.
This had happened.
He would remember her.
Except he couldn’t. Because she’d made certain he wouldn’t. She’d stolen that night from him. This moment from him.
He released her as though she’d burned him, and perhaps she had. Perhaps the not remembering that night was the most serious of her infractions, now that he knew just what it was he could not remember.
He stood, the blood rushing through him at the movement, making his head light and his frustration acute. This woman was too much for him. He turned from her, moving away, wanting to leave her and still feeling her pull. He paced one end of the room once, twice before turning back to her.
“What else happened that night?”
She remained quiet.
Goddammit. What had happened? Had he lain her bare? Had he kissed her in a half-dozen forbidden places? Had she reciprocated? Had they enjoyed each other on that last, final night before he had woken as the Killer Duke—never to touch another woman without seeing trepidation in her gaze?
Or had Mara simply used him?
Anger flooded him like a fever. “We kissed. I saw you in your underclothes. Did we—?”
She stiffened at the question, waiting for him to finish it with the cold, crass word he’d offered in the dressmaker’s salon. The wait was as much of a blow as the word, however. She did not respond. And he hated that he couldn’t leave the silence almost as much as he hated the sound of his wrecked voice when he added, “Did we?”
I’ve never met an aristocrat worthy of trusting.
Christ. Had he hurt her?
He couldn’t remember it—if she’d been a virgin, he would have hurt her. He wouldn’t have been careful enough not to. He ran a hand through his hair. He’d never been with a virgin.
Had he?
And what if—he froze. The orphanage. The boys.
What if one of them was his?
His heart began to race.
No. It was impossible. She wouldn’t have left like that. She wouldn’t have taken his child. Would she?
She restored her bodice and stood, calm and collected, as though they were discussing the weather. Or Parliament. Refusing to be insulted.
He came at her, stopping inches from her, resisting the urge to shake her. “You owe me the truth.”
For a moment, something was there in her gaze. For a moment, she considered it. He saw her consider it. And then, she stopped. And he saw her mind racing. Conniving. Planning.
When she spoke, she did not cow. She was not afraid. “We negotiated the terms of our agreement, Your Grace. You get your vengeance, and I get my money. If you would like the truth, I am happy to discuss its cost.”
He’d never met anyone like her. And damned if he didn’t admire the hell out of her even as he wanted to tie her up and scream his questions until she answered. “It seems you are no stranger to scoundrels after all.”
“You would be surprised by what twelve years alone can do to a person,” she said, those stunning, unusual eyes filled with fire.
They stood toe to toe, and Temple felt more equal to this woman than to anyone he’d ever known. Perhaps because they’d both sinned so greatly. Perhaps because trust was not a thing in which either of them had faith.
“I would not be surprised at all,” he replied.
She took a step back. “Then you are willing to discuss additional terms?”
For a moment, he almost agreed. He almost turned over the entire debt, houses, horses, all of it. She almost won.
Because he wanted the memories of that night more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. More than his name. More than his title. More than all his wins and money and everything else.
But she could not give him his memory any more than she could give him his lost years.
All she could give him was the truth.
And he would get it.
There was a man outside the orphanage.
She should have expected it, of course, from the moment she left him at his town house the night before, sent home in a cold carriage that yawned huge and empty with his absence. Should have predicted that he would have her followed the moment she tossed caution into the wind and offered him the truth about the night she’d left him—for a price. Of course he would watch her. She was more valuable to him now than ever before.