Maggie MacKeever Read Free

raised his glass.
    And then he lowered it. Kate Manvers was in his morning room. He needed to regain the full use of his wits.
    She was a tall slender woman, with hair as dark as midnight, eyes as grey as morning mist. More years ago than he cared to count, those wine-red lips had ravished his.
    Kate caught his gaze and flushed. It was the curse of such perfect pale flesh: no emotion could be hid.
    Ignoring her discomfort, Quin continued his inspection. Thick dark eyelashes, sharply marked brows. High cheekbones, aquiline nose. His fingers recalled the feel of that long slender neck.
    She had removed her cloak. The severe black of her gown suited her, if the style did not: high necked and long sleeved and fashioned in a manner that failed to flatter the body hid beneath it, which was particularly fine.
    Quin marveled that he hadn’t known her. Once he would have known Kate Manvers anywhere. But such was his reputation that women frequently presented themselves at his front door on the flimsiest of pretexts.
    Had Quin not been present, Kate would have been denied entrance, there being no rational reason for a respectable woman well past her first youth to arrive on his doorstep clutching an old valise.
    What a coxcomb Samson had made him sound. His lordship can hardly be expected to remember every female—
    And then Kate slapped him, and Quin realized who she was.
    It wasn’t the first time Kate had slapped him.
    She hadn’t limped then.
    Recollection, if slow to stir, was simmering now. Quin suspected — the curve of a bare breast, sunlight gleaming in dark hair — this was not a good thing.
    Disconcerting to discover that he wanted to know the details of Kate’s injury. To learn how far she’d traveled. And why she had come.
    Quin rose, crossed to the decanter, poured brandy into a second glass. “Sit down before you fall down. How did you hurt your leg?”
    Kate accepted the brandy, sank down awkwardly on an upholstered chair. “A riding accident.”
    He frowned. She had been a superb horsewoman. “How unlike you to be careless. Was the horse also harmed?”
    Her fingers tightened on the glass. “Arabella had to be put down.”
    “I’m sorry to hear it.” Kate had loved her dappled mare.
    She brushed aside his sympathy. “It was a long time ago. Tell me, do you often have your guests tossed into the street?”
    “Certainly, when they misbehave. I dohave standards, though they are not high.” Quin smiled, without humor. “As you may have heard.”
    She cast him an ironic glance. “The whole world has heard of the infamous Black Baron. As I daresay was your intent.”
    Quin had believed himself beyond annoyance, but discovered he was not. “Take care lest you begin to bore me, Kate.”
    “Or you will toss me out into the street?” Uncowed, she raised her chin. “No matter what I say or don’t, you will do as you please. Do you truly care so little what people think?”
    “I care for very little.”
    “Then I am sorry for you, Quin.”
    Quin was further affronted by this comment. Had he not seduced a thousand women (or allowed them to seduce him), wagered a fortune (and won three), visited the field of honor with men who did not survive to duel again? Yet here sat Kate, with something akin to pity in her gaze.
    “You cannot think I give a damn for your opinion,” he said coolly.
    Kate placed her drink, unsampled, on the small sofa table. “I’m not here to quarrel, Quin.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “No?”
    “Appearances to the contrary,” she said wryly, and shifted in her chair. “Believe me, had I any other choice, I would not have come to you.”
    Quin didn’t doubt it. He imagined Miss Manvers would be more eager to encounter the plague — if she remained a miss, and wasn’t instead a ma’am, in which case her spouse should be shot for allowing to enter this house. Unless she had run away from said spouse, and wished Quin to protect her, which was an even more unsettling notion, Quin