Maggie MacKeever Read Free Page A

being more in the habit of avoiding irate spouses than facing them head-on.
    What the devil did she want from him? Were he to ask, he’d hand her the advantage. Kate already had more advantage over him that Quin cared her to realize.
    “Yet here you are,” he said, determined to disconcert her at least half as much as she had disconcerted him. “Showed up on my doorstep like a strumpet searching for a tumble. Shall you find out for yourself if what the scandalmongers say is true?”
    She scowled, “No, I shan’t! Pray don’t try and provoke me further. I have already behaved badly enough for one evening.”
    Kate had not behaved half as badly as he would like. Quin recalled various occasions on which he had been bit and scratched and bruised, result of no excess of temper, but passion of a different sort. He disliked these memories, wished they would go away.
    He wished she would go away.
    Or alternately that she would stay, and toss aside her bonnet, and rip off her gown, and bite and scratch and bruise him one more time.
    Which was even less likely than a visitation of levitating swine.
    Kate was watching him, more closely than he liked. “Shall I apologize?” she asked.
    Quin turned away, rang for a servant. “Why bother, when we both know you won’t mean a word? The hour grows late, and I have things to do. Tomorrow is time enough for talk. You’ll stay here tonight.”
    She stiffened. “And if I don’t care to spend the night beneath your roof?”
    “I said beneath my roof, not in my bed.” Quin glanced pointedly at her valise. “Did you not already tell me you have nowhere else to go?”
    Kate bit her lip, then sighed. “Thank you. I suppose.”
    She thanked him, she supposed?He should have her tossed out. “Your gratitude is premature,” said Quin, as he strode toward the doorway. “The infamous Black Baron does nothing without expecting payment in return.”
     
    Chapter Four
     
    The last of the gamesters had departed, exhilarated by gain or disheartened by loss: some in partial possession of their faculties and therefore remaining upright; others unable to ambulate without assistance; the more sodden among them stuffed by footmen into their carriages and sent home. Servants scurried about, setting the gaming rooms to rights. Liliane paced the supper room, awaiting her audience with her employer.
    She disliked being made to cool her heels. As if she were a supplicant and Quin some high-and-mighty feudal lord.
    Patience, she told herself. Her goal was in sight. Before Lord Quinton suspected her intentions, he’d be caught fast in her web.
    And wouldn’t the pusses hiss and spit then? Rosamond, Adele, Daphne and the others would turn pea-green with envy upon learning Liliane had managed a tête-à-tête with Quin
    Yes, and she meant to make the most of it. Liliane inspected herself in a looking-glass. Honey-blonde curls and creamy skin and big green eyes, perfect teeth, a luscious lower lip, and a straight little nose. Gown of raspberry silk with a tightly fitted bodice that clung to her curves, rounded neckline that exposed her shoulders and a great deal of her chest, sleeves puffed and tapered, skirt embellished with large tucks and a broad hem. The gown wasn’t hers to keep, of course. The garments worn by the girls during working hours remained on the premises when they left for the night.
    Liliane smoothed her skirts. She was a diamond of the first water, if she did say so herself. And a clever enough actress that she should tread the boards, Samson in the usual way of things not one to permit the wool to be pulled over his eyes. Yet she had persuaded him to hire her by claiming to be something she was not, him being partial to females of good character fallen on hard times as opposed to misses barely out of the schoolroom, not that Liliane had ever seen the inside of a schoolroom, but she was a quick study nonetheless, could mimic the manner of an impoverished gentlewoman as well as anyone,