The River Knows Read Free Page B

space he was intensely aware of Louisa’s delicate scent, a mix of some flowery cologne and woman. He was half-aroused, he realized. He had to force himself to concentrate on the business at hand.
    “Now, then, Mrs. Bryce,” he said, “where were we?”
    “I believe you were about to tell me something of the nature of your unusual profession.” She reached into her muff and withdrew a pencil and a notepad. “Would you mind turning up the lamps? I want to take notes.”

Chapter 2
    T here was an acute silence.
    Louisa looked up. Anthony was gazing at her, dumbfounded. She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
    “Don’t worry,” she said, opening the small, leather-bound notebook that she carried everywhere. “I don’t intend to steal your trade secrets.”
    “Just as well because I don’t plan to reveal them to you,” he said dryly. “Put the notebook away, Mrs. Bryce.”
    A little chill feathered her nerves. It was the same shiver of alarm she had experienced when Lady Ashton had introduced him to her earlier in the week at the Hammond affair. His name had rung a very loud, clanging bell of warning, but she had assured herself that being asked to dance by the man whose fiancée was one of the two women who had drowned in the river a little over a year ago was sheer coincidence, not the Dread Hand of Fate. The social world, after all, was a relatively small realm. Nevertheless, when she saw him in the hall outside Hastings’s bedroom tonight she almost panicked. He could not know it, but the truth was, encountering him there had given her far more of a jolt than she had got from meeting up with the guard.
    She was certain she could have dealt with Quinby. After all these months in Society the image she and Lady Ashton had worked so carefully to establish had been generally accepted. She was Louisa Bryce, the unimportant, unfashionable, excessively dull relative from the country whom Lady Ashton had kindly taken in as a companion. There was no reason for Quinby to be overly suspicious of her.
    Anthony’s unexpected appearance in that hall, however, had shaken her nerve. This time there could be no denying that something more than coincidence was at work.
    She had known intuitively from their first meeting that the air of ennui and jaded disinterest that Anthony projected was an illusion. For that reason she had been very cautious around him. Perhaps it was for that very same reason he had fascinated her from the start.
    The realization that he was very likely a professional jewel thief not only reassured her, it had given her a brilliant idea. At least it had seemed brilliant at the time. She was starting to have doubts. Perhaps it was not inspiration that had struck her a few minutes ago. In hindsight, it might have been foolhardy desperation.
    She realized that he was watching her with a mixture of amused irritation and relentless determination.
    “If you insist,” she said, keeping her tone polite and trying not to show her disappointment. “No notes.”
    Reluctantly, she returned the notebook and pencil to the small pocket inside her muff.
    He had made no move to turn up the interior lamps as she had requested, so his features remained carved in shadows. But she had danced with him several times in the past week. His enigmatic eyes and the implacable planes and angles of his face had been imprinted on all of her senses. When her gloved fingertips had rested ever so lightly on his shoulder during the waltz she had been vividly aware of the strength in the sleek muscles beneath his expensively tailored coat.
    Dancing with Anthony was like dancing with a particularly well-dressed, well-mannered wolf: The experience was both dangerous and exhilarating. Kissing him a few minutes ago had been a thousand times more exciting and, no doubt, a thousand times more hazardous. She would never forget that shocking, thrilling embrace in the hall outside Hastings’s bedroom, she thought.
    There was an aura