Chapter
One
London, 1896
Sterling Reed was late.
Edwina Sheffield cursed under her breath as she examined her time piece, trying to ignore the hiss of air through the train’s whistle. A single minute remained until twelve and this was the last warning the train would give.
“I am going to murder that man, hide his body beneath an entire cartload of coal, and drive it to Cornwall myself, where I can bury it in a peat bog,” she growled, snapping the time piece shut.
“Edie, darling,” said a smooth, cultured voice behind her. “If you’re plotting murder this early in the morning, then you clearly haven’t had time to take your tea.”
“Jesus bloody—” She trapped the words behind her teeth as she spun to face her tormentor in a hiss of skirts.
And then she stopped as she came face-to-face with the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes upon.
It wasn’t fair.
Sterling strode along the St. Pancras station platform toward her, casually elegant in a travelling suit that had been personally tailored to fit the breadth of his broad shoulders. No man alive ought to look that good in tweed. A rakish hat covered the thick golden waves of his hair, but it did nothing to hide the shock of those canny blue eyes with their dangerously thick lashes.
She didn’t know what sort of deal Sterling had struck with a demon, but it had clearly cost him his soul. For the smile he laid upon her looked like it had been carved of marble by the skilled fingertips of Guillaume Geefs—if his depiction of Lucifer ever smiled.
Two weeks since she’d seen him last.
Two weeks since she’d suffered a lapse in reasoning and bloody well kissed him.
Two weeks since she’d resigned from his employ.
And none of it mattered, because the second she saw him, her heart started skipping beats again and her abdomen became a mess of heat and want and confusion.
“Jesus bloody…?” Sterling cocked a brow as he paused in front of her. “Is that any way to greet your employer?”
Time sped up. Sound snapped back into being. And the words finally came. “Employer?” It was like waving a red rag to a bull. “I do recall handing in my letter of resignation two weeks ago. You are no longer my employer, my lord. And as such you have no further claim upon such a title.”
“Ah, that was what that letter said.” He scratched at his chin. “I will admit there was some mishap with the envelope.”
“Mishap?”
“Yes.” A challenging blue stare locked upon her. “It ended up as kindling.”
He was not going to run roughshod over her will the way he did to everyone else he encountered.
“Considering you can light a fire with a snap of your fingers, I daresay you did read it,” she challenged, setting her hands on her hips. “And perhaps you didn’t notice the fact I haven’t been in all week—perhaps I am simply so unnoticeable—but surely you noticed the piles of paperwork building up on your desk. You are so fond of having your paperwork filed appropriately.”
“I thought you were taking a week or two,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve been looking peaky of late. Especially after that mishap with the imps?—”
“Mishap.” Her fingers flexed. Perhaps she wouldn’t need a coal cart. Perhaps she could simply push him in front of the train. “Mishap? How does someone tearing a rift between dimensions and henceforth unleashing a flood of imps within the house count as a mishap?” Her voice rose. “I nearly died. You set the house on fire.”
“Edie….” Sterling rocked on his heels. “I was a trifle top-hammered and Balthazar Grantham assured me the spell was foolproof?—”
“You summoned a pack of imps.”
“Yes,” he suddenly snapped, “I’m very well aware of that. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind at the time. But I will correct you on the misassumption that I set the fire. That was all you, my dear.”
Edwina shook her head.
She was a sorceress of the Order of the Dawn Star that served Britain’s queen, but while she’d served her apprenticeship and learned her lessons well, her talents ran more to divination—psychometry, to be precise—rather than something as epically flamboyant as pyrokinetics.
