AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And she was relieved that the lady was gone.Why?
“Why in hell would she be there?” Adelaide and Clayborn turned in surprise to look at the marchioness, who had just used language deeply unbecoming a marchioness.
“Because they are eloping,” Adelaide answered.
“Eloping!” The marchioness squealed her anguish. “To where?”
“I assume they are headed where all couples head when they are looking to marry quickly.”
“Gretna Green?” Lady Havistock was wailing now.
“Gretna Green,” Clayborn confirmed, suddenly feeling he could regain control of the situation.
“Unoriginal, but effective,” Miss Frampton replied. “Unless, of course, you’ve someone on hand who is willing to follow.”
Lady Havistock clung to the words and turned on Adelaide. “You! I have paid you handsomely to break this match, and break it you shall!”
“I shall ready my carriage immediately, my lady.” An even nod and a small smile punctuated the words, as though she’d been planning just that the whole time.
What was she up to?
The woman had a file on his brother, was in possession of Clayborn’s family secret, and had plans to leave the city with both. Which would happen over his decaying corpse. There was no way she was going alone.
“Can you do it?” Lady Havistock asked, skeptical.
Oh, Adelaide would not like that.
“My lady, I’ve followed eleven couples to the border in my time as the Matchbreaker, and I’ve never had a match elude me,” Miss Frampton said, an unmistakable thread of annoyance in her tone as she returned the dossier to her case before standing and facing the marchioness across the desk. “I don’t intend to start now. I’ll have your daughter back to London in ten days’ time. Your work, at this point, is to ensure that no one is aware that she has left.”
Lady Havistock nodded, looking relieved. “Helene is visiting friends in the country.”
Adelaide’s full lips curved. “How lovely for her.”
She crossed to him, at the door, her gaze shielded by the webbing of her veil.Rip it off.Her hat disguising the brilliant red of her hair.Loose it.Her lips, pink and soft, tasting like sunlight and rain.Kiss them.Tall enough that it wouldn’t be difficult to do just that.
“I’ve never seen such a straight nose,” she said.
His brow furrowed in surprise and confusion at the words. What did she care about his nose?
Before he could ask, she answered, simply, “Hard to believe some people get through life without breaking them.”
She was silent for a moment, as though sizing him up,and then she stepped closer, and his breath caught in his chest at the nearness, inappropriate in any room considering they were strangers.
Not entirely strangers, though.
As though he’d willed it, the woman lifted a hand and reached for a tender spot high on the ridge of his cheek.
Lady Havistock let out a little gasp. Even she, who hadn’t hesitated to summon him to her home, would never have dreamed to touch him. It simply was not done. No one had told Adelaide Frampton such a thing, apparently, because she touched him.
No. Not quite. But there, in the space between her glove and his skin, the heat of her was electric. The threat of her touch more powerful than the thing itself.
It took him longer than it should have to realize that she was hovering over the graze he’d taken earlier in the day. The punch that had half landed, delivered by one of The Bully Boys in the alleyway between the warehouse and the south bank of the Thames.
His breath caught in his throat.
“You ought to have someone look at that.” The words were far too soft considering their location. Far too private. A straight shot of pleasure from this woman who was ever more maddening.
With a nod to Lady Havistock, she pushed past him, the scent of her, the heat of her, the slide of her lingering against him, long enough to tie his tongue. At the door, she looked over her shoulder. “I suppose you intend to follow?”
