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I knew that I had met my prize
Your kisses hot and very sweet
The poem went on,but she slipped it back into the envelope, thinking it was sweet and so naïve and innocent. Yet Lord Ralston would find it totally compromising and would damn Jenna to a miserable marriage with an unfeeling rake. Charity relocked the drawer and hurried toward the door. As she neared the entrance, she recalled the gas lamp. Blast. Turning sharply toward the table, something snagged at her leg, and with a curse, she pitched forward.
A muscled arm wrapped around her waist, and there was a soft grunt as the person jerked her weight backward, preventing Charity from falling on her face. For a breathless moment, she could not speak, fright stealing all rational thought from her mind.
Oh, no, no!
“Those letters belong to me,” a voice murmured at her hair. “You will hand them over.”
All the air whooshed from Charity’s lungs, and she choked. Lurching her weight forward, she almost fell as the man released her. Whirling to face her unexpected opponent, Charity froze to note it was a man dressed similarly in black with no color to mute the impression of darkness. His hair was midnight black, his eyes obscured by the shadows in the room, and he had a dark handkerchief tied over his lower face. This man was up to no good. Another thief, their ships passing each other in the night.
What were the bloody odds?
“Hand them over,” a muffled voice said, chilling her.
Charity pretended to not hear that command. “I was about to leave, my good sir,” she said softly. “Time is of the essence, and it would benefit us both that the viscount does not discover us here.”
“Agreed.” He held out a hand. “Now, hand over what you have stolen.”
“I did not take valuables, only a few letters.”
“I know it, Lady Charity.”
Her heart roared in her ears, and the room spun on its axis. She stiffened, alarm shocking her heart. For a petrifying moment, she thought she would faint. She stiffened her spine and narrowed her eyes on him. He had done it deliberately, revealing that he knew her identity to rattle her composure. “What did you call me?” she hissed under her breath.
“Lady Charity,” he replied drily.
“How…”
“How did I know it was you?”
“Yes.”
He waved a hand in casual dismissal. “That hardly matters.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It matters. Who are you?”
“That is none of your concern. Hand over the letters.”
Reaching into the pocket of her jacket, she plucked two of the letters out and held them to the stranger with trembling hands. He reached for them, and quicker than an adder, she darted under his arms and ripped the handkerchief from his face.
She gaped to see the very last man she expected breaking into another lord’s home—Ethan Hawkins, the 13th Earl of Ralston, Jenna’s brother, and the most proper earl in all of London. Charity could only stare at the man. The earl’s strict observance of propriety was well known and lamented by Jenna.
“You?”
