Innocence in Regency Society: The Mysterious Miss M / Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Mistress

Farley leaned against the lamppost. He removed a pinch of snuff from its box and inhaled it. After a spasm of sneezing, he glanced back at the door she’d walked through, recalling the sway of her hips. She was made for seduction. If ever there was a woman created for passion, it was Madeleine.

So why did she withhold that passion from him? It enraged him. He thought he’d taught her a lesson when he forced her to become the bribe in his crooked games. He’d intended to offer her only a few times, but she’d made him a tidy profit. Men would come to his establishment every night, hoping to win time with her, especially if he offered her only every now and then. Then they returned often, losing more blunt each time.

While she was fat with child she’d earned him nothing. If he’d been in London he’d have dealt with her before it had grown too big to get rid of, but one did not refuse an emperor’s summons or, to be more accurate, one from an emperor’s emissary. Not when the emperor paid well for information gleaned from brandy-loosened tongues and gentlemen desperate to settle gambling debts.

He should have taken her to France with him, but that night before he left she’d angered him, and it had suited him well enough not to set eyes on her for a while. Besides, she’d become something of a patriot. More than once he discovered her poring over newspapers filled with stories about the war. If she had discovered his business dealings with Napoleon, she might have been stupid enough to pass the word to some fool willing to put country above fortune.

Stepping out of the alley onto the pavement, Farley gazed once more at the apartments where Madeleine lived with Devlin Steele. He thought of her naked beneath Steele, and his own loins ached.

He’d have her again, even if he had to kill to get her.

Madeleine paced the floor, wishing Devlin would hurry home and dreading when he would.

What could be worse for Devlin than the Marquess of Heronvale learning of her existence and that of her child? She knew what could be worse—his suspecting the child to be Devlin’s.