They call him the Devil Earl-a scoundrel and accused murderer who grew up on the violent London streets. A proper young lady risks more than her reputation when consorting with the roguishly handsome Hero Fiennes Tiffin , but Lady Josephine Langford...
Oh, dear Lord, she wished he hadn't done this. It was so much easier to deal with him when she believed he was the devil, so much harder when she realized he was a man who could easily win her heart.
Hero
اوووه! هذه الصورة لا تتبع إرشادات المحتوى الخاصة بنا. لمتابعة النشر، يرجى إزالتها أو تحميل صورة أخرى.
"You've lost your knack. She spied you following her around."
Hero had decided that he needed a word with Jim, before he picked Josephine up for their nightly ritual. Now he was pacing in Jim's lodging. When did it grow so small? He barely had the room to stretch his legs. Ever since Josephine had left his bed that morning, he'd felt like a ravenous beast on the prowl—with no clear understanding of what it was he was seeking.
Whatever had possessed him to ask if she wanted a kiss? For more than a year, he'd been fiercely loyal to Mabel, not taking the least bit of interest in another woman. Whatever madness had claimed him? What was he thinking to tempt himself and Josephine with the promise of a kiss? He'd been disappointed. Well, and truly, disappointed when she'd shaken her head. Then he'd gone to Lord's and purchased her new gloves like some besotted fool.
No, he chastised himself. He was simply replacing the pair that had been destroyed when they'd been attacked, replacing the one that now rested in a drawer in the bureau in his bedchamber. The one that he'd held and studied that morning after returning to his residence, thinking about how close she'd come to having her life ended with the slash of a blade.
Pain shot through his head. He had to stop thinking about that encounter in the alley. Why was it that it troubled him so? She was nothing to him except a means to an end.
"She didn't see me," Jim insisted, lounging in his chair by the fire as though nothing were amiss.
"All the running around she did earlier in the week? She did it to befuddle you, to make certain you were following her."
"If she spied someone following her, it was not me. She saw someone else."
Jim sounded so certain of himself. Not that Hero could blame him. He'd always been the best, the very best. So good in fact, that he'd managed to carry out his duties at Scotland Yard during the evening while pursuing Josephine during the day. He'd merely claimed to be following up with some witnesses to a burglary.
"Why would someone be following her?" Hero asked.
"Maybe it's the bloke she wants killed."
The thought of her being in danger caused Hero to break out in a sweat. "Did you see someone following her?"
"I wasn't looking for anyone else. I was concentrating on her and making certain she didn't spy me."
"We need to determine if it was you she saw."
"Now, that's a jolly good idea. Let's ask her shall we? And then she'll know you're having her followed. Do you think she's going to take kindly to that news?"
