One Night Is Never Enough

by Anne Mallory

  “Run! Get help! They killed Noakes!”

  A sharp shove pushed Hunsden farther up the wall. The darker man, Andreas, looked as if he might finish the double murder right there. Charlotte tried to still her shaking hands, pinned as she and Anna were between the one-eyed man and the murderer.

  Roman smiled at her with a too-charming grin. “Don’t mind One-eye.” He motioned lazily to the man hovering behind her maid. “He’s reformed. He now only harms those who require it.”

  Roman spoke over his shoulder to the other two men, without looking away from her. “Unfortunately, Hunsden, your dear Noakes is alive. I should kill him though. Trying to put a knife—rather fond of knives, isn’t he?—in my brother’s back?” His expression grew barbaric again as he swung to look at the shopkeeper, who was already purpled and mute. “Perhaps I will dispatch him still.”

  Her eyes went unwillingly to the dark-haired man, Andreas, who was watching her as well, but in a far colder manner. Brothers? They looked nothing alike. Not their coloring, their features, nor the expressions on their faces. They both wore their expensive clothing well though. Too fitted to be stolen or tailored for anyone but the person whose frames the garments graced.

  But even if she had spied them walking into the most expensive tailor on Savile Row, she knew her heart would have jerked. A need suddenly pressing against her to cross the street, some deep survival instinct kicking in, as it had to the people they had passed earlier. There was something about both of them that was unnerving. Their eyes far too quick. A dangerous lethality coating the air around them.

  They had passed her fleetingly, coming from behind on the street, and even then she had felt it.

  “Hmm? No?” Roman turned back to Charlotte, face easing again. “Too many witnesses now, I think.” He flashed her another charming smile. “And I’d never harm a lady.”

  “Is that so?” She somehow managed to say it calmly. Long practice with her father and the dour matrons of the ton helping.

  “Especially not one as lovely as you are.” He grinned. It was almost boyish under his far-too-seasoned, penetrating gaze, and there was something about the curve of his lips that made her frozen heart skip a beat. She wondered if there was something wrong with him. Or with her.

  He bent to the floor, crouching, his eyes not losing contact with hers. Two fingers curled around the pin, red knuckles enclosing it. He lifted and examined the dove for a moment before looking back to her.

  He held it up between two fingers, his other hand upon his knee, half sitting, balanced on the balls of his feet.

  She would need to cross five paces to retrieve the pin. Five paces that would give her a lead should she need to run.

  She needed to run now. Even with the one-eyed man blocking freedom.

  “Come now.” Those lips—it was hard to look away from them—curved slowly this time. “I’ll be a good boy.”

  She broke her gaze and concentrated on the cool blue of his eyes. “I have no assurance of such, sir. You haven’t been particularly hospitable so far.”

  He twisted the pin, the tail touching his forefinger, the head kissing his thumb. Back and forth. Back and forth. “I blame Hunsden.” Back and forth. “You should too. Inhospitable cuss.”

  “Mr. Hunsden hardly seems in a state to open his larder,” she said, trying to pretend he was just a man at a rout, and she was simply exchanging pleasantries with him in order to pass the time. Not a ruthless killer, unusually charismatic and crouched before her. “Or his liquor cabinet.”

  He might not have killed the man on the ground. Yet. But none of his words or actions indicated a lack of knowledge of the art.

  The smooth, cold metal of the dove kept a steady circuit between his long, capable-looking fingers—roughened digits protruding from the black and white of his tailored cuff. Not the lily-white fingers of a pianist at a musicale but of a man who could fell another with a single blow.

  “His liquor cabinet? A grand idea.”

  “Would you care for a drink? I believe Mr. Hunsden would be willing to fetch you a dram if you release him. Or I will send back some spruce beer if you give me a minute to cross the street.”

  “Mmmm . . . One of my favorites.” His quick eyes seemed to miss nothing, and she couldn’t hide the motion of her fingers squeezing the fabric of her skirts. His gaze rose back to her face, lingering on her lips, then meeting her eyes. Even giving away her nerves with the telltale sign of her pinched fingers, she refused to look away.

  “Andreas, I think I’ve fallen in love.”

  “Roman.” There was a wealth of unspoken meaning in that one word, so darkly uttered. But Roman’s too-beautiful mouth crooked, head cocked, eyes watching.

  Heads and tails. Touching his finger, kissing his thumb. The choice before her.

  “I think you are making the lady’s maid nervous, Bill,” Roman said to the one-eyed man near them though he kept his eyes on Charlotte. “Perhaps you might back up a bit.”

  Bill moved. Charlotte wondered what game his master played.

  “Come.” Roman smiled at her, a lovely lift of his lips. “Take your pin.”

  It was a dare. A test to see if she would cross to him, retrieve the pin from his bloodstained hand.

  “It would be a shame to lose something so valuable. Unless you care little about its loss?”

  There was something in his eyes that said he knew the piece was precious to her. But that was silly. This man, who held all the power at present, didn’t know her at all. And he could do anything to her he wished should she decide to retrieve the pin or not.

  And yet, something about the look in his eyes and his instruction to Bill to move gave her pause. If she chose to run, she had the odd notion that he would not stop her.

  Which bled into the thought that she wouldn’t be harmed if she retrieved the pin. She didn’t know why or what made her think that when nothing about the situation should reassure her. Perhaps it was the way he sat, or the absence of any physical menace toward her or action against her. Easily able to rise and overpower her if he chose to or to step into her space and intimidate her mentally and physically.

  Her left foot stepped forward. She paused, her weight switching.

  But there was also something in his eyes that said her actions might be irreversible if she went to him. That it would change her life.

  A ridiculous thought.

  She swallowed, lifted her chin, and took another step toward him. The edges of his eyes tapered, satisfaction and anticipation deepening the blue. She took three more measured steps until she stood in front of him. Kneeling before her, he seemed at a disadvantage, but for the way he commanded the space.

  He twisted the pin so it rested in the palm of his bare hand.

  She slowly reached forward and touched the pin, gripping the small metal body, the bare tips of her fingers brushing the strong, worn skin of his palm.

  The blue of his eyes held hers. His fingers curled up as she lifted the pin, his tan knuckles speckled with red, the edges of his own bare fingertips caressing hers as she lifted the dove, and he slowly relinquished his hold.

  The beat within her jerked and began drumming more insistently. His eyes dropped to the curve of her bare throat, then lifted, his smile growing, the creases at the edges of his eyes deepening further.

  She quickly stepped backward, clutching the pin against her thigh, then stepped again. “Thank you, sir. I believe we should be on our way now.”

  He tilted his head, smile still in place, eyes dropping again to the thumping beat at her throat, down to the torn fabric at her chest that had been damaged by the jerking pin, back to her lips, then up farther.

  A feeling close to panic but without the cold edge—warmer somehow—pulsed through her. She took two harsh steps backward and, feeling Anna’s dress, pushed her maid so she stayed behind her, backing them roughly through the frame between the rear and the shop proper. Anna clutched her, pulling Charlotte’s dress in her terror-filled grip, forc
ing Charlotte to make an extra effort to stand tall.

  Roman rose and followed them, his eyes never leaving hers, even as he motioned lazily to his left, then over his shoulder with his thumb. The one-eyed man appeared at their side in the shop proper, then promptly disappeared into the back of the shop, into the belly of the crime. Her internal pounding remained.

  Charlotte continued walking backward, pin clutched in one set of fingers, the skirt of Anna’s dress bunched in the other.

  Her tormentor leaned against the splintered doorframe of her imprisonment, arms crossed, head cocked, amusement about his mouth, but something unreadable in his eyes.

  “Run to the street, Anna,” Charlotte murmured over her shoulder, letting her maid free. Anna’s hand jerked and disappeared from her dress, and Charlotte heard her maid’s footfalls and the yanking of the door, the jangling of the bell, and the crash as it closed.

  Charlotte continued to back away, never taking her eyes from the man. But he didn’t come any closer. Simply watched her as she wrapped her bare hand around the cold handle of the door behind her.

  “Farewell, little bird,” he said, his voice cultured marble on top of jagged rock.

  She pushed through, whirled, and ran after her maid, up the street to Bond. To call the watch. To get far, far away from here. From him. From the strange and dangerous thoughts he had engendered.

  Chapter 2

  Roman Merrick tapped the cards on the table as they were dealt to him, treating them more recklessly than he normally would.

  A hundred decisions awaited his judgment that eve, and yet all he could picture were lush lips parting, pulse jumping under a long, smooth column of flesh. On a different night, he’d be out there, finding her at one of the half dozen events she might be attending.

  Waiting for her to walk into the garden to cool her heated flesh. Lounging back on a bench in the shadows, scaring the devil out of her with a lazily uttered, “Good evening.” Seeing her eyes widen as she recognized him, watching her chin rise, her hand clench.

  Women came easily to him. But he had a feeling that this one would require a unique form of persuasion. That she wasn’t used to men like him had been quite obvious.

  He smiled slowly. Thoughts of what he could do with her pride and innocence tumbling in quick succession.

  His smile grew as he examined the intoxicated man seated across from him. If the man only knew what he was thinking, he’d likely drop dead of apoplexy right there, face forever embedded in the wood of the tabletop.

  “Charlotte is a good girl,” the man said. “Sometimes thinks too much. Not her best trait, but she can be broken of it. Her beauty would pardon heavier sins.”

  It was the twentieth such thing Bennett Chatsworth had uttered. Roman felt he could adequately reel off Chatsworth’s daughter’s likes and hobbies, sterling characteristics and faults, like a dossier on a war criminal. John Trant and Chatsworth had been circling each other for hours, playing a game both on the table and through words.

  “You plan to have her betrothed at the end of this season then?” Trant asked.

  “Yes. Can’t keep holding my girl in. Too many interested parties for her hand. Been holding off for too long as it is.” Eyes widening, Chatsworth could barely contain his drunken glee as he looked at his first three cards.

  Roman would rather be out there right now, watching those lush lips—or even better, feeling them against his. But when he had seen the players at this table form, he had felt the draw. The tug of his gut that said he needed to be a part. And so he’d smiled charmingly and invited the four men to join him at one of the back tables used for special games and the wealthier clientele.

  People always accepted the invitations. For to retire later to a club and casually mention that one had been playing in a Merrick anteroom was a much-sought-after thing.

  But that meant that he had been detained here for the past two hours when he’d much rather be elsewhere. And as with anything, when he was doing something that wasn’t the something on his mind, it chafed and rubbed, the pull to do what he wanted tugging relentlessly.

  Andreas had tried to rid him of the trait long ago, but even Andreas had to admit that sometimes it was bloody useful. Roman’s intuitions were always important, even if they didn’t seem so at the time. His muddied Rom blood never failed to come in handy, especially hidden behind his decidedly antithetical blond hair and blue eyes.

  “You have been holding out for a long time, Chatsworth. Heard that Binchley was thinking of coming up to snuff soon,” Lord Pomeroy said at his right. “You willing to part with your daughter for the marquess?”

  And now there were two tugs. The one assaulting him with what he wanted to do—find the gold-crowned girl he had chased away that afternoon—and the one that his gut said was the more important at the moment—stay in the game.

  He impatiently tapped the edges of his cards against the table in front of him, uncaring for once if the sharp man on his left noted the actions. It was going to be a bad hand anyway—an easy choice to throw in once he was dealt his final card. He’d spotted the card he needed toward the bottom of the deck, out of play. Pomeroy had never been a stealthy shuffler. And Roman was simply going through the motions of playing, his mind on other games.

  “Might be, might be. Think she could go even higher”—like a parcel being bid on—“but the marquess has much to offer. Have a few other offers already coming in this season—good offers”—Chatsworth shot a biting look to Viscount Downing, who only lifted a brow in return—“so the marquess will need to express himself well.”

  Chatsworth was a fool. Still holding out for a bigger title—and a bigger pot of gold—when he was in such dire financial straits. Dangling his beautiful fish on his barbed hook. Not realizing that the bait had stopped swimming. That she might even be torn from the hook completely if he wasn’t careful.

  Swallowed by a shark, if she wasn’t careful. Forever separated from the rest of the silver school.

  “Your daughter is a lovely woman,” Viscount Downing said coolly, at Roman’s left. “I expect you will make her a fine match. Perhaps even utilize her tragic use of thought and allow her some choice in the matter.”

  Downing’s wife was a close friend of Chatsworth’s daughter. And Downing had nearly been betrothed to the lady in question two years ago. It would be hard not to know such information, as Chatsworth had been sending Downing darker glances and uttering more sarcastic jabs as he’d gotten increasingly drunk. He was obviously piqued that Downing had escaped being his son-in-law.

  “Fine eyes, she has. Heard one of the puppies wrote a sonnet to them last week,” Pomeroy added.

  The edges of Downing’s eyes pinched, as if in pain. “And read it to the assembly at the Peckhursts’. My wife delighted in repeating the lines at every opportunity for three days. Gave me nightmares of which I am not yet rid.”

  Roman felt a tug at the edges of his mouth. He’d always rather liked Downing. Before the viscount’s marriage, he’d been a marvelous customer. Even if he won more than he lost, he had an innate ability to pull others to and with him, and that was worth any loss to the coffers Roman and Andreas might suffer. Because rarely were Downing’s acquaintances so lucky.

  The only reason Downing was at the hell tonight was because of a ladies’ party to which he wasn’t invited. Roman thought that sounded as good an excuse as any. He shuddered to think what might happen at a party for ladies only.

  Though he might find her there. Or else at one of the other events, dancing with some stringy cad just out of Oxford, unable to tell which of his two left feet should be leading.

  He wondered what she looked like as she danced. He bet her skin warmed, pink blooming just beneath the creamy surface. She had reacted so beautifully earlier. The pulse at her throat. The lift of her chest. With her proud posture and determined eyes, those very feminine reactions, the stirrings of desire, made the whole encounter incredibly potent.

  That he hadn’t been able
to purge the earlier encounter from his mind wasn’t surprising.

  “Going to need to offer a great amount for her hand to beat out Binchley’s title,” Chatsworth slurred. “And any shortcomings will need to be compensated.”

  Compensated monetarily, of course. Bennett Chatsworth had high standards—he had outright said that he wanted no less than an earl for his daughter—but he would need money, lots and lots of money, to cover his debts.

  Downing was the heir to a marquessate, and exceedingly wealthy, so he had been a good match. Trant had no title to claim—at least not yet, though there had been interesting rumors lately—but the man, too, had money to spare.

  “I wonder that you aren’t looking at the larger scene, Chatsworth,” Trant said casually.

  Unlike his positive feelings toward Downing, Roman had mixed regards concerning Trant. The man’s deep pockets and outrageous wagers made him a good client. He lost about as much as he won, so he wasn’t a liability to their businesses. In fact, he seemed to frequent the tables more out of a desire to gain a social edge than to add to his own wealth. He played with those who could provide value. Whether that was to gather information or plant seeds. The man hadn’t become a brilliant politician by chance.

  “I’m looking at the prospects perfectly well, Mr. Trant. Binchley is at the top of the list at present though that could change provided circumstances change.”

  Maintaining a smooth expression, Trant tipped his head. A tick of irritation pulsed under his jaw, the only tell that betrayed otherwise calm equanimity.

  Roman frequently encountered men like Trant in his line of work. Ruthless. Cutthroat. Determined. But coupled with Trant’s deep need to climb ever upward, crushing anyone in his path, the qualities, while making Trant an interesting associate at times, at others made him decidedly predictable and boring. After all, a ladder contained a single directional path. Someone like Trant rarely tried the twisting vines, tree branches, and handholds to the side.