One Night Is Never Enough by Anne Mallory Read Free Book Online

longings.
    He ripped his sleeve from her grip and strode from the room, taking her remaining courage with him, along with what was left of the packed snow dripping from her chipped ice. So lucky. So arrogant. Having to stand there night after night and hold herself together with pick, with axe, with painfully gathered snow.
    She sank onto a hard wooden chair in her beautiful ball gown and tried not to let the tears fall.
    Tried not to think of what would happen to Emily.
    Tried not to think of what would happen to her.
    Tried to pull together cold pride to save her once more. For one day soon, she was simply going to melt and drain away instead, just like her tears.
    Roman watched his brother throw back a shot of coarse whiskey. Andreas was angry. Furious. Livid, as expected. But had said nothing until they were alone. Also, as expected.
    “Tell me again why I should not throttle you, Roman?”
    “Because you love me more than your flesh-and-blood kin?”
    Andreas shot him a look of distaste. Roman was used to it. Used to Andreas darkly stomping the sensibilities of all in his path. But Roman didn’t allow much to faze him, and long ago he’d waited out Andreas’s savagery and found the man beneath.
    And beneath was a man who would die defending those he loved. Of course, Roman only knew two people who fit that bill, so to most people Andreas was a bit of an ogre.
    “That measure is in place for emergencies. The virginal fate of some fool’s daughter is not an emergency, Roman.” Andreas’s arms were clenched so tightly that Roman was afraid they might splinter right off his tall frame. “I could murder you where you stand.”
    “But then I’ll never get to enjoy my ill-gotten spoils.” Roman smiled charmingly. Charm that rarely failed him. Even with someone as immune to it as his brother.
    “They’ll lock you up in Newgate,” Andreas said harshly.
    “Then you’ll have to bust me free. Two picklocks. Maybe a little bribery.” Roman waved his forefinger around in a circle.
    “This is not amusing, Roman. Trant suspects you cheated. Rumors need little to evolve—you know that— you use that . And Cornelius is just looking for an opportunity . . .”
    Andreas’s lips were white.
    “I know.” Roman couldn’t help it—his voice tightened, smile dropping. Their entire operation ran on their hands being clean when it came to the tables.
    “I know,” he said more softly. He’d deal with Trant later. And put Cornelius, the latest man vying to usurp their position in the underground, out of business for good. “I’ll make it up to you.”
    He shouldn’t need to make anything up. He shouldn’t have played the hand. He knew that. And yet . . . everything in him said he would still do it if he had to play it all over again. As if bewitched.
    “If you take this night with her, and the ton finds out, we will be the ones blacklisted. And I see your eyes, Roman. You will take the night with her. You will risk everything.” His brother’s harsh lips twisted, his dark patrician features mirroring his frustration. “Why? Beautiful, yes, but you know better than anyone not to be swayed by a pretty face.”
    Roman said nothing for a long moment, the memory of blue eyes haunting him. “There’s something about her, Andreas.”
    “For God’s sake, you just met her, Roman. Hell, you didn’t even meet her. You picked up some bauble of hers from the floor. After nearly killing a man in front of her eyes.”
    “Yes. Yet . . .” He rolled a pair of dice in his hand absently. “Yet I have found her fascinating for a long time. I must know her somehow. This morning made me sure of it. I can feel it.”
    “Then drag some jackass in front of her house. Beat the snot out of him. See if she drops something from her window for you to retrieve.”
    Roman looked at the dice in his hand. Sixes. “You know we can’t ignore my gut.” Ignorance of it had always resulted in death.
    “I can ignore it if the feeling