Sweetest Little Sin by Christine Wells Read Free Book Online Page B

her, he’d simply appeared. Perhaps he was being watched and didn’t want to lead anyone to her? But if the matter was important, surely he might have sent word to her some other way.
    Was it a test? Was he toying with her? Did he risk this meeting to see whether she would still come running, like a dog to heel? She rubbed a hand over her face, pressed her closed eyelids with her fingertips, willing herself not to succumb to useless tears. Ah, she ought to have known a break with Jardine would leave jagged edges.
    She sat curled on the window seat for hours, deep into the night. Forced herself to consider the peremptory summons from every angle, calmly, dispassionately.
    And couldn’t think of a single reason, beyond a nagging curiosity and her unbearable longing to see him, why she should go.
    Unfolding her long body from the cushioned embrasure, Louisa took a spill from the mantel, touching it to the fire. Shielding the flame with her hand, she transferred it to her candle and watched the wick flare to life. With a shiver of anticipation, she carried the candle over to her escritoire and set it in the carved holder.
    Her mouth firmed in determination, she took out the card Faulkner had given her and drew a piece of writing paper toward her.
    Dipping her pen in ink, she composed a short note.
     
    I accept.

Four

    BLIND fury possessed Jardine like hell’s demons all the way to Lord Vane’s exclusive boxing saloon. He stalked into the large, airy apartment full of the smell of sweat and liniment and ripe with curses and the smack of fist on flesh. Sighting steel, he ripped a rapier from the wall and tapped Nick on the shoulder with the button-tipped foil.
    The blue blaze of Nick’s gaze met his squarely. An eyebrow quirked, then Nick gently moved the blade away from his person with his palm.
    “Not swords, Jardine. You know I can’t abide the things.” He flicked a glance at a couple of meaty pugilists who grunted and danced around one another. “I’ll take a few rounds in the ring with you, though.”
    Jardine’s customary mode of hand-to-hand combat would not be welcome in Vane’s boxing saloon. He curled his lip. “Peasant.”
    “A peasant who doesn’t happen to wish for an early death, or at least not at your hands, my friend.”
    The levity didn’t make Jardine smile, but it took the edge off his temper. He lowered the foil, tapped the tip lightly on the ground, and paced to the window. The view wasn’t enlivening. Vane’s establishment was in a shady part of town.
    He turned back. “She didn’t come.”
    He’d waited in that damned musty bookshop for two hours before he’d given up hope.
    “She’s trying to punish me, of course.” He wanted to believe it, but the finality of their parting was such that she could not possibly think such tactics would succeed in bringing him to heel.
    Besides, Louisa wasn’t a woman who played games. She wouldn’t take up with another man unless she genuinely wanted him.
    The notion shot pain through his chest, tossed fuel on the flames of his simmering rage. If it had been any other man, he’d still want to kill him, but Radleigh!
    Jardine couldn’t sleep at night for worrying about Louisa in the clutches of that fiend. And at such a crucial time, when Jardine couldn’t afford to lay a finger on the bastard. It was exactly the situation he’d striven to avoid all these years.
    Perhaps he should simply abduct Louisa and lock her in a tower somewhere. It had worked for Lyle.
    Nick sighed. “Do you want me to talk to the lady? Warn her off?”
    Slowly, Jardine shook his head, gazing into the distance, as if the four walls surrounding them had vanished.
    “No, don’t do that.” He paused, turning it over in his mind. “Do you know, Nick, I don’t believe in coincidences.”
    “Yes, but how could this association have been orchestrated? To the outside world, you are barely acquainted with her.”
    That was true, and he’d tried damned hard to keep it