My Lady Rival (16 page)

A s she reached out to snatch the key away, his fingers closed, trapping hers inside his fist.

Damn him—her breath shook. He stood so close she could feel the heat of his body. She wanted to back away but forced her legs to lock and her feet to remain in place. His every piece of clothing was intact, but he might have been wearing nothing at all for the images that flashed across her vision. Daydreams from the past. Merely another inconvenience she must dismiss to get what she wanted.

past. Merely another inconvenience she must dismiss to get what she wanted.

“Mr. Laurie,” she said, yanking her fingers from his grip. “I refuse to play along.

Either unlock the drawer and show me that you have the dye papers, or do not and I will be glad to leave. Might I remind you, however, that you were the one to invite me inside?”

He didn’t say anything for several moments, and finally Willa lifted her gaze to meet his. She sucked in a sharp breath, the movement causing a physical ache at the back of her throat.

“You lied,” he said.

Willa swallowed at the look in his eyes—as if he’d suddenly seen through that outer shell of charm, intelligence, and beauty to everything she kept hidden beneath. “Very well.” She nodded. “I’m leaving, then.”

She turned, but he caught her wrist.

“You lied about that kiss in Italy, didn’t you, Miss Stratton?” His fingers burned into her flesh despite the long sleeve of her shirt and her gloves. Willa forced another sigh. “I already admitted that I did it deliberately to distract—”

“Have you ever kissed a potential investor?”

“Of course not!” A s soon as the words escaped, she knew she’d made a mistake.

She should have confessed that every strategy included giving away a night in her bed. That would make him no different from all the others. He wasn’t any different from any other man.

“You have other rivals, I believe. We’re not the only dye makers. What about that company in A merica? Have you ever kissed another rival to distract him from winning an investor you wanted?”

But somehow the words she knew she should speak became tangled in her throat. She frowned and tugged at her wrist, but he wouldn’t let go. She reached with her other hand for his, the one that held the key. “I—”

“I can’t believe I never saw it before.” Suddenly he released her and laughed.

She willed the heated flush on her face to disappear, but it only worsened, scouring her cheeks and throat and ears. “I don’t know what you think you’ve seen, and I don’t particularly care. Now give me the damned key, or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” he jeered softly. “Find another excuse to kiss me? For that’s what it was, wasn’t it? You didn’t kiss me to distract me. You didn’t even know I would be distracted. You kissed me because you wanted to kiss me. Is that not the truth, Willa?”

She stilled. Each of her senses was on alert, though it was pointless now.

Somehow, her body had already betrayed her. The flush hadn’t come until afterward. He’d seen it in her eyes, perhaps, or in the way her pulse hammered at her throat—she could feel that now, as if being so close to him caused her cells, sinews, bones, muscles, and even her blood to leap with joy. Perhaps if she loved him, she could have understood it, but she didn’t even know him very well. A ll she felt was lust—this mad longing to surrender her flesh to his and let him do as he wished with it . . . and, even more, the desire for him to surrender his body to he wished with it . . . and, even more, the desire for him to surrender his body to her, for her to do whatever she wished with his.

But, oh, how cocky and arrogant he was, to stand there with that smug grin on his face, his eyes dark and knowing, to act superior to her now when they had both been born in the East End of London, when the fact was that he, too, had enjoyed their kiss.

This was exactly what she had feared: with his knowledge of her desire, no longer were they equal rivals. Every time he looked at her now, he wouldn’t see her strength or determination. Her features would compose an essay on her weaknesses; he would notice how her gaze lingered on the lines at the corners of his eyes, on the creases around his mouth, on the sharp planes and hollows of his stubbled cheek; he would find ways to explain the trebled pulse at her throat when he was near, or the press of her lips together, perhaps wondering if she did it to ease the ache of that first kiss’s memory. He would pause at the slight flutter of her eyelashes when their gazes met, take note of the stillness of her breath when he came too close.

He would see every betrayal of her body and claim it for himself, tempting her only because he knew he could.

Willa stepped toward him, girding herself with her armor—a smile. If there was to be any hope at all, she prayed that she would find him just as weak. “Yes, that’s the truth,” she murmured. She clasped her hands about his shoulders and tilted her face up to his. “I wanted to kiss you, A lex.” She dragged her hands down his arms, pausing only momentarily at the bulge of his biceps, then again at the corded muscles of his forearms, which she could feel beneath his sleeves. “But you did want to kiss me, too, did you not? I wasn’t the only one who wanted, was I?”

His hand was still clasped around the key. Her fingers wrapped around his wrists, then guided his hands to bracket her waist. He could trap her so easily like this, one short step sideways toward the desk. But she counted on the wary hunger she glimpsed in his eyes, the quickening of his breath . . . the way his hands tightened on her of their own accord, his fingers loosening about the key . .

.

Beyond the roar of the silence in the room as their gazes held, Willa heard the soft thump of the key as it fell to the ground. Perhaps they were both weak together. A n even more frightening thought.

She bent and scooped up the key, his fingers grasping at her as she moved, but as she turned and inserted the key inside the drawer’s lock, they fell away. She fumbled inside the drawer, down the length of it, to the very back. There was nothing . . . She heard the rustling of paper as she scraped against the far right corner and drew out her prize.

It was paper wrapping, not any sort of paper which would reveal the secrets of the dye. A thrill of hope flared—until that same hope died as she realized he could have the dye information somewhere else. He wouldn’t truly wish for her to know its location, after all.

its location, after all.

Still, she unwrapped the paper—its weight light enough for her to suspect nothing was actually held inside. Then she smiled: a reluctant curve of her lips.

“Thank you.”

She slipped her mother’s pendant deep inside her pocket.

“We found it after the first night you were caught.”

Her head snapped up. “You knew I was here before?”

A lex had moved around to the other side of the desk and taken a seat in one of the chairs. He leaned back, his chin propped on the heel of his palm as he watched her. “Of course. A nd yes, I also know that you’ve been following me everywhere else, too. Truly, Miss Stratton, you might find a more clever way of hiding yourself.” His gaze trailed down the length of her body. The heat in his eyes made her feel naked, though not an inch of skin below her neck was bare.

For a moment she almost wished she hadn’t moved out of his arms to retrieve the key. “Do you have the dye information?”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “A lthough I do appreciate the shirt and trousers you’ve donned for your nocturnal activities. I have no complaint about those.”

“Enough. I don’t care about three years ago. I don’t care about the kiss, and I don’t care about what you think about my clothes. A ll I want to know is whether you have the dye. Tell me.”

His dark gaze made a lazy ascent up the path of her body, an accompanying fire simmering beneath her skin wherever it touched. He met her eyes and smiled. “Of course.”

A nd that was when she knew: A lex Laurie was a far more terrible liar than she had ever been.

More than an hour later, Willa watched from a different spot outside Holcombe House. She saw the messenger arrive. She spied A lex’s shadow move about the windows that she now knew belonged to his study. A fter twenty-odd minutes had passed, A lex called for his carriage. When the coachman pulled it from the mews to the front and waited for A lex to emerge, Willa was inside. Curled up on the rear-facing seat, her knees to her chest as she pressed herself into the shadows.

She held her breath as the door opened and A lex climbed inside. She sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward when he didn’t request that either of the lamps be lit. Her fingers dug into her forearms and became numb as she counted each second that passed before the carriage shifted with the groom’s weight and the horses pulled the vehicle forward.

A ll the while, A lex never once looked in her direction.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it must have been at least ten minutes more when her legs became heavy with numbness also. Still, she didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. She wasn’t fooling herself in thinking that they would travel all the way to their destination without him noticing her, of course, but the greater the distance from Holcombe House, the more likely it seemed that but the greater the distance from Holcombe House, the more likely it seemed that at least some part of her plan for getting the Madonna dye would work.

She no longer cared that desperation had become part of that strategy; the end result was all that mattered.

A fter probably another ten minutes, Willa relaxed. She let her head rest against the wall as she stared at A lex, who meanwhile stared out the carriage window into the night. Every so often they would pass a lamppost which would reveal a glimpse of his features. They felt like secrets—the full curve of his bottom lip, the cliff of his chin—secrets offered in the dark, for her and her alone.

“What I do not understand,” he mused aloud, turning his gaze toward her corner to pierce through her protective shadows, “is how well I seem to know you and how you don’t seem to know me at all.”

For a moment she considered pretending that she remained hidden; she liked him much more when he didn’t speak. “You didn’t know I would be here,” she protested, then gave a small groan as she extended her legs across her seat.

“You’re right; I didn’t know. Not until I climbed inside. Good God, you are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

“You lied about the Madonna dye.”

“Of course I lied. I wanted you to think I already had it, just so you would stop doing such foolish things like this. I am weary of your presence, Miss Stratton.” Willa straightened. “Then we’re going to meet him? I was right?” She gave a little laugh of delight.

His response cut through her laughter. “No, Miss Stratton, I am going to meet with him.”

When, exactly, A lex wondered, had he begun to feel Willa Stratton’s presence?

He’d felt it earlier tonight, before Thomas the footman ever came inside to report on a suspicious person lurking outside the house. He hadn’t even needed the carriage door open to know that she would be inside. He could have demanded at that point that she get out and he would have gone alone to meet with Woolstone, and he knew that’s what he should have done, but somehow he found the anger and frustration at her presence across the carriage from him . . .

satisfying.

Letting her remain also meant that she would soon see him take possession of the dye information and then leave him alone, but in the meantime he felt rather .

. . enlivened . . . to know she was there, across the carriage, still plotting how she would best him and take the Madonna dye for herself.

Her hands spread wide. “We could both meet with him. He’s agreed to give it to you in any matter, hasn’t he? What harm would it do to allow me to accompany you?”

A lex bit back a grin. “Trying to lull me into a false sense of security, are you?

You will smile and flutter your eyelashes at him. You’ll no doubt try to convince him to surrender the information to you instead.”

In truth, the only way he could keep her from meeting Woolstone once they In truth, the only way he could keep her from meeting Woolstone once they arrived was to have the groom and coachman guard the door and keep her locked safely inside. A consideration he hadn’t yet dismissed.

She hesitated. Then: “Of course I will,” she acknowledged, and he could see the flash of her teeth in the darkness as she smiled. “You’re not afraid I’ll succeed, are you?”

“No.” He laughed disbelievingly, as she probably expected. Humor appeared to be the new rule in the game they played; any currents of animosity remained cloaked among the shadows, and a tacit agreement had been made to ignore anything else that lay between them.

In keeping with this, A lex decided to pretend to ignore her and looked out the window on the carriage door again. Soon afterward Willa pried the blinds on her side away from the window and peered at the dark facades of the buildings passing by.

Then she sniffed.

A few minutes later, she sniffed again.

“You’re not crying because I’m going to win and get the dye, are you?” he asked warily.

“No!”

“Good.”

A nother minute passed. “What is that horrid smell in here? It smells like a rat’s carcass.” Her voice was nasal, as if she held her nose.

“What lovely words do flow from your lips, Willa.” He caught his breath at the inadvertent use of her given name.

“A nd my apologies,” he added, though his regret had nothing to do with saying her name. It had sounded like a foreign territory on his tongue, strange and exotic; somehow, just the thought of saying it again caused his heart to beat faster. He cursed. “We’ve scrubbed the damned thing from top to bottom and at least half a dozen times, but the smell remains. I’ve been meaning to purchase a new carriage. Kat believes Lord Holcombe died in this one.”

“What?” she screeched, scrambling off her seat and stooping in the middle of the swaying carriage.

“Sit down,” he said, tugging at her hand. “You’re going to get hurt, and I don’t want to have to send for a physician and be late for the appointment. Besides, I hardly think he died on your side, if that’s what worries you.”