she exclaimed. “Why—why, I have always attended you, ma’am!
It’s not proper for a lady of your station to travel alone, not at all. How can this
Lady Carleigh expect you to—”
“Hamlin, that is enough,” I said firmly. “You will remain here at the Savoy, while
I will be making the journey to Wrenton by train, unaccompanied, the way hundreds
of other women do every day without incident.”
“But they’re not you, ma’am,” Hamlin insisted. “Not you.”
“Hamlin, I am perfectly capable of— Yes?”
“These arrived for you, Mrs. Hart.” One of my other servants appeared in the doorway,
holding an enormous crystal vase of roses.
“How lovely!” I exclaimed, grateful for the interruption.
I leaned over the vase, breathing deeply of the flowers’ fragrance. The roses were
as lush as velvet, and so deep a red as to be almost black. Tucked among the stems
was an envelope, and with my heart racing with anticipation, I slipped my finger under
the flap to open it.
The roses could have been sent by any number of people—friends, acquaintances, even
the hotel itself—but I dared to hope they’d be from one gentleman in particular.
Ever since the night of Lady Carleigh’s ball, I’d played my dance with Lord Savage
over and over in my head, wishing I’d been more witty, more charming, less shocked
by all he’d said and done. I thought of myself as a lady who was always composed and
in control, and yet in the course of a single dance he had ruffled me, unsettled me,
rattled me in ways I’d never expected.
I couldn’t recall another man who had radiated power and confidence in such a sexual
manner, and I’d been drawn to him so completely that I almost felt as if I’d had no
choice in the matter. He’d called it kismet, or fate, and though I’d tried to dismiss
his words as the sort of pretty emptiness that men say while dancing, with him it
had sounded like the purest truth. I scarcely knew him, and yet I felt as if we’d
known each other forever.
When he’d guessed—for it had to have been a guess—that I was not a woman with scores
of friends, I’d been stunned by his accuracy. A renegade, that’s what he’d called
me. If I were honest, I liked the sound of that, the hint of danger that he’d added
to the word. But what I’d liked more was that he’d confessed he was the same, a strange
thing to share, and yet perfect because he’d said it.
I had always been alone, one more product of my suffocating, solitary childhood, and
apart from the rest of my equals even as I’d stood among them. I’d also accepted that
no one else felt the same. But to hear Lord Savage say the same of himself, a casual
fact shared while we danced, had been exhilarating—yet almost frightening as well,
because he’d made me feel dangerously vulnerable. It was as if he’d been able to look
past my well-crafted, jewel-covered facade and see me as I really was.
There’d been danger in his sexual presence, too, a danger that had been equally irresistible.
He hadn’t been coy, and he hadn’t been flirtatious. Instead, he’d stated his physical
desire for me and frankly described mine for him. He had used words no gentleman should
use to a lady, and yet from him they had sounded right, even as they’d shocked me,
and excited me, too.
No, he excited me, shamelessly and without apology. Over and over, I’d imagined myself
as the woman with him in the garden: her hips that he’d caress with a mixture of reverence
and possession, her fingers clutching tight to the bench with her legs spread wide,
the better to feel the full force of his cock.
I thought endlessly of how he’d pushed her hard against the bench with each thrust,
how his fingers had dug into her hips to keep her steady, how she’d matched each of
his primal groans with a cry of her own. Was it wrong to want that, too? He would
be the one man who’d show me the