My Wicked Marquess Read Online Free PDF

from roof to roof, and then swinging back down to street level, and all he had left to do was to stroll back out onto the street and hail a hackney, the same manner of transportation by which he had arrived.
    One stopped and he got in, but as it rolled away, Max spotted a cluster of uniformed lawmen rushing past in the direction of Bucket Lane.
    He furrowed his brow, turning around to watch them out the grimy back window of the old coach. The fracas had only just happened. How could they have known—?
    Unless she had told them.
    He stopped, struck with sudden astonishment.
    She had gone for help. Well, hang me . Miss Starling must have gone straight to the constable to fetch some officers in to assist him. She…cared?
    Max stared blankly at nothing for a moment, not evenfeeling the bumps and jolts of the ill-made coach rumbling over the cobbled street. The sudden woozy feeling in his brain had nothing to do with having been punched in the face. He shook his head as he realized uncomfortably that, a very long time ago, he had stopped expecting anybody to care what happened to him.
    A strange, sweet, melting feeling softened his innermost core without warning, the place in him that he usually kept so steely.
    But truly, it had never even occurred to him that Miss Starling might have given one thought for his safety.
    My God , he thought in wonder, perhaps I really have found something here …
    When he walked into his Town mansion on Hyde Park a short while later, a bit banged up but none the worse for wear, his old butler Dodsley greeted him with a dry glance that took note of his dishevelment. “Good afternoon, sir. Shall I fetch the medical kit?”
    â€œAh, no thanks, old boy. Bit of a row. Do me a favor, if the constable comes knocking, tell him I was here all morning, will you?”
    â€œKilled someone again, did we?”
    â€œNever before luncheon, Dodsley. It’s still early yet.”
    â€œIndubitably, my lord.”
    Max gave him a sardonic look, but headed at once for his study. He went straight for the file on Daphne Starling, still sitting out on his desk.
    Obviously, he had to see her again, and soon.
    He flipped the file open and turned to the social schedule that Oliver had so carefully researched and recorded, trailing his finger down the page.
    There.
    The Edgecombe ball. Tomorrow night.
    Max’s eyes gleamed with speculation.
    Maybe he had been looking at this all wrong. This was a bride search, after all, not a hunt for an enemy agent. Wasn’t a woman more than just a tool for one of his strategies? Perhaps, for once, he could let himself be a bit more of a human being and less of a spy.
    He had served in the Order’s secret war against the Prometheans for too many years, obviously; but did every choice he made still have to be so perfectly cold-blooded?
    Miss Starling might be “problematical,” but why should that bother him? So Society was the obstacle? Well, he was trained in manipulation, in deception, in making people see what he wanted them to perceive, and only revealing the truth at the precise moment of his choosing.
    If it turned out that he really wanted her, Max mused, he supposed he could probably have her. He would just have to work for it harder than he had ever intended to, would have to get a little more deeply involved than he had ever planned on doing…or was quite comfortable with.
    On the contrary, he was accustomed to the rule of secrecy imposed on him by his vow. Holding others at arm’s length had become second nature, until only his brother warriors—and perhaps his old butler—truly knew him at all.
    That secrecy, that isolation, was a basic fact of his life, and after reading her file and seeing a glimpse of her mettle, he was not sure that a woman like Daphne Starling could be easily kept in the dark about his past and his true activities for the rest of her days. It could get messy.
    He still wasn’t convinced