The Notorious Scoundrel Read Online Free PDF Page B

oddity…or the collection of ladies’ mirrors that rested on the dressing table. There had to be at least a dozen!
    Amy was a vain minx, wasn’t she?
     
    Amy frantically searched the sitting room with her eyes for any sign of Edward’s presence. She had removed his shirt and coat from the hearth. She observed no other indicator that there was a man staying in her lodgings: a man who might know her secret identity as Zarsitti.
    More pounding at the door.
    What was the queen doing at her apartment so late at night?
    Amy glanced at the mantel clock. It was after midnight. With a deep breath and trembling fingers, she unfastened the bolt at the door.
    “Madame?”
    The surly queen elbowed her way inside the apartment. “What is the meaning of this?” She produced a piece of shattered glass and shoved it in Amy’s face as if she might cut her. “The dressing room is in shambles: broken glass, furniture. What did you do?”
    Amy veered her head to one side to avoid the lacerated edge. “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Liar!”
    “I’m not lying,” she insisted in an even voice, heart swelling. “I was attacked.”
    The queen pinched her brows together. “By whom?”
    “Whom do you think?” The wicked woman wasprivy to the overexcited patrons at the club, and Amy gathered her courage to demand: “Where were the guards to protect me?”
    Madame Rafaramanjaka set the piece of glass aside. She eyed the dancer with venom. “I saw no one inside the dressing room.”
    The men must have regained their senses and escaped before the queen and guards had spotted them, Amy thought, but she refrained from making the claim aloud, for she was sure the cruel woman would not believe her.
    “I was attacked,” Amy insisted.
    “You look fine to me.” She grabbed her chin and roughly pushed it from side to side, inspecting the flesh. “Not a scratch.”
    Amy wriggled away from her icy claws, shivering at the woman’s vile touch. “That’s because I had help. One of the patrons came to my aid, but he doesn’t my true—”
    “Who?” Her black eyes flashed. “Your lover?”
    “I don’t have a lover.”
    “Is he here?”
    The queen glanced around the room as if she had not heard the assertion, her cheeks filling with blood. She headed for the bedroom door.
    “There’s no one here!” cried Amy.
    But it was too late. The wretched woman entered the bedchamber and Amy sensed her heart pause in trepidation, sweat gather between her brows…and then she sighed, the room empty.
    Where the devil had he gone?
    The queen marched out of the bedchamber in a haughty manner. “Why are the bedsheets rumpled?”
    Amy blinked, casting aside her bewilderment. “I was asleep,” she fibbed.
    “In your clothes?” She sneered. “He was just here, wasn’t he?”
    “Who?”
    “Your lover, you stupid slut!”
    Amy clenched her fingers into fists. “I don’t have a lover.” She pinched her tongue between her teeth, but, oh, there was so much more she wanted to impart to the miserable, insufferable witch. “And if I had a lover who’d just departed, wouldn’t I be in my under clothes?”
    “Whore!” The queen was unmoved, erratic. She approached Amy, fingers quivering. “There are other girls employed at the club to service the needs of the patrons.”
    Yes, and it was Amy’s duty to arouse the patrons into fits of ecstasy, encourage them to seek out the “other girls,” thus plumping the queen’s purse.
    She shuddered.
    “What if you become enceinte?” demanded the queen. “Do you think men will want to admire a woman with a fat belly?”
    “I’m not pregnant!”
    “At the first sign of a babe”—she moved her forefinger across her throat—“I’m cutting you off.”
    Amy gasped for breath, her fingers quivering. It was as if she wasn’t even in the room, for the self-centeredqueen had already tried and condemned her for her imaginary folly.
    Amy eyed the iron poker next to the coal hearth and imagined…
    She