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  Nicolina hadn’t appreciated another man’s looks since Gareth had started courting her five years ago. They had married three months before he left for war, and her eye had never wandered. Never in all the years. But this man’s face demanded the attention. Demanded appreciation.

  She stared up at him, her mouth slightly agape.

  “You will only get one warning.” His perfect lips moved, his baritone the thickest golden honey. “We keep this street clean. You are not welcome here.”

  Her head snapped back at his most definite threat, her look dropping to the front of his black waistcoat. Not welcome here?

  She looked up, meeting his dark silver eyes. Black—they almost looked black with only the flickering light of the lantern hanging on the wall of the stall. The menace in them stole her voice for a long second.

  Then she realized how he was looking at her.

  He was looking at her like she had no right. No right to be there. No right to sully his precious building with her foul presence.

  She had heard him say prostitute, but it hadn’t registered in her mind he was actually calling her a harlot.

  But there was no mistaking it. He was looking at her like a whore.

  Her hackles spiked. “You—you think I’m a prostitute?”

  He folded his arms across his chest and flicked his head toward the chair. “You’re tied with a leather strap to a chair in the back stall of Lady Vandestile’s stable. Your dress is soiled wet. I am to think otherwise?”

  She twisted, trying to rip her wrists free from the leather bindings. Damn Gareth and his damn knots. “I am no such thing, sir. I am a governess for a very prominent lord.”

  “And you are tied like a whore to a chair, why?”

  Her mouth clamped shut, a heated flush quickly filling her face. She did look like a whore. A discarded harlot.

  She exhaled the indignation filling her lungs and set her look on the top black button of his waistcoat. “I came to your establishment to speak to a gentleman that was here on the premises. And this is how the conversation ended. Can you please untie me?”

  “None of the gentlemen inside would tie an innocent woman to a chair and then abandon her amongst the horses.”

  Her gaze snapped up to his face. “This one did.”

  “Who is it? All of our patrons know the rules, and it appears as if I have business to attend to with one of our customers.”

  Her mouth clamped shut, her lips pulling inward. The instant instinct to protect Gareth from this man manifested in her gut. Instinct she silently scolded herself for.

  The man lifted one finger from the fold of his arms to point at her. “You can tell me, and I can untie you. Or I can leave you as you are for the next lecherous gentleman to happen upon you.”

  Nicolina’s eyes went wide. He wouldn’t.

  The man nodded, silently countering her disbelief. His stone-cut face offered no mercy to her plight.

  Her eyes drifted downward, humiliation washing over her. “My husband.”

  “Your husband?” His left brow arched. “A name, miss. A name. Or I leave.”

  She hissed an exhale. Dammit. Let her husband have to deal with this man. He deserved it. “Gareth. Gareth Callison.”

  His head tilted down, the arch in his left brow reaching even higher. “Captain Callison?”

  She met his eyes. “That man is no captain. Not to me.”

  The man’s arms unfolded and he stepped around Nicolina to the back of the chair. His voice softened considerably as his fingers worked the leather knot. “I was not aware that Callison had a wife.”

  “Yes, well, Gareth appears to have forgotten that fact as well.”

  A grunt in reply, and the man stood behind her as the leather fell from her wrists, freeing her. “I apologize. I meant no offense as to your…state…here in the stable.”

  Thankful he stayed behind her, Nicolina took a long moment to compose her body before pushing herself to standing. She spun to the man as she brushed down on her wet skirt, her voice coolly polite. “You were unaware. I must take no offense. I do not know what I would have assumed had I walked into a stall and seen me.”

  “It is kind of you.”

  “Please tell me, sir, Mister…”

  “Logan Lipinstein.”

  “Mr. Lipinstein, you mentioned a Lady Vandestile owns this home, yet I was under the impression it was…well, what type of establishment is it?”

  His perfectly carved left eyebrow cocked. “The Revelry’s Tempest? It is a gaming house owned by Lady Vandestile.”

  She nodded at his quick honesty. “Thank you. I did not wish to mistake what I discerned of the place. I was just surprised it was owned by a woman.”

  He glanced about the stall, seemingly unsure how to proceed—the slightest crack in his stone facade. “I do not suppose I should gather your husband at this point?”

  “No. Please do not.”

  “Then I will have a carriage brought around to deliver you safely home.”

  “No. It is not necessary. I have my blade and it is a short walk.” Nicolina turned from him and stepped outside the stall, kicking aside hay as she searched the floor of the stable for a glint of steel. The more hay she shuffled through in the spot where she had dropped her dagger, the less she found. She bent over, rummaging through the straw with her fingers.

  “Did you lose something?” The man had stepped up behind her, looking over her shoulder.

  Her fingers desperately sifting through the dirt of the ground, Nicolina swore under her breath. That bastard husband of hers had stolen her blade from her. When Gareth knew exactly what that dagger meant to her.

  She stood, her hands planting on her hips as she stared at the ground in the dim light. “I did. Several things, it appears. My dignity being one of them.”

  She shook her head without looking at Mr. Lipinstein. “Thank you for untying me.”

  Nicolina turned, walking down the length of the stable and out into the dark alleyway.

  The man didn’t follow. Thank the heavens.

  She couldn’t take another whit of humiliation.

  { Chapter 3 • To Capture a Rogue }

  Gareth glanced down at the dagger he had just pulled from his pocket.

  Even though he stood in the shadows, the low flickering light of a lantern hanging from the front of a carriage house to his left flashed off the steel of the blade.

  His palm wrapped around the handle, the weight of the knife perfectly balanced, though light, in his hand. Crafted specifically for a petite grasp, not his meaty fingers. Crafted for Nicolina when she was just sixteen. The leather knot at the butt end of the handle had frayed, and he unfurled the black leather strapping slowly, carefully, exposing the swirled diamonds and rubies embedded in the onyx handle.

  Uncle Felix.

  It had been years since he had seen the blade, and his memory had not done the dagger justice. Nicolina’s uncle had always crafted the most exquisite blades. He had been an artisan of the first order, and his talent had allowed him to establish enough wealth to afford the best education for his niece and nephews.

  Gareth’s thumb ran across the largest embedded ruby at the edge of the cross-guard. The dagger had been a bribe of sorts to get Nicolina to go back to finish her last year at the private seminary. Uncle Felix had wanted the education for her, and she had wanted nothing more than to stay in Berkshire and spend her days at the foundry.

  The dagger was a promise that she would lose nothing at school. That her instruction in the finer arts of swordplay would not cease. For not only was Uncle Felix a master craftsman, he was also an accomplished swordsman and had instructed Nicolina in the proper use of all blades, just as he had his nephews.

  Slightly misguided, Uncle Felix had no children of his own and had inherited Nicolina and her brothers to raise when Nicolina was six and her brothers were five and seven. Her uncle had trained the boys, of course, and he had thought it a novelty to train Nicolina just the same—especially
because she was so small and light.

  Gareth had thought the same—her skill and cunning with the steel had been a novelty—until the first time he had angered Nicolina beyond all measure while they were sparring, and she had sliced his arm in the ensuing fight.

  Her smallness in no way matched her spirit. Not by far.

  A smile at the long past memory slid onto his lips.

  Gareth looked up at the rear of the building in front of him.

  The candlelight that had been lit in the right corner window on the fourth level of the home was now extinguished. Full darkness in the townhouse.

  A grand, spacious, townhouse that swallowed half of the block. It’s brick exterior was flawless, stately, intended to intimidate and impress.

  So what the hell was his wife doing in it?

  He swallowed back a surge of rage.

  His eyes dropping, he quickly rewrapped the leather strapping tight around the handle of the blade, hiding the jewels, and then tied it off.

  He slipped the dagger into his pocket, moving forward through the shadows of the mews.

  He had a job to do.

  { Chapter 4 • To Capture a Rogue }

  The bright light hit her, breaking through her sleep to pull her from her dreams. Flat on her stomach, she resisted, burying her head into the pillow, wanting sleep, sleep, sleep, and more sleep.

  But if daylight was shining into her room, then it had surely already awoken her charges and they would be bounding into her bedroom in no time. Nicolina’s eyes flickered open, her head turning to the side.

  Her blade.

  Inches from her face. Her lost dagger sitting on the side table next to the bed.

  Gareth.

  How in the blasted hell had he gotten into her room? Into the townhouse? How had he found her to begin with?

  She squinted. The black leather had been rewrapped. The binding evenly lapped along the handle of the blade and ending in a tight knot at the bottom. Not like she wrapped it—haphazard and uneven.

  Just like her imperious husband to mess with her belongings.

  The heavy pit in her stomach expanded, hardening into a rock that became so unbearable she had to roll over onto her back. She kept her eyes on the dagger. The silver shine of the blade contrasted with the dark mahogany of the table.

  Her husband. Not dead. Alive.

  She braced herself for a moment, teasing out reality from her dreams. Like she had done every day, every morning, for the last year. She would wake and she would have to remember her husband was dead. Not alive, as he was in her dreams. Dead. Every morning she had to go through the shock. Her chest clenching as she accepted reality.

  Except this morning he was alive.

  He had been this whole time.

  She still couldn’t quite grasp the fact. The reality that she had seen him. Touched him. Talked to him.

  Nearly killed him.

  Her eyes closed.

  She had known the speed and direction of her blade when she had thrust it at his head. But for one instant, she had truly wanted to kill him.

  Kill him for being alive.

  Kill him for hiding from her.

  Kill him for abandoning her.

  She had spent the last year in widow’s weeds. Spent the last year in the darkest grief. And he was alive.

  The bastard.

  After the initial shock of seeing him, it hadn’t taken Nicolina but minutes to realize that this reality was worse.

  For he hadn’t died. He had abandoned her. Willingly abandoned her.

  Her heart clenched, her chest filling with stones.

  “Mrs. Cally, Mrs. Cally, Mrs. Cally.” Lillian’s softly sweet voice preceded her into Nicolina’s room.

  Nicolina lifted her head and patted the bed next to her. Still in her nightgown, the little girl’s bare feet thudded across the floorboards as she scurried to the bed and jumped onto the side, snuggling under the covers Nicolina had lifted for her.

  Lillian wiggled until she was half-splayed on top of Nicolina and leaching all the warmth from the cocoon of the covers.

  Nicolina wrapped her left arm around the girl’s torso. “Your legs are as cold as icicles.”

  Lillian giggled.

  “Is your brother awake?”

  “No, Mrs. Cally, and I shook him and shook him.”

  “And that did not wake him?”

  “He grumbled at me and pushed me.”

  “Then he must be tired and we shall let him sleep.”

  “But I am tired too, Mrs. Cally.”

  “Then what are you doing out of bed?”

  Lillian shrugged and tucked her head onto the nook between Nicolina’s shoulder and chest. Within a minute, the girl’s soft breaths went deep and even, sleep overtaking her.

  Nicolina couldn’t fault her for not staying in bed. Just like Lillian, Nicolina was six when her mother died. Her protected world had been upended by a bloody cough that took her mother within days.

  All Nicolina wanted in those days was to find a warm, safe place to sleep. For someone to hold her. Comfort her. But there was no such thing at her uncle’s home.

  While her uncle was kind, he also had a wild mind and knew nothing of raising a six-year-old girl. And Nicolina’s older brother had always, at best, disregarded her as a thorn in his side. Her little brother was her only solace in those days—even though it was she that had to hold him. Comfort him. Dry his tears.

  All things she coveted for herself.

  Nicolina tightened her hold on Lillian. This, she could give the little girl. A safe place to sleep. What she would have given for that very thing when she was that age.

  Instead, she had gotten accustomed to a cold bed. Until she had met Gareth. She was fifteen when he had come to apprentice with her uncle, and her world had been upended once more. He had always been the warmth she had craved. A balm to her scarred heart.

  And then the war had invaded their lives, and her warm bed had turned cold again.

  The thought of her husband sent surges of blood speeding through her veins, sending her fingers to tingling, her rage building.

  Gareth had abandoned her.

  Abandoned her.

  Just when her renewed fury started to simmer out of control, Lillian sighed in her sleep, nuzzling deeper into the burrow Nicolina’s arm provided.

  The bitterness quelled.

  It was hard to be irate when a sweet little girl was curled up along her side.

  She needed that. Needed to think straight without rage blinding her mind.

  Gareth was alive and he had dared to be skulking about in her room in the middle of the night. Which meant he didn’t want to see her again. Didn’t want to acknowledge that he had abandoned his wife.

  But he would not remove himself so easily from the destruction he had caused—that, she would not allow.

  She had to determine her next move.

  Hopefully, it would not be to kill the bastard.

  ~~~

  Nicolina watched the children run ahead of her into the breakfast room and then turned her attention to Lord Samport. He stood in the hallway, the sunken swathes under his eyes darkened almost to blackness. Nicolina wondered if her employer ever managed to sleep. His wife only dead for three months, Nicolina recognized the grief he was ensnared within, yet, admirably, he still went forth with his days.

  “My lord?” She nudged his attention back onto her, as he had been the one to halt her in the hallway.

  It took a full second for his heavy eyes to find and focus upon her. “Mrs. Callison, my wife’s sister sent word she will be taking the children today. She intends to bring them to see the animals at the Tower Menagerie.”

  “That will be delightful for them, my lord. The children do love Lady Gorton—as they have remarked those very words time and again.” Nicolina forced enthusiasm into the smile on her face. While the children adored their aunt, Nicolina had come to despise Lady Gorton’s husband. The man had propositioned Nicolina more than once—an
d with his wife not but seven steps away.

  She had politely dissuaded him every time, but that hadn’t stopped his hands and his body from brushing quite intently against her breasts and backside more times than she had cared to count. Nicolina silently prayed she would not have to accompany Lady Gorton and risk another encounter with her husband.

  “Yes, they do adore their aunt. Lady Gorton is so very much like…” His voice trailed, choking off. He cleared his throat. “So you are excused for the day.”

  Nicolina nodded as she silently exhaled a relieved sigh.

  “What will you do with the day? Read?” The words came from his lips woodenly, doing nothing more than fulfilling customary politeness. “The library here is not as extensive as the one at Mount Black, but it should have sufficient choice.”

  Her eyes darted about. What would she do with the day? She could think of only one thing, and she was not about to share her plans with Lord Samport. “Possibly. I do have a friend from Berkshire that is currently in London and I may call on her.”

  “Very good.” Lord Samport gave her a small nod and moved down the hall.

  Nicolina’s fingers tapped along the folds of her skirt.

  She still had no idea what was appropriate in this situation—it wasn’t a common occurrence that one discovered she had been abandoned by her husband. But Nicolina recognized an opportunity when she saw it.

  And a free day was an opportunity.

  Now she just had to find her bastard husband.

  { Chapter 5 • To Capture a Rogue }

  The fishmonger was the key.

  Nicolina had loitered about the front of the townhouse on Brook Street for a half hour before the fishmonger stopped his cart just past her feet. Thank the heavens, as she was chilled from the cool fall mist that had set in after a rare morning of clear skies.

  The fishmonger balanced a basket of slippery whitebait against his chest as he stepped past the gate and down the stairs to the small area courtyard outside the servant’s entrance of the townhouse. He shifted the basket in his arms and then banged on the rough planks of the weathered door.