Prologue
May 1822
The solicitor had told Lord Theodore Bromley what the woman looked like—orange hair, freckles, young and slender. The woman framed in the window of the house on Drury Lane must be her, both like and unlike her description, with hair more of a deep copper than orange. And beautiful. The solicitor had not mentioned that.
She seemed a perfect picture, a medieval lady of the castle, more goddess than woman. Her thick, curly hair, a medusa’s nest of snakes, coiled high, ringlets escaping to frame her face. Her gown—a spring-green muslin affair, high-necked and long-sleeved—encased a straight spine, confident shoulders, and a slim but lush figure. If not a Guinevere, she could, easily, be taken for a proper miss, a barrister’s daughter, sought-after and beloved. Or, perhaps, one might mistake her for a newlywed wife, innocent yet beguiling, waiting for her husband’s arrival after a long day of separation.
She was none of those things.
She was a thorn in Lord Theodore Bromley’s backside. And he’d pluck her out and stomp her under his heel in less time than it had taken him to walk from his sister’s home to here. A quarter of an hour, and he’d be done. His part of fulfilling his father’s cursed will completed.
Theo ripped his gaze away from the window and the woman framed within it and glared up at the row house. Nice and neat and well-positioned. He’d only just learned of the house’s existence at the same time he’d learned about the lady. A nice house, too, and likely stocked with servants when Briarcliff, the family’s country seat, was falling down around their heads.
He snorted and strode for the door. His father had taken better care of her, one of the artistic leeches who’d drained his family’s coffers over the last decade or more, than he had his own family. But his father was dead, and once Theo found this woman new coffers to rob, he and his family would be rid of her.
“S’cuse me, mister,” a voice said from behind.
He didn’t turn around. “Yes?”
“You’re blocking my way into the house.”
Theo did turn, then, narrowing his attention on the slender man standing in the street. “You’ve come to visit Lady Cordelia?” The slender man with golden hair queued at the back of his neck nodded. “Go away. She’s no time for visitors today.”
“I was paid to come here!” The man’s face flushed a mottled pink.
She paid lovers, then, did she? With what money? He almost growled.
“Leave.” He did growl then, a warning that sent the other man scurrying away.
Good. Theo knocked on the door. Lady Cordelia would have no pleasure today. Only pain.
The door flew open, and a woman with a wide mouth, hooked nose, and frizzy gray hair answered. “Good day. May I ask who’s calling?”
“I wish to speak with Lady Cordelia Trent.” Better to keep his identity a secret lest the woman run for a back door.
The housekeeper, for that’s what she must be, dragged her gaze down the length of Theo’s body then back up. “Ah, yes. She’s expecting you. I’ll show you where to go.” She pulled Theo into the house and pushed him down the hallway, stealing his hat and gloves and greatcoat before tucking her hands beneath the lapels of his jacket and tugging the garment off from behind.
Theo jerked out of the woman’s reach. “What are you about, madam? Give that back!”
The housekeeper chuckled. “Shy? Very well. You may do the rest yourself. Just trying to be helpful.”
“You’re not my valet!” He’d never even had a valet. No funds for it.
The housekeeper shrugged but did not give Theo’s jacket back. She led him deeper into the house, stopping at a door in the shadows at the very end of the hallway. She pushed it open and ushered Theo inside.
Six women, sitting in a circle, easels stationed before them, pencils nestled between fingers, looked up at him. They were of various ages and two wore unrelieved black. They stared at him unabashedly with clear interest in their eyes, which roamed down the length of his body. Then back up. Some of them at least. A few lost their way somewhere round his midsection. A tad lower, actually. Their gazes… hovered. As if glued there. They’d stripped him to his skin without lifting a finger.
“What the hell is happening here?” he demanded. He tugged at his waistcoat, the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, feeling naked without his jacket to pull over that region where their collective interest paused.
“Very nice,” a young woman with mischievous blue eyes said, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth. “The agency has not sent so burly a specimen asthisbefore.”
Another woman, gray streaked in her dark hair, jumped to her feet. “Let me help you with your waistcoat, sir.” She reached for his abdomen, tickled the buttons lined up there.
He swatted her hands away. “Hands off, woman!” Hell. He’d inadvertently entered a heretofore unknown level of hell where randy women andhelpfulhousekeepers stripped you bare and—
“You’re not the model I hired.” A voice, low and rich and rather like a good wine, snapped out the observation.
Theo looked to the doorway. There she stood. The woman from the window—Lady Cordelia Trent. The thorn in his backside. His prey.
