Page 98 of The Wolf of Mayfair
To send me running.
Alas, if her fleeing proved his ultimate goal, he’d best do better than don menacing, seductive looks. The peril behind her was far greater than the danger before her.
He stopped a pace away. “Tell me, sweet, who is the curmudgeon you spoke of?”
Through the haze he’d cast by his presence alone, she recalled belatedly, he’d discovered Helia reading—and more and worse, he’d been awake long enough to hear hertalkingabout him.
Alas, she’d long ago discovered honesty proved the most effective means to disarm a person.
Helia cleared her throat.“Y-you,”she managed.
Anthony blinked those coal-black lashes slowly.
She found her feet. “I was talking about you, Anthony,” she repeated. “Youare the curmudgeon.”
He sent an icy brow arcing up. “Ah, and I take it you’ve gathered the cause of my curmudgeonness.”
“‘Curmudgeonness’ isnae a word.”
“Neither should be ‘curmudgeon,’ but here we are,” he said sardonically.
She gave him a gentle look. “I ken what you are trying to do, Anthony.”
Crossing his arms, he leaned down and whispered, “Just what is it youkenI am doing?”
She ignored the mocking emphasis he placed on that particular word he’d appropriated.
Helia tipped her chin up. “Ye are trying to divert my attention away from ... from ...”
“Yesss.”Anthony flicked his index finger across the tip of her nose. “Why don’t you be so helpful as to enlighten me about this astounding discovery you’ve made.”
The jeering glimmer in his beautiful blue eyes dared her to speak.
She didn’t fear him. She didn’t believe she ever really had.
“You had your heart broken,” she said softly, and even as she uttered that avowal, her heart cracked.
Surprise replaced the marquess’s customary cynicism. In fact, in the time she’d been here in the duke’s household, it marked the first crack in his otherwise unflappable demeanor.
“You must have loved her greatly,” she managed past a tight throat.
He flashed another one of those empty, mocking grins. “My dear, I’d have to possess a heart to have it broken.”
“That’s what a man with a broken heartwouldsay.”
“Nay, that’s what a man with no heartdoessay.” He considered her a long while, before speaking. “It must make you feel better.”
She tipped her chin at a defiant angle. “What?”
With slow, sweeping, pantherine steps, Anthony walked a languid circle about her.
Helia didn’t back down. Rather, she turned her head as he went, following his every move.
He stopped just beyond the edge of her right shoulder so she had to crane her neck back or turn and face him.
Anthony made the decision for her.
He placed a hard, possessive hand on her right shoulder, and his left, upon her hip. “If you believe I’m capable of love, Helia,” he breathed against the shell of her ear, his words a husky threat mixed with a promise, “then you’ve no idea what I’m capable of.”
