“And maybe she’s the one who told De´charne´ where to find us.”
“Why would she do that?” He glared at her. “He’s after Camille as well.”
Lucia raised a brow. “To save herself? To gain power?”
Alex shook his head.
“I don’t know, Alex. Why does anyone betray his or her colleagues?”
He took a step forward, intent on silencing her.
“Camille would never betray me.”
“Think about it, Alex.” Lucia met him in the center of the room. “She was in London the night before De´charne´ abducted us at your town house. Maybe she told him you were there.”
He took her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “Lucia, I’ve known Camille for years.
Don’t you think if she wanted to betray me she could have done it before now?”
“But—”
“No,” he bit out. He ran a hand through his hair, turning away from her in annoyance. “Enough.”
“She told me about your father.”
Alex froze. “What about him?” He didn’t move, didn’t look at her.
“How he treated your mother.” Lucia was right behind him now. He could feel her brush against his back. “How he made a—a fool of himself and your family.”
Her words wrapped around him like a noose. “Didn’t you know?” Cynicism dripped from his tongue. “I thought you ladies of the ton ate and drank scandal at Almack’s.”
Lucia winced. “I had heard rumors but nothing concrete.” She reached a hand out to him. “Alex, I’m sorry—”
He walked away from her. He didn’t want her sympathy—would have preferred scorn, derision— anything but pity. All his life, his father—alive or dead—had plagued him. He couldn’t help that he resembled his father in appearance, but Alex made certain that was the extent of the comparison.
His father fell in love a dozen times a year; Alex never loved. His father’s life was a snarled mass of romantic entanglements; Alex strove for freedom.
As a child, he had been hurt and confused by his father’s affairs and dalliances. As an adolescent, he was humiliated. The worst insult someone could hurl at him became, “You’re just like your father.” It had taken years, hard work, and determination, but Alex had proved them wrong. He’d rebuilt the Selbourne name and fortune. And though he was as much a rake as his father had been—as many men were—he never fell in love. He’d no intention of altering that now.
“It doesn’t have to be like that, Alex,” Lucia said, and he rounded on her. She held her ground. “You’re not your father. No one would dare—” She broke off, and he raised a brow.
“Call me a fool?” He sneered. She nodded.
She took a step forward, and he could smell her enticing scent of cinnamon and vanilla. Bloody hell. After all they’d been through, how did she still manage to look and smell so alluring?
“I don’t want to talk about my father.” His voice was firm but soft. “He has nothing to do with this.” His eyes flicked to her mouth—full and rosy and moist.
He hadn’t been this close to her in days. She put her hand on his arm, and the heat from her skin burned through the linen. No, he didn’t want to talk about his father. He didn’t want to think about his father or the fact that, at that moment, he couldn’t have cared less if every man, woman, and child from Aberdeen to Athens called him a fool, if only he could touch her.
He reached out, wrapping her in his arms, pulling her effortlessly against him. In his arms, she was the last puzzle piece, snapped softly and surely into place. Grasping her unbound hair, he wound the silk double around his fist, angling her head back. Her eyes stared up at him, wide, pupils dilated.
“Alex,” she began. “This is a bad idea.”
It was. Very bad. And even then he might have been able to stop it, stop himself, but her small pink tongue darted out, and she wet her lips unintentionally in anticipation.
With a groan of need, he brought her mouth to his, seeking to assuage his gnawing hunger for her. But the touch of her lips, her small sigh of pleasure, the feel of her tongue meeting his, only left him wanting more. His mouth slanted over hers again and again and still it was not enough. Not nearly enough.
He needed this. He needed to be the man he was in her arms. There was no playing of parts with Lucia. He wasn’t a spy, or a rake, or a man with too many deaths hanging over his head. He was just Alex.
