Her elegant, poised figure was straight-backed as she looked at him with a question in her fine hazel eyes. She had removed the unflattering gown and was dressed only in a shift, although it was long and high-necked. Hardly an erotic sight, but one that fired his imagination in such a way that Silverton almost staggered. Only her feet poked out—the sheer sight of her toes, small, rounded, pink-white digits were just visible.
Hastily he looked up and caught her fine, well-made mouth compressed before her neat teeth caught the ripe fullness of her bottom lip as she studied him intently.
“My lord.” Maeve’s voice was low and tentative when she spoke. How had he not noticed the musical lilt to her voice before? Was it her Irish heritage peeking through, or just something that was uniquely, singularly Maeve?
Silverton’s hands tightened on the back of the nearby armchair until the tension in his body felt as if it were likely to snap the fine wood.
Seemingly unaware of his bodily reaction, Maeve moved farther into the bedroom, her face curious as she looked about the chamber before glancing back at him. She had come to stand in the middle of the room, halfway between the bed and himself. It was then that he saw her nerves and immediately felt like a cad. Her hands were clasped in front of her as if she were praying, but she was using them to steady herself. And then she finally spoke.
“I have considered your suggestion, and I cannot go ahead with your plan this evening. We will need to wait until we are wed.”
“Our agreement is that we should have a child as soon as possible,” Silverton replied.
“I know, but I have only met you today. I agreed to the arrangement, and to that act, provided we are wed. Only then will I go to bed with you.”
“We will have the license by the end of the week. What difference does a few days make to you?” Silverton asked, feeling as if he were the worst man in existence.
“All the difference in the world. I thought you had no desire for anyone to question the child’s legitimacy?”
It was a good point, to which Silverton nodded, but the aim was to have her pregnant as soon as possible. Why could she not see the urgency?
“Do you not desire to bed me? If you do not, it would be wise to say so now, and we will cancel the entire arrangement at once.”
To this she flushed, colour flooding Maeve’s entire face. “I am ready to bed you, once we are married.” With that, she pivoted and left the bedchamber without another word, leaving him in such a vile mood he felt quite certain he could commit murder.
“Fuck,” Silverton said. He was both unreasonably aroused, impressed by her resolve, and yet also embarrassed by his actions.
Unable to stay still in the bedroom and feeling disgusted with himself and the pressing urgency of his desire, Silverton snatched up his discarded coat and strode out of the chamber.
The restlessness bubbled through him and continued until he was out of the house and down on the street corner. With an impatient cry, he flagged down a passing hackney. He wished more than anything to be away from the suggestion he had made to her, and the life he was certain he was in the process of destroying.
“East End,” he called out flippantly, wanting to be off somewhere dangerous where he might be able to drown his sorrows.
Off the carriage went, and Silverton mused over the past hours in which he had become engaged, found out how passionate the woman he intended to wed was, and then how stubborn she could also be.
“Cursed women,” he said into the darkness.
An unpleasant laugh answered his comment, and it was one he feared he recognised. Silverton’s eyes shot open, and he realised what a fool he had been. A noise that sounded remarkably like his brother was close at hand, presumably seated close to the driver. His hands alighted on the pistol in his coat pocket, and he drew it in preparation as the carriage slowed.
The door of the hackney opened, and despite the night’s darkness, Silverton could make out the shape of a few scattered buildings nearby that looked oddly familiar. At least he had not been driven into the middle of nowhere.
“Who goes there?” he called out, cocking the pistol for readiness, grateful he had a knife in his belt. Hopefully he had been wrong about that laugh. “If you’re after money, I don’t have a great deal on me.”
The movement outside the carriage ceased, and on instinct, Silverton threw himself to the floor of the hackney. It was just in time as a blast of gunfire sounded, peppering the location where he had just sat. There could have been no more than four flintlocks, but they were firing all at once, which was enough to send splinters of wood down on him. Silverton was inches from death. The gun fire ceased, and Silverton let out the breath he had been holding.
With careful movements, he eased himself forward. The faint light from the stars above and the distant homes gave a guide to the darkness. A sudden movement caught his eye; it was drawing closer, and he fired his own weapon.
There was a cry from outside the carriage, and Silverton knew he’d hit someone or something. Then there was the noise of a body hitting the ground. Silverton drew his knife and scrambled down from the hackney and out onto the darkened stretch of grass. Nervous energy fizzed through his body, alongside a mounting sense of anger.
Perhaps twenty or thirty feet from him was a sight he knew well. It was as if he were looking at himself in a broken mirror. His brother, Charles Brennan, was throwing down his used pistols and had taken out his own knife. The man had changed in the last few years; his hard existence had clearly taken a toll on his appearance, despite the pale gleam of flattering moonlight. Silverton’s twin, and chief rival in their youth, was a man used to manipulating and destroying women and had no scruples that Silverton knew of. He used several nicknames and stolen identities, the most lethal being Harlington. Although in time, there surely would be other ruthless identities he would assume.
“I didn’t know you were back in London?” Silverton called. The banal greeting hid his anxiety about his own ability to fight.
“Why won’t you just fucking die?” Charles replied with a grim laugh.
“I’ve too much to do,” Silverton yelled back.
There was little immediate cover close by. The field they occupied was large and bracketed by dense-looking woodland on one side, but to the other was an arrangement of buildings that told Silverton his brother had not taken him too far from civilisation. If he was not much mistaken, they were on the outskirts of Vauxhall.
