“You have been on occasion.” Her eyes flashed fire, and he knew she was thinking of the almost-kiss. Of how she’d lured him in, then proved her point with a knife.

Leo leaned toward her, tipping her painted mouth up to his. Then paused. Her breath wet his lips. “But I’m never foolish twice.”

“No?”

He caught her hand as it flipped a jeweled knife toward him. He spun her around, slamming her back against his chest and closing his other hand around her throat. The press of her bustle against his thighs eased with a soft shushing noise, a sensuous little whisper in the night. The pearls at her throat pressed into his palm, and he could feel the sudden thumping beat of her pulse against his fingertips. Every inch of her body was still. Not beaten. Never that. He had no doubt she was planning her next move, but he’d shocked her for a moment.

If he could keep her off balance and take his own measure of revenge for that long-ago not-kiss…

“Perhaps I wanted to see who you were meeting with,” he whispered, his lips tracing her throat. He eased the pressure of his hand and felt her draw a breath. Leo edged the back of his fingers lower, brushing over her breasts and the rough gold lace that contained them. “Perhaps I don’t want you meeting men in the dark of Lovers’ Lane.” Teeth brushed against the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck. “Not unless they’re me.”

A breathy laugh. “They’ll never be you.”

“No?” The back of one fingernail rasped over her tightening nipple. The duchess stiffened in his arms. “Do you think this cold act scares me away? Like all the others?”

“What makes you think it’s an act?”

He stroked her hardened nipple, and her breath caught. “That. You’re not immune to me.”

“Your father killed mine. If you think I shall ever forget—”

“Who are you trying to remind?”

He could sense the uncertainty vibrating through her. Gently, he pressed his lips against the delicate skin behind her ear, touching his tongue to it, just to taste. Blood and glory, she smelled good. A blue blood had no personal scent, but her perfume was pure spice, something direct from the Orient. It went straight to his head…and other places.

“Let go of me,” she demanded.

“Ask me nicely,” he replied, trailing his lips down her neck and onto the sensitive skin of her shoulder. The duchess shivered, and a smile curved over his mouth.

“Get your hands off me, or I shall—”

Her words broke off as he suckled her skin hard, bringing the blood to the surface. A good thing he didn’t have his blood-letting knife, or he had a feeling he’d have it in hand already. His cock hardened at the thought, the world darkening as the hunger rose in him.

She felt his hunger rise. She had to. The duchess stilled in his arms, her fingers curling over his sleeve. Such a small touch, but it rocked through him, lifting all the fine hairs along his arm.

She’d never touched him before. Not on purpose.

Leo looked away, breathing hard. Devil take her, but if her purpose was distraction, then she was winning. Or perhaps he was the one who’d distracted them both, so intent on tasting her, on touching her… He looked up at the figure fading into the distance, the unknown man she’d exchanged a note with. Something dark flickered to life within him. Rationally, he knew she wasn’t his; instinctively, he wanted to challenge the bastard to a duel. “Or you shall…what? Usually such statements are followed with threats.”

Fireworks went off again, the sound of laughter and joyful screaming echoing through the night. It sounded so far away. Another crack from the fireworks. This time there were no accompanying lights…

She said something. He wasn’t listening. That last exploding crack hadn’t sounded like fireworks.

Leo’s eyes locked on the figure in the distance, now fallen to his hands and knees. The same man he’d been thinking murderous thoughts about but a second ago. Dark shapes formed out of the shadows around the fellow. Another crack, swallowed up by a lady’s delighted squeal. Then a flash of light, like that of a pistol firing in the darkness.

“Bloody hell.” His arms tightened around her. “Mina.”

“Let me go!” She staggered out of his grasp, clapping a hand to her lips in shock.

Leo snapped up the sword-cane he’d leaned against the hedge when he first arrived. “Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll see if he’s still alive.”

One stride and a hand clamped around his wrist, jerking him off balance. “No. He’s already dead.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Yes, I do,” she hissed, her fingers tightening on his wrist. “We need to get out of here.”

Leo pressed her back into the shadows, using his body to muscle her against the tall hedge as he peered down the dark path. “What do you know?”

What a bloody fool he’d been, thinking the icy duchess had been meeting a stranger for illicit pleasures. She never did anything unplanned. Or for pleasure.

The note. This had something to do with that damned note.

The duchess hesitated.

“What do you know?” he repeated in a steely voice that dared her to argue with it.

“Those men aren’t thieves or murderers,” she replied. “They’re Falcons.”

The prince consort’s elite assassins and spies. Leo searched her gaze. He was right. This hadn’t been just a rendezvous, then. “Who was he?”

Her chin tipped up.

“Consider very carefully that I might be the only thing standing between you and them in a minute,” he growled under his breath. Her eyes shot toward the fallen man at her feet. “If they’re Falcons, Mina, they won’t leave witnesses. And if this killing has anything to do with that note—”

“They’ll come after me next.”

“Yes,” he breathed. “You need my help. But I won’t give it without answers.”

After another tense stalemate, she let out her breath and dropped her gaze. “It was Goethe,” she whispered. “The Duke of Goethe.”

The blood drained out of his face.

Two

“Is the prince consort mad?” Barrons hissed, tugging her deeper into the shadows of the hedge. He leaned down and tilted the unconscious man’s head to the side, gloved fingers sliding through the man’s hair, searching for the tattoo all Falcons wore.