“Ah, now we come to the moment you call me a conceited fool.” He closed the gap between them until he stood mere inches away. “Like me, you crave a distraction from your nightmares. Your body would betray you the second I slipped my tongue into your mouth.”
“If you believe that, then you are a conceited fool.” And yet her mind created a passionate scene, a wild and hungry mating of mouths, something to banish the loneliness and the horrid visions of a monster.
“Beatrice, were it not for the fact I promised Daventry I’d protect you, and the fact I enjoy your company immensely, I would invite you to put your theory to the test.”
Why would she rise to the challenge when she was likely to fail? And so, she used one of Mr D’Angelo’s escape tactics—avoidance.
“Does that mean you won’t sit with me to read the notes?”
“It means I shall take the leather case and examine the contents in the privacy of my own home. Should I have any questions, I shall call on you in the morning, when the soft glow of candlelight isn’t dancing over your lips. When the heat in the room isn’t conducive to stripping off one’s clothes.”
Such seductive comments were a ploy to unnerve her.
“And yet one’s body thrums with energy at sunrise,” she teased, needing to gain some ground. “Alice said a man has a strong urge to make love in the morning.”
“I’m not a man who makes love.”
“You mean you avoid anything meaningful.”
“Who’s Alice?”
“The proprietor of the Bull in the Barn tavern in Whitechapel. She took me in when I had nowhere else to go.”
“It must have been a difficult time.”
“It was.”
He held her gaze for seconds before capturing her hand. The brush of his lips against her knuckles sent heat pooling to the apex of her thighs. After the mad tussle with her uncle, she had never thought to feel anything but hatred for men. And yet something about this man held her spellbound.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Miss Sands.” Offering a knowing grin, he reached past her and snatched the leather case. “Should I survive the night, we may discuss my findings over coffee tomorrow. Shall I come for you at noon?”
Survive the night!
For the next seventeen hours, she’d be beside herself with worry. What would he do when he discovered how his mother had suffered? Would he drink himself into oblivion, visit a haunt like the Blue Jade, attack some beast of a man in the cellar of a fighting den?
“Please, sir, you don’t understand. Let me help—”
“I shall see you at noon tomorrow, Miss Sands.”
Oh, the obstinate oaf!
She sighed but would have kicked the chair had she been alone. “Very well. Good evening, Mr D’Angelo. You know where to come should you have any questions. Call on me regardless of the hour.”
He turned on his heel and strode towards the door, stopped to offer a bow before heading out into the night, to whatever wickedness would occupy him once he’d absorbed every harrowing detail.
* * *
Beatrice woke with a start. It was dark, and the fire had died to nought but glowing embers. She threw back the coverlet and leapt out of bed, followed her usual routine of pacing the room and wringing her hands until the horrible visions subsided.
Tonight, it wasn’t visions of her uncle’s lecherous grin that left her heart pounding. It wasn’t the memory of Mr Babington’s lifeless body, either, but that of Dante D’Angelo—blood-soaked and gasping his last breath.
The nightmare seemed so real. If she closed her eyes, she would be back in the fetid alley, the stench invading her nostrils, death’s icy breath biting her cheeks. But she knew why she had dreamt about his mother, about Dante being the one who’d perished coming to her rescue—it was an account of an attack written in her father’s notes.
In reality, some other man had died coming to his mother’s aid, but Daphne D’Angelo had suffered terribly, had lost her unborn child in the fall.
Dante!
Was he reading that part now? Did he even know he’d lost a sibling along with everything else? Would the news be too much to bear?