Sloane. Her face terrorized. Her eyes tortured in pain. Her mouth screaming at him.
Her arm—hell—her arm was bloody, festering.
He blinked, shaking his head.
He was too late.
Again.
The purgatory of fire and ash surrounded him, swallowing him.
Swallowing him whole.
{ Chapter 1 }
Lincolnshire, England
October 1816
The gravel granite of the pathway crunched under the heel of her slipper, betraying her presence.
Devil take it. Too soon.
Evalyn wanted the man further set into the secluded alcove ringed with tall evergreen hedges. It would be far easier if she cornered him. Far easier for her plan to work if she could hold him captive deep in the alcove.
Her heel lifted from the gravel as she stilled in place, steadily breathing in the crisp night air flush with the scent of recently trimmed boxwood hedges. He didn’t move. Didn’t turn around. She dared a long look at her prey, staring at the wide expanse of his dark tailcoat stretching snug from the twin boulders of his shoulders.
Never mind that the Scotsman was twice her size and could step directly over her if he so chose not to be trapped.
Trap him? Hell, it’d be easier to trap a demon in a windstorm.
His shoulders swayed slightly and his head cocked to the side, his left ear lifting to the moonlit sky. Brown hair curled about the curve of his ear and reflected a glimmer from the torch lit above her head on the pathway.
She turned into a statue, attempting to make him move his feet farther into the garden alcove by her thoughts alone.
Just three steps further, sir. Three was all she asked. Three tiny steps.
The man turned fully around and the rage she’d witnessed in him as he walked through the ballroom still pounded deep lines into his forehead. His head tilted down, his eyes pinning her.
Her lips parted, words lurching over her dry tongue. “My lord, I was hoping to have a word.”
“I don’t think you want it with me, lass.” The low rumble of his Scottish burr shook through her belly.
The timbre of his voice was more than enough warning. She should run and she knew it.
But there was nothing else for it.
She charged forward, straight at the impossibly wide chest of Lord Dunhaven.
She’d barrel into him if she had to, but she would get him deep into this alcove.
A step before she crashed into him, he jumped backward one, two, three steps.
Far enough.
They were secluded, or at least enough so.
Her heels dug into the gravel, skidding to a stop, her breath leaving her in a whoosh as she looked up at him.