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Fire eyes
. Rubies? Diamonds? It seemed it ought to be one or the other. Unfortunately, that barely narrowed down her mother’s collection.

Mr. Graham cleared his throat from the drawing room door. “Lady Catherine Rushworth, my lady.”

Brook glanced down at her trousers. She could change first, but she still hoped to have time for a ride this afternoon. “Show her in, Mr. Graham. Thank you.”

The butler bowed and disappeared.

It was scarcely half a minute later that Catherine stormed in. “Where is he?”

Brook sighed. “And a sunny good-day to you, cousin.”

Lady Catherine narrowed her eyes. “I saw his car.”

Brook nodded, pressing her lips together. When would Catherine see that Pratt wasn’t worth her affection? That he would do nothing but hurt her? “I don’t know where he might have gone.” For all she knew he was cataloguing the silverware he intended to add to his estate. Though if he tried it, Mr. Graham might personally give him the heave-ho.

Worth seeing, that.

Catherine advanced with startling speed. No amusement sparked in her green eyes today, no promise of biting jests or
shared laughter. Just fierceness. Desperation. “You’ll not have him.”

The
him
must still be Pratt. Though why Catherine thought Brook
wanted
him, she couldn’t say. “On that we agree. You know I would never—”

“Don’t try to placate me. I know very well he was going to propose before you leave for London, but
I
am the one he will be marrying. Make no mistake about that.”

Brook almost put tongue to a flippant answer, but that glint in her cousin’s eyes stilled it, made her opt for seriousness instead. “Catherine, I assure you I have no intention of marrying Pratt—or any man who is out only to get Whitby Park.”

Catherine lifted her chin. “At least you have brains enough to know that’s all he wants—all any man will want, once the gossips in London realize you’re cut from the same cloth as Whitby.”

Brook took an abrupt step back. “Why are you acting this way? I thought—”

“We were friends?” The glint in her eyes was ice, hard and deadly. “For a girl raised by a prince’s mistress, you can be charmingly naïve, cousin.”

Brook staggered another step back. She had spent more time with Catherine than with Regan or Melissa, had thought . . . All these months, she had ignored Papa’s mutters about the Rushworths, had chalked it up to a lingering animosity toward his would-be rival for Mother’s affections. “What are you saying?”

Catherine shadowed her, no light in her eyes to speak of life. No curve to her lips to say she was joking now. “I’ve suffered your company long enough. Listening to you go on and on about that stupid beast of yours, your ridiculous cars, your precious duke—and now Worthing to boot. But I’ve had enough. Your family has taken enough from mine. First the Fire Eyes, and now Pratt.”

Though the glare hadn’t cooled Brook’s blood, the words did. She felt sculpted from ice. “The Fire Eyes?” She couldn’t move. It hurt too much. “You? You were the one who hired him?”

Lady Catherine lifted her perfectly plucked brows. “Hired
whom
, darling? I can’t think what in the world you’re talking about.”

Brook’s fingers curled into her palms, finding the marks they had left from Pratt’s visit. The Rushworths had been in the area that night, hadn’t they? Somewhere in the muddle of memory, she remembered spotting their carriage leaving Delmore. But how, how could her cousin, her friend have a part in it? “I could have been killed, and I don’t even know what these Fire Eyes are!”

Before she saw it coming, a hand connected with her cheek, and Catherine followed it with a push that sent Brook stumbling back into a chair. “How
stupid
do you think I am?”

She stood again, though slowly, ready to defend herself this time.

Her cousin spun away. “Did you honestly think it would look like a coincidence, sending your duke off as you did, to the very place they were found? You’re just like your mother.” She wheeled around again, looking as though she would lunge.

Brook stood prepared.

Perhaps that was why Catherine stopped and contented herself with another snarl. “You see how it ended for
her
. Don’t make the same mistake, my lady.”

Now it was Brook who lunged, though Catherine charged for the door. She caught her by the elbow in the threshold. “What are you talking about? What happened to my mother?”

Catherine jerked her arm free and produced a heartless smile. “How am I to know, cousin? I was not yet two when she suffered that
unfortunate
accident. But I will say this.” She stepped into the hall and dragged a scathing glare down Brook’s riding habit.
“Your family seems to have bad luck around horses. Perhaps you ought to take more care.”

Oh, she would take care all right. She would take care to get to the bottom of whatever this Fire Eyes business was—and would assuredly
not
be intimidated by the likes of Catherine Rushworth.

Tempted to slam every door she could find, Brook stormed for the stables. And told herself the tears burning her eyes were from anger and not hurt at the betrayal.

Deirdre would have screamed, had the hand over her mouth not cut off all her air. It took her only a moment to recognize the hand, the arm, the familiar cologne. Pratt. Her panic increased when he pushed her into the empty parlor and clicked the door shut behind them.

Drawing a steadying breath in through her nose, she reminded herself that he was like any other beast, able to sense her fear. Calm was her only hope.

His fingers peeled off her mouth, and he spun her around. Eyes hard and dark as jet, he backed her into the wall and trapped her there with an arm on either side of her. “I’m done being kind.” His voice came out low and deadly. “She refused me.”

Deirdre’s whole body shuddered. “I tried. She is willful and—”

“I know what she is.” One of his hands closed around her throat. Not squeezing, but making it clear he could. His gaze burned into hers. “I have a man in your village, ready to light a torch and toss it to the O’Malley roof one night if I but give the word.”

He didn’t need to tighten his fingers—his words choked her, and she had to shut her eyes against the sight of him. Though
then the images of her mum and siblings swam before her, from strong, near-grown Killian toiling in the fields, all the way down to little Molly. “What do you want from me? I’ve done all you asked.” Stolen things. Told him things her ladyship would hate her for telling. She would get sacked, possibly arrested, if ever the Whitbys discovered it.

But she had risked it, because she had known his favor would turn to threat if she refused. That the wee ones would pay for it if she tried to do the noble thing.

He eased away, dropped his hand. “Nothing yet. But when I ask, I want no questions. I want obedience. Are we understood?”

Her stomach churned, and bile rose in her throat. A blank check for evil—that was what he demanded.

And she had no choice but to nod.

Justin pressed the brake longer than necessary. Waited, though the carriage had long since passed, to turn the wheel. And when turn it he did, it was with a sigh. Brook must be furious with him—no, worse than furious. Hot anger would have been banked, cooled.

She would be ice.

Eden Dale lay behind him, Whitby yet ahead, but he let the Rolls-Royce motor its way up the long, winding drive to Whitby Park. He had already done his homework. Phoned Thate . . . and Cayton . . . and Aunt Caro to be sure no one had heard conflicting information. To guarantee that, indeed, the Whitbys would be at home yet today, not already in London for the Season.

That was part of the plan. Catch her here, where she was most comfortable. Where he could more easily get her alone.

That was critical. Utterly critical to his plan. Given the beautiful spring day and the looming departure, he was hopeful he could find her out of doors. The gardens . . . the seafront . . .
anywhere he could come upon her by herself. Where he could charge right up to her, turn her around, and kiss her.

By his calculations, he may well end up with a fist to his gut or a palm slapping his cheek. But that would be fine—it would get her back to fury, take her from ice to fire. From there, it would be a matter of apology and confession.

“Please, Lord.” His chest had felt so tight for months. Too many times he had relived that kiss outside his townhouse, the way she had clung to him, met him measure for measure. He could win her yet. He could. There was a fire inside her for him, and he could fan it, turn one kind of love into another.

He hoped. But then, all the letters he wrote, pouring out his heart . . . and she had never written him back. Not except that once—a letter that had made precious little sense. A collection of
still
and
again
and
yet
that appealed to a context he didn’t have.

It seemed she had written others that hadn’t reached him.

“Please, Lord.” To think that she had instead
chosen
not to write, not to reply—no. He couldn’t accept that. It would undo him.

Even if that one letter
had
mentioned plans to go to Sussex to spend a fortnight with the Duke of Nottingham’s family.

He set his mouth, beat back the fear. They would bridge the gap. They must. Pick up where they’d left off, as they had always used to do. A kiss, a punch, some heated Monegasque shouting . . . then hopefully another kiss, softer words, and the months would melt away. He would—

He slammed on his brakes as he came around a bend, and coal-black forelegs pawed at the air beside him. The hooves barely missed taking a layer of paint off his door as the horse’s rider pulled the beast back.

His heart wouldn’t slow for an hour. “Where the devil did you come from?” He asked the question of the horse . . . then
noted the hands pulling on the reins. Feminine, elegant, perfect. He took the car out of gear and leaned back in his seat.

Brook focused first on calming the horse and then lifted sparking green eyes to him. “One might ask you the same question, Duke.”

Oh yes, she was angry. And he had to smile. She was hatless, and the wind had whipped many a curl free of its chignon. Her habit was a deep green, bringing out the emerald of her eyes. His smile turned to a grin. “You’re wearing trousers.”

She patted the horse’s midnight neck. “That’s what you say to me after a five-month silence? ‘You’re wearing trousers’?
Really
?”

He chuckled and turned sideways to better look at her. It had been six years since he’d last seen her in them. And his castoffs had never hugged her legs quite like these did. “They look good on you. Though I have a feeling your aunt disagrees.”

Usually such an observation would have won him a grin, a laugh. Apparently she was in no mood to be amused today. She gathered the reins as if ready to turn the horse back into the open land.

“Brook.” He reached out, though she was too far away. He needed to touch her, even if only to put her hand on his arm. But he was in his car, she on the horse. Obviously a kiss could not bridge the gap.
Lord, give
me the words, please. I beg you. Help me make
this right.
“I know you’re angry with me.”

She breathed a mirthless laugh. “Oh. Oh yes. But don’t flatter yourself—you’re not the one who sent me out here in a rage today.”

“Who did?” At her glare, his hand fell to the door and rested on the sun-warmed metal. He sighed. And latched his gaze upon the one thing that might draw her out. “This is Oscuro?”

“
Oui
.”

The French warmed him. Let him smile. “He’s magnificent.” Nearly as magnificent as his rider. “You broke him.”

“Never.” She rubbed a hand up the stallion’s neck again. “But we’ve reached an agreement. I let him taste freedom, so long as he does so with me on his back.”

He still thought it had been foolish of her to try—but he wasn’t about to say so again now. “Whatever you want to call it, you succeeded. Just as you said you would.”