Unraveled (Turner, #3)

It was not disappointment he felt. It would make matters easier. He should have been overjoyed.

“That hardly signifies.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Affection is not one of the forty-four other things I want to have from you.” He wouldn’t know what to do with it, in any event. “I told you I have no desire for effusive sentiment.”

She gave him a brisk nod. “There’s something else you need to know.”

“Oh?”

She cast her eyes down and then looked up at him through her lashes. “You’re adorable when you’re uncertain.”

“Uncertain?” He drew himself up. “What makes you think I’m uncertain? I’m certain. I’m quite certain. I’m—”

He lost his words, the entire rest of his sputtering speech, when she stepped close to him, popped up onto her toes, and kissed him. The feel of her was a cool, clean shock, as bracing as fresh morning air after a tortured night.

Smite remembered everything. He remembered every prisoner he’d thrown in gaol, and the ones he had let go. He remembered reports of crimes and the details of bloody history.

But when she kissed him, he forgot. He forgot everything in the world except the heady feel of her hands, resting against his lapels. For just that moment, he was nothing but an ordinary fellow out with his sweetheart. When she kissed him, she made him feel like a man—just a man, not a burdened magistrate responsible for the fate of half of Bristol.

And so he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue between her lips. He set his hands on her hips and pulled her close, and she didn’t resist. She nestled against him, sighing deep in her throat. He kissed her until the rumble of a cart intruded on the quiet fog shielding their tryst.

She drew back. He felt almost unsteady on his feet. He was drunk on the taste of her. He’d been knocked off balance, and he wouldn’t be able to walk a straight line for years.

No, he definitely wasn’t going to miss his thousand pounds. He’d got the better end of that bargain. Even if she never gave him one scrap of affection.

But what he said instead was, “So that’s a yes, then.”

“It’s a yes.”

The sun wasn’t coming up yet, but it ought to have done. It felt like dawn, warm and red, arriving on the heels of a very dark night.

“About your other concern,” he heard himself say. “Do you know how to avoid pregnancy?”

She hadn’t stopped smiling at him. “I was raised by actors,” she said archly. “And if those measures prove ineffective… Well, there is that thousand pounds.”

If they proved ineffective, there’d be more than a thousand pounds, but he saw no need to spell that out. All he said was, “Good. Then I’ll be in contact to arrange further particulars.” He cast her one last look. “Don’t expect to wait long.”



“JEREMY,” MIRANDA WHISPERED, “NOW I know I’ve done something foolish. Tell me I mustn’t go through with it.”

It was a scant few hours since her assignation with Lord Justice, and Miranda was still reeling. She’d wandered about in a daze after, watching the city come fully to life. She’d waited until the shops opened—and as soon as she’d been able, she’d come to see Jeremy.

Jeremy dropped his thimble and leaned in. “What? Oh God. Don’t tell me. You—”

“I just agreed to be a man’s mistress.”

“What?!” His eyes widened.

“Shh!” Miranda glanced across the shop, searching out Old Blazer. He sat in his place at the front, watching the passersby through the window. He nodded and waved at acquaintances as he smoked his pipe.

Jeremy obligingly dropped his voice. “Why?”

“Because he’s going to put me up in a nice house. And pay me a tidy sum.” Because he’d wanted her, so damned badly he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Because he’d made her think she was worth a thousand pounds—that, in fact, he was getting the better end of the deal.

Jeremy must have caught the dazed look in her eyes. “You know,” he said cautiously, “whatever he’s said, he doesn’t love you.”

“I’m not stupid,” Miranda scoffed. A bit impulsive, yes. “He said he didn’t want affection.” She believed that story as much as that tale he’d spun about the cats. “And if you must know, he kisses like the devil. I want him, and he wants me. It’s horribly wrong of me. I can’t stop thinking how wicked it is, how much of a risk, how it’s not too late to back out and tell him I’ve changed my mind—”

“But you don’t want to,” Jeremy finished softly.

“There’s that, and…” She ran her hands along the countertop, not sure how to express her other reason.

“You don’t think he’ll hurt you,” Jeremy finished.

Miranda nodded. Impulsive girls with a taste for wicked men…well, it didn’t always turn out so well for them. It wouldn’t have made sense if she’d explained it to anyone else.

“Besides,” Jeremy said, “I always thought you were more likely to be a mistress than a wife.”