Brazen Temptress by Elizabeth Boyle

connections, nor through his charm or his rakish antics. He'd gained his social standing through a cunning and calculated course.
    The same skills he'd now use to ferret out Maureen's true reasons for allying herself with the Lord Admiral.
    Still, it was a sight, he mused as he watched the old sea dragon fawn over her as if she were the daughter of a duke. And as the evening progressed, Julien came to the only possible conclusions for the Lord Admiral and Maureen's unlikely alliance.
    She hadn't forgotten him. Or forgiven him.
* * * * *
    "I thought he'd never leave your side," a deep, familiar voice whispered in Maureen's ear as she gazed at the departing back of the Lord Admiral. "Shall we dance?"
    Before she could protest, the man who seemed to have miraculously appeared at her side took her hand and led her out onto the middle of the crowded dance floor.
    He spun her around so she faced him, and her breath caught in her throat.
    De Ryes.
    She opened her mouth to call out his name, to betray him, but at the same moment the music swelled to life and drowned out the words that were already dying in her throat.
    With a polite, wry smile — the type one expected from a polished rake — he took her hand in his and began to lead her through the complicated steps.
    That smile, the flash of white teeth, the teasing glimmer in his eyes, and the roguish turn of his lips caught her heart unawares.
    Her mind might be screaming his name for all to hear, but her heart stopped her tongue.
    As the music continued he said nothing more, though his gaze never left hers, following her as if he expected her to vanish at any moment.
    She kept the same close watch on him.
    To her discerning eye he looked different and the same, and she didn't know which she distrusted more — the newly acquired haughty demeanor or the vague hint of boyish charm that clung to the edges of his veneer.
    His rich chestnut hair still gleamed, though instead of his pirate's queue, he now wore it trimmed fashionably short. The only other change was a smattering of gray starting to take hold at his temples.
    He looked almost tame in his fancy clothes and stylish manners, but she didn't let that fool her for one second. He still moved through the waters like a shark, with intent and grace and wile.
    As she turned and whirled through the maze of dancers, she came face to face with him again, only to discover she found him as handsome as she had the first day she'd met him.
    "Have we met, Miss ..." he asked politely.
    "Miss Fenwick," she told him, providing the name the Lord Admiral insisted she use in public. He'd said he didn't want to risk anyone making a connection between her and a recently convicted smuggler.
    "Well, Miss Fenwick, may I say you look vaguely familiar."
    "Stow it," she whispered as she moved past his shoulder. "Did you think I would forget you?"
    "Well, yes, I assumed you had," he said, his voice taking on that lazy drawl she'd once found so spine-tingling. "But then again, I thought you were dead."
    "That would have been quite convenient for you," she told him. Even as she said it, she would have sworn de Ryes almost missed a step, but he covered it quite well.
    When next they crossed paths in the course of the dance, it was his turn to whisper in her ear. "I never thought of your death as convenient, Reenie. Even when I thought you lost, I never stopped loving you."
    Reenie.
Her father's nickname for her. She hadn't been called that since — well, since forever. He and de Ryes were the only ones who'd ever used that lost and beloved name.
    Hearing it again almost drowned out the rest of his statement.
    I never stopped loving you.
    In that moment she felt herself falling prey to the same wild rush that had raced through her the first time he'd said those words to her. Oh, she'd believed him then, believed him with all her heart.
    That was then.
    Obviously, the man still had no shame. He'd never loved her. Never. He'd used her, her father, their