The Lady Risks All by Stephanie Laurens

dangerous.
    “Thank you. Again.” She forced the words out, grateful that her voice sounded passably even.
    He looked down at her, dark eyes searching her face, then, his own expression impassive, utterly unreadable, he released his grip on her elbow . . . slowly, as if, finger by finger, he had to force himself to let go.
    Then he stepped back into the alley, briefly—almost curtly—nodded. “Good night, Miss Clifford.”
    She managed to draw a freer breath. Nodded back as she reached for the gate. “Thank you . . . Roscoe—and good night.”
    She shut the solid panel, stood staring at it as her thudding pulse slowed.
    As the unprecedented wave of sensation slowly ebbed.
    Hauling in a long breath, she lifted her head, turned, and walked toward the house.
    R oscoe stood for a full minute inwardly frowning at the closed garden gate, then swung away and continued down the alley, taking the shortcut back to his house.
    Miss Clifford—he didn’t know her first name, but it would be in his file on Roderick if he cared to look—was . . . different from the usual, run-of-the-mill lady.
    Different in exactly what way he wasn’t sure. Sinking his hands into his pockets, he pondered the point as he strolled unhurriedly home.
    Admittedly, she was older than the usual ton miss; he didn’t know her age, but she was older than Roderick, he judged by at least five years. Twenty-eight years old seemed about right, and would in part account for her strength—the sort of inner strength a man of his experience recognized instantly. Yet despite that strength, she’d seemed . . . off-balance, uncertain.
    Not quite sure of herself in a rather strange way.
    That moment when courtesy of the garden step and her trip he’d touched her flared in his mind. It had been a long time since he’d felt such a jolt of sensual awareness, if he ever had; it had been amazingly intense. That she’d felt it, too, wasn’t in question; he’d seen the truth in her wide eyes, her parted lips, had heard it in her suddenly shallower breathing.
    Regardless, any thought of further exploring the possibilities suggested by that moment of stark attraction was, he judged, doomed. Unless he missed his guess, Miss Clifford had shut the gate, and in so doing had shut him permanently out of her life.
    “In light of our background, we must, understandably, always behave with the utmost respectability.”
    Contrary to her expectation, he didn’t understand why she thought that, but if she was rigidly wedded to respectability, then the very last man she would be interested in developing any degree of acquaintance with was London’s gambling king.
    He walked on for several minutes, then, lips twisting cynically, he looked ahead and increased his pace. The reality of his life lay waiting.
    M iranda dallied in the cool of the gardens until her violently jarred senses had settled back into their customary quiescent, if not somnolent, state. She’d never felt such a spark—had never before felt alive in such a way. She didn’t want to think what that meant. From the first her instincts had warned that Roscoe was dangerous; clearly they hadn’t been wrong. She was beyond sure she didn’t need such a distraction in her life—anywhere near her respectable life.
    Finally setting the episode aside as a never-to-be-repeated experience, she crossed to the side terrace and entered the house through the morning room French doors. The morning room was largely her domain; going to the escritoire, she set her reticule on the desk, then swung her cape off her shoulders and draped it over the back of the chair.
    Her thoughts circled back to Roderick’s project and the work of the Philanthropy Guild. Crossing to the door, she opened it; through the dense shadows of the downstairs hall she walked to the stairs and started climbing.
    A pale-robed figure loomed out of the shadows on the landing.
    Miranda very nearly squeaked. Swallowing her shock—it seemed to be a