The Wickedest Lord Alive by Christina Brooke

dying to learn what Steyne meant by arriving unannounced in Little Thurston. On the other, she was afraid to be alone with him.
    Steyne observed Lizzie with that disconcertingly penetrating stare of his. “You are flushed, Miss Allbright. Perhaps you’d care for a glass of wine.”
    He held out his arm to her, but she pretended not to see it and moved ahead of him to the refreshment parlor. In any other circumstances, she’d never be so rude, but she couldn’t afford scruples when she fought such a formidable adversary. She feared that if she touched him, her emotions would overcome her. The last thing she wished to do was make a scene.
    Steyne procured champagne for her and claret for himself. When he handed her the glass, she nearly dropped it in the effort to ensure their fingers didn’t brush.
    How many casual touches had she suffered from men of her acquaintance and thought nothing of it? Now the slightest contact with Lord Steyne seemed likely to stir up all sorts of feelings she needed to keep at bay.
    He raised his own glass to his lips and sipped. The faintest grimace sketched across his face. He set the glass down.
    He probably allowed only the finest wines to touch those exquisitely sculpted lips. Everything about him spoke of a man who demanded the best and got it. Or no, he didn’t demand the best. He accepted it as a matter of course.
    Lizzie decided to challenge him. “Is there something amiss with the claret, my lord?”
    “Not at all,” he said, but he did not take another sip. “You interest me, Miss Allbright.”
    “I … Indeed, sir? In what way?”
    He bent his attention to his wineglass and traced its rim with the very tip of a gloved finger.
    Those fingers, she thought, with an inward shiver. The things they had done to her that night …
    In the intervening years, she’d often wondered whether her imagination painted Steyne more vividly handsome than he’d been in reality. Whether her youth and inexperience with men had multiplied his impact beyond logic or reason.
    Now he was older, broader, and harder, more assured and more devastating than ever. He’d lost the glow of youth, but his potency had increased.
    She cursed the ability of men to mature so handsomely, while females were considered to lose their bloom by age five-and-twenty. By her age, in fact.
    His gaze lifted to hers, and the seconds ticked by as neither of them spoke. Was he remembering, as did she, the night they’d last met? How vivid was that memory for him? He’d undoubtedly had many, many lovers since then.
    “Forgive me for staring,” he said. “I feel that I have met you before. Long ago.”
    So it began. She swallowed hard, remembering she had a part to play. “I don’t think so, my lord. You’ll forgive me if I say that you are not someone I would be likely to forget.”
    He tilted his head. “Have you always lived in Little Thurston?”
    Drat the man! She hadn’t banked on him creeping up on the subject from behind like this. “A little less than eight years.”
    “Eight years,” he repeated. “Do you know, I believe it was that long ago that I met this, ah, young lady. She looked so very like you. And if I may make so bold, Miss Allbright, yours is not a face I’d be likely to forget.” He paused, then added softly, “Nor anything else about you.”
    She flushed at the implication, wholly at a loss for how to respond.
    He let the silence spool out between them until the musicians broke it, striking up for the next dance.
    Almost laughing with relief, Lizzie set down her unsampled champagne on the table next to his claret. “I must go. My partner will wonder where I—”
    “We must talk privately, Miss Allbright,” said Steyne. He spoke in an undertone with a swift look around. No one was within earshot at this moment.
    She gave the best performance of affronted surprise she’d ever managed in her life. “My lord! You can have nothing to say to me that requires privacy.”
    He regarded her