Untamed by Anna Cowan Page A

Duke had named his new stallion. He touched one of his large, scarred fingers to a stack of papers, then looked directly at her.
    ‘Have you told the Countess?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘She’ll not be happy to see you go.’
    She’ll not be happy to lose her plaything , Kit thought. ‘She’ll attend the royal wedding next week and they’ll all adore her gown, and she’ll be happy again.’
    BenRuin was easy enough to read; he pitied her. ‘She’ll not like it,’ was all he said.
    Kit bowed her head. ‘Have I your permission to leave, though?’
    ‘If your mother needs you, then you must go. You’ll have my carriage.’
    ‘There’s no need. I anticipated your kindness and booked my place on the stage five days from now.’ She had no idea why the Duke needed five days – she wanted to leave London tonight.
    BenRuin nodded and his large hands flexed.
    Before she left she needed, to some small degree, to put his mind at ease. ‘The Duke of Darlington won’t be bothering my sister any longer. I thought you should know.’
    BenRuin stood before her, his hand grasping her shoulder, before she could think. ‘What has he done to you? That bastard son of the devil, what did he dare to do?’
    ‘N-nothing.’ Her heart was so loud and persistent it took her a while to realise that the hand engulfing her shoulder was gentle.
    ‘If he has promised you anything, made a bargain with you, approached you in any way, I need you to tell me.’
    Kit gathered her strength about her. She would decide when Lord BenRuin needed to know anything; the last thing they needed was for him to commit murder. ‘I spoke with him last night. It was brief, but enough to convince me that he’ll leave Lady BenRuin be.’
    The Earl’s hand had begun to shake. ‘If he makes a single advance on you,’ he said, ‘he advances on me. He knows what that means.’
    So that’s it, thought Kit with a sinking heart. He’s not finished with BenRuin, yet.
    Darlington called on Mme Soulier that afternoon. She was lately retired, but lived in opulent infamy in Soho, having dressed all the great ladies of her time.
    Mme Soulier had received him in her second-best drawing room, ‘Because you and I are old friends, darling,’ her fingers spry on her teacup, her eyes sharp on his face. The only reason she had retired, he suspected, was because her clients had been dying off, and she turned her nose up at the simple French dresses currently in fashion, with their abhorrent negligence of material and fanfare.
    Which was precisely why he had chosen her, of course. When it came to great, rigid masterpieces of dress, Mme Soulier was without equal. She had also dressed his mother. Darlington had never learned how to sit still and quiet as a boy the way his mother preferred. Mme Soulier had indulged him as few adults had, managing him with words like pins tucked into the fabric of his wayward nature.
    ‘I believe you are bored, my well-shod madame,’ Darlington said in French. He took another lazy sip of tea and shrugged. ‘You will make me a wardrobe.’
    ‘My fingers are not what they used to be. Bah. Leave an old woman in peace.’ Mme Soulier’s fingertips traced the delicate lace at her still-fine bosom.
    ‘You have the fingers of an artist. They will never grow old.’ He leaned forward and took her hand gently in his, grazing the swell of her breast with his knuckles. He looked up at her from beneath his lashes – one dusky, heated look – and stroked her calloused fingers. ‘Death could not stop these fingers, I think. Your hands will have to be cut from your body when the rest of you expires, that they may work on in some ghastly Gothic workroom and put dressmakers to shame for an eternity to come.’
    ‘Fanciful boy,’ she said, smiling. It was impossible to tell, behind her thick white face paint, whether she blushed, but her unsteady breathing and parted lips would suggest that she did.
    But this was purely business. When he began to