When the Rogue Returns by Sabrina Jeffries

it. And it would enable you to track me from Paris, since you knew where I was staying there.” Her tone turned sarcastic. “It should have been easy enough. You used to be a soldier—didn’t you ever do reconnaissance, or whatever you soldiers call it?”
    He was still reeling from the idea that she’d somehow expected him to know where to find her when she added, “Of course, I never dreamed that you would wait ten years , until you needed something from me. And what do you need from me? Or will you keep pretending that you actually care about me?”
    And let her know how deeply she’d dug herself under his skin, even after all this time? Not a chance in hell. “I need to know the truth.”
    “About what ?” she cried. When people hurrying down the crowded street looked up, she dropped her voice. “Is this because you want a divorce? I’ll gladly give you whatever you need.”
    For some reason, her eagerness to be free of him really pricked his temper. “Why, so you can marry your precious baron?” God, he sounded jealous. Which he wasn’t. Not a bit.
    She snorted. “Don’t be absurd. I have no desire to marry Rupert, even if I could.”
    Yet she called the baron “Rupert.” The intimacy that implied made him burn from the inside out. “I see. You’re just content to be his mistress.”
    “Verdomme,” she muttered, surprising him with her use of the Dutch word for “damn it.” “I don’t know what you’ve been doing all these years, but I upheld those marital vows you referred to so glibly. Rupert is only a friend.”
    That took him entirely off guard. Especially with her pressed up against him, reminding him of how it had felt to have her beside him . . . beneath him. It made him yearn for what he could no longer have.
    Which was probably exactly what she intended. “That’s not what his mother says,” Victor snapped.
    “And you would listen to her , of course, since she’s blond and pretty and rich.”
    The note of jealousy in her voice oddly cheered him.At least he wasn’t the only one falling prey to that dangerous emotion. “I hadn’t noticed.”
    “Right,” she scoffed. “Are you really Lady Lochlaw’s cousin, or is that just some connection you’re claiming so you can get close enough to her to . . . to . . .”
    “To what?”
    As he made a sharp turn into a quieter street, she grabbed the side of the phaeton. “Perhaps you’re the one looking to marry. You didn’t deny that you wanted a divorce.”
    “If I’d wanted that, I could have had it long before now. Dutch law allows me to divorce my wife for malicious desertion, and given the circumstances—”
    “For the last time,” she bit out, “I did not desert you! And if you try to claim that in a court, I will happily refute it. But given your part in stealing those diamonds, I’d think you’d want to avoid going anywhere near a court.”
    The audacity of the woman! She was threatening him. Bad enough that she and her scurrilous family really had apparently stolen the jewels, making sure he got the blame for it. But now she meant to drag him through it all again ?
    He growled, “You know damned well that I had no part in it. And if you even attempt to imply that I did to the authorities, I swear to God I’ll—”
    “Mrs. Franke!” called a voice from a passing curricle. “I was just coming to meet you!” It was a man’s voice. And a very expensive-looking curricle.
    Isa grabbed his arm. “It’s Rupert. You have to stop!”
    “Why, so you can introduce him to your husband ?” he said snidely.
    “His feelings will be hurt if you don’t. And he won’t understand.”
    “I don’t give a damn,” he ground out. But he reined in. He wanted to know what sort of man had caught her eye. What sort of man needed to have investigators hired to protect him from women.
    The baron turned his curricle around and pulled up behind them, then handed his reins to his groom and leapt out to approach them on