Chapter 4
Richard Heath hated Christmas presents. Rightly, he should have hated Christmas, too, having spent more than a few of his sleeping in gutters, guarding whore houses, or cleaning up dubious liquids in taverns.
For whatever reason, he’d never quite been able to hate it the way some people he knew did. For, whilst it had been a sort of hell, he’d always been swept away by the way his sort could still lift a cup of gin, salute the season, and revel in a few hours of undiluted joy.
Christmas, he knew, was not about the goose, pudding, marble halls, or oranges.
No, it was about the company one kept.
That was the only reason he’d stepped into this gilded box which usually would have made him wish to snarl with disgust.
No, the people in this house were most acceptable to him, unlike most of the upper classes.
It was still a marvel to him the way he had taken in Rob, who had come to him lost, and looking as if a cannon had exploded right before him. There was no good reason that he could recall to deciding to guide the young duke through the rings of debt and trouble his father had immersed himself in. Rob hadn’t been arrogant or superior. He’d been curious, determined to learn, and terrifyingly clear that he would not be repeating the disastrous mistakes of his sire.
And he clearly cared about Mary. Unlike the man who’d tried to all but sell her away to clear his debts.
Richard admired Rob for his sheer determination to do the right thing, though Richard had been loath to admit it at first.
And then, he’d been pulled inexplicably into the small, secret circle of the Number 79 club. He still wasn’t sure how he’d become a member. It boggled even his jaded mind.
After all, only dukes were members. . . all but him.
Footsteps clattered down the ornate stairs at the center of the sprawling foyer and his heart suddenly did a damned inconvenient stutter.
Lady Mary stopped at the center of the landing, her green silk skirts, edged with gold, swinging about her legs. The swish of the fabric bared white, silk-stockinged ankles and green slippers.
Her dark hair was wild about her face, as if she had not bothered with an elaborate coiffure.
She looked completely different than the timid girl he’d first met. God, how she had infiltrated his sympathies. He’d been appalled by his sentimentality. But now, he knew it was because he had seen the survivor in her.
Mary was not a mouse, following the bidding of her monstrous sire. Instead, she was a lioness ready to tear all apart to protect her mother.
That realization had solidified his deep admiration and devotion to her.
She’d never known that. She never would.
It was imperative he keep the damned high kick away from him. A brutish fellow, no matter how smoothed out with highly applied gloss, was not for her.
In the end, for all his schooling, for all his practiced airs, he was a man of the gutter.
He would not drag her deeper into his sordid world. No, her beauty would not be marred by it. Her heart had known enough suffering without him causing her more.
“Hello, Richard,” she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up in the way it did when she was secretly thinking thoughts that titled young ladies were not supposed to think.
He knew that smile. It had nearly led him down a path he could not return from.
He inclined his dark head. “Lady Mary,” he replied.
Sighing, she started down the steps, head held high. A slight red colored her pearl white cheeks. Not rouge, not the color of the women of his birth, which was meant to feign desire.
This color. . . this color was pleasure at the sight of him.
His breath all but stopped. How had he ever thought he could be in her proximity again and not be tempted?
He clenched his jaw. Damnation. He was stronger than that. He was Richard Heath, ruler of the bloody underworld of London. A chit of a girl, an aristocrat, was not going to move him.
Except. . . except, he knew in his soul, in his bones, in what little was left of his heart, she was so much more than that.
Mary was glorious.
She was the sort of creature that made men kneel, breathless, ready to worship, and give their hearts over even when they knew only hell would result.
Luckily, he had more self-discipline than most.
“Now,” she began, her voice surprisingly deep for one of her years. Richard—”
“Heath,” he cut in quickly.
She cocked her head to the side. “Surely not.”
“Surely yes,” he countered, every inch of him aching at her sudden nearness. He fairly towered over her. She had to crane her head back to meet his eyes, causing her dark hair to spill over her ivory shoulders. It didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest, his height.
Her brow furrowed. “But—”
“We are not friends, Lady Mary,” he said with forced gentleness. “And only friends use each other’s given names.”
“Only friends?” she asked, her brows rising as she teased him.
The two words which should have been so completely ineffective with a man who had known every type of seduction or intimation of desire, sent a wave of longing through him.
Bloody hell, how had he ever let it get this far? How had he ever let her think she could be so intimate with him?
He leaned down and whispered, “We are not lovers, either, Lady Mary.”
She smiled up at him, unrepentant. “Alas.”
“Get yourself a husband,” he growled, suddenly impatient and desperate to be away from her lest she see the power of her effect upon him. “And then, if you’re still after your bit of rough, you’ll know where to find me.”
She winced. “I—”
For one moment, he hated himself. For one moment, he started to reach out to her and tell her how much he hungered for her, how he admired her above all others. But he never could and never would.
And he sure as hell would not be the one to ruin her.
With that, he forced himself to turn and leave her. One foot stepped after the next, having no bloody clue where he was going, as long as it was away from the only woman he’d truly ever wanted.