Passion for the Game

Chapter 1

“If all angels of death were as lovely as you, men would line up to die.”

Maria, Lady Winter, shut the lid of her enameled patch box with a decisive snap. Her revulsion for the mirrored reflection of the man who sat behind her made her stomach roil. Taking a deep breath, she kept her gaze trained on the stage below, but her attention was riveted by the incomparably handsome man who sat in the shadows of her theater box.

“Your turn will come,” she murmured, maintaining her regal façade for the benefit of the many lorgnettes pointed in her direction. She had worn crimson silk tonight, accented by delicate black lace frothing from elbow-length sleeves. It was her most-worn color. Not because it suited her Spanish heritage coloring so well-dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin-but because it was a silent warning. Bloodshed. Stay away.

The Wintry Widow, the voyeurs whispered. Two husbands dead…and counting.

Angel of death. How true that was. Everyone around her died, except for the man she cursed to Hades.

The low chuckle at her shoulder made her skin crawl. “It will take more than you, my dearest daughter, to see me to my reward.”

“Your reward will be my blade in your heart,” she hissed.

“Ah, but then you will never be reunited with your sister, and she almost of age.”

“Do not think to threaten me, Welton. Once Amelia is wed, I will know her location and will have no further need for your life. Consider that before you think to do to her what you have done to me.”

“I could sell her into the slave trade,” he drawled.

“You assume, incorrectly, that I did not anticipate your threat.” Fluffing the lace at her elbow, she managed a slight curve to her lips to hide her terror. “I will know. And then you will die.”

She felt him stiffen and her smile turned genuine. Ten and six was her age when Welton had ended her life. Anticipation for the day when she would pay him in kind was all that moved her when despair for her sister threatened paralysis.

“St. John.”

The name hung suspended in the air between them.

Maria’s breath caught. “Christopher St. John?”

It was rare that anything surprised her anymore. At the age of six and twenty, she believed she had seen and done nearly everything. “He has coin aplenty, but marriage to him will ruin me, making me less effective for your aims.”

“Marriage is not necessary this time. I’ve not yet depleted Lord Winter’s settlement. This is simply a search for information. I believe they are engaging St. John in some business. I want you to discover what it is they want with him, and most importantly, who arranged his release from prison.”

Maria smoothed the bloodred material that pooled around her legs. Her two unfortunate husbands had been agents of the Crown whose jobs made them highly useful to her stepfather. They had also been peers of great wealth, much of which they left to her for Welton’s disposal upon their untimely demise.

Lifting her head, she looked around the theater, absently noting the curling smoke of candles and gilded scrollwork that shone in firelight. The soprano on the stage struggled for attention, for no one was here to see her. The peerage was here to see each other and be seen, nothing more.

“Interesting,” Maria murmured, recalling a sketch of the popular pirate. Uncommon handsome he was, and as deadly as she. His exploits were widely bandied, some tales so outrageous she knew they could not possibly be true. St. John was discussed with intemperate eagerness, and there were wagers aplenty on how long he could escape the noose.

“They must be desperate indeed to spare him. All these years they have searched for the irrefutable proof of his villainy, and now that they have it, they bring him into the fold. I daresay neither side is pleased.”

“I do not care how they feel,” Welton dismissed curtly. “I simply wish to know who I can extort to keep quiet about it.”

“Such faith in my charms,” she drawled, hiding how her mouth filled with bile. To think of the deeds she had been forced into to protect and serve a man she detested…Her chin lifted. It was not her stepfather she protected and served. She merely needed him alive, for if he were killed, she would never find Amelia.

Welton ignored her jibe. “Have you any notion what that information would be worth?”

She gave a nearly imperceptible nod, aware of the avid scrutiny that followed her every movement. Society knew her husbands had not died natural deaths. But they lacked proof. Despite this morbid certainty of her guilt, she was welcomed into the finest homes eagerly. She was infamous. And nothing livened up a gathering like a touch of infamy.

“How do I find him?”

“You have your ways.” He stood, looming over her in the shadows of the rear box, but Maria was not cowed. Aside from concern for Amelia, nothing frightened her any longer.

Welton’s fingers lifted one of her curls. “Your sister’s hair is so like yours. Even powder cannot truly hide its gloss.”

“Go away.”

His laughter lingered long after he parted the curtains and exited to the gallery. How many years would she be forced to endure that sound? The investigators who worked for her were unable to turn up anything of value. Brief sightings of her sister and barely warm trails. So many times she had been close…But Welton was always one step ahead.

While every day her soul grew blacker at his behest.

“Do not be fooled by her outward appearance. Yes, she is short of stature and tiny, but she is an asp waiting to strike.”

Christopher St. John settled more firmly in his seat, disregarding the agent of the Crown who shared the box with him. His eyes were riveted to the crimson-clad woman who sat across the theater expanse. Having spent his entire life living amongst the dregs of society, he knew affinity when he saw it.

Wearing a dress that gave the impression of warmth and bearing the coloring of hot-blooded Spanish sirens, Lady Winter was nevertheless as icy as her title. And his assignment was to warm her up, ingratiate himself into her life, and then learn enough about her to see her hanged in his place.

A distasteful business, that. But a fair trade in his estimation. He was a pirate and thief by trade, she a bloodthirsty and greedy vixen.

“She has at least a dozen men working for her,” Viscount Sedgewick said. “Some watch the wharves, others roam the countryside. Her interest in the agency is obvious and deadly. With your reputation for mayhem, you two are very much alike. We cannot see how she could resist any offer of assistance on your part.”

Christopher sighed; the prospect of sharing his bed with the beautiful Wintry Widow was vastly unappealing. He knew her kind, too concerned over their appearance to enjoy an abandoned tumble. Her livelihood was contingent upon her ability to attract wealthy suitors. She would not wish to become sweaty or tax herself overmuch. It could ruin her hair.

Yawning, he asked, “May I depart now, my lord?”

Sedgewick shook his head. “You must begin immediately, or you will forfeit this opportunity.”

It took great effort on Christopher’s part to bite back his retort. The agency would learn soon enough that he danced to no one’s tune but his own. “Leave the details to me. You wish me to pursue both personal and professional relations with Lady Winter, and I shall.”

Christopher stood and casually adjusted his coat. “However, she is a woman who seeks the secure financial prospects of marriage, which makes it impossible for a bachelor such as myself to woo her first and then progress from the bed outward. We will instead have to start with business and seal our association with sex. It is how these things are done.”

“You are a frightening individual,” Sedgewick said dryly.

Christopher glanced over his shoulder as he pushed the black curtain aside. “It would be wise of you to remember that.”

The sensation of being studied with predatory intent caused the hair at Maria’s nape to rise. Turning her head, she studied every box across from her but saw nothing untoward. Still, her instincts were what kept her alive, and she trusted them implicitly.

Someone’s interest was more than mere curiosity.

The low tone of men’s voices in the gallery behind her drew her attention away from the fruitless visual search. Most would hear nothing over the rabble in the pit below and the carrying notes of the singer, but she was a hunter, her senses fine-tuned.

“The Wintry Widow’s box.”

“Ah…” a man murmured knowingly. “Worth the risk for a few hours in that fancy piece. She is incomparable, a goddess among women.”

Maria snorted. A curse, that.

The girlish pleasure she had once felt for having uncommon beauty died the day her stepfather leered and said, “You shall fetch me a fortune, my pet.”

It was only one of many deaths in her short life.

The first was her beloved father. She remembered him as unrestrained and vital, a dashing man who laughed often and adored her Spanish mother. Then he fell ill and wasted away. Later, Maria would become intimately familiar with the signs of poison. At the time, however, she knew only fear and confusion, which worsened when her mother introduced her to a dark-haired, beautiful man who was to replace her father.

“Maria, child,” her mother had said in her softly accented voice. “This is Viscount Welton. He and I plan to wed.”

She had heard the name before. Her father’s closest friend. Why her mother wished to remarry was beyond her immature comprehension. Had her father meant so little?

“He wishes to send you to the best academies,” was the explanation. “You will have the future your father wished for you.”

Sent away. That was all she heard.

The wedding took place and Lord Welton took over, whisking them to the moors to a house that resembled a medieval castle. Maria hated it. It was cold, drafty, and scary, so very far removed from the golden-bricked home they had lived in before.

Welton begat a daughter on his new wife and then promptly left them. Maria went to school, and he went to Town where he drank, whored, and gambled her father’s money to his heart’s content. Her mother grew paler, thinner; her hair began to fall out. The illness was hidden from Maria until the last possible moment.

She was sent for only when the end was near and assured. Returning to her stepfather’s home, she found the Viscountess Welton a ghost of the woman she had been only months before, her vibrancy depleting along with their coffers.

“Maria, my darling,” her mother whispered on her deathbed, her dark eyes pleading. “Forgive me. Welton was so kind after your father passed. I-I did not see beyond the façade.”

“All will be well, Mama,” she had lied. “Your health will improve and we can leave him.”

“No. You must-”

“Please do not say any more. You need rest.”

Her mother’s grip was surprisingly strong for a woman so wan, a physical manifestation of her urgency. “You must protect your sister from him. He cares not at all that she is his own blood. He will use her, as he has used me. As he intends to use you. Amelia is not strong like you. She has none of the strength of your father’s blood.”

She had stared at her mother in dismay. In the decade of the Welton marriage, Maria had learned many things, but most of all she had learned that beneath Lord Welton’s incomparably handsome face, Mephistopheles dwelled.

“I am not old enough,” she breathed, the tears falling. She spent most of her time at school, training to become a woman Welton could exploit. But on her occasional visits, she watched the way the viscount belittled her mother with razor-sharp barbs. The servants told her of raucous voices and pained screams. Bruises. Blood. Bed rest for weeks after he left.

Seven-year-old Amelia remained in her rooms when her father was in residence, frightened and alone. No governess would stay long with them.

“Yes, you are,” Cecille whispered, her lips white, her eyes red. “When I go, I will give what strength I have to you. You will feel me, my sweet Maria, and your father. We will support you.”

Those words were her only anchor in the years that followed.

“Is she dead?” Welton had asked flatly when Maria emerged from the room. His bright green eyes held no emotion at all.

“Yes.” She waited with bated breath and shaking hands.

“Make whatever arrangements you desire.”

Nodding, she turned away, the swishing of her heavy silk skirts loud in the deathly silence of the house.

“Maria.” The soft drawl floated ominously after her.

She paused and faced him again, studying her stepfather with new appreciation of his evil, absently noting the broad shoulders, trim hips, and long legs that so many women found appealing. Despite the coldness within him, his green eyes, dark hair, and rakish smile made him the handsomest man she had ever seen. The devil’s gift for his black-as-sin soul.

“Tell Amelia about Cecille’s passing, will you? I am running late and do not have the time.”

Amelia.

Maria was devastated at the thought of the task ahead. Added to the near-crippling pain of her mother’s loss, she almost sank to the floor, crushed beneath her stepfather’s heel. But the strength her mother promised her stiffened her spine and lifted her chin.

Welton laughed at her bravado. “I knew you would be perfect. Worth the trouble your mother gave me.” She watched him turn on his heel and take the stairs to the main floor, disregarding his wife completely.

What could she say to her sister to ease the blow? Amelia had none of the happy memories that sustained Maria. Now the child was orphaned, for her father might as well have been dead for all the attention he paid to her.

“Hello, poppet,” Maria greeted softly as she entered her sibling’s room, bracing herself to absorb the impact of the small body hurtling toward her.

“Maria!”

Clutching her sister close, Maria moved them toward the bed draped in dark blue silk that contrasted gently with the pale blue of the damask-covered walls. She rocked the sobbing child in her arms and cried silent tears. They had only each other now.

“What will we do?” Amelia asked in her precious voice.

“Survive,” Maria said quietly. “And stay together. I will protect you. Never doubt that.”

They fell asleep and when she woke, she found Amelia gone.

And her life had changed forever.

Suddenly eager to be productive in some manner, Maria rose to her feet. She pushed the curtain aside and stepped out to the gallery. The two footmen who stood on either side to keep the ambitiously amorous away snapped to attention. “My carriage,” she said to one. He hurried away.

Then she was bumped none too gently from behind, and as she stumbled, was caught close to a hard body.

“I beg your pardon,” murmured a deliciously raspy voice so near to her ear she felt the vibration of it.

The sound stilled her, caught her breath and held it. She stood unmoving, her senses flaring to awareness far more acute than usual. One after another, impressions bombarded her-a hard chest at her back, a firm arm wrapped beneath her breasts, a hand at her waist, and the rich scent of bergamot mixed with virile male. He did not release her; instead his grip upon her person tightened.

“Unhand me,” she said, her voice low and filled with command.

“When I am ready to, I will.”

His ungloved hand lifted to cup her throat, his touch heating the rubies that circled her neck until they burned. Callused fingertips touched her pulse, stroking it, making it race. He moved with utter confidence, no hesitation, as if he possessed the right to fondle her whenever and wherever he chose, even in this public venue. Yet he was undeniably gentle. Despite the possession of his hold, she could writhe free if she chose, but a sudden weakness in her limbs prevented her from moving.

Her gaze moved to her remaining footman, ordering him silently to do something to assist her. The servant’s wide eyes were trained above her head, his throat working convulsively as he swallowed hard. Then he looked away.

She sighed. Apparently, she would have to save herself.

Again.

Her next action was goaded as much by instinct as by forethought. She moved her hand, setting it over his wrist, allowing him to feel the sharp point of the blade she hid in a custom-made ring. The man froze. And then laughed. “I do so love a good surprise.”

“I cannot say the same.”

“Frightened?” he queried.

“Of blood on my gown? Yes,” she retorted dryly. “It is one of my favorites.”

“Ah, but then it would more aptly match the blood on your hands”-he paused, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear, making her shiver even as her skin flushed-“and mine.”

“Who are you?”

“I am what you need.”

Maria inhaled deeply, pressing her corset-flattened bosom against an unyielding forearm. Questions sifted through her mind faster than she could collect them. “I have everything I require.”

As he released her, her captor allowed his fingers to drift across the bare flesh above her bodice. Her skin tingled, goose-flesh spreading in his wake. “If you find you are mistaken,” he rasped, “come find me.”

He stepped back and she spun in a flurry of skirts to face him.

She expertly hid the true depth of her surprise. The renderings in the papers did not do him justice. Pale golden hair, sun-kissed skin, and brilliant blue eyes enriched features so fine they were almost angelic. His lips, though thin, were beautifully sculpted by a master hand. The entire sum of his countenance was so stunning, it was disarming. It made one want to trust him, something the cold intentness of his gaze told her would be a mistake.

As she studied him, Maria absently noted the undue attention they were attracting from the other patrons in the gallery, but she could not spare a quelling glance. Her attention was snared by the man who stood so arrogantly assured before her. “St. John.”

Showing a leg in a courtly bow, he smiled, but it did not reach his eyes-glorious eyes that were made more poignant by the shadows that rimmed them. He was not a man who slept often or well. “I am flattered by your recognition.”

“What is it that I am supposed to be lacking?”

“Perhaps whatever it is your men search for?”

The surprise elicited by that statement could not be hidden. “What do you know?”

“Too much,” he said smoothly, his gaze intensely searching. Sensual lips curved and trapped her attention. “And yet, not enough. Together, perhaps, we could achieve our aims.”

“And what is your aim?”

How was it that he would approach her so soon after Welton? Surely it could not be a coincidence.

“Revenge,” he said, the word rolling off his tongue so casually she wondered if he was as dead to emotion as she was. He would have to be to live the life of crime he did. No remorse, no regret, no conscience. “The agency has meddled in my life one too many times.”

“I’ve no notion of what you are talking about.”

“No? A pity, that.” He stepped around her, leaning close as he moved by. “I will be available, should you figure it out.”

For a moment, she refused to turn and watch him depart. But it was only a moment, and then she studied him avidly. Starting with his height and breadth of shoulder, down his satin-clad form to his heeled shoes, she missed nothing. Dressed as he was, he could not fade into the crowd that milled in the gallery. His pale yellow coat and breeches stood apart from the darker colors of the other theater patrons. She fancied him as a god of the sun, a shining overpowering presence. His casual stride was unable to hide the danger inherent in him, a fact noted by the peers who quickly moved out of his way.

Now she understood his appeal.

Maria returned her attention to her footman. “Come along.”

“My lady,” he cried plaintively, stilling her midstep. “Please forgive me.” The young man looked as if he might cast up his accounts. His dark hair fell over his brow, framing immature features. Were it not for the livery he wore, he would appear very much the boy he was.

“For what?” Her brows arched.

“I-I did not come to your aid.”

Her stance softened. Reaching out, she touched his elbow, a gesture that startled him. “I am not angry with you. You were afraid, an emotion with which I sympathize.”

“Truly?”

She sighed and squeezed his elbow gently before releasing him. “Truly.”

The grateful smile he gave her made her heart ache. Had she ever been so…open? She felt so disconnected from the world at times.

Revenge. That goal was all she had. She tasted it every morning for breakfast and rinsed her mouth out with it at night. The need for retribution was the force that pumped blood through her veins and filled her lungs with air.

And Christopher St. John could be the means by which she would acquire it.

A few moments ago, he had been a chore to complete as quickly as possible. Now the possibilities were beyond intriguing; they were seductive. It would take careful planning on her part to utilize them and St. John effectively, but she had no doubt she could manage it.

For the first time, in a very long time, she smiled.

Christopher whistled as he walked away, feeling the weight of Lady Winter’s stare following after him. He had not anticipated actually speaking with her. He had merely hoped to see her up close and take note of how well she guarded herself. It was a wonderful turn of events that she had chosen that moment to leave her box. They’d not only met, but he had touched her, held her in his arms and smelled the scent of her skin.

He was no longer dreading boredom in the bedroom, not after feeling the point of that hidden blade. But beyond that, he found that more than his carnal interest was piqued. She was younger than he had assumed, her skin beneath powder and patch unblemished by lines and her lovely dark eyes displaying traces of both wariness and curiosity. Lady Winter was not yet completely jaded. How was that possible, when she was widely considered to have killed at least two men?

He intended to find out. The agency wanted her more than they wanted him. That alone intrigued him no small amount.

As he exited the theater, Christopher noted the black lacquered carriage that bore the Winter crest. He paused beside it. Making a barely discernable gesture, he listened for the answering birdcall that told him his order was seen by at least one of his men stationed around the area. The coach would be followed until he said otherwise. Wherever the fair lady went, he wanted to know about it.

“I shall be at the Harwick house party this weekend,” he told the driver, who stared back at him with wide eyes and rigid body. “Make certain her ladyship knows this.”

As the man nodded violently, Christopher smiled with deep-rooted satisfaction.

For the first time in a very long time, he had something to look forward to.