How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart by Vivienne Lorret

Author:Vivienne Lorret [Lorret, Vivienne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Prue understood that everyone had secrets they’d rather not reveal. Private matters, in her opinion, were like old, festering trunks in the attic—better off unopened unless you really needed what was inside. Which was the reason she hadn’t prodded Savage into revealing more than he’d wanted to last night.

Even though she was still inordinately curious about his locked cabinets, snuffbox collection, and peculiar need to watch his butler decant the wine, she left those matters alone. After all, theirs was only a short affair. There was no reason to become too involved in each other’s lives.

She only wished she could keep everything that simple.

But the following evening, she realized she was going to have to open one of her own trunks and let Savage have a look inside.

Peering out the window as the carriage drove down the familiar lamplit pavement of Gloucester Square, her throat went dry beneath the ermine collar of her new pelisse. “Savage, before we go inside, I have something to tell you.”

“This wouldn’t be the same something that stole the color from your cheeks the instant I mentioned where we are going this evening, by chance?”

She swallowed and slid him a glance. “You’re too perceptive.”

“A soothsayer in a former life,” he teased, his hand stealing around hers. She squeezed his fingers reflexively, finding comfort in their shared grip. “I gather you are acquainted with Lord and Lady Caldicott, then?”

She nodded. “The town house directly across the street”—she pointed shakily beneath the swag of silver fringe, her words coming out in a rush—“belongs to my father. Lady Caldicott and my stepmother, Dorcas, are bosom companions. She would often come to tea and sit in the parlor, while Dorcas regaled her with the trials she suffered from such a flawed and ungainly stepdaughter. In fact, it was Lady Caldicott who suggested that Dorcas unburden herself from such baggage by sending me to finishing school. For that, I suppose I owe her a debt of gratitude. If not for her, I never would have met my dearest friends.”

Prue could still remember the day that her father had called her into his study. He’d never done so before. Never sought her out or called her down from the nursery to be paraded before him like her half brother, Irwin. She’d felt the heartache of being replaced and discarded as she’d gazed down at them through the stairway banister while he smiled with his new family. The three of them even took trips abroad while she’d stayed behind with her grandmother and governess.

But on her fifteenth birthday, he had wanted to see her. Her! And she had been so thrilled that she’d rushed out of her chamber and dashed down the stairs in a graceless disorder of arms and legs. Out of breath and tucking loose tendrils of hair behind her ear, she’d stood before his desk and waited endlessly for him to lift his gaze from the ledger. But when he did, he’d frowned at her appearance and commented on how he’d expected more from her.

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