Page 2 of The Sound of Seduction
One misstep, one whisper of impropriety, and List could twist it into a scandal—or worse—war. Not just for her—but for the clinic. For Nick. For Alfie, Andre, Felix. For Cloverdale House.
Wendy didn’t have to strain to follow their words. She had heard the tale, the whispered accounts of the night at the card table when Prince Stan had outmaneuvered the notorious Baron von List using Alfie’s alchemy. List had tipped his hand, revealing secrets he couldn’t afford to lose. He wouldn’t forget this humiliation and the information he’d involuntarily shared.
Just then, the murmur of voices down the hall sent shivers up Wendy’s spine, and without turning, she knew.Prince Stan was here.Perhaps it was the creak of the floorboard or perhaps simply an instinct she couldn’t seem to suppress. Her pulse betrayed her, quickening as though each beat announced his presence.
Prince Ferdinand Constantin Maximilian Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen—Stan, to those fortunate enough to stand beside him as equals or have earned his friendship—entered with a sweep of motion like a man who commanded not just attention but respect. His shoulders were pleasingly broad, his stride purposeful, and his hair defied the principles of civility asthough no crown or comb could tame it, and Wendy found herself drawn in by the storm of contradiction that was Prince Stan. Power and poise wrapped in mischief and rebellion. If Prince Stan were a book, she’d not only read her copy but wear it down till the pages fell off the binding.
But this was no fictional fairytale prince. He had no spine of glue but a straight back and warm eyes. His front wasn’t a mere gilded cover but a breathtaking display of masculine splendor. And his backside was not to be hidden behind dusty book covers but wrapped in the finest tailored wool coats that barely covered the perfect backside…oh, who was she jesting? He was perfection.
Too perfect. Too tempting. And far too dangerous.
She took a step back instinctively, willing herself to focus. She wasn’t some giddy girl at a Mayfair ball. She was a nurse. One misstep—even a misread glance—could unravel everything.
She couldn’t afford to long for him. Not when her name was tied to Harley Street, and one rumor could taint the very place she loved.
“Good morning, Miss Folsham.” His voice reverberated through her bones as if she were a tuning fork that had only waited for him to set her in motion.
Still, Wendy straightened, willing herself to stay composed. She knew her thoughts were foolish; her dreams of him were nothing more than fantasies whispered to her pillow at night. Yet when his gaze wandered briefly to her, the intensity of being seen left her exhilarated and unnerved.
“Is List really that dangerous?” she asked before she could stop herself, her voice carefully even. But when Stan’s eyes darkened, a single word slipped from his lips—a warning meant to echo.
“Very.”
Her breath hitched. His voice was an undertow, pulling her further into the uncharted waters that were his blue eyes. A thought flickered, despite the majestic moment. Beneath her nurse’s apron, beyond the tools of her daily life, she too could anchor something grander, like a quiet urge to break free from the boundaries she’d always known. Across the room, their eyes met—steady, searching—and the unspoken promise of change permeated the atmosphere surrounding them.
*
Stan was nostranger to the sharp crack of a rifle. He’d been trained to handle some of the military’s most powerful missiles and endure the brutal toll of battle. Pain was something he could suppress without flinching.
But nothing in his training could have steeled him against the jolt that surged through him the moment Nurse Wendy met his gaze with her beautiful eyes.
Next, a stronger blow followed; she blushed. Not subtly, but with a vivid fury that left no room for doubt, he was the reason.
It wasn’t a mistake. This was deliberate, and it was aimed directly at him with the precision of a gunshot.
He shouldn’t have looked. Shouldn’t have noticed. But he did—and now he couldn’t unsee her.
Not just her beauty, but her bravery. Her restraint. The quiet, stunning nobility in the way she held herself like a soldier under inspection.
And that was the problem. He wasn’t safe for her. He didn’t have a simple life. And getting close to her could mean dragging her into the line of fire.
For her sake, he had to turn away and pretend none of this stirred anything at all.
“Then how do we defend against him?” Nurse Wendy asked. A simple question that had such a complicated answer. It had taken him nearly two months in London to just charter its border—or better, List’s wide reach of that forsaken and corrupt network of near-miss crimes he’d constructed.
There was no defense. Not for this. Not for her. Certainly not because he wouldn’t try—he would have given half his fortune to conjure up some barrier between himself and the thrumming in his chest—but because he couldn’t. Every hard-won ounce of discipline, every instinct honed for survival, seemed utterly useless the moment Nurse Wendy entered his proximity—and yet the closer she was to him, the more she could be in danger, like him.
“We stay away,” Alfie said as if he tried to dismiss the idea of Wendy going anywhere near him because it was plain to see that List’s assaults followed him like an unwanted shadow.
“But List won’t stay away fromus,” Andre said.
“He won’t stay away fromme.” Stan corrected them. “I’m his target.”
“And now, we all may be,” Andre added.
And that was one of the thousand reasons why he had to stay away from Nurse Wendy. He’d die a death worse than execution at List’s hands if anything happened to his friends, the doctors at Harley Street, or Nurse Wendy.
She took his breath away in ways he couldn’t fathom. And yet, it happened every time he saw her.
