Page 15 of A Trickster’s Temptation

She couldn’t speak to Adam with honesty, couldn’t tell him how she felt, but she could give him this. This made sense to her, even if it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. A valued piece of her past—inestimably valuable—now given to a valuable part of her present.

Not her future. Even Amelia Hardwick wasn’t foolish enough to fantasies about that. But this gesture, small, precise, was enough to draw a line between the person she had been before Adam Hart, and the person she was now. Even if Adam didn’t understand the value of what she was giving him, it felt right to give him this.

‘There.’ She gently tucked the handkerchief into Adam’s waistcoat pocket. ‘Amelia Hardwick is the type to likes to give gifts.’

Adam’s face softened even further. He held his hand to his waistcoat for a moment, his palm pressed to his pocket, then drew Mary in for a long, sweet kiss that made Mary feel dizzy all over again. ‘Thank you, Miss Fine.’

‘Miss Hardwick.’

‘Yes. Thank you, Miss Hardwick, and thank you, Miss Fine.’ Adam gently brushed the tip of his nose against Mary’s, his smile tinged with an astonishment that Mary couldn’t understand. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

‘I must go.’

‘The night has only just begun. Stay with me a little longer.’

All I want to do is stay here with you. As Miss Hardwick, as myself—it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you.

‘Amelia Hardwick must go home, now. She needs to sleep.’ Kissing Adam on the forehead, keeping her desires unsaid with every ounce of strength she had, Mary turned around and walked away.

Adam normally loved getting into a carriage at the end of a ball. To leave the world behind, with all its petty victories and squalid failures, and to rattle through the city with not a single thought in his head; that had always been a time of complete relaxation for him, the closest he ever came to peace.

But after the Warbury ball, it was a wrench to get into his carriage alone. Being ridden home to his safe, utterly anonymous townhouse, normally a precious gift, felt like something of his innermost self was being spooled out along the road and lost in the dark.

He hadn’t slept well. Hadn’t slept at all, in fact; he’d tossed and turned in his narrow single bed wondering if Mary had got home all right, had managed to sleep more deeply than he had. Whether she was regretting what had happened—a loss of control on his part, an astonishing change in his own character that he was still grappling with—or whether, like him, she found herself dreaming about it every time she closed her eyes.

The next day hadn’t done anything to ease the sudden turbulence of his soul. He’d sat at his desk thinking up another character for a light fraud, something that would have taken about thirty minutes on any other day, but trying to stitch together the false threads of a personality had felt like wading through hot sand. Then he’d gone and found Jim and got atrociously drunk, really,shockinglydrunk, so drunk that he hadn’t been able to do anything but lie weakly in his bed for the rest of the afternoon and, well, dream of Mary again.

And now, after three days worth of mooning about his house, failing to do his accounts and succeeding only in annoying his cleaning woman, who was used to him largely being absent, he was at the Brookes townhouse thanks to a vague but nagging sensation that perhaps Mary would be there. Just as richly decorated as the vast Brookes estate, the townhouse stood on the corner of Maldon Slope with a splendour that was almost aggressive; Adam rarely visited, preferring to see Marcus when he was at least pretending to be a common thief rather than a duke.

But he was here now, and could hardly admit that he’d come to see someone who didn’t even live at the house. He’d asked the butler to inform Marcus that he was here, and had been told that the man had some paperwork to finish before he could receive guests. And Adam, rather than doing the sensible thing and simply leaving to return at a later hour, had chosen to wait in the morning room as if he were a visiting vicar rather than a friend of long acquaintance.

It meant that the housekeeper had been forced to hastily prepare him some cucumber sandwiches, which were quite tasty but hard to eat under the elderly woman’s upturned nose and watchful eye. She had never been a great supporter of Adam, and suddenly turning up in the middle of the afternoon hadn’t exactly softened her attitude. Not only were there sandwiches, there was weak tea which felt even less thirst-quenching than water—and most horribly of all, there was no Mary.

There were, however, Lady Brookes—Abigail—and her friend Winnie, who didn’t appear to ever be called Winifred. They had evidently been doing something together when Adam had arrived, some sewing-related activity; there were threads strewn all over the table by the window, and a faint reluctance in both of the woman’s faces to speak pleasantly to a guest rather than continue what they had been doing before.

This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to do. Adam bit into a corner of his cucumber sandwich, chewing and swallowing in front of Abigail’s slightly confused gaze. ‘As I said, madam—I should leave. I certainly didn’t intend to interrupt your afternoon with your friend.’

‘It’s quite all right.’ Abigail paused, looking down at her own untouched sandwiches. ‘You wished to see Marcus after all.’

‘Yes.’ What the fuck was he going to talk to Marcus about once he finally saw the man? ‘Of course.’

‘It is strange to see you here alone, Mr. Hart. If I may say so.’ Winnie took a sip of tea, her eyes never leaving Adam’s face. ‘You’re not a frequent visitor.’

Of course I’m not a frequent visitor. I’m a criminal, and so was Marcus every few weeks or so before he married.‘I hadn’t intended for this to be the day I turn over a new leaf.’

‘Well.’ Abigail reached out and nudged one of her sandwiches without bringing it to her mouth. ‘We are, of course, very glad to see you.’

They weren’t glad to see him. Why would they be? He’d dragged them into this god-awful tea and sandwich moment because he’d wanted to see Mary. Mary, who he missed even more savagely now that he was sitting opposite her two closest friends. ‘I’m grateful for that.’

He was going to have to mention Mary at some point. If he didn’t, his thoughts of her would grow to overcome any sense of decency he still possessed. He would end up striding all over the house and searching for her, then striding all over London itself, trailed by a very confused Abigail and Winnie—and no doubt by a Bedlam attendant as well. ‘I must say…’

‘Yes, Mr. Hart?’

‘I… I’m surprised Miss Fine isn’t with you.’

‘Really?’ Winnie cocked her head to one side. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a reasonable observation to make, Mr. Hart.’ Abigail shot what looked like a warning look at Winnie, who rolled her eyes in response. ‘We do normally spend a great deal of time together. However, I received a letter from Miss Fine this morning—she has been feeling somewhat out of sorts in recent days, and intends to spend today at home.’

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