Prologue

December 24, 1765, Christmas Eve
Southampton, England

Of all the times Emma had longed for the blithe Christmas season of her youth, never had she ever imagined her yearnings would land her here. Crouched in prickly yew on the blustery grounds of a Southampton lodge, snow falling from the night sky, a pistol shaking in her bare hand, and a dangerous man determined to flush her out like a fox.

To be fair, when she had begun her life of crime, she had never imagined said man, Anthony Philips, remotely dangerous.

Why had she succumbed to melancholy and accepted the invitation to the St. Clair’s Christmas party? She just knew better.

Anthony Philips had flushed her out of the drawing room with murder in his eye.

“Miss Dixley, is it?” Anthony Philips drawled, unseen from her vantage point.

Emma was Miss Althea Dixley currently, and had been for six months.

Snow landed on her spectacles and crystallized on the glass. Yanking them from her face—they were merely a prop—she peered through the yew. To her left and right, she saw two feet of nothing. Ahead was a plane tree’s peeling grey and white trunk glowing in the snow-covered surrounds.

A white puff of air drifted across her view before the cloying scent of tobacco assaulted her. Anthony Philips was enjoying a cheroot. And since he hadn’t been when he had chased her from the party, he had lit it sometime during his pursuit. As if he didn’t care one way or the other if he caught her. Or he believed he would catch her, regardless.

Her stomach heaved.

A gust of wind rattled the yew. Without her cloak, the branches dug deeper into her woolen gown. They stabbed her freezing cheeks and the numb flesh at her neck. A few spears had taken hold of her hair.

“Quite an actress you are,” Philips said in his rich baritone. His voice held a laconic quality, which fit his privileged life. “Of course, you are not Miss Dixley. Nor the redhead you were when I first had the honor of making your acquaintance. What was your name then? Let me think. Lavinia? No. Laura.”

Louise, she wanted to shout.

“Ah, I remember you well,” he mused.

Not enough to remember my name.

And how fitting for a rake not to remember that he had met her before and after she had disguised herself as the redheaded Louisa. The first time she had made his acquaintance, she had been herself. The downtrodden actress, Miss Whitworth. Meeting his blue eyes, her breath had whooshed from her chest and her heart had sunk to her borrowed shoes. She had feared herself in love on the very spot.

Fool.

“You disguise yourself well with your drab garments. But do you know what you cannot disguise? That sweet singing of yours. Damn, but I never forget a voice, even if it comes from a woman hiding as a skinny, priggish spinster.”

Grass crunched to her left. Closer than she thought.

Another footstep came. By silent inches, she guided the pistol through the shrubbery. Afraid to blink lest she lose a second of sight, her eyes watered. Tears warmed her cheeks and slipped down her neck. She sucked in a breath as he strode into view. A tickle started in her throat.

Bathed in the light’s reflection, snowflakes danced in the wind and caressed his broad shoulders. His firm lips sucked on the cheroot, the end glowing orange and briefly lighting his narrowed eyes, his angular cheek lifted in a lazy grin.

“I wonder…” His voice took on a hushed, gravelly tone. “What brought you here? Misfortune? A taste for adventure?”

With trembling fingers, she rotated the hammer to full-cock as the tickle grew stronger. The snow fell harder, clinging to her eyelashes. She swallowed back the cough and adjusted the pistol upward.

“Come, you’ll catch your death. Bound to make a bloody fool of you, you know. Dying in shrubbery.” He stretched out a gloved hand.

She was tempted to take it. Her teeth chattered; she was seconds from a coughing fit. And he was blasted right. Dying in shrubbery would be highly undignified.

He dropped his hand. With a sigh, he blew a stream of white smoke into the night and cocked his head to look her right in the eye. His long fingers drummed on his thigh.

A hacking fit seized her. He lunged, caped-coat billowing wide and blanketing her in black as her finger spasmed about the trigger. Sparks sizzled and showered over her, momentarily blinding her. The pistol jerked, foliage shredded, a monstrous grip seized the front of her gown and dragged her through snagging branches until she was free. Free to whip the pistol at his head and clout his cheek. She hauled her arm back, and this time she aimed for his hand holding her like iron at her bodice.

Crack.

She struck again.

Crack.

Freedom was hers.

She sprinted east toward the river, the cold stabbing and snow spitting in her eyes. A feral growl split the icy air, his tread heavy in pursuit. Before her mind could fathom it, she was hurled to her stomach with an oomph, a warm, muscular body pinning her down.

Her cheek squashed to the frigid earth, legs tangled in her skirts, she raged at her impotence. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“How shockingly vulgar of you, Miss Dixley.”

“Bugger off!”

“Ah. And Happy Christmas to you as well.”

‟Get—off me!”

“Not on your life. By the by, I tried to be polite. And for the record, I have never treated a female so. Unless in bedsport and she being willing, of course.”

“Whoreson!” She kicked her legs in futility.

He snagged her hand as she flailed it toward his hair, his words precise between his frosty breaths. “That scar you gave me, on the inside of my left thigh? I think of you every time I fuck.” He was on his feet, hauling her upward like so much fluff and feathers. “Let’s go.”

~End of Excerpt~