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No, this could be no more than a coincidence. Fate was laughing at her, bringing Rowarth to this little town, miles from anywhere, where she had thought herself safe. In a moment he would excuse himself and be gone from her life a second time and she would have to try and forget him all over again.
“There was a time when you found my company a great deal more attractive.” Rowarth was making no secret of his amusement at her blatant attempt to dismiss him. “Though of course,” his tone chilled, “your affections lasted only as long as it took you to find someone you preferred.” He looked around at the dingy back streets with their rubbish in the gutters and the smell of rotting vegetables in the air. “What happened, Eve?” he said softly. “I hardly expected to find you here. Did your new lover leave you without a feather to fly?”
“That is none of your business, Rowarth.” Eve tried to speak lightly, dismissively, but the words stuck in her throat. In the note she had left him she had told him she had found another protector. It had been the only way she could think of to make him hate her—to make certain that he would not follow her and demand the truth. It had been the only way to set him free.
Rowarth squared his shoulders. “You mistake.” His voice, smooth and deep, cut across her thoughts. “It is my business. In fact I have no business here other than to see you, Eve.”
For a moment Eve’s foolish heart soared again at the thought he might, against the odds, care for her still. But there was something in his voice that warned her; in his tone and in the cool, appraising look that he gave her. And frighteningly he had read her thoughts and seen how vulnerable she was to him, for he smiled again with grim pleasure.
“Have no fear that I am about to importune you with impassioned declarations of love,” he said drily. “Nothing was further from my thoughts. This is business only.”
Eve felt a little sick at the contempt she could hear in his voice. “What possible business could you have with me after all this time?” she questioned, still striving to keep her voice light. “We have no more to say to one another.”
“We’ll talk of that in private.”
“No, we shall not.” Suddenly furious, she freed herself from his grip and spun around to face him. “We shall not do that just because you dictate it, Rowarth. You always were arrogant.”
Once they had laughed together about his i
Perhaps it had been an illusion, but for a brief time it had made her happy. She had thought that they had both been happy. From the start there had been an instant attraction between them, blazing into vivid life the very first night they had met at the Cyprian’s Ball. She, the newest of new courtesans, had been feted and courted as the gentlemen waited to see upon whom she would bestow her favor—and her i
Eve swallowed what felt like an enormous lump in her throat. Those days and nights had been full of color and excitement and joy, so far removed from her existence now that they had been another world, a fading memory but one that was so laced with pain that it could never quite die.
“And you were always the only one who dared oppose me.” There was an odd note in Rowarth’s voice now. For a moment it sounded almost like regret. “But in this, Eve, you ca
“Watch me.” She was so cross now that she was prepared to argue with him in the street. She started to hurry away; he followed, effortlessly matching her step, not even remotely out of breath.
“With pleasure, as always.” He sounded as imperturbable as ever. “But it will make no odds.”
“You are as persistent as a stray dog.”
“A charming analogy. You always liked animals, as I recall.”
They had almost reached the pawnbroker’s shop that Eve now ran. It seemed that Rowarth knew exactly where she lived and what she now did to earn that living. A shiver of apprehension racked Eve as she wondered what else he knew and what he might do with that knowledge. His reappearance in her life was not only shocking, it was dangerous as well. She had lived like a nun since coming to Yorkshire. She had buried her past as Rowarth’s mistress and that was the way she was determined it would stay. Small towns were notorious for gossip and she was determined that nothing was going to ruin her reputation or her livelihood.
“We are at an impasse,” she said coldly, on the doorstep. “I shall not invite you in.”
“Then I will take you somewhere else where we may talk,” Rowarth said, “and I doubt you will appreciate my methods in conveying you there. Your choice.”
Eve looked at him. Would he really carry her kicking and screaming through the streets of Fortune’s Folly? Very probably he would, and without disturbing the cut of his jacket in the process. He looked unyielding, implacable. And despite her anger she really did not want a scene in the street.
“Very well,” she said, even more frostily. “Since you force my hand.”
She pushed open the door of her shop and stepped from the bright sunlight into the cool, dusty shade feeling a strange sense of relief at least to be on her own property. She placed her marketing basket on the counter with a little sigh. In the windows the sale items gleamed in the sun; jewelry sending a shower of sparkling rainbow colors across the display, bone china pawned by the wife of a brewer who was so fond of his own ale that he had spent too much time drinking and too little working, bed linen from a cottager out on the road to Skipton, all ma
Joan, Eve’s assistant, came scurrying out of the back room, wiping her hands on her apron as she heard the ring of the doorbell. She was an older woman, a former servant at Fortune’s Hall, the local manor house and home to the squire, Sir Montague Fortune. She was the only person in whom Eve had confided her past and Eve valued her friendship highly.