Sylvia Day - Passion for the Game

The second book in the Georgian series, 2007

Thanks to my critique partner, Annette McCleave ( www.AnnetteMcCleave.com ).

Thanks to my dear friends Renee Luke and Jordan Summers for their support on the other end of the IM window.

Thanks to my family, who were orphaned for over a year.

Thanks to my mom, who took over the maintenance of my house while I wrote a bunch of books.

Thanks to my readers, the most loyal, enthusiastic, and fabulous audience a writer could ever ask for.

What a lucky gal I am to have all of you in my life. I’m hugely grateful.

“If all angels of death were as lovely as you, men would line up to die.”

Maria, Lady Winter, shut the lid of her enameled patch box with a decisive snap. Her revulsion for the mirrored reflection of the man who sat behind her made her stomach roil. Taking a deep breath, she kept her gaze trained on the stage below, but her attention was riveted by the incomparably handsome man who sat in the shadows of her theater box.

“Your turn will come,” she murmured, maintaining her regal façade for the benefit of the many lorgnettes pointed in her direction. She had worn crimson silk tonight, accented by delicate black lace frothing from elbow-length sleeves. It was her most-worn color. Not because it suited her Spanish heritage coloring so well-dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin-but because it was a silent warning. Bloodshed. Stay away.

The Wintry Widow , the voyeurs whispered. Two husbands dead…and counting.

Angel of death. How true that was. Everyone around her died, except for the man she cursed to Hades.

The low chuckle at her shoulder made her skin crawl. “It will take more than you, my dearest daughter, to see me to my reward.”

“Your reward will be my blade in your heart,” she hissed.

“Ah, but then you will never be reunited with your sister, and she almost of age.”

“Do not think to threaten me, Welton. Once Amelia is wed, I will know her location and will have no further need for your life. Consider that before you think to do to her what you have done to me.”

“I could sell her into the slave trade,” he drawled.

“You assume, incorrectly, that I did not anticipate your threat.” Fluffing the lace at her elbow, she managed a slight curve to her lips to hide her terror. “I will know. And then you will die.”

She felt him stiffen and her smile turned genuine. Ten and six was her age when Welton had ended her life. Anticipation for the day when she would pay him in kind was all that moved her when despair for her sister threatened paralysis.

“St. John.”

The name hung suspended in the air between them.

Maria’s breath caught. “Christopher St. John?”

It was rare that anything surprised her anymore. At the age of six and twenty, she believed she had seen and done nearly everything. “He has coin aplenty, but marriage to him will ruin me, making me less effective for your aims.”

“Marriage is not necessary this time. I’ve not yet depleted Lord Winter’s settlement. This is simply a search for information. I believe they are engaging St. John in some business. I want you to discover what it is they want with him, and most importantly, who arranged his release from prison.”

Maria smoothed the bloodred material that pooled around her legs. Her two unfortunate husbands had been agents of the Crown whose jobs made them highly useful to her stepfather. They had also been peers of great wealth, much of which they left to her for Welton’s disposal upon their untimely demise.

Lifting her head, she looked around the theater, absently noting the curling smoke of candles and gilded scrollwork that shone in firelight. The soprano on the stage struggled for attention, for no one was here to see her. The peerage was here to see each other and be seen, nothing more.

“Interesting,” Maria murmured, recalling a sketch of the popular pirate. Uncommon handsome he was, and as deadly as she. His exploits were widely bandied, some tales so outrageous she knew they could not possibly be true. St. John was discussed with intemperate eagerness, and there were wagers aplenty on how long he could escape the noose.

“They must be desperate indeed to spare him. All these years they have searched for the irrefutable proof of his villainy, and now that they have it, they bring him into the fold. I daresay neither side is pleased.”

“I do not care how they feel,” Welton dismissed curtly. “I simply wish to know who I can extort to keep quiet about it.”

“Such faith in my charms,” she drawled, hiding how her mouth filled with bile. To think of the deeds she had been forced into to protect and serve a man she detested…Her chin lifted. It was not her stepfather she protected and served. She merely needed him alive, for if he were killed, she would never find Amelia.

Welton ignored her jibe. “Have you any notion what that information would be worth?”

She gave a nearly imperceptible nod, aware of the avid scrutiny that followed her every movement. Society knew her husbands had not died natural deaths. But they lacked proof. Despite this morbid certainty of her guilt, she was welcomed into the finest homes eagerly. She was infamous. And nothing livened up a gathering like a touch of infamy.

“How do I find him?”

“You have your ways.” He stood, looming over her in the shadows of the rear box, but Maria was not cowed. Aside from concern for Amelia, nothing frightened her any longer.

Welton’s fingers lifted one of her curls. “Your sister’s hair is so like yours. Even powder cannot truly hide its gloss.”

“Go away.”

His laughter lingered long after he parted the curtains and exited to the gallery. How many years would she be forced to endure that sound? The investigators who worked for her were unable to turn up anything of value. Brief sightings of her sister and barely warm trails. So many times she had been close…But Welton was always one step ahead.

While every day her soul grew blacker at his behest.

“Do not be fooled by her outward appearance. Yes, she is short of stature and tiny, but she is an asp waiting to strike.”

Christopher St. John settled more firmly in his seat, disregarding the agent of the Crown who shared the box with him. His eyes were riveted to the crimson-clad woman who sat across the theater expanse. Having spent his entire life living amongst the dregs of society, he knew affinity when he saw it.

Wearing a dress that gave the impression of warmth and bearing the coloring of hot-blooded Spanish sirens, Lady Winter was nevertheless as icy as her title. And his assignment was to warm her up, ingratiate himself into her life, and then learn enough about her to see her hanged in his place.

A distasteful business, that. But a fair trade in his estimation. He was a pirate and thief by trade, she a bloodthirsty and greedy vixen.

“She has at least a dozen men working for her,” Viscount Sedgewick said. “Some watch the wharves, others roam the countryside. Her interest in the agency is obvious and deadly. With your reputation for mayhem, you two are very much alike. We cannot see how she could resist any offer of assistance on your part.”