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had already brought back one memory. It stood to reason she might recollect more with its help.
    That was the reason she kept it. No other.
    She moved to the desk and opened the top drawer. There were assorted papers and pens. A necklace… Where had it come from? Another trinket, like the ones lining his shelves?
    She shuddered, all at once assailed by phantom sensations. A blast of freezing water. Dark, wavy shadows. Sinking, drowning. Were these memories, too?
    “Looking for something?”
    She gasped at the sound of her host’s voice and slammed the drawer shut. Too late . He knew exactly what she’d been doing. In fact, the curl of his lip said he suspected far worse of her. He thought she was trying to steal from him. And why wouldn’t he?
    “I wasn’t,” she blurted.
    “Wasn’t what? You weren’t in my study, looking through my desk?” His voice was mocking.
    Oh God. She’d ruined everything. No wonder she had ended up destitute, having to resort to a life of criminal behavior to survive. Too curious, too impulsive. Impetuous , she heard in a strict schoolmaster’s voice.
    “Please don’t make me leave,” she whispered.
    He stalked toward her. No, around her, circling her with long, lazy strides. “Now, why would I make you leave?”
    Her whole body felt flushed, perspiring lightly into the crisp new fabric. “I just wanted…I wanted…”
    His smile was grim. “I know what you want, Julia.”
    Well, that was convenient, since even she didn’t know. “What, then?” she whispered.
    “You want information.”
    Her eyes widened…because he was right. How did he know? It unnerved her. She wanted information about him, for exactly this reason. He seemed to reach inside her brain, reading thoughts she kept hidden, finding memories left unturned.
    She straightened her spine and walked over to him, ignoring the knot in her lower belly. She raised her gaze to his. “Captain Bowen, I would like to apologize for my intrusion on your privacy. If you wish me to leave, I will depart immediately. And of course,” she added, “I’d leave the dress, as well.”
    His gaze fell to her body—and stayed there. Heat rose all around them, prickling her skin, as if she stood too close to a furnace. He was the furnace, making the whole world seem hazy and airless.
    A raging fire shot through every limb; The blood boiled in his veins…
    “You misunderstand.” His voice was low, a rumble of disturbed air around her, a heated breath. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m only asking you to join me for supper.”
    Oh.
    It should have been comforting. It wasn’t. Too much expectation hung in the air. The very kind she had feared. The kind that happened in the book, between a man and a woman. “And after supper?” she whispered.
    “Afterward, I’ll give you what you came here to find.”

Chapter Six
    Nate did not turn as she fled the room. The door shut quietly, so gently, before a torrent of footfalls marked her hasty retreat down the hallway. He had scared her. He wasn’t sure why he had been so overt. He could have frightened her enough that she’d try to escape again, and then where would he be? But he’d seen the truth in her eyes, in the rapid pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. She would attend supper.
    And afterward, he would escort her upstairs.
    A curious calm descended over him. After a decade of planning, of plotting, of gaining enough power that no man could ever threaten him again, he was hours away from revenge. For his mother’s life. His father’s. If he were to let those crimes pass unpunished, he would be admitting that his family had no honor, that their lives were worth nothing.
    He doubted she knew the history of her family with his. That they were enemies would be reason enough for her to steal from him. That was how the so-called Quality viewed the world. She was better born, better raised, and was better than the people beneath her. People like him. His privacy, his