Read Online Forged by Desire by Bec McMaster - Free Book Online Page B

nights, kissed her doting father on the cheek, and slipped out the back while nobody was looking.”
    Garrett walked backward in front of her, his hands in his pockets. “He claims there was no one else courting her. The thrall contract was all but signed.”
    “Brumley’s old enough to be her father. If she had a younger beau, then he would be a secret.” Some of the games that young blue bloods and potential thralls played were carried out in secret, after all. She could well remember the little clockwork butterflies Moncrieff had commissioned to lure her into darkened spaces. A little code, just between the two of them during the initial stages of their courtship, when she’d been young and captivated by him.
    One would flutter onto her shoulder, and then he’d call it back to him with the beacon and she’d follow, slipping from the ballroom with her heart pounding madly in her ears… The thought made her toe catch on an upraised cobble. Garrett caught her arm as she tripped, and Perry grabbed a fistful of his coat, the nearness of his mouth swallowing up her vision as she staggered against his chest.
    There was an awkward moment as his eyes widened and they tried to disentangle themselves.
    The moment stretched out, Garrett’s expression strangely unreadable. Then he shook himself and graced her with one of those charming, insincere smiles he had in abundance. “Well, I’m used to women throwing themselves at me, but this—”
    “Don’t flatter yourself,” Perry replied, stepping away from him and straightening her long leather coat. The feel of his hard body lingered, igniting her own. Strike her blind, but she was no innocent. Sometimes she wished she was, just so she wouldn’t know what she was missing out on. “I’m a woman of rather discerning taste. Whereas you have none.”
    “Taste? Or discernment?”
    “Both could be applicable.” Could he see the flush of red in her cheeks? Perry strode ahead. “Come. We still have to visit the Fortescues. They’ll be slighted by anything less than the guild master himself. Let some of the men do the groundwork.”
    “I’ll send Larkin and Hayes to question whether Miss Keller had a secret beau, one she didn’t want her father to know about.” His brow furrowed. “I hate it when you’re right.”
    “One of us has to be the voice of reason.”
    “What would I do without you, Perry?”
    Idle words. But they froze her on the inside. “Let’s hope we never have to find out.” This time she darted ahead and held the coach door open for him, forcing a teasing smile to her lips. “Shall we, sir?”
    “Only if you don’t call me ‘sir’ again.”
    ***
    The visit to the Fortescues was no less draining. Garrett straightened his coat as he hurried down the portico, Perry at his heels.
    “Well, that went well,” Perry murmured.
    Garrett reached out and jerked the door open. “After you.”
    A long, slow look from those dark gray eyes. A ridiculous little game, but it eased the tension in his shoulders. He needed her for this. To help him forget the horrible way Lady Fortescue had started crying, those watery green eyes staring at him in silent condemnation, as if he hadn’t done enough to save her daughter.
    He’d never been able to divorce himself from the burden of the job the way Lynch and some of the others managed, but today had been worse than usual, with every little fidgeting move Lady Fortescue made rustling her bombazine skirts in a way that prickled beneath his skin. It didn’t help that a part of him saw only prey when he looked at the poor widow.
    “Three days Miss Fortescue’s been missing,” Garrett said, frustration leaching out of him, “and no one saw fit to mention it to us.”
    Perry glanced at him as she sat. “Not unusual if her mother thought she’d run off with some man. I get the feeling Miss Fortescue was somewhat fast, judging by the list of potential beaus we have.”
    “Lady Fortescue asked for