He Struck Her at the Ball, Never Knowing Her Husband the Duke Stood Watching From the Doorway

Chapter 2

Her blood went cold in a single beat, as though someone had opened a window onto January.

Vivienne turned slowly, without haste, because haste was a thing prey did.

He had come out of the dark beside the fireplace with his brandy glass held level and his shoulder set to the path between her and the door. Two years had done their work on Percival Greave, Viscount Rotherby. The tailor was still faultless. The blond hair was still swept back with that careless perfection that had once made a nineteen-year-old girl in a garden at Ravensmere forget to finish her sentence. But the skin beneath his eyes had gone thin and papery, and the smell coming off his coat was not French cologne. It was stale wine and the smoke of gambling hells, the sort of smoke that gets into wool and stays there like shame.