His Mistress by Morning by Elizabeth Boyle Page B

She couldn’t imagine herself ever sending him away.
    “Sebastian, then,” he told her.
    “Sebastian,” she repeated, liking the intimacy of it. “How did we meet?”
    He looked over at her, his brow furrowed. “You are an odd one today.”
    “Humor me,” she said, smiling as winsomely as she could. “Tell me how we met.”
    He shook his head. “Whatever for?”
    “I just like the way you tell it. Indulge me, Sebastian .” She let his name purr over her tongue, and it seemed to do the trick.
    “Well, enough. I won you in a bet,” he said as they wheeled past a grinning old woman selling posies of violets from the wide basket in her arms.
     
    “Quince!” called out a deep, sultry voice.
    The lady flinched and tried to duck into the crowd, but a strong hand clapped down on her shoulder and held her fast.
    She glanced around at the tall, stunningly handsome man who held her. Stylish to the point of perfection, he wore his burnished hair a la Brutus, while his azure coat only made his sky blue eyes look all that much more piercing. He hadn’t shirked on a perfectly tied cravat—a waterfall, she believed it was called—and finally, his long, muscular legs were encased in black Hessians that shone like a new moon.
    His beauty and perfection would have turned heads—female and male alike—if he’d been able to be seen, but Milton barely tolerated this realm, considered it beneath himself to be gaped at by mere humans.
    “Milton, you bothersome devil!” She tried to twist free, but his hand went to her elbow and he started to steer her toward an empty alley. “Whatever are you doing here?”
    He snorted in reply.
    So he knew about the wish. That couldn’t be good news.
    Quince decided another tack was needed. “Posies, my lord,” she said, taking one of her bundles and shoving it up under his nose.
    He brushed aside her offering and frowned at her. “I’ll have none of your tricks, Quince. I can only imagine what sort of deviltry you’ve doused those blossoms in. Tell me, will they turn my affections to thoughts of love? Make me more amenable to this disaster you’ve concocted? I hope not, since you’ve been warned time and time again not to play such games with these poor defenseless mortals.”
    She buried the violets back in her basket, hastily and with no small measure of guilt.
    “Now where is the ring?” he demanded, only letting her go once they’d reached a large pile of refuse. The stench burned her delicate nose, and she turned and gazed longingly toward the bright sunshine filling the street from which they’d come.
    But Milton stood between her and freedom, and he looked in no mood to let her pass.
    Not until he’d concluded his business.
    “Where is the ring?” he repeated.
    Quince shifted the basket in front of her. Poor protection, but it was all she had. “I fear that’s a long story—”
    He crossed his arms over his vast chest. “I have as long as it takes.”
    Of course he did. This was Milton.
    “I truly meant to retrieve it—”
    “You always do—”
    “This time was different,” she insisted. “I had every intention of arriving in time to gain it, but when I got there it was already gone.”
    Milton shot her one of his infamous arched glances, the kind that sent the rest of her kin into a panic, but she clung to her resolve.
    And her story.
    “The solicitor arrived before I—”
    “A solicitor?”
    “A fellow who assists in the law, a lawyer.”
    Milton snorted again, showing his disdain for the profession. Time had never given lawyers and their ilk a favorable impression. “And so what does this…this…”
    “Solicitor,” she supplied.
    “Lawyer,” he said, “have to do with the ring? Slipping past this fellow should have been no problem for someone with your proclivity for, shall we say, avoidance.”
    Quince smiled, despite the fact that she knew he wasn’t offering praise for her “talents.” “He already had the ring and had passed it on.