Page 17 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

“I’ve had enough of this.” I turned to go.

“Wait!” Nicholas called out, and something in his tone made me stop. “I know you said that you didn’t want anything to do with me, but that was when – and please do correct me if I’m wrong about this – you were under the impression that I wished to make you my mistress. I do not.”

“You … do not?” I repeated, my hand falling away from the door handle.

“No.” He shook his head. “Forgive my bluntness, but I think we should get that cleared up straight away. I’ve never found the idea of keeping a woman anything other than distasteful.”

“But you said…” I trailed off, trying to remember our earlier conversation.

“I said that I had a proposition for you, and I do.”

My eyes narrowed. “Yes, that’s right. Then I believe you told me you would buy me a canary.”

“I said –” Nicholas held up a finger – “that I had never considered a canary, which was true.”

I shook my head. “I believe my original impression of you still stands.”

He pulled himself away from the edge of the balcony, taking a lazy step towards me. “Just hear me out,” he said. “Please.”

It was the please that did it. It was not a word I had imagined was in his vocabulary.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Let’s hear this proposition. Quickly, if you will. It is cold.”

Almost before the words had left my mouth, I found myself being draped in a thick, dark jacket – still warm with the heat of his body. It felt shockingly intimate.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, thrown.

He brushed the thanks aside, and stood for a moment, eying me with a speculative gaze that was disconcerting. It didn’t help that without the jacket I could see how nice his arms were in his fine linen shirt. The man could certainly wear a waistcoat.

“It is an idea that I think will sound … strange to you,” he began.

“As opposed to everything else you’ve said and done so far,” I said.

“What I wish to do is to employ you.”

“You need a dressmaker on your staff?”

The briefest hint of a smile touched his lips, gone before I could even be certain it was there at all. “It is not your dressmaking abilities that I require.”

“This sounds suspiciously like we’re coming back to something improper.”

“I suppose to most people it would seem that way,” he agreed easily. “I want your help, so that I can ruin a man. A specific man, in fact. Prince Stefan of Saxe-Illyris.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Whatever I had been expecting him to say, it was not that.

“I would like for you to convince the prince to propose to you, and then I would like for you to jilt him. Publicly.”

“Propose … marriage?”

“No, Miss Grey, I want you to get him to propose a game of whist,” he snorted. “Of course, marriage.”

“Lord Wynter,” I began.

“I believe you should call me Nick,” he said. “If we are to be co-conspirators.”

“Lord Wynter,” I tried again, more firmly this time. “I have no idea what you are talking about, or frankly how you expect me to get a prince to propose to a seamstress…”

“Oh, that.” He waved my concerns aside. “You’re not going to be a seamstress, are you? You’re going to be Serena Fox, the extremely wealthy heiress whose factory-owning father is in line for a title.”