Page 86 of Cocky August Rake

“Go where? He isn’t here!” Rose lifted her hands, gesturing in frustration.

“No. He is aboard his ship.”

The Phantom Gale. The place Reginald considered home.

A chill moved through Rose.

Nell moved closer.

“Go to him there. Finish what you began.” She lowered her voice. “Make him drunk on the thought of you. Make it so he never sleeps without needing your body. Can’t breathe without needing your scent.”

Rose’s pulse quickened.

“Make him need you so badly that denying you feels like denying air itself. And then…”

Nell held her gaze.

“Tell him what you want.”

Rose stared at her, shaking her head. No.

But she already knew what Nell was asking of her.

“He needn’t actually manage The Domus. He need not even approve of it. He only has to leave it standing.”

The plan was a desperate gambit.

But it was also clever. Cold. And devious.

Reginald trusted her. He wanted her. He might even believe that he loved her.

And Nell was asking Rose to use every one of those things against him.

“It won’t work,” Rose said. She couldn’t do it. Could she?

For the first time, something shifted in Nell’s expression. A hint of…

Terror.

Rose saw then that Nell, much like herself, was desperately afraid of losing this place.

This wasn’t just about Rose. It wasn’t just about Reginald.

She studied the woman who had found her half-starved and alone after a particularly bad string of nights.

The woman who had brought her inside, fed her, taught her, and given her the first sense of safety she’d known in years.

Now she was asking Rose to do this one thing.

Rose swallowed against the ache in her throat. Then she nodded.

“Tonight?”

Nell held her gaze.

“Tonight.”

HIS LADY