Mistress - Amanda Quick [141]
Iphiginia reached down to pick up the note on the salver. She opened it carefully and read the message inside.
I love you
“Oh, Marcus.” Iphiginia threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed.
She ignored the clockwork man and ran, barefoot, across the room to where Marcus waited in the doorway. She halted directly in front of him.
He smiled.
“Do you mean it?” she asked.
“With all my heart.”
Happiness inundated her in a sparkling waterfall of light. “I knew we were made for each other.”
He laughed, swept her up into his arms, and carried her back to the bed. “You were right.”
“As usual,” Iphiginia said.
About the Author
AMANDA QUICK, a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of contemporary and historical romances. There are nearly thirty million copies of her books in print, including Seduction, Surrender, Scandal, Rendezvous, Ravished, Reckless, Dangerous, Deception, Desire, Mistress, Mystique, Mischief, Affair, With This Ring, I Thee Wed, Wicked Widow, and Slightly Shady. She makes her home in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Frank.
Visit her website at www.amandaquick.com.
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SLIGHTLY SHADY
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PROLOGUE
The intruder’s eyes blazed with a cold fire. He raised a powerful hand and swept another row of vases off the shelf. The fragile objects crashed to the floor and shattered into a hundred shards. He moved on to a display of small statues.
“I advise you to make haste with your packing, Mrs. Lake,” he said as he turned his violent attention to a host of fragile clay Pans, Aphrodites, and satyrs. “The carriage will leave in fifteen minutes, and I promise you that you and your niece will be aboard, with or without your luggage.”
Lavinia watched him from the foot of the stairs, helpless to stop the destruction of her wares. “You have no right to do this. You are ruining me.”
“On the contrary, madam. I am saving your neck.” He used a booted foot to topple a large urn decorated in the Etruscan manner. “Not that I expect any thanks, mind you.”
Lavinia winced as the urn exploded on impact with the floor. She knew now that it was pointless to berate the lunatic. He was intent on destroying the shop and she lacked the means to stop him. She had been taught early in life to recognize the signs that indicated it was time to stage a tactical retreat. But she had never learned to tolerate such annoying reversals of fortune with equanimity.
“If we were in England, I would have you arrested, Mr. March.”
“Ah, but we are not in England, are we, Mrs. Lake?” Tobias March seized a life-size stone centurion by the shield and shoved it forward. The Roman fell on his sword. “We are in Italy and you have no choice but to do as I command.”
It was useless to stand her ground. Every moment spent down here attempting to reason with Tobias March was time lost that should be spent packing. But the unfortunate tendency toward stubbornness that was so much a part of her nature could not abide the notion of surrendering the field of battle without a struggle.
“Bastard,” she said through her teeth.
“Not in the legal sense.” He slammed another row of red clay vases to the floor. “But I believe I comprehend what you wish to imply.”
“It is obvious that you are no gentleman, Tobias March.”
“I will not quarrel with you on that point.” He kicked over a waist-high statue of a naked Venus. “But then, you are no lady, are you?”
She cringed when the statue crumbled. The naked Venuses had proved quite popular with her clientele.
“How dare you? Just because my niece and I got stranded here in Rome and were obliged to go into trade for a few months in order to support ourselves is no reason to insult us.”
“Enough.” He whirled around to face her. In the lantern light, his forbidding face was colder than the features of any stone statue. “Be grateful that I have concluded that you were