was being manhandled by some guy who may or may not be the stalker the FBI had warned her about. A stalker who was after Claire.
“You will end up with me,” he said, his voice a low, but confident promise.
She forced a girlish giggle. If he was the stalker, maybe a different persona would throw him off. He hadn’t come here expecting to find a pliant, vapid ingénue on the prowl for a man. He’d expected Claire Lécuyer—who was, in all ways, the complete opposite.
“Is that so?” she asked, her tone seemingly unconcerned. “But you have not yet negotiated my willingness to end up with you. Have you not been schooled in the ways of Nouvelle Placage?”
Around them, men in impeccable top coats and breeches circled the room, calculating and assessing their more-than-willing prey. From behind painted fans, women in decadent, empire-waist gowns flirted and fawned, hot with anticipation for a lover who’d soon devour them with unbridled desire and deep, deep pockets.
If not for the strains of a lively quadrille and the overpowering scent of candle wax, a stranger might mistake the scene for a modern-day masquerade. But this place was more than costumes and characters—this was the gilded antechamber into a dark and scintillating world. Claire had busted her ass to get in to this guarded community and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let some mystery man derail her, no matter who he was. Maybe he was just an attendee who’d missed orientation. Or maybe he was the stalker.
Didn’t matter. She wasn’t dealing with her own problems until she completed her case.
“Perhaps I should call Monsieur Masterson to remind you of how things are done here?” she suggested, invoking the obviously fake name of the man who seemed to be in charge. Unfortunately, he was nowhere in sight.
“I know all the rules, Ms. Lécuyer,” the mystery man assured her. “But like you, I believe that some rules are made to be broken.”
She pretended to laugh, hoping to shake off her fear. “Your overconfidence does you no credit, sir. But if you are so intent on having me, perhaps you should begin by telling me who you—”
He cut off her inquiry by tightening his grip.
“You thought you’d be safe here, didn’t you?” While one hand held her immobile, the other trailed up the back of her gown, brushing the beribboned stays with exquisite slowness, as if he savored a chance to untie each and every one. “You thought you could protect yourself.”
Unexpectedly, his breath was tinged with the sweet scent of mint and creamy café au lait.
“You haven’t yet proven otherwise, sir,” she whispered.
Swallowing her fear, she’d pushed out the reply with a bold confidence that was only half-sincere. She didn’t know very much about the man who was after her. The local FBI agents had only told her to go someplace safe and wait for contact by the lead agent who was on his way from California. Since she only had the weekend to find Josslyn Granger among the attendees of Nouvelle Placage, she’d figured it was as safe a place as any.
She’d had to call in quite a few favors from her days at Vice to even get in here. She’d had to pay the dues, buy the clothes, endure the orientation, all in her bid to find a woman she knew was here somewhere, but who’d yet to show. She hadn’t imagined some wacked-out sicko who’d last been spotted in California would go to so much trouble to follow her.
But maybe she was wrong.
She moved her head just enough to catch a glimpse of her captor. His startling blue eyes widened, then narrowed before he tugged her back into place.
“You don’t follow directions very well,” he chastised.
She snorted. He wasn’t the first man to utter those words to her. And he probably wouldn’t be the last.
“It’s one of my unique charms, I assure you.”
His chuckle was low, but genuine, and soothed her anxiety rather than increased it.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A man who caught you.”
He smoothed his gloved fingers around her throat and pressed gently against her carotid artery.
Her breath hitched. Damn, damn, damn.
Why hadn’t she listened more carefully to the local feds? The details she retained were sketchy. A special task force had put her name on a short list of likely victims for some creep who kidnapped women. He used the date-rape drug Rohypnol and incapacitated them long enough to act out some freakish seduction where he wore a mask and cape. Buried under by preparations for her own case, Claire had hardly given their warnings a second thought.
But then a black silk scarf embroidered with a scarlet letter Z had been delivered to her doorstep. She’d immediately taken it to the FBI, but refused their offer of protection and instead went ahead with her time-sensitive plans.
Which might, she admitted to herself now, have been a mistake.
One by one, she felt his fingers dig deeper into the skin along her throat. “One squeeze right here and you’d fall into a dead faint. A rather fashionable thing to do for young ladies of the early nineteenth century, wasn’t it? No one would blink if I carried you out for a moonlight tryst.”
His hand constricted, but not enough to spawn even the slightest dizziness. He was taunting her, perhaps even attempting to scare her.
And he was succeeding.
But she wasn’t going down easily. She shifted her elbows into striking range when he tightened his hold again.
“Don’t move,” he warned.
She bit back a curse. She’d nearly dropped her cover. The women of Nouvelle Placage came here specifically to be manhandled. If she reacted too much like a modern-day ex-cop and not enough like a woman on the prowl, she’d have to deal with more scrutiny, more questions—more possibilities for getting tossed out on her ass.
“Let me go.” She delivered the command with a honey-sweet Southern lilt, but though his grip slackened, he did not release her.
“Luckily for you, I’m not here to hurt you.”
Something in his tone sliced through her suspicions, along with the fact that he loosened his hold. Maybe he wasn’t the man who’d sent her the scarf. Maybe he wasn’t related to the FBI case at all. Her instincts kept returning to that possibility, and though her gut had often gotten her into trouble, it had never proved wrong.
Painting on a simpering smile, she turned to face him, chin up and eyes flashing.
She didn’t know him, but she’d seen him. When she’d first been paraded in the ballroom along with the other women intent on selling their services for the weekend, she’d become instantly aware of his presence.
Amid the assessing stares of the many men in attendance, his intense, sapphire blue eyes had stood out, causing a prickle of excitement to shoot through her system like liquid lightning. She’d immediately recognized the reaction. Lust. He was handsome, with a square chin and strong upper torso built more for helmets and shoulder pads than snug breeches and a fluffed cravat.
But just as quickly as she’d felt the flicker of desire, she’d dismissed it. This weekend might be all about sex for everyone else here, but she had a job to do.
Which, now that she saw her captor close up, was a crying shame.
“Of course you won’t hurt me,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “Unless I want you to, non?”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. He wanted to smile, but fought the urge. Well, that wasn’t the only urge he’d have to fight tonight. He might have set his sights on her, but she had no intention of taking a lover—no matter how hypnotic his blue eyes were.
“We should negotiate our expectations in a quieter place, don’t you think?” he asked.