Suzanne Robinson by Just Before Midnight Page A

him much. “Miss Bright, further conversation between us is impossible. Are you really so innocent?” When she furrowed her brow, he closed his eyes and swore.
    “
Christ
.”
    He turned away from her and stared blindly into the darkness. “If you value your honor, Miss Bright, you’ll do as I ask. Otherwise, it’s quite likely I shall throw you on the floor and—”
    “Dang.”
    “Dang indeed,” Cheyne said wryly.
    Before he could continue, he heard the rustle of silk and the sound of a door opening and closing. After a while he saw a figure in rose silk walk along the terrace. Miss Bright passed the window where he stood and hesitated. Their gazes met, but she broke the contact and disappeared into the ballroom. Cheyne remained where he was and rested his burning face against the windowpane.
    He heard laughing and realized it was his own. What irony. To conceive a lust for that barbaric creature, and in the midst of this hunt for the blackmailer. Not only was it unprofessional, it was absurd. He could have any woman he wanted. Had hewished, he could have begun an affair this evening with any of half a dozen married ladies who’d made their interest plain. Women had always made their interest plain to him.
    Once, he’d taken advantage of this power. For years he amused himself by making conquests of the most beautiful and unattainable women. Then he’d gone to war and learned that life was too precious to waste in pursuit of meaningless encounters and ephemeral gratification. He’d spent too much time fighting a Boer army that vanished into the bush, leaving him and his men to suffer in the heat and dirt. For a time after he came back to England, his wounds and the ugliness he’d seen caused a grief too deep to admit the presence of a woman. Now that the nightmares had faded, he had sought out a few ladies who had become friends as well as lovers. These women knew the rules—Cheyne’s rules. Nothing serious, no promises, yet mutual respect and courtesy.
    These rules enabled him to maintain a safe distance, a distance Miss Bright had just destroyed. How in the world had he lost his detachment? His anger. That was it. His anger had thrown him off guard. Well, it wouldn’t happen again. He knew his weakness now, and he’d guard against allowing his ire free reign around Miss Bright. The whole incident was simply a result of too much emotion. Of course. He should have realized this at once. It wasn’t Miss Bright’s beauty. She was hardly a beauty.
    Pleasing. He would admit she was pleasing. Especially her figure, and her face, and her midnight hair.But he’d been with women far more beautiful. And certainly he hadn’t been aroused by the lady’s charming manner. Matilda Bright had the charm of a Boer and the manners of a fishmonger’s wife. Her language was atrocious and her attitude disrespectful.
    Exactly. So there was little chance of a reoccurrence of this evening’s lapse. The whole incident was an aberration.
    Cheyne straightened and left the window. Having convinced himself of his invulnerability to Miss Bright’s allure, he was straightening his tie in order to return to the ball and elicit more gossip when Mutton opened the door.
    “What are you doing here?” Cheyne asked.
    “Been looking for you gov’nor. The superintendent wants you.”
    “Why?”
    “There’s been another death.”

    Half an hour after being summoned by Mutton, Cheyne walked into a town house in Eaton Square and past a pair of policemen in the marble foyer. He could hear the sound of a woman weeping in a room upstairs, and distraught servants in various states of undress hovered in the doorway behind the staircase. He went into a room off the foyer where several more policemen had gathered and found Superintendent Balfour questioning a hastily dressed middle-aged man.
    “That will do for tonight, Mr. Denton. Sergeant Notting will go with you and question the rest of the staff.”
    Balfour finished writing and closed