Three Nights of Sin by Anne Mallory Page B

could kiss her. How he could stroke her. How he could do things with his fingers that would make her forget her own name.
    Her head tipped back, just an inch.
    He could play women like a violin humming a languid lullaby or a furious scherzo. It was his most honed and most hated talent. Most women were easy, needing nothing more than his looks to lure them in. Others required compliments or flattery. Simple as well. The real challenge lay with the ones who required a specific tuning. The turn of a knob, the pluck of the right string, the correct rhythm of the bow.
    What would it take for Marietta? A simple kiss? A caress? No. He had a feeling that while she could be lured with the simple things, getting her, really getting her under his control would be a challenge.
    He stepped away from her, the street and homes coming back into view. The bustle of the traffic—carriage wheels, horse hooves, shouts and curses—mingling with the clop of the pedestrians as they walked past. He saw the knowledge seep into her eyes, the rose creep up her long white throat and into her cheeks. They were in the middle of a crowded neighborhood during one of the high times of the day, and she had completely forgotten where she was.
    At sixteen he had vowed to always be in control. It had taken two years, but he’d never failed since.
    Challenge or not, she was within his grasp.
     
    The barrister’s office was located in a ramshackle neighborhood near the south docks.
    Marietta trailed behind Noble as they entered the building, still completely enraged at what had happened on the sidewalk. She was barely keeping her anger and fire leashed. And he had been smiling at her ire for the past fifteen minutes, which further stoked the flames.
    He turned down the hall and she gripped his tailored sleeve underneath the elbow. “His office is that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction.
    “No. It’s this way.”
    He pushed open the door on his right without knocking and walked inside. This hadn’t been where she’d met the barrister previously, but there he was. Hackenstay, with his scrawny frame and heavy mustache, lurched up from behind a misshapen desk. A tin box clattered and fell across the desk, and he hastily pushed a thick stack of fallen notes and loose coins back inside, closing the tin firmly and putting a trembling hand on top.
    “You must be Mr. Hackenstay. I’m here on behalf of Mr. Winters and Miss Winters.”
    Wariness passed through the barrister’s eyes, replaced by obsequiousness as he caught sight of Marietta. She hadn’t liked him before, gin-soaked little toad, and she didn’t like him now.
    Noble continued when Hackenstay didn’t respond. “I understand that instead of going through a solicitor, they hired you directly. Is it true that you took the sum of two hundred pounds from Mr. Winters and the sum of one hundred from Miss Winters?”
    Money that they didn’t really have. They had leveraged everything. Used everything. And for once Mark had been lucky at the tables. He’d won a hundred pounds. He would have assuredly lost it the next night if they hadn’t used it right away for the barrister. Money never stayed long in the household.
    Hackenstay bobbed his head. “For payment.”
    Marietta opened her mouth, but Noble beat her to it. “Payment of what?”
    “Consultation fees and showing up in court with her brother. I plan to help him until the end.” He puffed out his chest and rattled off a litany of empty jargon about how he would plead Kenneth’s case.
    “How much are your usual consultation fees?” Noble looked around the office at the dingy drapes, the faded rug, the ill-placed pictures on the walls. He sent Marietta a glance and a raised brow as if to ask what she’d been thinking to choose this man.
    She shook her head and gestured back, trying to convey that she had never been in this office. Hackenstay must have used the main office somewhere else in the building. It had been a long sight