Christ. She was fearless.
“Lying is a sin,” little George pointed out.
Mara smiled a little, secret smile. “Indeed it is. And if you do it, men like this will come and punish you.”
Like that, she’d turned him into a villain again. Temple scowled as a roomful of round, wide eyes turned on him. He spoke then. “So you see, boys . . . I’ve business with Mrs. MacIntyre.”
“She didn’t mean to lie,” Daniel defended her.
Temple was certain that Mrs. MacIntyre had absolutely meant to lie, but when he looked to the boy, he couldn’t resist saying, “Nonetheless, she did.”
“She must’ve had a good reason. Didn’t you?” A sea of young faces looked to Mara.
Something sparkled in her gaze. Humor? She found this situation amusing? “I did indeed, Henry, which is why I fully intend to make a deal with our guest.”
Over his rotting corpse. There would be no deals. “Perhaps we should discuss the reason, Mrs. MacIntyre.”
She tilted her head, refusing to cower. “Perhaps,” she said, sounding as though she meant the absolute opposite.
It seemed to be enough for most of the boys, but Daniel’s gaze narrowed. “We should stay. Just to be safe,” and, for a moment, Temple saw something eerily familiar in the boy.
Mistrust.
Suspicion.
Strength.
“That’s very kind of you, Daniel,” Mara said, moving to usher the boys through a door on one side of the foyer, “but I assure you, I shall be quite fine.”
And she would be. Temple had no doubt.
Neither did most of the boys, it seemed, who went, as though there had been no pig stealing or chasing or sparring or vaulting through the air or anything else—all except Daniel, who didn’t seem sure, but allowed himself to be filed from the room, looking over his shoulder the whole way, assessing Temple with serious dark eyes.
It had been a long time since someone had so fearlessly faced him.
The boy was loyal to Mara.
Temple was almost impressed, until he remembered the woman in question was a demon and deserved no such loyalty.
When she closed the door firmly behind the pack of boys, he rocked back on one heel. “Mrs. MacIntyre?”
At the pointed question, she darted her attention to the wide-eyed maid, still frozen in place at the door. “That will be all, Alice. Please tell Cook that the boys are ready for breakfast. And send tea to the receiving room for our guest.”
Temple raised a brow. “Even if I were a man who drank tea, I know better than to ingest anything you offer me. Ever again.” He looked quickly to Alice. “No offense, Alice.”
Mara’s cheeks went red. Good. She should be embarrassed. She could have killed him with her reckless behavior.
“Thank you, Alice.” The girl couldn’t have been happier to leave the room.
When she did, Temple spoke. “Mrs. MacIntyre?”
She met him head on. “Yes.”
“What happened to Mr. MacIntyre?”
“He was a soldier,” she said simply, “killed in action.”
He raised a brow. “Where?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Most people are not rude enough to ask.”
“I lack breeding.”
She scowled. “The Battle of Nsamankow, if you must know.”
“Well done. Obscure enough that no one could trace him.” He looked around the foyer. “And respectable enough to land you here.”
She changed the subject. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”
“Not enough arsenic in the scotch?”
“It wasn’t arsenic,” she snapped before lowering her voice. “It was laudanum.”
“So you admit you drugged me.”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“And, to confirm, it was not the first time?” When she did not reply, he added, “The first time you drugged me and ran, that is.”
She exhaled a little huff of irritation before coming forward and taking his arm, ushering him toward the room into which the pig had fled. Her touch was firm and somehow warm even through the wool of his jacket, and he had a fleeting memory of his dream—of her fingers trailing through the drop of wax on his sleeve.
She was unsettling.
No doubt because she was a danger to his life. Both literally and figuratively.
She shut the door, closing them into a clean, unassuming receiving room. A small iron stove stood in the far corner of the space, a fire burning happily inside, warming the piglet who had narrowly escaped certain death only minutes earlier and now appeared to be asleep. On a cushion.
The woman had a pig on a cushion. Named Lavender.
If he hadn’t spent his last several conscious hours in a state of surprise, he would have thought the animal strange. Instead, he turned to face the pig’s owner, who was pressed against the door of the room.
“I did not exactly run,” she qualified. “I left you my address. I practically—no. I definitely invited you to come after me.”
He raised a brow. “How magnanimous of you.”
“If you hadn’t been so angry—” she began.