Anger flooded him like a fever. “We kissed. I saw you in your underclothes. Did we—?”
She stiffened at the question, waiting for him to finish it with the cold, crass word he’d offered in the dressmaker’s salon. The wait was as much of a blow as the word, however. She did not respond. And he hated that he couldn’t leave the silence almost as much as he hated the sound of his wrecked voice when he added, “Did we?”
I’ve never met an aristocrat worthy of trusting.
Christ. Had he hurt her?
He couldn’t remember it—if she’d been a virgin, he would have hurt her. He wouldn’t have been careful enough not to. He ran a hand through his hair. He’d never been with a virgin.
Had he?
And what if—he froze. The orphanage. The boys.
What if one of them was his?
His heart began to race.
No. It was impossible. She wouldn’t have left like that. She wouldn’t have taken his child. Would she?
She restored her bodice and stood, calm and collected, as though they were discussing the weather. Or Parliament. Refusing to be insulted.
He came at her, stopping inches from her, resisting the urge to shake her. “You owe me the truth.”
For a moment, something was there in her gaze. For a moment, she considered it. He saw her consider it. And then, she stopped. And he saw her mind racing. Conniving. Planning.
When she spoke, she did not cow. She was not afraid. “We negotiated the terms of our agreement, Your Grace. You get your vengeance, and I get my money. If you would like the truth, I am happy to discuss its cost.”
He’d never met anyone like her. And damned if he didn’t admire the hell out of her even as he wanted to tie her up and scream his questions until she answered. “It seems you are no stranger to scoundrels after all.”
“You would be surprised by what twelve years alone can do to a person,” she said, those stunning, unusual eyes filled with fire.
They stood toe to toe, and Temple felt more equal to this woman than to anyone he’d ever known. Perhaps because they’d both sinned so greatly. Perhaps because trust was not a thing in which either of them had faith.
“I would not be surprised at all,” he replied.
She took a step back. “Then you are willing to discuss additional terms?”
For a moment, he almost agreed. He almost turned over the entire debt, houses, horses, all of it. She almost won.
Because he wanted the memories of that night more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. More than his name. More than his title. More than all his wins and money and everything else.
But she could not give him his memory any more than she could give him his lost years.
All she could give him was the truth.
And he would get it.
There was a man outside the orphanage.
She should have expected it, of course, from the moment she left him at his town house the night before, sent home in a cold carriage that yawned huge and empty with his absence. Should have predicted that he would have her followed the moment she tossed caution into the wind and offered him the truth about the night she’d left him—for a price. Of course he would watch her. She was more valuable to him now than ever before.
The past was the most valuable commodity of them all.
The carriage had waited as she’d entered the house and stood sentry as she’d climbed the stairs and pulled back the bedcovers. She’d fallen asleep with the lanterns of the conveyance swaying in the wind, casting shadows across the ceiling of her little room, upsetting her sanctuary.
Snow had come overnight, its light dusting marking the first day of December, and when she looked out her bedchamber window into the grey light of dawn, she was surprised to find the carriage was gone, its tracks covered by the white down, and it had been replaced by an enormous man, bundled in a heavy wool coat, hat low over his brow, scarf wrapped high on his cheeks, leaving only a swath of dark skin and watchful eyes.
He would catch his death out there.
She told herself she shouldn’t be surprised, as he had no doubt been sent to stand watch by Temple, out of a lack of trust that she would remain in London and take the punishment he planned to mete out.
She told herself she shouldn’t care, as she washed and dressed and mentally prepared her lessons for the day ahead, swearing to keep Temple from her mind. The memory of their constant sparring. The memory of his kiss.
The kiss was thoroughly out of her mind.
She spent the entire descent from the upper rooms of the home to the ground floor putting it out of her mind.
Lydia met her in the foyer, a stack of envelopes in her hands and a furrow between her brows. “We’ve a problem.”
“I shall send him away,” Mara said, already heading for the door.