“No.”
“You looked at my drawing? Oh, but of course you did or you would not have known to come here. And now you are probably wondering what it is I want and worried I mean to pounce on you. I assure you I do not.”
“Get to the point,” he said. The dressing gown was thick cotton, and for that he was grateful. He could detect no glimpse of what she wore underneath, and the collar was higher than any of the gowns she seemed to own. But seeing her with her hair down bothered him. Looking at her now, he experienced the same feeling he had just before an ambush. Did she mean to tempt him with that hair? He could not help but stare at it and wonder if it could possibly be as soft as it appeared.
“Very well,” she said with a huff. “I want to help you.”
“I don’t need help. Good night.”
“You need help reading,” she returned. “I am a good teacher. Well, I am not exactly a teacher, but I have spent some time in the church’s school in Bedford, and I seemed to be able to impart some knowledge.”
“The point,” he demanded.
“I can teach you to read.”
Ewan didn’t see any reason to pretend he could read. It would only make her talk longer. “No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head. He did not want to discuss this with her. With anyone.
“Won’t you even let me try?”
“No.” He turned to go, but she moved quickly to catch his arm. He shook her off. If anyone came in, he did not want to be discovered touching her. He took two steps back and felt the door against his spine. Trapped, that’s what he was. By a mere girl half his size.
“Did you have someone read the letter your father sent yet? I thought not. At least let me read that to you.”
“Why?”
She huffed out an exasperated sigh. “I already told you. I want to help.”
“If I allow you to read the letter, then our meeting is over. You go to your bed, and I go to mine.”
“But—”
“Not negotiable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stuck her hand out, and he withdrew the letter still residing in his coat. He placed it in her hand, and she broke the seal. She scanned the words with an ease and quickness Ewan envied.
And then her green eyes met his. “Oh dear.”
Ten
“What does ‘oh dear’ mean?” he asked.
Lorrie cringed. She had not meant to say that aloud. “It means this is the sort of letter my father would write to me.”
“That bad?”
She gave him a wan smile. “It’s not good, at any rate.” She laid the letter on her father’s desk, where she had lit a candle. Using her finger to help him follow along, she read:
“To Mr. Mostyn.”
There she looked up. “I think it always a bad sign when a parent does not use a child’s Christian name.”
The Viking showed no reaction to her observation. Lorrie cleared her throat.
“I send you no regards and dispense with any and all pleasantries. I write on behalf of your cousin, my nephew, Francis Mostyn.”
The Viking muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like “The bastard.” Lorrie pretended she had not heard.
“Francis informs me that he has, for some time, had strong feelings for a certain lady of unsurpassed beauty, grace, and elegance.”
She paused. “Do you think he means me?”
The Viking gave her a long stare, and she looked back at the letter. “Ah, yes, here we were: ‘a lady of unsurpassed beauty, grace, and elegance.’”
“You read that already.”
“Did I?” She gave him her best innocent look, the one that had worked with her parents for at least the first seven or eight years of her life.
“The lady has assured your cousin she returns his affections, and Francis tells me he has made certain promises to this lady. Much to your cousin’s dismay—and I must confess, mine as well—he reports that you, sir, have attempted to—”
She glanced up at the Viking, who was watching her, not looking at her finger on the paper. “Go on,” he said in a tone of voice she could not quite decipher.
“—have attempted to steal the lady’s affections and prevent your cousin from seeing the lady in social settings. Furthermore, Francis accuses you of intercepting letters he has written to the lady so she will believe his affections for her have waned.”
“Is that true?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” He hadn’t even been able to read the letter directed to him. How would he have known which letters arrived at the house directed to her?
But her father knew.
“Is that all?” the Viking asked.
“Er…no.”
“What else?”
She looked down at the vellum.
“With regard to the other matter we spoke of recently, it has been over a sennight since I sent and you took receipt of the accounts we discussed and in that time I have had no communication from you as regards Mr. de los Santos—”
She looked up at him. “Is that correct? The name is smudged.”
“That’s enough.” The Viking took the paper. “I know the rest.”
“What accounts does he mean?”
“I agreed to look into a financial matter for my father. But apparently that is of less concern than your affections.”
“I must admit I am surprised your father has taken an interest in my little love affair.”
The Viking raised an eyebrow.
“Surely Francis would not have asked him to write to you. He is his own man, after all.”
The look he gave her was full of pity. Lorrie straightened her back. “You imply Francis…tattled to your father?”
“I wasn’t implying it.”
“But Francis would never behave so childishly.”
The Viking lifted the letter and threw it in the fire. “Then why does my father believe I have attempted to steal your affections? Everyone knows I’ve been hired to protect you from unwise elopements”—she made a face at him—“and abduction plots.”
“But your father chooses to listen to Francis rather than believe your interest in me is purely professional.”
“He always has.”
“And I suppose now you will tell me that Francis bullied you when you were children, not the other way round.”
One corner of his mouth rose as though he were the instructor and his pupil had just stumbled upon the answer to a difficult lesson. His mouth looked softer when he gave that half smile, almost kissable.
“But the idea is there.” She pointed to her head. “Lodged in my brain box.”
“Believe what you want, my lady. I don’t give a damn.” He started for the door, ending their meeting and conversation as he’d stated he would do when the letter was read.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “What people think of you matters more than you want to admit. Just this morning you told me you were not stupid.”