Chapter Nine #2
“Madam,” he said cautiously. “Are you in need of assistance?”
Her blue eyes snapped in his direction. “Those wily bastards,” she fumed. “They not only did not sign the purchase agreement, they added another caveat.”
“I see.” Upon due consideration, he closed the door to the corridor, then clasped his hands behind him. “I take it the Bell & Company stakeholders are the wily bastards to whom you refer?”
“Oh.” The dimple in her right cheek winked into view. “I said that aloud.”
He meandered toward her. “You did.”
She huffed in annoyance. “I received this correspondence not five minutes ago. Assuming they had sent the signed and sealed contract, I brought it up here to read it at my leisure, only to learn that they…” Abruptly she broke off.
Then her expression grew instantly cheerful.
“Never mind. How was your day, Gideon? So far, that is? I suppose it is still quite early.”
Her lame attempt at changing the subject only served to emphasize the fact she wished to hide something from him.
He began to stroll the room, taking in the stacks. “Illuminating, and not,” he said. “Higgins informs me you made this chamber your atelier.” He paused to read a title aloud. “Forever and a Day, a novel by G.T. Arlington.” He shot her a glance. “A book you’re editing?”
“One I have already edited. It’s ready to go to print. If I ever own a printing press,” she added with a mutter.
He flicked a glance over various piles of reading materials then shifted his gaze back to her, arching a querulous brow.
“Always helpful to keep resources on hand to check an author’s facts. Normally I order things more methodically. I hadn’t the ability to transport my father’s and my filing system when I left Little Giddingford.”
“I see.”
“What did you mean your day’s been, ‘illuminating and not’?”
He paused his meandering journey. “I visited Mrs. Dove-Lyon. I determined she’s not responsible for the double-cross. I still don’t know who is. It turns out…” He smiled apologetically. “I don’t mean to bore you with my investigations. I can see you have your hands full.”
“On the contrary, sir. I find your deductive reasoning most stimulating.”
Stimulating. Yes. He found discussing the matter with her rather stimulating as well, though he could think of several other stimulating activities the two of them might engage in.
“Well?” she prodded.
“It turns out a rumor started circulating several months ago attesting to my having been present at, and potentially complicit in, the arms’ sale to the French. Further speculation held my ship had been hit and sunk.”
“In that case, it is perfectly reasonable Mrs. Dove-Lyon suspected you might have died.” She tapped her chin with the seemingly forgotten papers. “If you think about it, sir, by setting our wedding date when she did, she provided you with an alibi should you be alive and on the run.”
He stared at her, awed. She had worked out the possibility in no time flat. His bluestocking, fake wife might possibly be one of the most intelligent women he’d ever chanced to meet.
At the very least, she took the prize for the most quick thinking.
“Have I said something wrong?”
He tore his gaze off of her. “Not at all. That is precisely what the crafty Black Widow claimed to have done.” He continued along his path toward the desk at the window. A quill, an inkstand, and a mound of leather-bound notebooks littered its surface.
Abruptly, she crossed the chamber to stand before him. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked in a breathless rush.
Less than a foot separated them, making it impossible for him to miss the smudge of black ink running from the tip of her pert little nose to just above her lush upper lip.
Before considering his actions, he grasped her jaw loosely with his fingers, and ran the pad of his thumb over the streak.
It was a mistake. Her skin was smooth as satin, her upper lip plump with just the right firmness.
Her silent gasp called to mind an altogether different venue, one involving his bed, and the two of them in flagrant dishabille. Everything in him went hot and tight with exquisite need. Holy Mother of God. He wanted her.
He jerked his hand back and raked his fingers through his hair. “Apologies,” he muttered. “You have…had a mark.”
Needing to put some distance between them, he made to step around her. The blasted woman sidestepped at the same moment, this time bringing them toe to toe. So close he could smell her sweet feminine scent—a combination of floral soap and lemon shampoo and something uniquely Gwen.
The top of her head came to just below his chin. He could feel her breath on his cheek, could practically count the thick, golden-brown lashes that framed her impossibly blue eyes.
Blue eyes wide with…awareness. He knew the signs like he knew his own name. The number of women’s heavy-lidded, dazed expressions aimed at him over the years qualified him as an expert.
But none of them had been Gwen. None of them had her maddening mixture of sensuality-meets-bluestocking. None of them made him feel like a rakehell debauching an innocent, either—not that she was one. Hell, she was a twenty-nine-year-old widow.
Her gaze fluttered to his mouth.
His cock reacted as if she regarded it, stiffening and fighting the restraints of his garments. The desire to back her into the desk she’d commandeered, lift her dull skirts, and sink himself into her slammed through him.
Our marriage will be in name only. Her words replayed in his head like a taunt. Had she meant those words? The look she gave him said otherwise, but still…
He backed deliberately away from her, searching his mind for a neutral topic to latch onto. Something involving anything other than tumbling his pretend wife on a desk covered in books and bathed in sunlight.
“Apologies, again,” he said gruffly. Although, come to think of it, she had been the one to step into his path—twice. Why had she? Unfortunately, he did not think she meant to seduce him.
A quick scan of her person offered no insight. Then, he noted the papers still fisted in her hand. Instinct told him not to waste time asking to see them. He simply reached out and took them.
“Sir,” she protested. “Return those, at once.”
He ignored her and skimmed the body of text. “Bloody hell,” he growled. “It’s because of me. They caught wind of the rumors about me.”