Page 21 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“Then I lie.”
It was offered in such a blasé tone that she very nearly laughed. She might have laughed, indeed, had she not been utterly certain that he had told her the truth. He might not wantto lie—but he would, if he deemed it a necessary evil. Perhaps he ought to be commended for his honesty regarding hisdishonesty.
“It would not be advantageous to either of us,” he continued, “for my association with your brother to be known publicly. If he has not mentioned me to you, it is because he affords me the selfsame privacy that I afford him.”
“But you areassociates,” she pressed. “In—business?” Crime?
“The precise nature of our association is not something upon which I am willing to speak. Neither is it germane toourassociation,” he said, and there was no hesitation in his voice, not even the tiniest hint of indecision that might have suggested a thread that she could pull at, unraveling his secrets like she might a row of misplaced stitches in a sampler.
Still— “Are you dangerous?”
“Yes. But not to you.”
She believed it. Perhaps because he had confessed an undesirable truth in favor of telling her a pretty lie. It only served to reinforce his claim that he disliked lying unless it was necessary.
But a disinclination to lie did not mean he would ever tell her the whole of the truth. It did not mean he would not stretch it, or bend it, or otherwise manipulate it to his benefit. That he would not dance around it or avoid it or deflect from it. Perhaps she oughtn’t to have cared. He did not owe her an honesty which might suggest a more familiar relationship than the one they had. But she wanted it of him anyway.
His steps were slow as he moved toward her, the soles of his shoes hardly making more than a whisper over the carpeted floor, as if he had long learned the value of walking silently. “Second thoughts?” he asked, as he placed his hand beside hers upon the desk. Their fingers nearly touching, but not quite. A careful distance maintained, while she considered his question.
A dangerous man, she thought. But not one without principles. Not one without honor or integrity. A dangerous man—but not to her.
“Tell me one true thing,” she said. “Just one thing that is not a lie, or a half-truth, or an obfuscation.” One thing to breach that gulf of inequity between them, when all of the knowledge was his and all of the ignorance was hers.
“One truth,” he said slowly, his dark eyes fixed upon her face. “All right, then.” He lifted his hand and laid it over hers, and she knew that her opportunity for second thoughts had gone. The heat of his skin branded her own. “Probably your brother is going to hit me again.”
“Why?” The question whisked across Emma’s dry lips. For just a moment she had the oddest sensation that she was the fragile little moth to his flame, perilously close to singeing her wings. “Why, when he is the one who sent you to me to begin with?”
“Because that is the sort of man he is.” A flat, bland statement.
“And you will…what? Lethim?”
“Yes. And, Emma—I damn well intend to earnit.”
∞∞∞
Rafe hadn’t expected to find Emma in Ambrose’s study. He’d arrived a few minutes earlier than she had indicated, but the terrace door had already been unlocked for him, and he’d let himself in to wander the house, expecting that she would come in search of him at some point.
His temper, usually quite well leashed, had already been simmering at thethought that even one point of entry into the house had been unprotected. Of course, a lock would hardly keep out a proficient thief, and there were many ways one might have gained access even to a house locked up tight. But leaving a door unlocked was looking for trouble.
She didn’t understand the danger she might be in, and he could not tell her. Hell,hedidn’t even understand it. He wouldn’t until he and Chris had deciphered Ambrose’s journal.
He’d expected to find her waiting upon him in a sitting room somewhere, or perhaps even in her bedroom. But, no—the light of a lamp had glowed like a beacon in the darkened corridor, there from the door of Ambrose’s study.
It had felt like an insult, a slap to the face, even if it hadn’t been a conscious one. Even if he had no right to her.
Ambrose hadn’t any right to her, either. Not any longer. And yet, here she was, in this place that had been his and his alone, surrounded by all the trappings of the man Ambrose had once been. Utterly unaware of her husband’s duplicitous nature.
By the tide of color that burned in her cheeks and seeped down her throat, he could see that she understood that he did not intend to exhibit any more decorum than he had the last time he had come to her home for this purpose.
Her fingers twitched beneath the pressure of his. Through the prim set of her lips, she managed to say, “Yes, well—my bedchamber—”
“No.”
Her brows lifted, arched high above those rich blue eyes. “No?”
“If you had wanted that, then you ought to have let me find you there.” He could feel the tension within her as he slid his fingers from the back of her hand to her wrist, pushing up the cuff of her sleeve with the motion. “Perhaps your husband was the sort that was content enough to creep into your bed beneath cover of darkness. I’m not.”
Chill bumps broke out upon her skin beneath the touch of his fingers. “He was—I mean to say—” The words faded into silence as she let him peel her hand from the surface of the desk, her eyes rounding as he followed the progress of his fingers with his lips. A shiver rippled through her at the scratch of his stubble against the sensitive skin of her wrist.
