Page 37 of If the Slipper Fits
Saying nothing, Caden held her fast, one arm around her waist as the other reached past her to close the door with a soft click. Grasping her shoulders, he turned her to face him.
His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “Your level of competitiveness astounds me, Mrs. Jones. Not to worry. They’ll soon pass by.”
But they wouldn’t. Of course they wouldn’t. Not with Lord Hardasher hunting her. Did he work for the Yard?
She grabbed his hand to drag him from the door toward the sitting area on the furthest side of the room. “Caden, who is Lord Hardasher?” she whispered. “How do you know him?”
He frowned down at her. “Hardasher? Not well. He holds a minor title. A baronetage, I think? I met him some time ago—at my club, or perhaps a house party. I can’t recall precisely where. Why?” Suspicion laced the one-word question.
She twisted her hands in front of her. “That’s all? You did introduce us.”
Caden’s eyes narrowed. “Has he approached you? Propositioned you in some way?”
“N-no. N-not precisely.” Damn her quavering voice.
Concern softened his face. He grasped her shoulders in a warm, gentle grip. Abruptly his expression changed to one of alarm. “What the devil? Anna, you’re shaking. What’s this about?”
She searched her mind for a plausible answer and willed her tremors to desist. Nothing came to her and, if anything, her trembling increased.
“Anna?” he prodded, his voice quiet steel. “Tell me, or by God, I will leave this room and drag the answer out of Hardasher himself.”
She gripped his waistcoat lapels intending to hold him in place by any means necessary. “No. Lord Hardasher has done nothing untoward. I-I’m competitive, as you said.”
“A competitive streak doesn’t explain your trembling, Anna.”
“I’ve caught a chill.” In truth, sweat trickled down her back, but she soldiered on, her words coming faster and faster. “If anyone has given me pause, it’s you, tossing my given name around willy nilly. I don’t recall giving you leave. I ne—”
Only Caden’s sharp, “Anna,” cut off her rapid-fire speech. Or babbling, depending on one’s perspective.
He drew her to the settee. Dark pink velvet, she noted, dazed, as he pressed her onto the bench.
Just as well. Her legs wouldn’t hold her upright much longer. She stared at the door, dread hollowing out her insides. Any minute now, Lord Hardasher would burst in. And then what would she do?
Caden stood before her, hands at his hips. “I’d like to point out, you were the first to use my Christian name, by the by.”
She dragged her gaze from the door to Caden.
He studied her, jaw clenched. He bore the comportment of one who’d made-up his mind about something and expected resistance.
God, now what? She couldn’t think straight as it was.
“I have an alternate question,Anna. Rather than ask whyIused your given name,Anna, why are you?”
The over-stressing of her name, accompanied by the certainty she read in his eyes, penetrated in an instant. Her blood turned to ice. He knew. He’d known all along. She’d had it all wrong. Caden, not Hardasher, hunted her.
Or perhaps they hunted in tandem.
It explained everything. His undeterred interest in her. His questions.
She’d walked right into a trap, lured by irresistible bait—Caden Thurgood.
She decided to play dumb and buy herself a little time to think. “What other name would I use?”
He gave her an almost pitying look. “Miss Gloriana Masters, perhaps? Or Mrs. Gloriana Jones, your married name—assuming you are, in fact, widowed. But you’re not who you’re pretending to be.”
She blinked rapidly, batting back a wave not of panic, but pain. Caden meant to betray her? She could hardly fathom the notion. Never mind she’d been lying to him. But that’d been for his own good, to keep him from becoming embroiled in her mess.
What was his plan, she wondered, bitterness swamping her? To drag a confession out of her and deliver her to the magistrate? She would not go without a fight. She glanced around the room. The door was her only means of exit, unless she wanted to dive through panes of glass, but there went any hope of subtlety.
