Page 16 of For the Duke's Eyes Only

“I’ve no idea the depths of depravity you sink to these days.”

“I know you, Indy,” he said evenly, ignoring her dig. “You wouldn’t have risked everything to sneak into this meeting if it wasn’t important. What are you up to?”

“Do you think I would tell you and risk having you take all the credit?”

“You know I wouldn’t do that, either.”

“I know nothing of the sort. I’m talking to the man who keeps the Wish Diamond in his private collection so that he can drape the necklace over his courtesans, when everyone knows that a diamond of such historical significance, formerly owned by Alexander the Great, should have been surrendered to a museum. You’re nothing better than a...”Stay calm, Indy. Don’t lose your temper.“An antiquities pirate.” It was the tamest insult she could think of on short notice.

He struck a swashbuckling pose. “Care to walk the plank, my pretty?”

Indy glared at him. “So you admit that your practices are unethical.”

“Can we please not rehash the tired subject of our ethical differences? What I’m more interested in is the improbable idea that you honestly thought I wouldn’t recognize you.”

“Youdidn’trecognize me.”

“I would have in a few more minutes.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“What are you hiding behind your back?”

Blazing blue bollocks.She’d noticed that he often directed conversations along one line and then suddenly, out of nowhere, introduced a new topic with the intent of tricking her into admitting something.

“Nothing.” She tightened her grip on the paper she held, the map that she believed could identify Cleopatra’s burial place in the region of the ancient city of Alexandria beneath a temple dedicated to... well, that’s why she needed to read the Rosetta Stone.

Was it a temple to the goddess Isis, or the god Osiris? The hieroglyphs on the map were faded by age and frustratingly faint. She must do a careful comparison with the hieroglyphs and scripts on the stone.

“Then move your hands where I can see them,” he said.

Flipping up the tails of her coat, she stuffed the paper down the back of her trousers. Another advantage to male attire she’d just discovered.

“See? Nothing.” She held out her empty hands.

He snorted. “I know you just stuffed a paper down the back of your trousers.”

She slowed her voice to treacle. “You’re welcome to try and find it, Your Grace.”

He approached her slowly, holding her gaze, stopping dangerously near.

There was no way she was going to retreat. There was nowhere to go. The stone was behind her, and Raven was in front, all copper eyes and sensual lips.

Broad, broad chest and flat, narrow abdomen.

Brain softening to the consistency of pea soup.

Body taking control.

All she wanted to do was rip off the itchy moustache, shake her hair loose from the confines of the wig, and unbind her bosom so that she could breathe more freely. Her bosom wasn’t heaving. Not in the slightest.

“Don’t think I won’t put you over my knee and pull those trousers down, Indy,” he said roughly.

“Don’t think you won’t encounter the point of my dagger if you try anything of the sort,” she retorted.

“Why are you here?” he repeated. “Tell me or I’ll put you over my knee and give you my own brand of punishment for breaking and entering.”

Don’t. Don’t even picture being bent over his knee. His hand moving to the edge of her trousers and tugging them over her hips. His palm covering the bare flesh of her bottom... blast her lurid imagination!

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