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“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Her voice had dropped to a distinctive purr that had every single one of his nerves standing in desperate attention. “But since you have made it clear that you do not intend to help me with it—or anything, for that matter,” she sighed. “Then I suppose I can find a more enthusiastic accomplice.”

Oh, she didnotjust say that.

“Like hell you are!” he snarled.

Scarlett wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I thought I told you to watch your language, Your Grace.”

Language be damned. Etiquette be damned.

“Never,eversay that again.”

“Someone really should chastise you for your choice of words, Your Grace,” she chided him.

She patted his arm as if she was talking to a goddamn child.

And then she frowned. “But really, if you are not going to help me at all, why wouldyousay that?”

Hudson stiffened. How was he supposed to tell her that the very notion of another man looking at her could send him into a murderous rage?

And the thought of someone else touching her as intimately as he had? They would be most fortunate if they would still be able to findpiecesof the poor fool after he was done with them.

But no words came out of him. Nothing that could satisfy her anyway.

“I see,” she murmured quietly. “In that case”—she disentangled herself from his arms and stood up—“I had better get back to my bedchamber.”

Yes, she should leave. Now.Yesterday.

Never.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “How? The door’s locked.”

“Then I shall try again and again and again, even if it means I must wear my hands to mere stumps trying.”

So she would rather disfigure herself than stay locked up in the same room with him?

Had he been a lesser man, Hudson would have flinched at the bloody imagery. She had a frightfully morbid imagination and absolutely no qualms about flinging them around. She also hit her target every single time.

Blunt, but extremely effective.

He watched as she walked briskly to the door, and with a deep breath and an almighty wrench, the fickle knob turned easily in her hand. The mechanism slid so smoothly that Scarlett stumbled back in surprise.

“Well, it seems that even the door seems to agree with me,” she drawled. She bobbed a ridiculous curtsy, feminine anger flaring brightly in her eyes. “Good night, Your Grace.”

No!Hudson wanted to shout. Even his fingers trembled as his hand reached for her and caught nothing but air.

She had left the door gaping wide open in her wake. Only this time, she did not mean to walk back in.

And Hudson did not know why his heart felt very much like that door.

I should have known he would never agree to such a ridiculous proposal!

Scarlett clutched the robe closed at her neck as she hurriedly made her way back to her bedchamber, where she should have stayed the whole time.

Away from Hudson and the maddening game of tug-of-war he played on her emotions.

She closed the door behind her. Locked it for good measure. And then sagged against it, sliding down to the floor in an inglorious heap.

She heard a soft whine, and then moments later, a moist nose bumped affectionately against her hand.