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Chapter Nine

C aden didn’t consider himself a particularly gifted man. However, he had been born with one notable skill his father would have paid dearly to possess. He could read people—probably explained his luck at the tables. Mayhap his luck with women, as well.

Now, leaning back against the wall in the chamber where Anna had led him, balanced on a precarious pink settee, he employed his gift, holding his tongue while reading Anna’s inner struggle over whether to trust him with her secrets—or not—all over her beautiful, expressive face.

Impatience tore at him. He was so bloody close. But he sensed if he pressed her even a fingernail’s clipping harder, she would turn tail and run.

He would wait. She would talk.

Muffled voices sounded from the hall and Anna’s already pale face turned ashen. Eyes wide as a doe’s, she stared at the closed chamber door as if the devil himself loomed on the other side .

Blood boiled in his veins. One thing was certain. He would make Hardasher pay for whatever he’d done to inspire such terror in Anna.

But first, he had Glory or Anna or whatever she chose to call herself to deal with.

The settee groaned under his weight as he shifted his weight. He crooked one finger beneath her chin and drew her attention back to him. “Calm yourself. I locked the door.”

Suspicion filled her amber eyes as they locked with his. She swallowed audibly. “You’re not…working with him?”

“Working with him? Working with him how? What do you take me for?”

She searched his eyes a long moment then surprised him by launching herself into his chest. “Oh, Caden,” she choked.

His arms banded around her. He hadn't a clue what she meant by working with Hardasher, and, right now, didn’t much care.

He closed his eyes, savoring her softness, inhaling the elusive, elegant scent ever-clinging to her skin and hair.

The urge to tilt her head back and feast on her sweet mouth screamed through him.

He’d read terror in her eyes, though, and still had no clue as to why. Why was key.

Clenching his jaw, he steeled himself against his weakness for the woman and allowed his arms to fall to his sides. “Tell me about Hardasher, darling.”

She slanted him a considering glance. “He looks at me. Every time I round a corner, there he is, leering.”

“But has he approached you? Has he attempted to…”

Her chestnut brows beetled in evident confusion. “To what?”

She couldn’t possibly need him to spell it out.

“To. What?” she repeated, articulating each word .

He threw his hands wide. “To seduce you, Glory. Has he tried to seduce you?”

She drew back as if shocked by the notion. “Why would he do that? We’ve hardly spoken two words.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or check her brow for a temperature. “Must I remind you this is a house party?”

Annoyance flashed in her eyes. “Your point?”

“My point is, you’re a beautiful, unattached, widow. Most likely, Lord Hardasher is simply after…” a bit of sport. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Something about the crass way they sounded, even in his head.

And about the way they hit a little too close to home, Thurgood?

Thankfully, dawning understanding lit her eyes. “You’re saying, he wants…” She cleared her throat, and her expression turned…hopeful?

No, that couldn’t be right.

“Do you really think he wants to have his way with me?”

She did sound hopeful.

“Is that something you want?”

She looked aghast.

His jaw relaxed and a smile threatened to spread over his face. Funny. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d been gritting his teeth. “If you aren’t concerned he has a romantic interest in you, what about Hardasher frightens you?”

She nibbled the inside of her cheek, never taking her eyes off him. “I feared he may have recognized me.”

The hidden identity thing, back in play. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned one shoulder into the wall behind them. The settee creaked in protest. He hoped it wouldn’t collapse under them. “I think it’s time—past time—you tell me what is going on.”

Her expression turned mutinous. Not good .

He summoned an encouraging smile. “Let’s start with the name you’re using. Mrs. Anna Jones. You’re a widow? That part is true?”

Her mouth firmed, but she did not bite her lip. “Yes.”

Not lying, then. An inexplicable stab of pure jealousy pierced his gut at the thought of her wedded to—and bedded by—another man. How utterly ridiculous.

Her hands fisted on either side of her skirts and her eyes turned pleading.

“Can’t you leave it, Caden? You know the name I went by as a girl, and you know who I am now.

A widow in the employ of Lady Wentworth.

As to the rest…believe me when I tell you, you don’t want to embroil yourself in my affairs. ”

“Anna.” He took her hands with his own, one at a time, unfurling her gloved fingers.

Her hands felt delicate and feminine engulfed in his large palms. Her diminutive size slipped his notice much of the time because she carried herself like royalty, just as she had as a girl, convinced she could snap her fingers and the world would rearrange itself to her liking.

Now, however, she called to mind a fragile bird with a damaged wing.

He had the inane desire to scoop her into his arms, carry her out of here and… what?

Hell and damnation. Until now he hadn’t thought beyond getting her to admit her identity and stealing more kisses. Perhaps more than kisses.

Sudden, fierce resolve filled him. He would help her.

He hadn’t lied about having experience aiding damsels in distress.

His brother’s wife’s recent situation had involved danger, intrigue, kidnapping, even attempted murder, and he had played no small role in untangling her from her snares.

Anna’s difficulties couldn’t possibly surpass Lady Kitty’s .

“I can handle messy, but I need the truth. And that starts with why you’re so concerned with keeping your identity secret.”

She pulled her hands from his and wrapped her arms around herself, her face a study in misery. “Please don’t ask me, Caden.”

For the love of everything holy. The need to move, to prowl, filled him, and he unfolded his body from the settee.

“Anna—Mrs. Jones—whatever you’d like me to call you. It’s clear you’re in trouble. It’s clear you need help—and I’m offering to lend a hand. But how can I if I don’t know what I’m up against?”

Her spine stiffened and her chin lifted a fraction. “I don’t want your help. I never asked for your help. In any case, you could not hope to extricate me from my”—she cleared her throat—“situation.”

And there it was. She doubted his capacity to assist her. Cold seeped into him, as if the room’s temperature had dropped by twenty degrees. It would serve her right if he turned his back on her and left the chamber right now. He bloody well should.

Instead a bull-headed resolve to match hers reared up inside him. He could help her. He would prove it—to both of them.

“Start with why you’re lying about who you are.”

She groaned and slanted him a vexed glance. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Very well.” She heaved a sigh. “If you must know, I lied on my employment application. After the death of my…” She broke off, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Gad, was she fighting tears? He hoped not, with every fiber of his being.

“Your husband?” he prodded.

She half nodded, half shook her head as if she wanted to move past a painful memory. No tears dampened her cheeks, thank God .

“…I discovered myself to be not only alone, but destitute.”

“Discovered, you say? You had no fore-knowledge of your depleted means?”

“None.”

“I see.”

A sardonic smile curved her lips. “A man in your position—”

“— My position?”

She waved a one graceful hand. “Being of the nobility.”

He rolled his eyes and carefully resumed his seat beside her. “Surely you recall I’m a mere mister. My brother and grandfather hold the titles. I’m a regular bloke.”

He sidelong glance proclaimed her unconvinced. “I’ll rephrase. A man of your background may or may not realize how few options exist for a female of no means on her own. There’s marriage, there’s scant employment, and there’s the street.”

He arched a mocking brow. “I’m cognizant.” He propped his elbow on his knee. “One thing I am unable to fathom, however, is how you landed in such dismal circumstances. Surely your father left you an inheritance?”

Masters had been a man of some means, he recalled. When had he died? There was so much about her he didn’t know. He thirsted for every scrap of information.

She pressed her full lips together. “Father did leave me well off—hence Mr. Jones’ proposal.”

“You’re saying Jones married you for your inheritance, squandered it, then died? What sort of man did you marry?”

She fixed him with a hard stare, somehow giving the impression of looking down the length of her nose at him.

Touchy on the subject of her husband, then. “I apologize. Pray, continue. ”

She licked her lips. “I knew I must find a position quickly, or starve—or worse.”

He nodded once, taking her meaning all too well.

“My particular skills—knowledge in horticulture and the preparation of medicinal tinctures—didn’t lend themselves to procuring a post. In short, ready work could only be found as a ladies companion or governess—if one had references. I did not.”

Unable to sit still, he rose from the settee again, jammed his hands in his pockets, and stalked over the rich carpets in silence rather than cast further aspersion on her late husband.

To have left her penniless, without the decency of warning her of her impending doom?

What kind of scoundrel did that? And how had he done so without her knowledge?

Had he gambled away their resources? He knew that sort all too well. He’d been sired by one.

“What of your family? You said your father passed, but what of your mother? Surely you have relatives.”