Page 46 of The Devil in Her Bed

“Impressive that you can still pretend,” she said with unwavering control. “You must feel like death has taken residence in your skull.”

She wasn’t wrong. “What did ye use on me?”

“You wouldn’t know it,” she snapped. “And you can drop your accent, I’ve uncovered your deceit.”

He stalled, sifting through his muddled thoughts to find a reason for his wig. “I doona ken what ye think ye know—”

“I know you talk in your sleep.”

Chandler froze. Did he? He’d never allowed himself to fall asleep next to a woman before. What had he said? What had he revealed in his sleep?

“Who are you?” she repeated.

Chandler could only stare at her a moment. Not out of fear, but of awe. Christ, she was even more magnificent when angry. Her porcelain skin stretched across a perfect bone structure with tension and determination. Her eyes glittered diamond-hard without a trace of fear. Her hand was steady, her aim true.

She could be Athena if she had a bow. Lithe and strong and deceptively dangerous.

He pushed himself to his elbows with great care and instant regret, if only to get a better look at her.

“I’m what you are,” he answered in his ownBritish accent. “I am a lie. A ghost. I am anyone I need to be.”

She snorted her derision, which was the last thing he’d expected, tossing her head like a displeased filly. “If you insist on feeding me these non-answers, I might as well shoot you in the head and see who comes for you. Then I’ll interrogate them.”

“You’ll get answers from none of them. We’re trained to be interrogated,” he replied with a flippancy he didn’t feel. “What did I say in my sleep?”

Oddly her gaze softened a bit, as did the white of her knuckles on the pistol. “You spoke of vengeance,” she answered gently. “Of loss. Who was taken from you? Are they why you are pretending to be a marquess?”

“It was nonsense,” he hedged, thinking that she’d never answered his accusation of her being as much of a liar as he.

“It didn’t sound like nonsense.”

“Don’t you ever have nightmares?”

Her jaw jutted forward, and a flash of emotion washed her face in anguish for a moment before it disappeared. “My entire family is dead. Why look further for a nightmare than that?”

Why, indeed?

“Tell me who. You. Are.” Her pistol cocked in the silence between them, a cold and final sound. “I will not ask again.”

She would do it. He read murder in her eyes. Such a foreign and troubling sight on such a slight and beautiful woman. Could it be that the truth lived in that pain? Could she possibly be a girl who once watched men in masks massacre her entire family?

The ice encasing Chandler’s heart cracked just a bit, as it struggled to reawaken something he’d lived so long without. Hope.

“I didn’t lie when I told you that I am a ghost.” To combat the indecorous threat of actual emotion, he pushed more insouciance into his manner. “I have it on official record that I’m dead. Twice, actually. A third time will barely make a dent.” He waved his hand. “Pull the trigger, if you must.”

Her frown deepened, settling heavily on such finely crafted features. “You’re saying you’ll not be missed?”

“Men in my line of work rarely are.”

“And what line of work is that, exactly?” She looked more triumphant than sympathetic. “Are you, what, Crimson Council? Is that why you’ve warned me away from Luther Kenway? Do you work for him?” She leaned forward, obviously excited when he’d expected some sort of anger, or at least fear. “Am I getting too close to the truth?”

She was. She was getting too close… to everything. To him.

His body stirred, despite his malaise.

“If I were such a man, wouldn’t I lie about it?” he asked testily.

Her fingers snagged his notice as they traced the line of her bodice, the beading rough, and the skin as soft as hand-whipped cream.