Page 10 of The Dangerous Lord

“What I wrote about you was true.” She attempted to match his calm. “It was a speculation, one I based on several facts.”

“Such as?” Keeping his gaze fixed on her, he rested his hip on the desk. When he crossed his arms—his muscled arms—over his chest, a shiver rippled over her skin. She truly had never expected to be alone with him. It gave her an entirely new perspective on the man. When she’d seen him in public, surrounded by his peers, it had been easy to dismiss the air of danger he wore like cologne. But now that he stalked her in Papa’s old study, it was anything but easy.

“Well, Miss Taylor?” he asked, jerking her back to the business at hand. “What are these facts?”

“Ah, yes.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The house in Waltham Street was taken by you over a year ago for the woman who resides there. She’s beautiful, relatively young, and obviously enamored of you. And her name is Miss Greenaway.”

Her one other point she kept in abeyance. She might need it later, if matters grew complicated. No need to provoke this fearsome viscount any more than necessary.

A moment of dead silence ensued during which she wondered absurdly if he’d heard her. But excellent hearing was apparently another of his qualities. He shoved away from the desk and straightened to his full intimidating height. “Those are indeed the facts. For the most part.” He paused, his gaze examining her with uncanny precision, as if to discover her weaknesses. “You did make one subjective statement: that she’s ‘obviously enamored of me.’ What led you to that conclusion?”

“I spoke to her in person.” Though that was stretching the truth a bit.

“In person?” An undercurrent of anger surfaced briefly in his voice before he mastered himself. “And Miss Greenaway told you she was enamored of me?”

A hot flush stole over her cheeks. “Well, not exactly ... I-I mean ...” For a moment, the mad impulse to lie seized her. But she had the oddest feeling that he’d know if she did. “To be honest, she wouldn’t speak of you at all. She confirmed her name and that the house belonged to you, nothing more.” She’d only said that much because Felicity had flustered her by taking her by surprise in the street outside the house. But the moment Felicity had raised the subject of his lordship, the woman had blushed and fled back into her sanctuary. Surely that sufficiently proved the woman’s status.

“How did you conclude she was ‘enamored’ of me?”

Her blush told me so, she thought. But he wouldn’t take that as proof. “She was very secretive. She clearly wanted to protect you from⁠—”

“Nosy gossips?” His voice rumbled with sarcasm. “I can’t imagine why she’d want to do that.”

She glared at him. “If her connection to you is innocent, then why should she hide anything?”

“Because she prefers her privacy perhaps?”

“Or because she feared your disapproval. You must admit you’re known for your discretion, for not telling anyone, even your closest friends, about your activities.”

Rubbing his chin, he circled her. “I suppose you’re referring to all the rumors about what I did while I was abroad.”

“Well ... yes.”

Thanks to his notorious reticence, discovering anything about him but rumor had been nigh on impossible. The few facts were that he’d disappeared from England at the age of nineteen, and he’d returned after the death of his father a few years ago. No one knew where he’d gone or what he’d done. Tales had ranged wildly from assertions that he’d been a spy for the French and the lover of a Spanish don’s wife to one man’s claim that he’d seen Lord St. Clair begging in the streets of Paris.

The point was, the viscount was more secretive than a priest hearing confession. And Felicity disapproved of secrets.

Amusement flickered in the gaze that locked with hers. “Which rumors have you heard? That I was a paid assassin? That I seduced Josephine after her divorce, and Napoleon called me out for it?”

She pricked up her ears. “Not that last one.” Good Lord, that would be quite a tale for the column. If she could coax him into confirming it, which wasn’t likely.

“And I suppose you believed every rumor.”

“Hardly. But in the absence of other information—like the sort you yourself might provide—what else would you have me do?”

He halted in front of her. “You might mind your own business instead of sowing rumor and gossip in your wake.”

“I do not sow rumor and gossip!”

“Ah, yes, I forgot. You make speculations based on fact.”

“I do what any good member of the press does,” she said loftily.

He snorted. “The good ones write responsibly. They concern themselves with matters of national importance. I hardly think Miss Greenaway qualifies as that.” When she started to retort, he held up his hand. “So you saw the woman, found out I provide her with shelter, and determined that she was my mistress, is that it?”

“It was a logical deduction.”

“But wrong.”