She shook her head.
“Then. I suppose it’s time for me to identify little Miss Robina toThe Whispers of the Tonfor the scandalous sister that she is.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would. She drew me in the nude.”
“You can’t do that. It will ruin her.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t ruin her?” He demanded, his tone full of self-righteous affront.
She looked down at the ground between them and said in a whisper, “Because it was me, not Robbi.”
“I’m sorry.” He tilted his head. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”
Steeling her mettle, she glared up at the largest man she’d ever seen in her life. “I said, because it was me. I was the one spying on you in your bath. I’m the one who drew the picture.”
He stood up to his full height, a slow satisfied grin spreading across his face. “I knew it.”
“What do you mean, you knew it?”
“I mean, I knew it. I found a strand of your hair on my rug.”
She snorted. “That could be one of your maid’s hairs or your mistress’s hair.”
His ridiculously handsome face was still smug with male superiority. “I don’t have a mistress, and I don’t know a woman alive with hair the color of yours.”
She would not acknowledge the leap of her stupid heart upon hearing his confession of not keeping a mistress. She had no doubt it was a temporary status. Besides, she had more pressingmatters to worry about than his current lover. “Fine. I told you it was me. What will it take for you to not ruin me?”
The spy returned, all business, with a touch of arrogant pride. “You’re going to work for me.”
“I think you just proved I am not cut out to be a spy.”
“As an artist,” he qualified.
“I draw the line at doing lascivious art for men to gawk at.”
He laughed dryly. “You draw naked men for the entire world to ogle.”
“London is hardly the entire world, and you were the only nude model.”
“A modelagreesto being the subject of a piece of art. I did not. That is why I’m calling in the debt you owe me. I need an artist to draw images of suspects who victims describe. I want to distribute those images to identify criminals and put them behind bars.”
She looked at him skeptically. “I’m not that good of an artist.”
“You are the best artist I've seen in a very long time.”
A sense of pride flowed through her. “You really think so?”
He closed his eyes momentarily, leaned over and said, in a tone that could not be mistaken as anything but an order, “You will be at my office at 9 a.m. sharp every other day unless I send word I need you sooner.”
“That’s not possible, I work for my sister Caillen and Astley. I tutor their children every day from nine until one.”
“Then it will have to be at night.”
“I can’t go out at night! What about four o’clock?”
“No. That doesn’t work for my schedule. I will meet you in the mews at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, unless I say I need you more often than that.”
