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Phoebe waited, breath bated, but then his jaw clenched and, finger by finger, he peeled his hands from her arms.
His compliance should have reassured her, but her nerves were leaping, alarmed beyond being easily allayed. It was difficult to breathe. They faced each other in the darkness; he was blocking the path to the house.
“What were you doing?”
His tone was more measured, his words even, but the steel running beneath reminded her of what, over her recent interludes with him, she’d forgotten. His background, his links with the authorities.
She couldn’t tell him anything. Elevating her chin, she fixed him with a look that, darkness or not, should have had a duke stepping back. “What I do is none of your concern.”
He studied her for a long moment, then simply said, “Think again.”
His tone sent cold sluicing through her; the man facing her was the dangerous male she’d always sensed lurking behind his languid façade.
He scared her, yet…she knew it was him, that no matter the situation he wouldn’t harm her.
His gaze didn’t waver from her face; his attention was locked entirely on her. “I saw you leave the house with another woman. I saw you lead her through the wood and give her over to some men waiting with a coach—they knew you, and you knew them. You put the woman into the coach, then watched it leave. Who was the woman? What’s going on? And what’s your role in it?”
If she’d entertained any doubt over how effective he’d been as an “operative,” that speech would have slayed it. His tone was clipped, his diction precise, rendering every word an indictment, imbuing each phrase with authority and unrelenting pressure. More, with the promise of infinite unrelenting pressure until she surrendered and told him all.
Bad enough; simmering beneath his outward, clearly professional detachment was something not detached at all.
Something that set her senses clamoring, but as she stood in the dark, her gaze locked with his, her logical mind repeated what she’d already learned—that with him she was safe—and more forcefully reiterated that her business was none of his affair, had no bearing on their affair, or vice versa.
Regardless of any liaison that might or might not develop between them, telling him of her “business” was a risk too great to take.
“I have nothing to say to you, my lord.” Her words matched his in evenness, in underlying determination. “Regardless of what you may think, I see no reason, no justification, no relationship that necessitates my answering to you.”
Head high, she held his gaze for an instant, then inclined her head. She started to step around him. “If you’ll excuse—”
“No relationship?”
The words were soft, quiet…dangerous. His tone sent a dark shiver down her spine. Halting, she lifted her head. He hadn’t moved an inch; her step had brought her closer to him. She met his eyes across the inches; her gaze stony, she enunciated, equally quietly, equally clearly, “None.”
His brows rose.
Then he moved.
One second she was standing on the path, in the next she was backed against a tree. A hard hand at her waist pinned her there; before she could blink he caught her chin and tipped it up—and his lips came down on hers.
No relationship?
She knew what he was trying to prove; hands fisting on his shoulders, she tried to hold firm, to deny—but he’d invaded her mouth in that first instant and immediately set about plundering. Her senses, her wits—her strength. The strength she needed to stand against him.
Tightening her fingers in his coat, she tried to push back, but the tree was behind her, and he was immovable.
She gasped through the kiss, desperately searching for some way to end it.
Abruptly his lips lifted from hers.
Eyes closed, she dragged in a breath.
“Tell me.”
An outright order. She hauled in another breath, bolstered her courage. Opening her eyes, she met his—an inch away. “No.” She pushed at his shoulders. “Let me—”
Again he moved so fast her mind was too slow following; he plucked her hands from his shoulders, raised them above her head, and locked them against the trunk, manacled in one of his.
Fear leapt to life inside her, then he leaned into her—and panic roared.
