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She nodded. “Firstly, to let him know I had arrived in London, and then again when I had a sore throat several months later and thought it best to avoid the possibility of George visiting me and later suffering with it too. What are you doing?” She frowned as Alaric carefully placed the letter down on the desktop before the fingers of one hand were lifted to curl about one of Grace’s wrists.
His gaze was now fixed on the base of her throat. “Answer the question again.”
“What?”
His nostrils flared. “Have you had reason to write to Redding before today?”
She frowned her irritation. “I have just told you I have.”
“And did you sign that communication as merely G, as the two of you have previously agreed?”
She swallowed before answering. “I did, yes.”
“You just lied to me, twice,” Alaric announced flatly. “There was no previous letter and you will now sign your full name of Grace,” he instructed mildly.
“But—”
“Arguments regarding my decision as to whether or not you are lying or telling the truth will only add to those consequences I have already mentioned,” he warned as he released her wrist.
“Without telling me what those consequences will be,” she snapped.
Alaric looked unperturbed. “Write your name in full.”
Grace bit back her frustration as she signed her name to the letter.
Alaric immediately picked it up and folded it before applying a wax seal to the loose fold at the back. “Now add Redding’s name and address on the front.” He waited for her to do so. “I will take this to the kitchen so that Stanley can ride back to London and deliver it to the earl.” He crossed the room and opened the door before stepping out into the hallway.
Grace contemplated whether or not his brief absence would be enough time for her to make good her escape.
Before she could decide Alaric came back into the study and locked the door behind him before pocketing the key.
Apparently, Grace wasnotto be allowed to escape just yet.
Which was not to say she would not continue to search for a way in which she might slip away and then find her own transport back to London.
“Up.”
She gave Alaric a startled glance at the terse instruction.
“Stand up, Grace,” he repeated evenly.
She eyed him warily as she rose to her feet, that need for wariness confirmed when Alaric sat in the chair so that she stood between his parted legs. He pulled her down so that she now sat on one of his muscular thighs. He placed one of his arms about her waist to hold her in place, the other hand once again curled about one of her wrists.
“How many lovers did you have before Redding?” he prompted before Grace had caught her breath enough to object to his highhanded manner.
Grace drew in a harsh gasp at being asked such a personal question. It was too much on top of the intimacy of being forced to feel the heat of Alaric’s thigh pressing against her bottom and his arm like a steel band about her waist.
“You will answer the question, Grace.” Alaric’s tone was completely uncompromising.
“And if I choose not to do so?”
He shrugged. “Then I will add one more to the two consequences you have already accrued.”
Grace glared. “This line of questioning does not appear to be in the least fair when I have no interest in knowing whoyourprevious lovers were!” Which, whether she wished it or not, after the intimacies the two of them had shared last night, she believed she and Alaric now were.
Nor was her answer completely truthful.
Alaric was so much older than her, and no doubt he had been sexually active for at least fifteen of those years. Which would make the list of his previous lovers very long indeed.
