He arched a long, inquisitive golden brow. “Are you my enemy?”
“No.” That was so true. “Never.”
“I did not think so.”
“Still, monsieur, you are a marquis.”
“Does that make me ineligible to be your friend?”
“No, but—”
“Tell me why not, madame.”
She stiffened her spine. “I am a foreigner in your land.”
“Yet not so foreign that you are not permitted a license to visit the southern coast in this time of peril.”
“That is true. I am quite harmless.”Except for the work I do.Her friends who worked in London had obtained that license for her. No official had asked to see it yet. For that, Giselle was happy. She disliked feeling different…branded. Yet what she created was definitely a singular product. Proud of it, she assumed no one else had her abilities or her unique task. Or so it seemed. Out of curiosity these past months here in England, she had searched London’s, Greenwich’s, and Dover’s book- and print shops for anything resembling her work. There was none. Only her older brother had accomplished the same sort of diagrams. For his audacity to show the real lay of estate lands along the Loire River, he had gone to La Force and died there. Those who owned large tracts of land and who had defrauded the government oftax money had joined together and deluded the government tax collectors, blaming her brother for fraud.
She stilled at the memory of his death. Now that he was gone, only she knew how to do this particular art.
To the marquis, she said, “I…I work for my living.”
“So do I.”
She put two fingers to her lips. His gaze followed and melted all her reserve. “You run an estate.”
“Among other things,” he replied.
She raised her face to the ceiling. She must warn him off. Frustrated he would not relent, she swallowed her dismay. “I am no one. I should remain so to you.”
“That time when you could be no one to me has passed. You’ve saved my daughter from the sea. You’ve made her morning a happy one.”
“Little doings, sir.”
“Not to me. Nor her.”
She snatched back her hand. “You have been gracious to me, sir.”
He turned cool, narrowing icy gray eyes upon her. “Do you refuse to see me because you have a lover?”
“No! None!”
“I know you were to meet a man last night outside the hotel.”
She sucked in a breath.What to say about that?
“And he left you waiting for him out in the rain, my dear.” He took her hand once more. “Will you meet him and disappear with him?”
“No, no. It is not like that.”
“Then he is…what to you?”
“Business.” Oh, why had she admitted that? “Business!”
“I see.” He relaxed, full of a rogue’s confidence. “So I may call upon you without a contender for your affections.”
“My affections, sir, are not to be had.”
