“If you’ve come for a book, I should recommendPractical Horticulture for Cautious Households,” she continued in a tone too bright to be believable. “Lots of diagrams and no risk of fainting at all. Unless you are especially sensitive to radish illustrations.”
The stranger did not so much as glance toward the bookshelf. He was looking at her. More preciselyintoher with an intensity that made her knees wobble slightly. His amber eyes had the audacity to gleam, and the corner of his mouth curved in what could only be described as a knowing smirk.
“I see,” he said finally, “but if I may add, you appeared in perfect health not ten minutes ago, laughing, drinking punch and striking fear into the heart of an unsuspecting young gentleman whose only crime was asking you for a dance.”
“Well… he asked me to dance,” she replied with a shrug.
“Shocking.”
“I thought so.”
“Barely,” she replied, knowing that the longer she kept him entertained by pointless banter, the higher rose the chances of him not finding out what had transpired here. “Had he stayed another moment, I might have been forced to spill punch on him. Accidentally, of course.”
He inclined his head as though she’d offered a toast. “You are mercy itself.”
“And you are…?”
“Astonished,” he replied, “that someone of your keen observation has not yet deduced it.”
Cordelia narrowed her eyes. She was quite good at placing people, but that was, of course, when she wasn’t focused on killing them.
“A second son of something minor? You have the look of someone who doesn’t need to marry for money.”
In fact, he had the good looks of someone who could have any woman he desired as his wife, but she would rather die than admit such a thing right now.
He, on the other hand, looked genuinely wounded. “Only a second son? You cut me deeply.”
“Then… perhaps a clergyman with delusions of charm?”
“Miss, you strike with precision.” He seemed amused, and that, in turn, made her even more flustered for some reason, and that reason had nothing to do with the dead Lord Vernon.
She tilted her head in an effort to catch some flicker of recognition. Hewasfamiliar and yet not. He was like a face glimpsed in a dream and then misplaced in waking hours.
“You are not Lord Galbraith, are you? He smirks in such a manner.”
“No,” he grinned devilishly. “Though I suppose I’ll spend the rest of the Season wondering whether that’s a compliment.”
“Well then.” She crossed her hands. “Who are you?”
The man gave her an appraising look, one that lingered just enough to make her spine straighten.
“Oh, but a confirmed spinster like you wouldn’t know,” he told her in a voice entirely pleased with itself. “You’ve been out of circulation for too long.”
Her lips parted, but she refused to allow him to see the shock on her face.
“And yet here you are,” she said overly sweetly, “lingering in conversation with such a relic. One wonders if you suffer a taste for antiques.”
“Perhaps I do,” he said, stepping nearer. “They tend to be far more interesting… less eager to please, and more likely to say what they mean.”
Cordelia hated the way her pulse picked up. She hated, even more than that, the way his grin deepened as though he’d heard it. He was goading her; there was no question of that. Most men saw her as a cautionary tale. This man looked at her like she was a puzzle box he fully intended to open. All of that made her forget the dead man still on the chaise lounge.
Focus, Cordelia,she reminded herself, realizing that she was enjoying this far too much.
“A woman only becomes a spinster if she has the misfortune of being born clever and unmarried. If I’d been dimmer, I would have secured a husband by nineteen.”
“You give men far too much credit, Miss,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off of her for a single second. “We don’t notice intelligence unless it threatens us.”
“And do I threaten you?”
