“Let’s see, I have it right here, a Mister…” Gavin shook the folds from the missive he’d long committed to memory. He produced an unnecessary quizzing glass from his desk drawer and positioned it between his eye and the parchment just to make her sweat with fear. Even though Miss Pemberton was no longer in his direct line of sight, he couldhearher anxiety, as the trembling of her hand was fierce enough to rattle the doorknob. “Ah, yes,” Gavin said above the rapid intake of her breath. “A Mr. Neal Pemberton demands your immediate return.”
“No,” she burst out, abandoning the door to tremble before his desk. “No, you cannot. I—I cannot. I refuse.”
“Legal guardian,” Gavin repeated, enunciating each word clearly. “Surely you do not suggest we hold ourselves above the law?”
“Yes. Yes, a capital idea.” She slapped a bare palm against the surface of his desk. “Let’s hold ourselves above the law.”
The quizzing glass fell atop the parchment. “What?”
“I don’t wish to return. I don’t wish to lay eyes on him ever again, nor he on me. How did he find me so quickly? How did he know I was here?”
“You don’t deny having run away from your stepfather?”
Miss Pemberton closed her eyes and shivered. When her gaze again focused on his, a hollowness had replaced the usual spark. “What point would there be? You’ve a letter from him right before you.”
“A letter demanding your return.”
“A demand with which I have no intention of complying. He…” She paled, shook. “He thinks only of himself.”
“Yet you find no fault in complying with others’ self-centered demands, do you not?”
She stared at him. “I do what?”
“If you expect me to collude with you outside of the law, the very least you could do is be honest with me.”
“I am honest with you!”
“You said you were a friend of Miss Stanton’s, not a girl on the run from her stepfather.”
“I am both those things.”
“Are you? Are you simply the bosom friend of Miss Stanton’s as you would have me believe, or are you perchance a manipulator and a liar, presenting me with one face while conspiring behind my back to compromise me against my will to a chit I have no desire to be leg-shackled to?”
“Lady Stanton…is very single-minded.”
“Lady Stanton,” Gavin corrected, “is a bitch. What makes her a better ally than your stepfather?”
“Notbeingmy stepfather.”
“Were you aware she wrote a letter to inform him of your whereabouts because you failed to fulfill your half of the bargain?”
Miss Pemberton gasped. “Sheisa—I cannot believe—well, unfortunately, I can believe—but the party hasn’t even concluded! How would she know what I will or won’t do before we leave?”
“I have no intention of marrying the Stanton chit even if falsely compromised, nor do I appreciate your complicity in Lady Stanton’s stratagem.”
Miss Pemberton rose to her feet. Although still unnaturally pale, her chin tilted at a stubborn angle. “I respect that. I had no wish to make any progress in that regard. However, I would do anything to escape my stepfather.”
“I surmised as much.” Gavin nodded toward a chair. “Sit.”
She regarded him warily, as if half expecting him to pounce. “You’re not angry?”
“I’m furious.Sit.”
Miss Pemberton sat.
“Whether you wish it to be so or not, I have the power to send you home to your stepfather.”
“You do not,” she gasped.
