She was attempting to turn it around and put him on the back foot. Well… “Try again.”
Her hands clasped before her, her knuckles gone white with tension. She understood she wasn’t leaving this room without a confession. “I write.”
“Clearly.”
“For a few turf rags.”
“Hair experiments gone wrong don’t fall within the purview of turf rags.Try again.”
She attempted an indifferent shrug. “I pepper in a few society morsels from time to time.”
Here, Dev’s sharp eye proved useful, for he saw straight through her words to what she was really saying. “The daughter of a marquess is a grubby, gossipmongering newshound.”
She opened her mouth—then snapped it shut. She managed on a croak, “It’s a lark.”
Which was a lie.
This woman didn’tlarkabout.
He shifted forward and extended the journal across the table. It took her only the split of a second to realize he was returning it to her before she snatched it away and held it behind her in tightly clasped hands. Her stance in combination with her white muslin gown conjured a vision of innocence.
Which she wasn’t.
Actually, he had no doubt she was an innocent in the carnal sense, but she’d intruded into his rooms, which placed her in an undefinable in-between space.
Before him in her innocent pose stood a different sort of lady, and…
He was intrigued.
He reached for the box on the table and slid off the lid.Chocolates.In truth, he hadn’t much of a taste for sweets, but the hotel liked to provide him with small offerings every so often, which he took home to Primrose Hill every week. Mama liked the caramels best.
“Is that all, then?” asked Lady Beatrix.
He glanced up, ready to inform her it would beallwhen he said it wasall, but he caught something in her eyes and the words arrested in his mouth. If he wasn’t very mistaken, that was the specific gleam of…hunger.
On impulse, he took a chocolate between forefinger and thumb. “Forgive my sweet tooth.” He bit down on a chocolate and even groaned for effect. “Do you care for chocolate?”
“A bit.”
Dev extended the box. “Have one.”
Temptation beckoned.
She angled slightly forward, poised on the verge of accepting…
Then she blinked, and her shoulders squared. “It’s not proper for me to be in your rooms.”
He snorted. The woman had some audacity. “For a variety of reasons, in fact. The first being that you weren’t invited.”
Again, he scented opportunity in the air.
Now.
This was the moment to push it.
“What would you donotto be arrested?” he asked, mildly, as if he were inquiring about the weather.
A response took her only a moment. “Just about anything.”
