“A sensation?”
“Nothing you won’t be able to walk away from with a relatively intact reputation.”
Lady Beatrix uttered a dry laugh. “I have about six months before my place on the spinster shelf is official. A little sensation would give me a bit of panache, I dare say. But…”
“But?”
“But…how much?”
“How much?”
“How much money are you willing to pay me to create alittle sensationwith you?”
A fair question, but he wanted to push her and he knew exactly how… “You know, I could turn you in to the law.”
His words, however, didn’t have the intended effect. She didn’t appear rattled. In fact, she looked cooler in this moment than she had since he’d entered her house. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
She smiled and she shook her head, slowly. “That end has been missed.”
“You think?”
“I’m no longer in your hotel suite,” she said, the very voice of reason. “The burden of proof that the daughter of a marquesshas trespassed in your rooms would lie squarely on your shoulders.”
“The chewed-up apple core in my rubbish bin could bear witness.”
Her mouth twitched with a smile it was unwilling to release. “The apple had no business being that delicious.”
A sudden guffaw startled from Dev.Audacity. The woman possessed both audacity and a sense of humor.
A thought occurred to him—one he hadn’t yet allowed himself to believe.
This partnership could work.
“Five thousand pounds,” he said.
Lady Beatrix’s gasp could’ve been heard all the way to the Western Isles. “Five thousand pounds?”
“Not a penny more.”
She stared at him, aghast. “I would’ve done it for several thousand penniesless.”
“I want you to fully invest in the role.”
Her brow creased, as if she were only now seeing him for the first time. “You’re swimming in gold, aren’t you?”
“Something like that.”
But it wasn’t greed for what she could squeeze out of him shining in her eyes. It was interest—and curiosity. “And this is all for yourfuture progeny?”
Her skepticism was unmistakable.
But she didn’t have to believe him.
“I’m a man who gets what he wants.”
“I can see that, Mr. Deverill.”
