Because it was the truth. Shewaslovely.
Now that he’d told her the disheartening bit, it was time for the fun bit. “There is only one way to squeeze blunt from a swindler.”
She didn’t want to ask what. That was what her eyes were telling him, but how could she not? At last, she exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “I’m waiting.”
Archie smiled. “It’s simple. You outswindle him.”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about orchestrating a swindle.”
“It’s a good thing you have me.”
“I…have…you?”
“There are worse things.”
“Such as?”
He wouldn’t dignify the question with an answer. “Listen, I don’t have anything on the calendar for the next fortnight or so.” Or for the next year or so. “It’ll be a lark.”
Her eyes narrowed. He’d pushed it too far. “A lark?” she asked, incredulous. “You expect me to place my family’s future in the hands of a man who considers it to be nothingmore than a lark?”
He spread his hands wide. “I’m afraid you haven’t much of a choice.”
He had her. But he wouldn’t gloat. In fact, he felt quite serious about the whole thing.
And it was serious words that next flowed from his mouth. “I won’t let you down.”
The words did nothing to displace the skepticism in her eyes. He didn’t like that. For some reason, he wanted this woman to believe in him—to trust in him.
“If I fail you—” He thought fast.What to say… What to say…The magic words came to him. “I shall repay what your father and the others lost.”
A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “You? Why would you do that?”
Archie made himself shrug, striving for his usual glib indifference. “I’ve lost more in a single night in the hells of the rookeries, I can assure you.”
It wasn’t true, but it was what this woman would think of an aristocrat.
She didn’t relent. “I find that mildly insulting.” Her head canted. “What sort of a lord are you, anyway?”
“Not much of one. Just ask around.”
This pulled a dry laugh from her. He liked making her laugh.
“Truly, I’m your best hope for revenge,” he said, hoping that laugh had cracked open a door he could slip inside.
“I’m not out for revenge, Lord Archer. Only what’s owed my family.”
“But don’t you want revenge, too? Just a little?”
She was tempted to sayyes. He could see it in her expressive eyes. He liked tempting her.
“We can get your moneyandrevenge in one fell swoop.”
“And what do you get out of it, Lord Archer?”
Archie’s shoulder lifted in the unbothered shrug he’d mastered by age five. The one that led people away from truths he didn’t want to reveal. “A lark,” he said. “Besting Nestor.”
It wasn’t that these weren’t truths. It was just that they were small truths.
