His sigh gusted across the nape of her neck. “Cassandra. Once again, I must apologize. You were frightened from the attack this evening, and I….”
“Yes?” Why had he kissed her? He’d made it clear she wasn’t his sort of woman. Why kiss her?
“I wasn’t thinking.” His hands hovered above her shoulders before dropping back to his sides. “Will you be all right?”
Her muscles quivered. Did he think his kisses so incapacitating, or that she was so green that she’d fall into a swoon as soon as he left? She spun around, prepared to dress him down so thoroughly he’d be afraid to open his mouth again, but he spoke before she could.
“I can send the agency’s carriage around tomorrow morning so you don’t have to walk alone to the office.” His face creased with sympathy. “Having one’s escort assaulted and being chased would be enough to shake anyone.”
Her outrage flooded out of her, like air from a leaky bladder. He had been concerned about the attack, nothing more.
“I enjoy the walk.” She forced a smile. “Besides, as you said, the attack was random. The chances of something like that happening to me again are next to none.” But even as she said it, a sliver of worry niggled beneath her breast. The attack had been random, hadn’t it? She couldn’t see how she had raised anyone’s ire or even suspicion so as to provoke such violence. She’d done such little investigation so far into her sister’s death. Aside from the Bow Street runner she’d spoken with and Lady Stockton, who even knew she was looking into it? And she couldn’t see either of them trying to harm her because of it.
“All right.” Charles plucked his great coat off of the bench and shrugged it on. His shoulders looked even wider now that she knew how they felt beneath her hands.
She rubbed her bottom lip. He looked like he could handle any burden laid at his feet. Should she follow Lady Mary’s advice and tell him her purpose? She’d wanted to before, but asking for help hadn’t been a part of her plan, and she was very good at following her plans once made.
Charles shifted his weight, looking as conflicted as she felt. What was the worst that could happen if she told him? He’d have her terminated from her position for her deceit? She already had the agency calling cards and she could continue using them regardless. She knew the basics for how to conduct an investigation. She could make it on her own if need be.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He nodded and turned for the door that led to the stairs up to the main level.
She followed behind, her slippers dragging over the bare floors. She was a fool. She wanted so badly to unburden herself, to not have to follow this path alone, that she had been about to risk achieving her one goal in life. To seek vengeance for her sister.
She said her goodbyes and closed and locked the door after him. She pressed her forehead against the cool wood.
She had asked herself what was the worst that could happen if she told someone of her objective, but she had lied about the answer. After Lydia’s death, she knew that there were far worse things than losing her position, worse even than having Charles turn his back on her.
No, she now knew what the worst of life truly was. She needed to stick to her plan. No matter how appealing Mr. Strait’s wide shoulders or how safe he made her feel in his embrace.
Chapter Seventeen
The list of names was a blur to his eyes. Charles had read it three times already, and even if the thief had given his name as Sir Steals A. Lot, he wouldn’t have noticed.
His gaze slid sideways. To her. Cassandra sat at the desk next to his, like always, her lower lip sucked into her mouth as she examined the paper in front of her, a habit she had when she was concentrating particularly hard. No, everything about the woman was the same as always.
How he saw her was completely different.
He couldn’t believe what he’d done. Treated Cassandra like a common bar wench. He didn’t know her history, but in behavior and manners she was a lady, and he’d treated her anything such.
Except, it hadn’t been very ladylike when she’d rubbed her needy little cunny against his cock. She hadn’t been a proper miss then. A surge of pleasure shot through him, making his smallclothes go tight, that he could make the woman so wanton. It was quickly followed by a surge of shame.
He was supposed to train her in the ways of investigation, not pleasure. He dropped his chin to his chest. Cassandra wasn’t the demure, quiet sort of woman he’d always planned on marrying. A husband and wife each had their roles, and he couldn’t imagine Cassie would be content to stay in her proper place.
His gaze drifted to her rump as she reached for a bit of lead at the edge of her desk. He shifted in his chair, his groin tightening. Although it would be a bit of fun exercising his husbandly duties in teaching her the error of her ways. He did enjoy a bit of slap and tickle in the bedroom, and if his wife behaved perfectly at all times, well, there would be no need to have her across his knee, make her needy and begging as he reddened her arse.
He forced his eyes down to his desk. This was just desire clouding his head. As Cassandra was no light-skirt, the only way he could consider slaking his lust with her would be through marriage. That was the only reason that the words marriage and Cassie were in the same thought. What he needed to do was visit one of the clubs he favored. Sate his hunger with the right sort of woman. Maybe then he would be clear-headed enough to remember that a woman who worked at an inquiry agency wasn’t his idea of matrimonial material. It was time he remembered both their places.
“Which list do you examine now?” He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to remember what professionalism felt like.
“Hmm?” She glanced at him, but her gaze focused somewhere around his nose. “Oh, Lady Stockton’s.”
He arched an eyebrow. “We already looked at that one. No joke names on it.”
She bent her head, her neck curving in a graceful arch. “It doesn’t hurt to check again.”
A lock of her nut-colored hair escaped its knot. It drifted down to curl against her bare nape.
Charles’s mouth went dry. How was he expected to work when Miss Cassandra Moore was intent on luring him into sin? The smallest movement on her part made him hard. A simple breath gave him lurid thoughts of just what he’d like to do to her superior dugs. Holding them tightly together as his cock tunneled between their silky walls. Pinching their tips until they were pink and stiff and she was begging beneath him.
