He arched one dark eyebrow. “No? There were a surprising number of whores about if it wasn’t a whorehouse.”
She gave him a thin smile. “What I mean is you didn’tcome acrossme at all. That implies you stumbled upon me by accident, but that was no chance encounter last night, was it?”
“Oh, that.” He gave a careless shrug. “Yes, if you want to quibble over words, I suppose that’s true.”
She hefted the ball in her hand. Heavy. Quite heavy enough to inflict damage to a skull. “I find it helpful to be precise. Lies often hide in ambiguities, you see.”
A corner of his mouth turned up in a mocking smile. “I never lied to you last night. You made an assumption, and I didn’t correct you.”
Ah, yes. Julian always had been able to manipulate situations to his advantage, to withhold information while stopping just short of lying, and she’d do well to remember it instead of mooning over the way the sunlight framed his hair. “That’s a convenient distinction, Captain. Surprising, for a man like you. Not so heroic, after all?”
His expression didn’t change, but he stiffened, and something dark flickered in his eyes—something that made her heart shift uneasily in her chest before she shoved it back into place. “But call it a misunderstanding if you like. Tell me, do you anticipate future misunderstandings? I wonder, you see, if I should expect tocome acrossyou again?”
“Who can tell? London is a small city, Lady Hadley.”
“No, Captain. It isn’t.” A flush of anger heated her cheeks. “Last night you expressed a wish that we spend as little time as possible in each other’s company, and this morning I find myself more than willing to accommodate you while you remain in London.”
He indicated the garden with a sweep of his hand. “You’re doing a poor job of it so far, for here you are.”
She squeezed the ball in her hand until her palm began to ache. “My sister was disturbed by the news of my adventure last night, and she summoned me here today. I could hardly refuse to see her, could I?”
Another faint smiled drifted across his lips. “I don’t see why not. She’d rather you kept away from whorehouses as well, and you’ve refused her that.”
“Yes, and how convenient for us all you were there to rescue me.” She bit down hard on her bottom lip to control her temper. “However did we manage, I wonder, before the heroic Captain West returned to London to call me to account for my many sins?”
His gaze shot to her mouth, but he tore it away at once, his jaw going hard. “Are your sins so legion, Lady Hadley? I can only guess you managed poorly if you’ve committed such a prodigious number of them.”
A tiny shiver darted down her spine at the look in his eyes, but she managed a casual shrug. “Oh my, yes. It’s a great pity I’ve become so wicked, but then we can’t all be heroes, can we?” She smiled as his face darkened with anger. How satisfying it was to tweak the righteous, especially the smug, heroic ones.
He stepped closer to her, so close the tips of his boots nearly touched her slippers. “So you’ve chosen to be a scandal, instead? If you were my sister, I’d haul you off to the country and keep you under lock and key until you learned proper behavior.”
“Would you? How barbaric.” She gave him a taunting smile. “Why not just turn me over your knee and be done with it?”
His lips parted, and he dragged the tip of his riding crop over his palm. “Don’t tempt me.”
Heat surged through her and sent her pulse skittering madly, but she ignored it and stepped into him until they were toe to toe. “I’m not your sister, Captain West, or indeed anyone at all to you, and as that is the case, I’ll thank you to stay out of my affairs.”
“Affairs. Liaisons. Scandals.” He moved closer still so he towered over her, his broad shoulders shutting out the sun. “You did say you prefer precise words, my lady.”
“Oh, I do.” She wetted suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “Here are some other words, Captain. Widow. Wealthy. Marchioness.”
His gaze dropped to her lips again, and his eyes burned. When he spoke, his voice had roughened. “With such words at your disposal, you can’t imagine a mere captain in His Majesty’s service is a threat to you, can you?”
“I confess it did cross my mind last night when you dragged me upstairs and ordered me to hike up my skirts under pretense of thinking me a whore.” She caught her breath, stunned both by her own words, and the sudden heat in his eyes.
His blistering gaze raked over her. “I doubt I’m the first.”
Charlotte went still, sure she must have misheard him, but the words echoed in the silence, their meaning unmistakable. The heat pulsing though her body vanished and she shivered in the sudden chill, but she forced herself to lift her chin and meet his eyes. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Captain.”
The tremor in her voice made her furious. Why should it matter to her what he thought? He’d only said aloud what everyone in London was thinking—that she was a scandal, an embarrassment to her family, a disgrace to her dead husband’s name, and very likely a whore into the bargain.
Julian’s face had gone white. “I shouldn’t have said…I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you did,” she said, as coldly as she could, because she didn’t want his regret, and she didn’t want to think about the trace of fear she’d seen in his eyes when those hateful words left his mouth. “Now, Amelia and I are going to have a game of bowls. Once we’ve finished, I give you my word I will not appear at Bedford Square again.”
He seemed to make an effort to gather himself together. “As I said last night, Lady Hadley, you’ll excuse me if I don’t rely on any promise of yours.”
“You may rely on it or not as you choose, but I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” She managed a cool smile, but she couldn’t quite resist one parting shot. “You see, Captain? Even a whore can have a code of honor.”
