Page 10 of Dangerous

Adam’s fork clattered against his plate.

She raised a hand to her throat, her fingers lightly caressing and her lips parted. “I yearn for couscous, so drenched in oil it slides down my throat.”

Good Lord. Adam swallowed audibly while an erection of alarming proportions strained against the placket of his breeches as if it were trying to thrust its way through the thick wooden tabletop. He shifted in his chair and winced before looking up.

Her eyes were open and her expression was no longer sultry, but amused. Whatever she saw on his face made her grin.

The treacherous little minx. She’d made him as hard as iron with nothing more than talk of food. Grudging admiration vied with his rampant arousal and almost made him smile—but he repressed it.

“Tell me, my lady, where did you learn to appreciate such things?” he asked, pleased to hear his voice gave no sign of the commotion beneath the table.

She speared a piece of the fish that had disgusted her only a moment earlier, popped it into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed, a wicked twist to her lips.

“Why, during my time in a Maltese convent, Lord Exley.”

Adam’s control slipped and his mouth curved into an answering smile. This dinner had been worth attending, after all.

* * *

Lord Exley’s smile came and went more quickly than a shooting star. He raised a corner of snowy linen to his mouth. When it came away, his expression was once again impassive.

“How fascinating. Tell me, how did you come to find yourself in a convent—in Malta, of all places?”

Mia ate another bite, making a show of savoring her food—as if even gelatinous fish was more interesting than a conversation with him. “Were you aware my family is Catholic?”

“I was not.”

“Do you know much about Catholicism, Lord Exley?”

“Have you returned to England to proselytize, my lady?”

Mia smiled at his arch look. “I’m afraid my proselytizing days are behind me, my lord.”

“What a pity,” he murmured. “You were saying?”

“My mother was a very devout Catholic and it was her dearest wish that I attend the same convent school that she had, a very old establishment just outside Rome.” That much of her story, at least, was the truth.

“My parents put me and my old nurse—who was accompanying me in the capacity of companion—on a ship that never reached Rome. We were harried by corsairs almost immediately upon entering the Mediterranean.” Here was where the true story ended and her father’s carefully crafted tale began. “Our captain did the best he could for his passengers and took us to the island of Malta. There was a small convent on the island which offered safe port to those unwilling to venture off the island and risk the possibility of capture by corsairs. My nurse made arrangements for me to remain while she boarded the next vessel for England, to bring back help.”

How Mia wished that were true.

The last time she’d seen her beloved nurse’s face was when the corsairs had laughingly passed the older woman from man to man and then cut off her head when she wouldn’t stop crying. The memory of that day was like a leering imp from a Bosch painting: it hovered at the edges of her mind, waiting to leap out at her when she least expected.

Mia looked away from the marquess’s razor-sharp gaze. “I didn’t learn until I returned home that her ship never reached England. As a result, nobody knew where I was—until recently.”

They ate in silence for a while.

“How old were you?” he finally asked.

“I passed my fourteenth birthday onboard the ship.”

“And you remained in the convent all these years?” For the first time, she heard skepticism in his voice. Mia couldn’t blame him. Her father’s tale was less than believable.

“Yes, until a few months ago.”

He studied the blood-red liquid in the cut-crystal glass before asking his next question. “You faced no problems when the French seized control of the island?”

Mia paused, her own glass halfway to her mouth. The French had controlled Malta? She grimaced and drank deeply to hide her confusion. She had repeated the stupid story to dozens of people in the past weeks, none of whom could have located Malta on a map, much less recite its political history. None except the man beside her.