Page 11 of This Haunted Heart

“My collar?” I rubbed at the starched linen.

“It’s not the sort a working man bothers with. It’s too tall and perfect and not made of paper. It’d just get mucked up outside in the fields. Especially if the farmer is a bachelor and has to handle the ironing and starching on his own. You’re notyoung enough to live at home with a mother. Are you married, then? I should warn you now: I won’t be some mistress to a married man. Or do you just really love spending your time ironing and grooming yourself?”

“Clever woman. No, I’m not a farm hand, and I’m not married,” I confessed. I had to choose my words carefully here. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I wore a costume so that I could skulk about the brothel and sneak in and out of her room without drawing extra attention. “I don’t mind grooming myself, but that’s not how I prefer to spend all of my time. I do have help. Most of what I have I inherited, and I don’t like to make a spectacle of myself. Especially if I have far to travel.”

“You’re old money, then,” she said, eyes rounding. “I admit that surprises me. You don’t seem like the sort.”

“I choose to take that as a compliment.” I didn’t fit the bill because I was raised like a whipping boy, not a privileged aristocrat.

She trapped her battered bottom lip between her teeth, studying her hand resting on my leg, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I prompted. When she didn’t answer me right away, I laid my hand over hers and squeezed.

“It’s only that I’ve had this price tag hanging over me for a long time.” Her fingers dug gently at my woolen trousers. “I’m always aware of it and immediately uneasy if one or the other isn’t getting their due . . . And now you’ve given me presents and have asked for absolutely nothing in return. And you’re apparently some secret, wealthy aristocrat doing God only knows what here calling on me . . .”

“Hm.” This was a problem. She was suspicious, but I didn’t want her to feel uneasy. Not yet. My plan was still formulatingand unfolding slowly, and I knew this woman well. Rynn was a runner. If I spooked her too much before I had the right cage in place, she’d flee. “If I sat you on my lap right now, like a paying client, would that make you feel better?”

Her doe eyes widened briefly. Then her head cocked to the side and her roughened ‘well-kissed’ lips turned in a droll twist. “Oddly . . . yes, it would help. Thank you.”

I patted my knee, and she slid onto my lap with careful grace. Rynn hooked her arm behind my neck. The other she kept cradled in her sling, against the satin of her evening dress. She was warm. I liked her weight against my chest—too much. Her skirts hiked up over her ankles, revealing dainty feet tucked inside matching silk slippers. The slippers were beaded.

Furies! I was even admiring her goddamn feet.

I’d made an error in judgment. I shouldn’t entertain this connection between us, not a moment longer—but then her fingers pushed through my hair and my reason went right behind the sofa with the death flowers.

“Are you all right?” She brushed more strands behind my ear.

I cleared my throat and forced a smile. “’Course I am. I’ve got you on my lap now, right where I want you.”

“You went somewhere else there,” she said soothingly, still toying with my hair.

My eyes slid shut. Against my orders, my body leaned into her caresses. I swallowed, feeling powerless against the might of her touch as she raked her fingers tenderly across my scalp.

It was heavenly. And horrible—Dante entering the eighth circle of hell horrible.

I wanted to hold her close and dump her behind the sofa. The conflicting urges canceled each other out in the end. Ijust froze there, letting her touch me, trying not tofeel.

She was careful with her arm in its sling. Seeing it up close, it made me angry all over again. I’d told myself not to bother with it. If she didn’t want to discuss her injury, pushing too hard risked my purpose here.

Rynn caught me staring at the sling, and her eyes dropped. I so rarely saw timidity from this woman that it knocked me off my path. My brain seized on the distraction, and I dropped out of character.

“Tell me what happened to your arm,” I said, voice gone to gravel, leaving no room for her impish avoidance.

She waved my words away, but her attempt at casual reluctance fell short. Fear had smothered the cheerful glint in her dark eyes. “I sprained my elbow, is all. It’s practically good as new now. It only twinges a bit.”

“Utrecht sprained it.”

She turned swiftly away from me, staring instead at her beaded shoes. “You’ve been listening to the gossip down in the—”

I captured her chin and forced her gaze to mine. My grip was hard. Too hard. Her hickory-colored eyes brightened, startled, and then she surprised me. Her hand came around my wrist, but she didn’t try to pull me off. Her thumb ran down my pulse, the caress feather-light, and her brow softened. She leaned into me until my hand dropped from her chin to her throat.

“He hurts you,” I snapped.

“The matter is . . . complicated,” she whispered.

“What’s complicated about it?”

Her lashes lowered. “I like it when he hurts me.”

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