Page 66 of My Rogue, My Ruin
What that lie was currently doing to him confused and infuriated in equal measure. Archer ground his teeth and curled his lip in response to the overwhelming union of anticipation and panic.
Brynn’s eyes fluttered wider at his expression. The girl had to be terrified, and yet she refused to cower. Archer admired that about her—that fiery stubbornness that had made her stand up to him when he’d taken her coach along Worthington Abbey’s tree-darkened lane. It was the same emotion now making her back ramrod straight and her eyes spark with defiance.
God, he wanted to take her into his arms and crush her body to his. He wanted to feel her resistance melt under his touch.
He also wanted to put her over his knee.
Archer resorted to walking to the side mantel to pour himself a liberal drink. He glanced over his shoulder when he spoke. “I must have addled your brain last night. I recall kisses, my lady, while you seem to recall a proposal.”
Shame flashed over her features before it was replaced by a detached smile. “Do not be obtuse. It was only a ploy to focus Mr. Thomson elsewhere. I overheard what he was saying.”
“You overheard,” he repeated. He peered at her once more from over his shoulder and saw her wither slightly beneath his glare.
She took a deep breath and fell into a whisper. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop if that is what you are thinking. I overheard a small part of the conversation, nothing more. His theories about what occurred last night. He was intent on placing one or both of us in the duke’s study.”
“He cannot arrest either of us when all he has aretheories,” Archer cut in, his hand trembling with frustration. He set the glass down without taking a sip. “What are you doing here, Lady Briannon?”
He heard her take a breath at his excessive politeness as if to calm her simmering temper. “I was followed earlier, to Madame Despain’s on Bond Street.”
He faced her then, a frown drawing his brows together. “Are you certain?”
She nodded. “And so when I heard Mr. Thomson suggesting that we both had something to do with the duke’s murder, well…we both required an alibi, and you must admit, it is—at least in part—the truth.” She finished in a rush, as if she had to get out the words before Archer interrupted her.
Someone had been trailing Brynn? Spying on her? Not Thomson, but perhaps one of his informants. Some street urchin he paid to track a suspect and deliver anything of interest. The idea that some stranger was following her took his anger to a new height.
He turned and picked up his drink, needing it more than before. “It was a reckless and rash decision, Brynn. I was five seconds from tossing him out into the street.”
“He would have come back, and perhaps next time, with something more than a theory.”
“Something more?” He faced her again. “Explain.”
She started to work the clasps of her cloak at her neck, clearly feeling the same increased warmth in the room. “Mr. Thomson,” she paused, eyeing the library door. He watched with hooded eyes as she padded over to the door and closed it. Then, continuing in barely a whisper, “Mr. Thomson is one of Bow Street’s finest, and he has a thorn in his side regarding the peerage. If he delves any further into the connections he’s already been drawing between the Masked Marauder and your whereabouts, don’t you think he will ferret out what you have been doing all this time?”
The short burst of frustrated anger surprised Archer. His hand stalled in midair, his drink arrested halfway to his lips. “He is reaching. I have been meticulous.”
If possible, the ire in her eyes rose until they ignited with repressed fury. “Oh, this is hopeless! You make it impossible to help you.”
“If lying about a betrothal was your idea of helping, I do not want to know how you might plan to injure.”
Brynn came toward him, her skirts swishing loudly as she approached. “Have you no sense at all? The marauder is all anyone in London can think and talk about. The duke’s murder, the items missing from his person and study, they are going to be connected to the bandit! And Thomson is positively frothing at the mouth to capture him. You and your bloody secret activities are going to get you hanged!”
Archer was taken aback at her tirade, although he kept his face carefully composed. Few men ever dared stand up to him as she was doing now, and certainly no women. Then again, Brynn was not most women. He recalled expressing the same sentiments to her in Essex. Her eyes sparked and her mouth trembled as she berated him. He had never met such a passionate creature, and Archer felt an indescribable urge to match that passion. To kiss her senseless.
“It is my neck, my lady,” he said instead, taking another sip of his whiskey. “And I have every intention of keeping it at its current length.”
“Yes, well, if a false betrothal keeps Bow Street from suspecting me of murder, it is a price I will gladly pay. I thought, for a man of your intelligence, you would have appreciated the merit in it as well.”
She had not yet managed to undo the clasp of her cloak, and had, every few seconds, removed her hands from their task to wave them about in the air. Right then, she was working the clasp again, and once more, unsuccessfully.
“I have put my reputation, my honor, on the line by coming here,” she muttered. “I have lied to an investigator.Twice. I have…I have…what are you doing?”
Archer had placed his drink down and taken several purposeful steps toward her.
“Stay where you are,” she warned.
Archer didn’t listen. He crossed the distance between them while Brynn glanced around, as if searching for ways to escape his approach. He felt like a wolf prowling closer to its prey, and it was a heady sensation.
Archer stared down at her, trying to stifle the sudden realization that she had done much the same to him. Only, instead of a wolf, Brynn had been a fox, nicely and cleverly trapping him.
