Page 5 of A Trickster’s Temptation

‘I’m not going to tell the staff that they should be alert for men pretending to own bookshops.’ Lord, it was difficult to keep her composure in front of Mr. Hart. It always was; the man could make anyone feel slightly on edge. ‘There can’t be anyone else in London as insensible as you.’

‘You really don’t know enough people, Miss Fine.’

‘Why on earth are you here?’

‘I think we both know why I’m here.’ Mr. Hart raised a single, dark eyebrow. Mary briefly forgot to breathe. ‘Would you like me to discuss it directly?’

‘I can’t think of anything worth even a moment of mutual discussion.’ She had spent the entirety of the previous night thinking about their kiss, but would rather die than spend a single second discussing it. ‘Not a single thing comes to mind as interesting enough to devote my time to.’

‘I’m sure, Miss Fine.’ Mr. Hart didn’t seem insulted in the slightest. If anything, he seemed patient; Mary bristled at the idea of him having to exercise patience with her as if she was a child. ‘But allow me to wait another few moments here, insulting you as ideas arise, and I imagine something will come up.’

Was this some form of blackmail? Oh, she should chase him out with a broom! But even as Mary clenched her fists, glaring at Mr. Hart with all the rancour she could muster, she realised that she wasn’t telling him to go away.

It would be foolish to make a scene. Someone might discover Mr. Hart’s deception, and there would be uncomfortable questions for her if such a thing occurred. And… and Mary couldn’t pretend, not even to herself, that the man’s arrival hadn’t made the morning considerably less miserable.

His presence was… exciting. It always was. Unfortunately, it was also very vexing.

‘I hadn’t expected to find you in the kitchen.’ Mr. Hart leaned back in his chair. ‘You seem more like the type of woman who reads pamphlets in the morning room.’

‘That description is completely without insult of any kind, and yet you manage to make it seem like the worst thing in the world.’

‘It’s a talent of mine. Do you really make bread?’

‘No. I pretend to make it when irritating guests come to visit, so I have a reason to tell them to go away.’

‘You’ve never seemed like the sort of person who makes bread.’

‘What on earth would you know about the sort of person I am, Mr. Hart? I could have won prizes for bread making.’

‘You’d certainly never win a prize for answering graciously in conversation.’

‘… Be quiet.’

‘You see?’ Mr. Hart’s triumphant smile was as annoying as it was handsome. ‘No prizes.’

‘And you’d never win prizes for authenticity.’

‘That, madam, is a ship long-sailed.’

‘I’m not talking about your disguises.’ She’d squirrelled away this piece of information concerning Mr. Hart for at least four months, and hadn’t planned to use it now. Still, in a battle, one reached for any weapon one had. ‘I’m talking about your apparent life as a criminal living by his wits and what he can swindle from people’s pockets, rather than a man who makes a modest but respectable income from various shrewd land purchases but chooses to spend the rest of his time being a thief.’

Mr. Hart’s smile faded. Mary fought the urge to thumb her nose at the man, instead turning back to her bread dough as triumph filled her chest.

Mr. Hart’s voice had lost a good deal of its smugness. ‘How the devil did you find out about that?’

‘You left your accounts folio open in library at Abigail’s one evening. I decided to look through it.’

‘You spied on my finances?’

‘I took the opportunity to find evidence that supported conclusions I had already made.’ Oh, she couldn’t even pretend to focus on the dough. ‘You’ve never been the sort of swindler who makes real money, as far as I can see. You don’t appear to rob elderly ladies and gentlemen of their hard-won savings, or—or seduce young woman for their inheritances. So I assumed there had to be another source of income, one not derived from trade, and so I investigated when I had the chance.’

‘To what end, Miss Fine?’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘To what end?’ Mr. Hart slowly rose from his chair. Now his face was full of uneasy admiration; Mary blinked, wondering if anyone had looked at her quite so intensely before. ‘Why on earth is this little secret so desperately important to you?’

Because I wish to protect my friends.That wasn’t entirely true; Abigail’s husband may have been a highwayman in his spare time before marrying Abigail, but the rest of his time had been spent—and continued to be spent—being a duke. That title alone protected Abigail from almost everything the world could throw at her, even an acquaintance who enjoyed parting people from their money under false pretences.

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