some leverage on him.
‘You lied.’
Stepan stopped in his tired, muddy tracks, the words cutting through the preoccupation of his thoughts. A lamp flared to life in the front parlour revealing Anna-Maria bent over the flame as she replaced the glass chimney, affirmation that he had not escaped. When he’d ridden up, the house had been dark and he’d known a moment’s relief. He wouldn’t have to face her, wouldn’t have to disappoint her, wouldn’t have to be tempted by her. Last night had been rather disastrous, in that regard. On top of the ale he’d drunk at lunch with the officers there had been the vodka sampling he’d done in caves when he’d visited the boys, all of which had induced him to sentimentality. He’d given her that silly box. Her eyes had gone soft and his body had gone hard.
‘What, per se, have I lied about?’ It was late, later than it had been last night. She should be abed, yet if he was honest there’d been disappointment mixed with his relief when he’d seen the dark house. A perverse part of him liked sparring with her. It was all he could have of her, this rather odd guilty pleasure.
She came towards him. ‘You lied about where you were today.’ She paused, letting her eyes rake his appearance. ‘You were not at the shipping office. In fact, Mr Abernathy informed me you had never planned to be there today. Your appointment diary was empty.’ She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes blazing with grim satisfaction. She was waiting for his rebuttal. More than that, she was waiting for his explanation.
But she’d left herself open to a rather healthy counter-offensive. Stepan arched his eyebrow. ‘You went into Shoreham alone after I warned you about the docks last night?’ There was so much to be appalled with he wasn’t sure where to start. Did he start with the fact she’d ‘followed’ him when that could have exposed the entire operation? Or that she’d taken such a risk in travelling alone? That Abernathy had gone into his office and looked in his diary? He’d thought his young clerk was above reproach. ‘What did you bribe Abernathy with to sneak into my office?’ Stepan asked. ‘I’ll have to have words with him, perhaps dock his pay so that he learns his lesson.’
‘No!’ Anna cried. ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she begged.
‘Oh? What exactly compelled him to look in his employer’s diary?’ Abernathy knew better. ‘You didn’t offer him money, did you?’ Stepan hoped not. If Abernathy could be bribed, it boded ill for the whole scheme. He would have to let the young man go.
A vice tightened in his chest. Please don’t let it have been for money. He didn’t want to believe he couldn’t take the street out of the boys.
‘No.’ Anna-Maria shook her head. ‘I have no money, you know that.’ He heard the resentment in her voice. Money meant freedom. He knew it better than anyone. ‘I just...’ She looked away from his stern gaze.
‘You just what?’ Stepan pressed, the vice in his chest easing a bit. He’d still have to talk to Abernathy about this breach, especially with Captain Denning in town. They couldn’t afford traitors, even small ones.
‘I smiled at him a bit. When that didn’t work, I sat in the waiting room for an hour hoping you’d come in.’ Anna-Maria bit her lip and gave a relenting sigh. ‘Then I got impatient. I might have used tears,’ she admitted with a quick rejoinder, ‘but it’s your fault. I never would have needed to do it if you’d been there in the first place. You told me you were doing accounts.’ She was tenacious in her anger. Heaven help a husband if he ever ran afoul of her.
At least it had taken Abernathy an hour to succumb. That did say something about the boy’s resolution. ‘Since when do I answer to you, miss, about my whereabouts?’
She gave him a long look that swept him from head to toe and lingered on his boots. ‘Since you can’t admit where you’ve been and come home with wet sand on your boots.’ Her gaze caught his. ‘That’s not the mud of Little Westbury.’ She stepped close to him, too close. He could smell the scents of lemon and lavender on her and she could smell him. She reached up on her tiptoes and sniffed near his ear. ‘Wind and salt, Stepan? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been to the seashore.’
She cocked her head, her sharp mind assimilating the information. ‘You were in Shoreham today, just not at the office,’ she accused with an authority that rivalled a barrister, ‘which leads me to conclude you were indeed with a woman.’ Anna-Maria gave a toss of her head. ‘You’re having an affair.’
‘It is not your business, Anna-Maria,’ Stepan warned. Did the minx not know when to stop? No gently bred young girl called out an older man on his private affairs. No gently bred girl was supposed to know about such things and, if she did, she was to pretend she did not. But Anna-Maria was all dark-haired defiance as she stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing. He’d have liked to scold her and say defiance did not become her, but it did. She was magnificent in her accusations and he was a powder keg primed to explode after three and a half months under the same roof with her. A woman could not provoke a man thusly without consequences.
He stalked her, encroaching on her space as she did his, making her aware of him with every step, of his height, of the piercing intensity of his gaze. There would be gentlemen in London who would make her aware of much more if she wasn’t careful.
Anna-Maria took a step backwards, her eyes glinting, but wary now. Good. She should be wary. A man aroused was a dangerous creature. Her back was to the wall and she could retreat no further. Stepan rested an arm above her head, his gaze intent on her face. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To jar me out of what you call my complacency? To break my stoic reserve?’ His eyes lingered on her mouth, ‘Well, now you’ve done it, my sweet girl, and there is a price to pay for waking the sleeping dog.’ Anna-Maria’s gaze dropped. ‘Are you prepared to pay it?’ He would be toyed with no longer.
He captured her mouth in a hard kiss meant to demonstrate his point, but Anna-Maria wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Her mouth moved beneath his, opening in answer to his press. Her body moved against his. He intensified the kiss, his hand at her neck, keeping her close, as he claimed deep access to her mouth, his tongue testing and tasting her. What a heady elixir it was to drink of her naïve boldness, the innocent curiosity waking in his arms.
He had not expected it to go this far. He’d expected her to be frightened long before his body roused, but her curiosity was fast outpacing his ability to keep his body in check. Soon, the masculine hardness of his response would be in evidence. Perhaps it would be for the best that she encounter all the consequences of her behaviour. This was not a harmless game she played. She gave a sudden gasp. The moment he felt her hesitate, he stopped. He pulled back from their embrace, creating much-needed space between them.
Her eyes were wild and questioning, her hair had come down from its pins and her lips were puffy. She looked precisely like what she was: a beautiful woman halfway seduced. If Dimitri were to walk in at this moment there would be no explanation other than the truth: that he’d kissed Anna-Maria up against the sitting-room wall. Never mind he’d felt prompted to do so after months of provocation or that he’d done it out of some misguided notion of teaching her the finer points of dealing with gentlemen. Stepan didn’t think those arguments would go far with Dimitri.
Anna-Maria smoothed her hands over her skirt. He gave her time to gather her shaken composure. That was his second mistake. The first had been giving in to her game. He saw that now. Whatever advantage he might have gained in his ambush was lost when she raised her
