“Is Lady Derring right about men, guv?” Massey had clearly never considered this before. He looked troubled.
Tristan was mordantly amused.
“You’re a good man, Massey. Rest yourself.”
Massey looked relieved. Captain Hardy wasn’t one to fling compliments about lightly.
Tristan was less certain about his own relative goodness, however. He’d gotten information he needed from Lady Derring—about her jewelry—when she was most vulnerable and trusting. She’d become vulnerable and trusting in part because they had been building a certain intimacy for days. He hadn’t exactly set out to do it this way but now it all seemed knotted together—the desire and the investigation—and there was no way to undo it.
He’d always thought of himself as a man of decency and rectitude, upstanding in the pursuit of justice. He adhered to a personal code. But would a good man do that to a woman?
He now more fully understood the nature of the peril of this attraction. Inherent in it, from the beginning, was betrayal.
He knew it wouldn’t stop him from making love to her again.
Because men were just that wonderful.
And rejecting a pleasure like that—a once-in-a-lifetime gift—somehow seemed the greater sin.
“Are we on the right track, sir?” Massey asked, into the silence. “The investigation?”
Massey was tentative. As though he hardly dared ask the question.
They were both men of action. All of his men were. And the action here—the interviews, the following of guests—was beginning to feel both painstaking and aimless.
“Yes, I think so. I think we have a few pieces of the puzzle, but we cannot yet see how they fit. We just need to be thorough.”
This was enough for Massey, because there had not yet been a time when Tristan was on the wrong track. He looked somewhat relieved.
But there also had not been a time when he’d been requested to send a letter to the king to let him know of his progress, such as it was. He was due to write that letter.
“Well, if the Widow Derring is pretty, sir, perhaps to speed things up you ought to seduce her to make her tell you...”
Tristan’s cold stare shocked Massey speechless.
He supposed it was his own guilt that made the idea of hearing that entire sentence unbearable.
“What if someone wanted to seduce Emily to those ends?” Tristan said finally. Quietly.
Massey remained silent and still, studying Tristan. And suddenly he thought he understood.
“You remembered her name, sir,” he said gently.
Delilah spent the day sailing the choppy seas of her emotions, euphoric one moment (she’d hadextraordinarysex on a settee with a gorgeous captain she scarcely knew!), appalled the next (she’d had extraordinary sex on a settee with a gorgeous captain shebarely knew). She could not and did not regret it. But was this the sort of person she wanted to be? She had been gently bred, whatever that, in fact, meant, and though she’d been triumphantly sheddingshouldsandoughtsfor some time now, shedding her night rail in the middle of the drawing room was something else altogether. Try as she might, she could not get her thoughts to congregate and mull the problem of it. Her body was still echoing from the pleasure visited upon it. It drowned out reason.
She kept hearing his voice:I need you.
She had done her chores in a feverish, abstracted state and joined Angelique for tea in the upstairs drawing room.
They both gave a start when they heard Dot dashing up the stairs. She tripped on the last one, nearly arriving on her hands and knees in the little drawing room.
“Lady Derring, Mrs. Breedlove, we’ve a very young lady what wants a place to stay. She is rather, er, fancy and frantic and demanding.” She crawled a few paces then righted herself.
It was apparent Dot’s nerves had been a bit worked by this young lady, who had probably been under their roof for a few minutes.
“By all means let’s rush to see her then,” Angelique said, her eyes cast heavenward.
Delilah shot Angelique a wry look and laid her mending aside. “Of course we’ll see a frantic young lady. Will you bring in the tea, Dot?”