Your Wicked Heart (3 page)

But as she forced herself to inspect the dark side, mortification burned through her. The possibility would explain so much. Her suitor’s discomfort in public places. His insistence that she never visit his hotel to dine with him. She would have been certain to address him by his title—which he had never admitted to her while they were still in Constantinople.

In Constantinople, where so many Englishmen lived, such a fraud would be far more difficult to undertake. But in Syra, where he had finally introduced himself as the viscount, there were fewer Englishmen to overhear . . .

Good God. If her betrothed were the true impostor, then that meant
this
man was very likely the . . . real viscount.

In which case, she would be lucky if he did not abandon her to a foreign prison!

She tried to swallow. But all her spit had dried up.

“Come to sleep,” said the man, his voice weary. “By my honor, I will not touch you.”

Worst of all was the knowledge that she had no choice but to trust in his honor—which, if it was real, meant that she had been badly fooled indeed. But not by him.

One day you will learn this lesson the hard way,
Olivia had warned her.
Your naïveté will be your doom!

*   *   *

Spence tried to sleep. But it was not easy when the woman who lay next to him was trembling so violently that the mattress quaked. He would gladly have spent the coin on separate cabins—provided one of them locked from the outside, for he didn’t trust this girl to stay put—but time had been of the essence, and this ship, the last to depart for the day, had not offered a choice of accommodations.

And so, it seemed, he would be sharing the next few nights at close quarters with a small, perfumed piece of quivering aspic.

He turned over, cursing inwardly, trying to find a more comfortable position that kept him as far away from her as possible. But it did not help. Ridiculous that she somehow still managed to smell like a rose garden when they had spent the evening trawling the filthiest wharves on the planet. He would order her to scrub herself clean of the scent tomorrow. It distracted him.

A strange, gasping breath came from her.

Christ. If she started to cry, he’d never get any sleep.

On an ill-tempered impulse, he sat up and turned up the light. No surprise that her eyes were open. “What is it?” he said sharply.

Her head turned on the pillow. The only pillow. Somehow she’d ended up with it. He’d heard no thanks for
that
.
“You
are
the viscount, aren’t you?”

God in heaven. “Spare me your routine until the morning, I beg you.”

She blinked, all big blue eyes and tumbled ringlets. Little Bo Peep, reborn as a huckster. “Why—and you think
me
an adventurer!”

This show of injured innocence grated him. “No. I think you a swindler, to be precise. A criminal, to speak more broadly.”

She stared at him. “I am a secretary.”

“A secretary.”
That
was a good one. “Very original, I’ll give you that.”

She turned her head away, presenting him with her profile. The bridge of her nose had a ridiculously girlish scoop to it. Somehow it aggravated him. “You may check my references once we return to England,” she said. “I was educated at Mrs. Lawrence’s School of Typing, after which . . .” She sighed. “I entered the employ of Mrs. Martha Pennypacker.”

“The
memoirist
?” This lie grew more elaborate by the moment.

Pushing herself up on her elbow—she still wore the ornate gown, and the position thrust her cleavage into a prominence he did
not
require—she eyed him with a finely feigned show of wariness. “The very same. Do you know her?”

He considered lying, just to frighten her. But that would undermine his greater aim: to make her stop shaking so he could sleep. “Not personally,” he said. “But the name, of course, is familiar.”

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip, worrying it as she gazed up at him through her lashes. Those lips belonged in a bordello. Indeed, for all her large eyes and spiraling hair, she was not so much like a doll after all. Her lips and décolletage suggested a more adult brand of fun.

He gritted his teeth. Her
charms
did not concern him. “So,” he said. “Syra. A very peculiar place to take a secretary.”

“Not so odd. She was seeking an amanuensis to help document her journey through Turkey and Greece.” Her mouth flattened. “Thirty women applied for the post, but I was the most qualified.”

“I see.” He believed not a word of it. A woman who looked like her would not stand in need of secretarial skills. Any number of stupid bachelors, their wits poisoned by her pretty eyes, would have been glad to offer matrimony. “A piece of advice: if you mean to come up with a lie, you’d best make it credible.”

“But this is the truth,” she said. “Why . . . when the offer was made, I imagined it the answer to all my prayers.” Her laugh sounded low and unhappy, precisely calculated to stir a man’s chivalrous instincts. “To travel the world, to see the sights . . . How foolish I was!”

He would not comfort her. He reserved his chivalry for honest women. For
her,
he would draw on the traits he used more regularly—cynicism, practicality, and indifference. “Very well, then. If Mrs. Pennypacker was gullible enough to hire a charlatan, that is her business, not mine.”

She blinked, and to his immense displeasure a tear rolled down her cheek. “I am not a charlatan.”

“Spare me your tears,” he snapped. “They will not work.”

“Oh!” Her lips were trembling. “You are very hard-hearted, sir. I cannot imagine what made you so.”

“Can’t you?” He could have told her. As a small child, in the wake of the influenza that had taken his parents, he’d found himself in the custody of his uncle, a man who’d put no stock in tender emotions. While Aunt Agatha had tried to protect him from her husband’s more egregious behavior, Spence had nevertheless learned several lessons at Uncle Richard’s hands—for Richard’s temper had been lightning quick, and he had resented the existence of the boy whose birth had belatedly robbed him of the viscountcy.

Those lessons at Richard’s hand still served him. A hard heart, Spence found, was very useful when governing the fortunes of a disastrously large and wild family. A hard-hearted man could not be disappointed by his family’s shenanigans. He could remain calm while controlling not only a passel of wastrel cousins but also any number of calculating brokers, dishonest bankers, and incompetent land stewards. Thanks to hard-heartedness, Spence had enriched the family prospects penny by penny, and had used whatever it took—threats, honeyed promises, brute force—to shut down the innumerable scandals to which St. Johns, by the very rashness in their blood, were prone.

The family was safer for his discipline. And it would remain so. Soon enough, he would recover Charles and deliver the idiot to Aunt Agatha. This girl and her exploits would not trouble his record of success. The very thought was laughable.

“Can I say nothing to persuade you?” she asked. “For I am innocent, I promise!”

He sighed. “If, by some slim chance, you’re telling the truth, then you’re not a criminal but rather the most grasping kind of fortune hunter—a secretary aiming for a viscount.” He allowed himself a mocking smile. “Why, I expect you were disappointed that no dukes came calling.”

“Oh.” She collapsed onto her back again and gazed at the ceiling. He turned down the lamp and reclined as well.

But her silence, as it drew on, began to disturb him. He could not even hear her breathing now.

“I suppose you’ll protest that his money and station had nothing to do with it,” he said at last, “and that you loved him with the fire of a thousand suns.”

A pause. “You sound like a romantic, sir.”

“My lord,”
he corrected. But to his own surprise, he felt his ears begin to burn. Where had that turn of phrase come from? “A figure of speech, merely. A very trite one.”

“Oh.” Another beat of silence. “Well, I won’t tell you I loved him, for I didn’t. But I was very, very grateful to him.”

That surprised him enough to turn up the lamp again.

She met his eyes, her own wide and deceptively guileless. Shameless, in fact. “My honesty shocks you?” she asked. “But love can grow from gratitude, I’m quite sure.”

This was an odd choice on her part—this pragmatic routine. “‘Shock’ is a strong word for it,” he said. “But I think you’d be wiser to lie. I am, after all, your judge and jury—at least for the next fifteen days.”

She winced. “I know it was wrong of me. But I would have been the most loyal and irreproachable wife since Esther. He never would have regretted it!”

He found himself momentarily baffled. “So you admit yourself a fortune hunter? That’s a start, I suppose.”

“Oh!” She showed him a look of surprise. “I didn’t want a fortune. Though of course”—her smile was fleeting—“I would not have objected to it.”

“Then what?”

“Only . . . safety, I suppose.”

“Naturally,” he said. “I’d imagine that your legion of victims might indeed pose a threat to you.”

She shook her head and looked back toward the low-beamed overhead. “Also,” she said, “I was lonely. And he seemed to like me. So very much. It
couldn’t
have been feigned! Not . . . all of it, at least.”

The ache in her voice had to be deliberate. No honest, well-bred woman would reveal such vulnerability to a perfect stranger—much less under these circumstances. “He didn’t like you
that
much,” he said, “or he wouldn’t have fled like a coward.”

Her breath caught audibly. He felt a pang, very much like regret.

Ah, but she was
very
good at her craft, wasn’t she? Alas for her, he had a great deal of experience with crocodile tears. His cousins specialized in them.

The silence lengthened. She was staring fixedly at the overhead, not even pretending to sleep.

He almost turned down the light again. But it came to him that discouraging her conversation was not to the point. He needed information from her. Moreover, if, by some insane chance, his cousin was implicated in this mess, then he would also need to secure her discretion. Building a measure of goodwill between them was the quickest way to ensure her cooperation.

“All right,” he said. “You wanted safety. Safety from whom?”

She frowned. “From nobody in particular. From the world. It’s not so friendly a place. Sir.”

Still refusing to address him by his title. This renewed evidence of defiance relieved him. He did not know how to deal with her when she seemed . . . fragile.

“I thought you said you wished to see the world,” he said. “Wasn’t that your reason for accepting your employer’s offer?”

“I did wish to see it. I still do.” She rolled over to face him, aglow now with earnestness, looking suddenly very young again, as sweet and simple and toothsome as a hot cross bun. “The Hagia Sophia—that was always on my list. It did not disappoint in the
least
.
And Egypt—Mrs. Pennypacker had spoken of a trip to the Great Pyramids. I would have
adored
to see them. They look beyond beautiful—”

“Dusty,” he said. “Very dusty.”

“You’ve
been
?” She stared at him as though he’d just announced himself the Second Coming. “Were they wondrous?”

His cousins had complained endlessly of the heat, and his uncle had been drunk. But perhaps the pyramids would have been wondrous, had his companions been as enthused as she was.

Good God.
“They’re tombs,” he said sharply. “Do you find graveyards romantic? Don’t answer that,” he added in disgust, for it was clear, by the look on her face, that she did.

“Oh, but I’m
green
with jealousy!” She flopped back down again. “If
I
were a man . . .” She hesitated, then sighed. “At any rate, one wishes for ever so many things. And perhaps I
could
strike out on my own . . . but I lack the courage.”

“Or the poor judgment,” he said, for she was right: a pretty girl with skin like cream and eyes as round as moons would need to take care when indulging her touristic curiosities.

It came to him with an unpleasant start that this conversation was absurd. They were not
friends
;
it was not his business to counsel her. “Not that I consider you an exemplar of good judgment,” he added.

She glanced at him sidelong and said nothing.

The reaction felt unsatisfying. He wanted her to admit her wrongs. “So you thought the impostor could keep you safe, and allow you to indulge your fancies. And in return, you would give him . . . what?” Reminding himself that he did not believe this tale, he put some skepticism into his voice. “What might you provide that a peer of the realm would require?” Let her confess her shortcomings. Or let her boast and hear his reply. She was pretty, but he’d seen prettier women in his time.

But the question appeared to puzzle her. Frowning, she sat up. “My respect, I suppose. And my affection.” She met his eyes, her gaze startlingly direct. “My honesty and constancy. My unwavering support. I am a good woman, sir. A man would be lucky to take me to wife.”

“And modest to boot,” he said. But he felt oddly unnerved. In an attempt to dispel the feeling, he added, “These are not rare qualities, of course.”

But it was difficult to sound scathing when speaking a lie. With a family as flighty as his, he knew very well how rare such qualities might be. Honesty itself was worth its weight in gold, and respect and constancy were more precious yet.

Clearly his mind was rotting for lack of sleep. She was a criminal. She knew exactly which lies to speak. Lies were her stock-in-trade.

Yet she chose strange lies, for all that. He had expected . . . something else from her. Not such insight. The virtues she named did not receive much glory in the wider world. He sometimes felt like the only man alive who understood the value of steadfast constancy . . .

Christ.
She had addled him, all right. “Enough conversation,” he said. “Lie back and don’t make a sound now. I require my sleep.”