Page 9 (1/2)

He sighed "This would be far easier if you were less clever" It sounded like a complaint, but he winked at her at the end "Da to be a little honorable But very well Since I must" He raised his eyes to her "You need to ith me because I will betray you"

She sucked her breath in "Pardon?"

"How precarious is your position in society, Miss Marshall? You’re young, un" He said the last with no e facts

He was She had to remember that No matter how flirtatious his tone, that was all she meant to him: a collection of facts

"I have two possible plans to foil my enemy One is to ith you to defeat hihly that he doesn’t get the pleasure of doing it hied letter of credit sold to your ene, written to a lover and indiscreetly left for soed "It would take me half an afternoon to make your life utterly miserable and un to thud in a low, heavy rhythe, how the syste before her and speaking in such an easy tone could make her feel as if she were a hare faced by a pack of wolves He looked at her with a small smile on his face It seemed as if he could hear her pulse, and its thready beat wasto rabbit away This was her business, her life, and she wasn’t about to let thistheh "So this is blackave her felt like a weapon--one that he’d chosen carefully from his massive arsenal It was the smile of a man who knew that he could charm and devastate, and he employed it with the precision of a master He leaned forward "Miss Marshall, I believe you arethat word"

She looked over at him

"You should pronounce it like this: ‘Huzzah! Blackmail!’"

Her eyebrows rose "How extraordinary, Mr Clark I thought you didn’t use exclamation points"

"I don’t" He smiled at her "But you do, and there’s no need to be parsiaze with a flat stare "Criht now, that crier"

"No? How do you figure?"

"With luck and a good quantity of arsenic…?" She gave him a smile of her own "Soon it will be: ‘Huzzah! Murder!’ Now there’s a cause that deserves my exclamation points"

She’d meant to confound him Instead, his smile tilted, and all that calculated charhter He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head So to realize that he found her a And entirely unfair that soain

She raised an eyebrow and regulated her voice to honeyed sweetness "Would you care for some tea, Mr Clark? I’ll prepare a pot of my very special recipe Just for you"