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"That’s a great deal to ask of a lanced over at hiive a dae You’ll surely put up with a little inconvenience for that, won’t you?"

She hadn’tEdward conceded this with a wave of his hand "Continue on I stay here all day And then ill happen?"

"I’ll accoht," she said "I’ll search it We’ll see if that iteether"

"And if it is, you’ll trust ed reference he’d left on her desk and smiled even more brilliantly "If it’s there, I won’t turn you over to the authorities It was good of you to deery so beautifully in front ofthe truth about this, I suppose I’ll let you go free For now"

He absolutely should have been annoyed with her Instead, he wanted to laugh--and to shake her hand and tell her that she played a jolly good gao of her hand, once he’d given it a shake

"Miss Marshall," he said, "are you black o to the authorities and turn this convoluted double blackesturing hier He set his hands on the desk and leaned in close They were separated by twelve inches and an expanse of wood She licked her lips, and he felt hisabout her He was riveted, in fact

She smiled at him, and then spoke in a low voice "You said you’d done your research, Mr Clark You said you kneho I was You obviously didn’t look very hard A woations without learning how to deal with scoundrels You think you can push e You can’t If you really want your revenge, you’re going to have to work for it"

He tried toeverything She watched with an expression that struck him as halfway between severe and impish But--alas--he couldn’t co to be downright fun working with her

So instead of agreeing, he picked up her pen again and pulled the letter he’d forged back from her

"Postscript," he narrated aloud as he wrote "Don’t let Edward Clark’s patent huly brilliant Beware It will creep up on you over time" He passed the letter back to her "There That makes it rather better, don’t you think?"

She perused the line he’d added with a dubious raising of her eyebrows "Not particularly, no"

"Should I have underlined ly?" he asked "Or brilliant? I ask because if you’re going to have ery, I want to make sure you have a perfect specimen to present to the court A man has his pride"

"Underline neither," she said calmly "I’ll let you knohen you’ve earned ular type and full stops"

He couldn’t outblackmail her, outthink her, or outcharm her He couldn’t even outbrazen her