He seemed to understand her thoughts. “I would have stepped in,” he insisted. “I would have done the same.”
She shook her head. “I wish I could believe you.”
He took her shoulders. Met her gaze, serious in the dim light. “You should. I would have stepped in.”
Her heart pounded. “Why?”
He could have said a dozen things. But she did not expect: “Because I need you.”
There was a little twinge of sadness at the words, so cool and collected. He needed her, but not in the way men needed women – impassioned and desperate. Not that she should care.
“Need me for what?”
“I want Lady Tremley to receive invitation to the ladies’ side of the club. I want the information she offers for entry. And for that information, you get your payment.”
She should have been grateful for the change of topic. For the movement to safer ground. She wasn’t. She heard the frustration in her words when she said, “You mean Chase gets his payment.”
He smiled. “No, I mean you.”
Her eyes went wide. “Me.”
“I get my information, you get Viscount Langley. My papers, at your disposal. Or, at Georgiana’s disposal, at least.”
Tit for tat.
Understanding flooded through her – understanding and respect for this man who so easily manipulated every situation to suit himself. Her match in power and prestige.
“Or what?”
He raised a brow. “Don’t make me say it.”
She lifted her chin. “I think I shall.”
He did not waver. “Or I shall tell the world your secrets.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Chase may not care.”
“Then you shall have to make him care.” He started to push past her and she hated the movement. Hated that he was leaving her. She wished he would stay, this man who seemed to see so much. “You need my power,” he said quietly. “Your daughter needs it.”
She winced at the reference to Caroline here, in this place, in this conversation, as he continued, “You think they won’t see it?” he asked. “You think they won’t notice the way I did? That your two masks bear a striking resemblance to each other?”
“They haven’t before.”
“You weren’t news before.”
She met his gaze and told him the only thing she knew was certain. “People see what they wish to see.”
He did not disagree. “Why risk it?”
“I wish I did not have to.” Truth.
“Why now?” The questions came fast.
“One cannot live a lifetime in my profession.” Either of them.
He didn’t like that. She could see it in his eyes. “So, how will it work? Instead of giving you a house in the country and enough money to last a lifetime, Chase has given you a dowry? It’s not your brother’s money, is it?” he asked, the words full of understanding.
Ironic, that, as he did not understand at all.
I give it to myself.
He laughed, and the sound lacked humor. “He cannot give you what I can give you, though. He would never reveal himself with such public deeds. You need me to give you the reputation. You need me to land you Langley.”
“Something for which you appear to be charging a handsome fee,” she said.
“I would have done it for free, you know.” There was disappointment in his words.
“If only I’d been the little lost girl you thought I was hours ago?”
“I never thought you lost. I thought you strong as steel.”
“And now?”
He lifted a shoulder. Dropped it. “Now, I see you are a businesswoman. I will help you for payment. And you are lucky for that, or else I’d be done with the lot of you. I do not typically get into bed with liars.”
She gave him her most coquettish smile, desperate to shield the way his words stung. “No one’s invited you into bed.”
She did not expect the air to shift, nor did she expect him to return to her, pressing her back against the wall, hunting her. She’d never in her life felt as she did now, her power stripped from her along with her lies. Most of her lies.
All but the biggest one.
His hands pressed against the mahogany on either side of her head, his arms caging her. “You’ve invited me into your bed every time you’ve looked at me for years.”
She hesitated, not knowing what to say. How to proceed with this man who was so different than he’d ever been. “You’re wrong.”
“No,” he said. “I’m right. And to be honest, I’ve wanted to accept. Every… single… time.”
He was so close, so warm, so devastatingly powerful that for the first time in her life, she understood why women swooned in men’s arms. “What has changed?” she said, hearing the breathlessness in her tone, brazening through. “A taste for innocents?”
“We both know better.”
She ignored the sting of the reply. The way they made her wish she did not masquerade as a whore. The way they made her wish he knew the truth. Instead, she soldiered on. “Then nothing has changed.”
“Of course it has.”
Now she was Georgiana.
“You like the idea of a ruined aristocrat,” she said, blood pounding in her ears. “What did you call me? Terrified? What is it… you think you can save me every day? Every night?”
He hesitated. “I think you want saving.”
“I can save myself.”
He smiled then, all wolf. “Not from everything. That’s why you need me.”