She shifted on his lap, giving him a delicious experience of her softly rounded bottom.
‘That was why I instructed the landlord to have your belongings placed in my own chaise. So that he would not be able to read your luggage label with, no doubt, its destination thereon. Not for any nefarious notion of abduction.’
‘Well, if you’ve prevented him from discovering my name, there is no need to carry on with this deception, is there?’
Need? No, it wasn’t a question of need. But it was so deliciously satisfying to have the proud, pious little madam so completely at his mercy for once. True, she was still spitting insults at him, but they lacked the conviction they might have had if she wasn’t sitting on his lap. If she hadn’t put her arms round his neck instead of slapping his face when he’d kissed her.
Not only that, but she’d actually apologised to him. And thanked him, though the words had very nearly choked her as she’d forced them through her teeth.
Oh, no, he wasn’t finished with Clare just yet. There were just too many intriguing possibilities left to explore.
‘That depends,’ he said, as though considering her point of view.
‘On what?’
Hmmm. She’d stopped scowling. It was worth noting that pretending to be taking her opinion into account made her sheathe her claws. He would have to bear that in mind.
‘On where you were planning to go. I presume, to the home of your new employer?’
‘Yes, I told you, Clement arranged for me to begin work as a companion to an elderly lady.’
‘No, you didn’t tell me that.’
‘Oh. Well, he did. You see, he is involved in all sorts of charitable work. And one of his causes is to find honest work for...er...fallen women.’
Something like an alarm went off inside him. Because he’d just spent the better part of a month searching for a girl who might have criminal connections. A girl who’d disappeared after the elderly, vulnerable woman she’d been working for had been robbed. And Clement’s name had come up then, as well.
‘He finds work for fallen women, does he?’ He only just prevented himself from asking if he also found work for professional thieves. Just because he was on the trail of a group of criminals who’d been systematically robbing elderly ladies, it did not necessarily mean that Clare’s brother was behind it. It could be just a coincidence that one of the people he’d questioned had mentioned Clement Cottam’s name.
‘What sort of work? And, more to the point, how does this affect you?’ Because he couldn’t see Clement being fool enough to ask Clare to rob an elderly lady she was supposed to be looking after, even if he was involved in the crimes Rawcliffe was currently investigating. She was too conscientious. ‘Are you not insulted?’
‘No, no, he... It is just that he has a sort of network, I suppose, of elderly ladies with charitable dispositions, who are willing to give that sort of woman a chance to reform. At least, that is how he explained it to me when I couldn’t credit how swiftly he’d managed to find me a post.’
‘That does sound hard to credit,’ he agreed. So, Clement had a network of elderly ladies who would agree to take in servants with a shady past, on his recommendation, did he? Even though that could be a coincidence as well, two coincidences regarding a man he already suspected of being up to no good, coming in such rapid succession, were hard to ignore.
‘You had better explain how it came about.’
‘Well, I wrote to him, naturally, to inform him of Father’s passing.’
‘Naturally.’ And somebody must have written to him, as well. What a time for him to be trying to stay beyond the reach of anyone who might have been able to reveal his identity.
‘And within two days he was back, helping to arrange the funeral. And, say what you like about him, I cannot deny that I was very grateful for his help. He is very, very good at organising things. Keeps a cool head, you know, when I...’
He reached up and tapped the end of her nose with the tip of his forefinger. ‘You feel things too deeply. You don’t need to explain it to me.’
She jerked her head back, out of his reach. And he let her do so.
For now.
‘No, and you don’t need to bring up the curse of my red hair, either,’ she said mutinously.
‘It would, patently, be absurd to do so, when Clement has hair of almost exactly the same shade as yours.’ His features were similar, too, so that nobody looking at the pair of them together could doubt they were siblings. Yet Clare’s sharp little features and pale gold eyes made her look like some kind of sprite, or a woodland nymph, whereas Clement’s face just reminded him of a fox. A fox that was contemplating a raid on the nearest hen coop.
‘But do, pray, continue to explain how the saintly Clement provided you with employment.’
‘Oh, well, as I said, he has this network of elderly ladies willing to employ girls on his recommendation. So he just sent a letter to one of them recommending me as her companion. And she accepted me by return of post. So, you see, before the funeral was over, I had work and somewhere to live, whereas before that I...’
She didn’t need to say more. She’d had nothing. Believed she had no options. As she bit down on her lower lip, which had started to tremble, a strange feeling came over him. A feeling compounded of admiration for her bravery in the face of such adversity, coupled with a very strong urge to protect her from ever having to go through anything like it again.
Who would have thought he’d ever consider that the crusading Clare needed anyone to protect her from anything? But then who would have thought she could ever look so vulnerable as she did, sitting there trying not to give way to tears? Having just spoken of what must have been a horribly lonely experience in such a matter-of-fact way?
It made him want to hold her tighter. Tell her she was not alone anymore. That he would look after her...
‘And I am sure,’ she said, removing her arms from about his neck, reminding him that he was the last person she’d willingly accept help from, ‘she will still take me, if only you will arrange for me to get on the next coach.’
‘I am sure she will not,’ he said, tightening his own hold round her waist in instinctive reaction to her attempt to escape him. She was going nowhere until he was ready to let her go. Until he’d wrung every last drop of satisfaction from this encounter. She hadn’t anything like begun to repay him for the insults she’d heaped on him over the years. If he couldn’t make her eat her words, precisely, then he could at least rub her nose in the fact that she was where she was because she’d fallen so very far short of the exacting standards she’d always been waving under his nose. ‘Nobody wants to employ the kind of girl who gets into fist fights in public inns.’
‘I didn’t!’ She glanced guiltily at his nose. ‘That is, she isn’t likely to find out about it.’
‘Oh, but she is. Things like this get out. People like Johnny Bruton make sure of it.’
‘But she lives so far away from London...’
‘If she is part of a network of elderly women, who have little better to do with their time than write letters, somebody is bound to write and inform her of your part in this fracas.’
Clare’s mouth turned down at the corners as the truth of his observation struck home. Oh, but revenge could be sweet.
‘Even if she does not know anything about it to start with,’ he persisted, ‘the fear of discovery will hang over your head from the moment you inveigle your way into her household.’
‘I would not be inveigling my way anywhere!’
‘Oh,