Chapter 50

"Well, I trust I won't spend a night like last night either from now on. There's just some things I'll do for myself." He stepped forward, stuck his hand out the window, calmly, coolly, tilted the bottle. No. He wasn't going to think how this killed him, bled his heart, because it didn't. He'd asked for her help. Last night she hadn't prevented the fever, or the chills, but her being there had helped. So, while the shocking waste killed him, he'd do it. Manage to speak too. "So? How is it you know so much about this?"
"You mean when I'm a thief?"
"I never said that. I'm just asking if you're going to help me, how you know how to-"
"Matthew."
"Right."
"Yes. He was an invalid. All his life. Something wrong with his chest. He suffered fevers. Terrible ones."
He rolled his gaze heavenwards. "And you stole for him as well?"
"Why, don't you know, I stole for the whole of London town."
"I never-"
"Yes. All the starving poor. The sodding poor too. Someone had to look after him. That's as much as I know and as much as you're getting. We might as well start honestly, if your majesty still desires my help, that is?"
"I do. But there's conditions. All right?"
"I'd need to hear them before I know if I can agree to them. Because, Lord Hawley, if I can't, then I am telling you here and now ... Well. "
He swallowed the grimace. Christ, he should never have set any condition on this snit, then he wouldn't be in this sorry pass. It was crystal clear as the bottles she'd just emptied what she thought these conditions were going to be. "I don't want Tilly knowing. All right?"
"Tilly? Tilly? Is that all?"
"Before you laugh as I know you're going to, given I arrived at a family reunion with a whore on my arm, given I installed you here, she and I have never had noble feelings about each other. Now that I'm accepting your help in a moment of strength as opposed to continuing on the road to perdition, in a moment of weakness, I need you to understand that, the things I'm placing in your hands here."
Christ. Things like no more thoughts of revenge, whores in the drawing rooms, the library, the bedrooms here. No more thoughts of his name being cleared. She could see that, couldn't she? The things he gave away here? It was never possible to tell when she habitually glanced at everything but nothing the entire time.
"Well. I wouldn't have any fears about Tilly. For a start I'd need to speak to her to tell her anything. And for me to do that she'd need to speak to me first. And you've seen to the fact she doesn't."
"I'm sorry about that. That's just Tilly for you. Why I don't want her kno--"
"If that's your conditions, your condition rather, I wouldn't worry. So long as I can still see these papers. And you're not about to make a condition of that?"
"Hardly." He was unable to suppress the huff. "I'm not exactly in a position--"
"I so know the feeling. Although the papers aren't a condition exactly." She raised her chin. "No."
Well, of course not. Revenge? Lord Koorecroft? Being allowed to stay? How it hurt him to part with these things from the corridors and alleyways of his mind. But what choice did he have but to let them go ... let them go willingly? With joy in his dark heart? Anyway, what was she going to ask exactly? Well?
"Name it."
"Oh I will. I wouldn't dream of not."
"Good. I'm glad you're going to be frank."
"It's like this, Lord Hawley."
"Yes?"
"While I may sleep in your bed, or you may sleep in mine, for the remainder of my stay here I won't sleep with you. Not any more. I won't be your mistress. Or consent to be ruined by you further. I can't. The choice is yours."
He froze. What the hell kind of a bloody choice was this? The damned audacious witch. This wasn't a choice. This was a grinding of him beneath her boot heel when he was being perfectly reasonable. When his choice-choice, his arse-could be to go straight to Lord Koorecroft now and tell him the truth and nothing but the truth.
He edged a breath. After all, he could feel passionate about something. And that was being bloody well out maneuvered by a snit. Robbed blind in fact. Not for the first time either. Over his dead body could he let her see it.
"But you said the papers were your condition?"
"I said I hoped I could still see them. I never said they were the choice."
"Choice? "
"Yes. Choice. I will help you, or I will sleep with you. I won't do both." Her voice, cooler than he'd ever heard it, washed over him.
He swallowed. What the hell should it matter if he never had her again? Especially when there actually hadn't been a decent session, a session where she dressed as he wanted, or kissed him without arguing the toss, or nicely ate the extravagant goddamned supper he'd ordered set before her. But maybe that was part of her charm? What kept him hungry enough to be ravenous on hope alone?
So, looking at the peignoir, not to mention the silky sable hair spilling over her shoulders, and the soft, red lips and trying to make his choice?
She was only a woman wasn't she? To say otherwise would be to give her airs above her station. Already she had enough as to be situated in the clouds.
His leg was accursed. The nightly sweats were too. He wouldn't pine in any way for what she didn't have to give him either. He put out his hand. "Hand me the remaining bottles and let's get on with this, Miss Armstrong."