Chapter 57

His voice-actually not just his voice but Devorlane Hawley himself-cut in on her. She strove to jerk her head up in order to make an exit, a sweeping one out of any door. His. Hers. Theirs. But he was faster, limp or not. In one bound he didn't just meet her at their shared door, he pinned her against it. The letter wasn't something she could hold onto, not with him trying to snatch hold of it, although she'd no intention of giving it up. Why should she? Besides shock had welded it to her palm. Fortunately it had not welded her tongue.
"What do you think?"
"Give me that." Devorlane Hawley tightened his grip and forced her wrist back against the door jamb. "You know that people who sneak into rooms, to sneak into drawers, to sneak letters that aren't addressed to them, seldom read any good of themselves."
He grabbed hold even as she held on tighter. It could tear for all she cared.
"I'm sure they don't, but I didn't sneak. Now, let me go."
That she didn't care was as well, as the ripping sound would have upset her otherwise. She could deny it as much as she liked, what tore in her at her own stupidity was far more alarming. The clawing, thudding knowledge that rose like a tide. One she'd never thought to experience, let alone feel engulf her in waves, crushing waves. How did she stand there upright still? The thought she was going to have to face Ruby, if Ruby had not already gone that was, and beg her forgiveness, was not the worst of it.
That something inside should tear along with the paper, that was the worst. Some silly part that hadn't wanted to listen to Ruby, to any of it, because all she could think of was him. Even now, imagine, the disgusting awareness of his body in that immaculate damned overcoat was something she couldn't quite free herself from. Well, she would. For God's sake, was this why he'd brought her here in the first place? Why she sensed his disdain? Why he hadn't touched her since that night but existed in this void she couldn't understand?
"Of course you damned well sneaked. Because that's what you do, Cassidy." His voice was more measured than she'd ever heard it. "You're a thief, so you won't deny-"
"And you won't deny that you've asked me to stay here so you can turn me over to this cootish old pig." As pieces of paper fluttered to the floor, she somehow swallowed what flooded her in order to speak as if it was no odds to her, her chin a little set, her eyelashes lowered so she stared at nothing at all, when in fact she did stare, she stared at her own stupidity.
"Colonel Caruthers is neither a pig, old, nor cootish, you damned snit. And before you say, he is not a sodding goat either."
Sodding goat? How did he know that was exactly what she was going to say? It wasn't of course. No. If she had a breath left to waste here, a breath to scrape together from the furthest corners of her lungs where it had retreated to-and she did, of course she did, because to not, was something she couldn't countenance-sodding goat was not it. She jerked her chin higher.
"I didn't know that jackals were sufficiently acquainted with farmyard animals to know whether they were goats or not. Snakes either for that matter."
"And I didn't know a damned-"
"Thief, Lord Hawley?"
She might as well say it. He needn't stand there, too close for comfort, his eyes glazed, his lips inches from hers, as if 'could be so desirable,' was what he was going to say.
When she thought about what was at the back of the dressing table drawer, when she thought about going though his things-although if she hadn't, where would she be now if not half way to the Tower of London? When she thought about what he'd done, what she'd given him, when she thought about everything, that she was desirable was not something she would flatter her stupid vanity thinking, for all his jaw tilted, for all what flared in her blood was what always did, maybe from that first night in the coach.
From the first moment she saw him here this was what he had planned. On selling her into something, something she could only guess at, although there being a war on and the letter bearing a military seal, she had a few ideas. He could have given her these papers for nothing, instead of making demands of her, ones that even he hadn't been able to keep on with, because she clearly revolted him. So to feel him now, breathe him now, let him kiss her now, when it could only be because he'd been rumbled? And he thought, maybe, maybe to keep her here a little longer? No. She wouldn't do that. He straightened.
"Whatever you think, that letter ... that damned letter you had no business raking in my things for-"
She had to get free, let her brain ice, even if it meant him listening to the shriek of wardrobe doors being torn open and trunks denting the mattress, she had to get away from here. Now. From him, from the close press of his body and those damned hot, glazed eyes that beguiled her like a snake's, from the knowledge he just might put his hands on her body if she stood here any longer.
Because she felt the stupidest surging. It swept up through her toes, through her legs, swept so she could barely stand, but hot on its heels was that other feeling. The clawing knowledge of the terrible fool she'd been made of, the fool she'd made of herself. She stiffened her spine against the jamb, tilted her jaw.
"Are you an imbecile, Lord Hawley?"
"-raking in them as you tried to rake my pocket earlier."
"Because you wouldn't give me it. Now I see why the information was something you needed to keep to yourself."
"Because the information, like the papers, is all you damn want. And I'm certainly not going to ask you to prove it."