Reckless Desire (Saved By Desire 6)

stander, a woman whom the Count had set his sights on, and she had been dragged through all of this then she would feel as though the world had gone mad. If she was connected with Sayers and was his lover, his cohort, or anything else, then she had to be an incredibly good actress willing to play her part right to the bitter end.

His natural instinct was to err on the side of her being an innocent bystander but Sayers hadn’t managed to forge his little empire by doing everything above board. He had also adopted a false persona, right under the noses of the upper echelons of London’s aristocracy, and nobody had noticed a thing wrong with him. There was nothing to say that the woman seated opposite, if she was connected with Sayers, wasn’t capable of playing her part just as well-the part of a victim, especially if it secured her release and she was free to go back to Sayers.

“Just tell me the facts. How long have you and Sayers been-associates?”

Marguerite knew from his slight hesitation that he really meant ‘lovers’. She had no idea why he was so convinced she was that type of woman and was at a complete loss to know how to convince him she wasn’t.

“I don’t have a lover,” she bit out. “As I have already told you, several times before, I have no idea who this Sayers is. He has nothing to do with me. I don’t care if he is Sayers, the Count, or anyone else. I have never met the man before tonight.”

“Do you know something? If I hadn’t seen you with him with my own eyes, I would be apt to believe you. However, you and I both know you are lying so you are wasting your time trying to deny you are involved with him. You were in a passionate clinch with him not but an hour ago.”

Unsurprisingly, Marguerite fell silent for a few moments. It gave Joe the time he needed to get his impatience under control, and her the time she needed to realise there was no way out of this difficult situation. It was best that she co-operated with him, and told him what he wanted to know.

“You still haven’t answered me,” Marguerite replied.

Joe’s brows lifted.

“What were you doing in that room all by yourself, listening at doors?”

Their eyes met. She could see the hardness in his eyes that was faintly alarming. Still, she refused to be accused of being wanton enough to have an affair with someone like the Count, not least because she suspected that to do so would draw her invariably into whatever differences this man and the Count had.

She took his silence as confirmation of his guilt and decided to prod him some more. “You were. You were standing in that room watching us like some sneak thief.”

“I was merely observing you plastered against him like a common whore,” Joe replied blandly.

Marguerite’s cheeks flushed. She was briefly, but only briefly, glad that the carriage was dark, and he couldn’t see the fiery blush on her face, or the guilt she knew was written in her eyes.

“I was not. The man has more hands than an octopus. I didn’t invite him to accost me,” she protested quietly.

Joe snorted. “So you just happened to be in the only quiet room in the house at the same time that one of the most sought after gentlemen in London was in attendance, and just happened to find yourself wrapped in his arms whilst there. But, of course, none of it was your fault. You were merely an innocent in all of this. You were just kissing him for the heck of it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not ask him to kiss me, and I did not encourage his affections; yours either for that matter.” She snorted disparagingly. “Why, you will be suggesting we are lovers next.”

As soon as she had uttered the words, she wished the carriage beneath her would open up and swallow her. Her cheeks flamed again, but she refused to lift her gaze and look at him. She expected a stern put-down, or maybe an insult or two. What fell was a thickening tension she couldn’t understand.

Joe mentally swore. There wasn’t much he could say to that. He knew that kiss would come back to haunt him, and it had. It left him on the back hoof as it were to explain his way out of his own behaviour.

Was it right that he kept pushing her to confirm a connection with Sayers that might not be there? She was certainly vehement enough in her stringent denials. Besides, he had kissed her in much the same way as the Count had, and he wasn’t her lover. He had been doing it for more altruistic reasons.

Liar, a snide voice whispered, but he quickly closed it out and refocused his attention on the woman seated opposite.

“I shall ask you for one final time, are you and the Count lovers?”

“No, we are not,” she replied firmly.

“Are you connected with Sayers or any of his activities in any way?”

Marguerite opened her mouth to issue him with a stern rebuke but, at the last minute, stopped herself. She suspected she could spend the next hour in this carriage with him and they would do nothing but trade insults that would get them nowhere. Determined to get rid of him the first chance she got, she decided to be as honest with him as she could so he had no reason not to let her go.

“No, I am not.”

“Are you engaged to the Count?” Joe demanded.

“No, I am not,” Marguerite bit out, her voice cold and uncharacteristically hard.

She opened her mouth to say more but then closed it again. Until she had spoken to her father about this arrangement he was supposed to have entered her into, she couldn’t really say anything else. From the scorn on his face, she didn’t think he would believe her, anyway.

Besides, it is none of his business, she thought as she studied the ground at her feet.