Page 61 of A Relentless Rake

His lips twisted when she gave no challenge to that.

A glance over his shoulder confirmed that she remained in the same battle stance as before.Fine.If she wanted a fight, he’d give her one.

He set down the decanter with a soft thud and faced her. “Then I left.”

“Yes, you did.” She lifted her chin.

His gaze dropped to the long column of her throat. He knew the feel of having his mouth there, remembered the warmth of her skin and the sweet taste of her…honey.

“Why leave?” she pressed. “I thought you wanted…”

Me.The word hung between them as loudly as if she’d actually uttered it.

“I did.” He raised the glass for a soothing swallow. “I very much did.”

“Did you? Or were you simply attempting to seduce information from me?”

He froze, the glass at his lips.

“When you realized I could share nothing more about my brother, you left.” She folded her arms over her chest, although Alec couldn’t have said whether in self-protection or to keep from throttling him. “Was it because there was no point in continuing if I couldn’t provide information?”

“Oh, sweet,” he purred. “There’salwaysa point in continuing a seduction.”

Her lips pressed into a hard line. He wanted to kiss her mouth until it softened, until her lips parted with a sigh and let him inside.

But could he ever kiss away her deception? He suffered no one who pretended to be something they weren’t.

“I kissed you tonight—I didallthose things to you,” he added pointedly before she could correct him and remind him again of how delicious their encounter had been, “because I wanted to bring us both pleasure. No other reason.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He didn’t give a damn what she believed about him. Not anymore.

Except for this. “I didn’t attempt to seduce secrets from you tonight, Olivia, because I would never use you like that.” He dropped his gaze to his glass. “And I certainly didn’t have to. All the Home Office had to do was follow your brother, knowing that sooner or later he would lead us to the men he’s working with. Tonight he led us to Lady Rowland, and now we follow her. It’s simply a matter of trailing behind in their wake and picking up the pieces until we can spring the trap.”

Ifthey didn’t run out of time. Every day that passed was another opportunity for Scepter to assassinate the prime minister.

“What pieces?” she asked, frustration and anger edging her voice.

He circled behind his desk. There was no point any longer in keeping his mission from her. “You heard about the bombing at the Admiralty Club?”

She frowned at the strange turn of conversation. “Fumes built up in the new gas system, and there was an accident when the lamps were lit. People were hurt, killed so terribly…”

“It wasn’t the gas lamps that exploded, and it wasn’t an accident.” He pulled open his desk drawer and reached inside for the charred slip of paper Clayton had given him. “It was an attempt to assassinate Lord Liverpool.”

Even from across the room, he heard her shocked gasp. Slowly, he slid the fragment across the desk toward her.

“What is that?” she asked warily, remaining where she was by the door.

“The reason I don’t have to seduce you for information,” he admitted solemnly.And the reason I can’t leave you alone, even now.

She slowly approached his desk. He nodded for her to pick up the fragment. Her frown deepened as she reached for it, only for it to vanish beneath a sudden pallor as she saw the equations worked across the faint lines of building plans and the name Everett scrawled across the bottom.

“A government operative traced a lead to a nearby inn where the men responsible for the bombing had been meeting,” he explained. “The Home Office believes those men were following orders from others higher up in their organization.” Alec put his drink aside. He no longer had any taste for the stuff. “They attempted to destroy any evidence linking them to the attack, but that slip of paper was discovered in the fireplace ashes. It’s our only clue to the identity of the men who set the explosives. If we find those men, then we can find the leaders who gave the orders and stop them from trying again.”

He could almost see her sharp mind whirling to put together what he was telling her. “But you—you said revolutionaries, not assassins…”

“No difference,” he said quietly, knowing that to be the God’s truth. After all, he’d fought against the French and knew exactly how much death and destruction their revolution had wrought.