Page 23 of The Duke Undone

“It is in both of our interests.” He forced himself to continue, even as her eyes found his, narrowing with apprehension. “Your silence for my silence.”

“On which subject, pray tell, can I expect your silence?” She licked her lips, nervous. “It was wrong to misrepresent myself to Mrs. Forbes,” she conceded in a rush, then caught her breath. “Do you threaten to expose me?”

She was close enough to touch. All he had to do was raise his hand. “I will keep silent on a more serious subject.”

Now her eyes looked a question. She would not make this easy for him. He forged on.

“On the subject of your employment, Miss Coover,” he said, while she blinked at him. He inhaled, prepared himself. If he couldn’t be delicate, at least he would be direct.

“I will tell no one that you are a prostitute.”

Chapter Four

For a moment, she held perfectly still. Then the reaction came, swift and explosive. She laughed up into his face, a great burst of disbelief.

“Is that how you divide my sex?” she asked. “Ladies and whores?”

She bent sharply, arm across her stomach, convulsed, though her laughter sounded more like exclamations of fury. She righted herself, eyes bright.

“Can you fathom that a woman may be neither? That there are some women a man like you cannot pay or marry?”

He stared at her. Her very hair seemed to crackle around her.

“But how, then . . .” He spoke stiffly. “In your picture, I am . . .”

“Stark naked, just like I found you. By the smell, I’d say you’d been rolled out of a tavern. I stepped on you, in fact. Thought you were a rat, at first. Then a dead man.”

My corpse.

His eyes pricked with the memory of lacerating sunlight. He’d woken in an alleyway, aching, bare-arsed in the cold mud, a ragpicker boy jabbing the sole of his foot with a stick. When was that?

October. Shortly after his father’s death.

“That was how it happened. So, you and I . . . we did not . . .” He wasn’t a born orator, but before he’d met Miss Coover he’d better luck finishing his sentences.

“No, Your Grace,” she said. “We did not.”

Relief galloped through him. Thank God. He hadn’t misused the woman. No. She had misused him. Anger rode in. How dare she look at him like that, all righteousness and outrage?

“You found me, you say. The victim of a crime.”

“A fancy fellow like you. Coins rattling in your pockets.” She sniffed. “You’re lucky one of the lads didn’t gut you like a fish.”

She’d let her accent slip. Her vowels had broadened. She was still furious. But he detected a hint of uneasiness in her expression.

“Certainly.” He gave her a cool smile. “It was of course my own fault that I was robbed and left in the mud. I’m sure I all but asked you to stop and take a good long look as well.”

There. Her eyelids twitched. He’d scored a point. She was on the defensive now.

“I covered you,” she said, a weak protest.

“Covered me? That’s rather rich coming from the woman who put my nether parts in a picture. Miss Coover.” He lowered his voice, stepped closer. “Whatever ideals you were exploring in your art, the fact of the matter is this: you made me your model without my consent.”

They stood toe-to-toe. She stared at him. She opened her mouth to argue.

“You,” she said, accusation in her voice. But something shifted behind her eyes.

“You . . . are right,” she finished. She looked as surprised as he felt.