“
She ignored the gibe, smoothing out the folds in his coat with absent fingers. “I wanted to tidy up in here.”
“Destroy my carefully disordered sanctum, you mean?”
A smile edged over her lips. “I’m a woman, it’s what I do.”
“If I wanted someone manipulating my life, I’d have married.” Shaking his head, he crossed to the liquor stand near the window.
“If you learned some charm, you might have found someone willing to take on such a role.” She eyed the flask in his hand. Blood. She’d seen the way the thirst for it fired Balfour’s eyes, and the other blue bloods’ around him. Humanity drained away, leaving them little more than monsters, their eyes flooded with a demonic black.
Lynch poured himself a measured shot and threw it back with cool efficiency. Rosa couldn’t look away. His throat muscles worked, the fingers of his hand curling around the glass in a betraying motion. Then he slammed the glass down and swiftly capped the flask.
Barely enough to keep his hunger at bay. Yet he turned as if the action had never occurred, dragging at the crisp white cravat at his throat with an absent scowl on his face.
Some semblance of her discomfort must have shown. He paused before his desk, his shirt open at the throat and the cravat dangling from his fingers. “My apologies. I didn’t think to restrain myself.”
Rosalind forced herself to stir. “You never have before. I don’t see the point now.”
With a guarded look, he tossed the cravat on the desk. “I’ve restrained myself greatly.” Resting against the desk, he crossed his arms once more, a familiar pose. “Tell me… Did you find anything of interest?”
“Interest?”
“When you were rifling through my things.”
For a moment she thought he’d caught her out. Then she realized that there were faint creases at the corner of his gray eyes and just a hint of a smile edging his harsh lips. Her heart started beating again, thundering in her veins.
And she liked the feeling.
“There were many things of interest,” Rosalind said, circling the desk behind him. His head turned to the side then stopped, and she knew he was tracking her by sound now. His thick dark hair was cut brutally short, barely edging against the stiff starched cut of his collar. Rosalind eyed the broad span of his shoulders. “You’re an interesting man.”
“Yet you’re afraid of me,” he murmured.
“No, I’m not—”
“I can sense it. In your scent, in your voice, the soft catch of your breath.” He looked over his shoulder then, his gaze smoky. “You cannot hide anything from me, Mrs. Marberry.”
He was good. His body didn’t even stiffen, his eyes watching her dangerously. “It is your name,” he reminded her, in that rough-as-velvet voice.
Rosalind edged closer. Dangerous. So dangerous. But that old thrill was there again, tempting her to madness. She trailed her fingers across the desk, close to his thigh. “I like it when you call me Rosa.”
This time she called his bluff. The black breeches tightened over his thighs minutely. Rosalind’s gaze lifted and she smiled up at him.
Lynch stared back, his body unnaturally still. The stillness of a predator, eyeing its prey. The bunching of muscle, the shortness of breath. Rosalind took another step and her skirts brushed innocuously against his calves.
“Why did you come in here?” he asked.
“To drive you mad.” Shock drove his gaze to hers and Rosalind’s smile grew. “With your paperwork,” she elaborated. “I wanted to put it all away while you weren’t here. You have an obsession with paper.”
“Some might argue that so do you.”
“I like things to be tidy.”
“I like things to be where I put them,” he replied, a slight hint of huskiness in his voice.
She was slowly coming to understand him. Though desire roughened his voice, he’d not make a single move toward her.
Their gazes met. All of a sudden she could remember the cool exhale of his breath against her throat and the feel of his fingers cupping her arse. A part of her wanted to shatter that icy control, to drive him panting to the edge of desire, the way she’d done in the enclaves.
A troubling thought.
Rosalind graced him with a smile to hide her inner turmoil and turned away, the hem of her skirts swishing over his boots. The smile slid off her face as soon as her back was turned.
“How is Garrett this morning?” she asked, pretending that nothing had just happened.
“Recovering.” Behind her, Lynch let out a low exhale she almost didn’t hear. “Thank goodness. I thought for a moment…” His voice trailed off, then strengthened. “But Doctor Gibson tells me he should recover, if somewhat more slowly than usual.”
She wouldn’t have expected it, but she was honestly grateful. “That is good news. And the rest of your morning? I thought you gone for the day.”
“Evidently. You’ve written those letters?”
Rosalind rested her hands against the back of the settee and glanced over her shoulder. “On my desk.”
“Excellent. There are some files there too. Can you bring them to me? I need you to take some notes.”
When she turned, she found him bent over his desk, rifling through the stacks of papers as if to see what she’d done. The weak sunlight fell across his pale skin and the roughened stubble of his jaw. Dark shadows smudged his eyes, making the gray almost crystalline. He’d been out all night, she’d bet. Searching for her. Or for Mercury.
The thought should have made her smile, but instead she frowned. “Have you slept at all?”
A quirk of those dark brows. He didn’t bother to look up. “Are you still interviewing for the role of wife?”
Rosalind bit back her initial retort. “I was concerned, sir. You look like hell, but I’ll refrain from acknowledging such in the future. My apologies.” Sweeping past him, she headed into her own smaller study and immediately saw the files on her desk. He must have sat them there when he realized she was in his own study.
When she returned, Lynch eased back in his chair and looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve caught me at a bad time. I’m out of sorts and exhausted.”
Rosalind sat the files on his desk. She’d not have expected an apology. The force of his control, his exquisite manners, and his cool politeness were all things she’d not expected. He was an enigma and she enjoyed trying to understand him.
“That’s quite all right,” she found herself saying. “You’ve made no progress with the case?”
“Either of them.” He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, raking tired hands through his hair. For a second his expression was unguarded; frustration warred with exhaustion, and she found herself almost tempted to reach out and touch him. To cup his cheek in her palm and turn his face to hers.
The moment shook her. To forsake it, she asked tartly, “Either of them? Lord Haversham, do you mean?”
At that his eyes opened. The light struck them, rendering them almost blue-gray and something tightened in her chest. An ache. A longing. She turned away, fussing with her skirts.
“Not Haversham, no,” he replied quietly. “Have you heard of the humanists?”
Rosalind schooled her features. “It seems to be all anyone speaks of these days. People are concerned about what the Echelon intend to do about them and whether it will spill over into their world.”
“I have to find them first,” he said bleakly. “Before anything can be done.”
“I have no doubt you will,” she said, though she meant not a word of it—not if she had anything to do about
