A Lady of His Own by Stephanie Laurens Page B

demonstrating that he wouldn’t retreat, but instead, question by question, would press harder until she capitulated and told him all she knew.
    The time he was willing to give her to think had become severely limited the instant he’d realized Arbry was involved; it had shortened even further when he’d learned Amberly had been with the Foreign Office, the very office the putative traitor was supposed to have graced.
    He held his peace until Mrs. Slattery’s lemon curd pudding was set before them and Filchett departed. Lemon curd pudding was his favorite; delicious, it was gone in too few bites. Lifting his wineglass, he sat back and sipped, and looked down the table at Penny.
    “You’re protecting someone, but it isn’t Arbry.”
    She looked up; he trapped her gaze.
    “So who else? Your family is all female, as is mine these days. None of them are involved.”
    She swallowed her last mouthful of pudding. “Of course not.”
    “So who else could be involved in running secrets out of the Fowey estuary—who that you would feel compelled to protect?” That was what was fueling her refusal to tell him; that was the point he needed to attack.
    When she set down her spoon and looked back at him, unmoved, he arched a brow. “The staff at Wallingham, perhaps?”
    Her gaze turned contemptuous. “Don’t be silly.”
    “Mother Gibbs herself?”
    “No.”
    “Her sons, then—are the Gibbses still running the Fowey Gallants?”
    She frowned in mock confusion. “I’m not sure how to answer—yes, or no. But yes, they’re still in charge of the Gallants. I daresay they always will be—Gibbses have been Gallants for over four hundred years.”
    “Do they still meet at the Cock and Bull?”
    “Yes.”
    So she’d been there—followed someone there—recently. “Do you have any idea if they’ve been involved in running secrets?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So which other gangs are still operating?”
    He took her on a seemingly peripatetic ramble around the district; often it wasn’t her answer that enlightened, but the fact she gave any answer at all that told him who she’d recently had contact with, or thought to ask about.
    It was the speed at which his questions came that finally opened Penny’s eyes. They were immersed in a rapid-fire discussion of the Essington brothers, Millie’s and Julia’s husbands, when the scales fell. She stopped midsentence, stared at him for a moment, then shut her lips. Firmly.
    He accorded her glare no more than an arched brow, a what-did-you-expect look.
    Indeed. Tossing her napkin on the table, she rose. He, more languidly, rose, too.
    “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire for the night.”
    She turned, but by then he’d reached her. He walked beside her to the door. Closing his hand about the knob, he paused and looked down at her. Waited…until she steeled herself, looked up, and met his eyes.
    “No game, Penny. I need to know. Soon.”
    They were no more than a foot apart; regardless of her senses’ giddy preoccupation, the look in his midnight eyes was unmistakable. He was deadly serious. But he was dealing with her straightly, no histrionics, no attempt to dazzle her, to pressure her as only he could.
    He had to know he could; that moment in the orchard had demonstrated beyond question how much sensual power he still wielded over her.
    If he wished to use it.
    Tilting her head, she swiftly studied his eyes, realized, understood that he’d made a deliberate choice not to invoke their personal past, not to use the physical connection that still sparked between them against her, to overcome, overwhelm, and override her will.
    He was dealing with her honestly. Just him and her as long ago they’d used to be.
    Moved, feeling oddly torn—tempted to grasp the chance of dealing openly with him again—she raised a hand, briefly clasped his arm. “I will tell you. You know that.” She drew in a tight breath. “But not yet. I do need to think—just a bit