Parlor Games by Leda Swann Page A

are, I do not trust you one whit, but I trust Mrs. Erskine to not let me be cheated.”
    Even though she had goaded him into making such a bold statement, his honest words still irked her. “Why do you trust her and not me? Is she so singularly honest? Or am I so particularly untrustworthy?”
    His smile spoke volumes. “It’s very simple—she has more to lose than you do. I could destroy her coffee house with one malicious pamphlet, and she knows it. I have no such hold over you.”
    Uncomfortable though his words might be, she much preferred him when he was telling her the unvarnished truth instead of pacifying her with lies that a child could see through. “You are a writer?”
    “I am. And a moderately successful one, too.” His pride was evident in his tone of voice. “I write the news sheets and contribute to a number of periodicals.”
    His open pride in his profession surprised her. “My father always said that writing was barely a respectable way to earn one’s living.”
    Tom’s brow darkened. “Your father must have been a paragon of all earthly virtues to turn up his nose at writers.”
    Judging by the black look on his face, she had offended him without even trying this time. “He was a curate, a man of God.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “Things were either black or white to him.”
    “And are you equally uncompromising? Do you consider me beneath your notice now that you know I am a working man, and earning my living in a barely respectable way?”
    “Why should I?” She spread out her arms in a gesture that invited him to share the irony of her situation. “I am a working girl myself, and my profession is a far less respectable one.”
    “You are no helpless ornament. You at least have a profession.”
    “One I am not proud of. How could I be proud of this?”
    “Earning a living is better than giving up and starving on the streets.”
    “Is it?” She shot him a shrewd look. “My father, for one, would not think so.”
    “And you? What do you think?”
    “I am here, aren’t I?” The corner of her mouth creased in a mirthless smile. “Not starving in the streets or laboring in the work house for a pittance with no hope of ever getting out again.”
    “I admire your spirit. You are brave. A survivor.”
    Bravery would have been holding her head high as she died by inches in the work house. True courage would have allowed her to forget the needs of her body while she took care of her soul. Bravery was not selling her body for bread because she was afraid of hunger and cold and want. “I took the easy way out. There is nothing brave about that.”
    He came nearer to her, and traced down the line of her cheek with his forefinger. “Is it so very bad, being here?”
    “I am glad you have bought my time for the month,” she confessed, in the spirit of truthfulness that had overcome them both. “You are easy to talk to and you do not stare at me like Sir Richard did last night. He made me feel somehow dirty.”
    He grinned at her. “You forgot to mention that I am a far finer figure of a man than he is and that you like me immensely.”
    “Sir Richard is a fine figure of a man,” she protested with an answering smile. “Well, anyway, he is very fine.”
    Tom made a face. “And he cuts a perfectly ridiculous figure in his gargantuan striped satin waistcoats. He is as big as a house. You could put a tasseled saddle on him and ride him about town, and pretend you were in India riding an elephant.”
    She suppressed a grin. Really, she should not think of Mrs. Erskine’s guests in such a way, but Sir Richard did look uncomfortably like an elephant. “You are a scoundrel.”
    His eyes brightened. “You like me in spite of the fact that I am a scoundrel?”
    She could not help but laugh. “It is very wicked of me, but I suspect that I like you all the more because of it.”
    A movement behind her caught his eye, and a groan escaped him. “Speak of the devil.”
    She turned in the