Revealed by Kate Noble Page B

one who had a scheduled meeting this evening.”
    “Hmph,” she harrumphed in a not very ladylike fashion. “Some mousy little thing, no doubt, dared by her friends to meet a man—any man—at midnight, and turning coward before she even left that ballroom?”
    “Hah!” he laughed aloud, surprising Phillippa into looking down at him. “Mrs. Benning, I told you, no one sane would chose such an awful space for a . . . romantic interlude,” he concluded, aware of her narrowed eyes on him. “No, contrary to your mind-set, not every midnight assignation is romantic in nature.” He rose, causing her to shift and look up at him. “Yours wasn’t, for example.”
    Her mouth dropped open in shock. “It most certainly was!”
    “Really? It seemed far more businesslike to me. You maneuvering to acquire an asset and to outpace your rivals in that acquisition. Tactical, and brilliantly so, if I may proffer my admiration.”
    She narrowed her eyes, obviously not unfamiliar with the idea of a backhanded compliment.
    “I am sane,” she said, her chin still higher than her nose.
    He raised a brow. “No one claimed otherwise.”
    “You said no one sane would chose such a spot for . . . Anyway, I’ve never been here before. I didn’t know it looked like this.”
    He smiled wryly. “Fair enough. But next time you should do some reconnaissance. Check your surroundings in advance. Find a library with some cushioning. A sofa is just as easy to dive behind as a sarcophagus is to hide in.”
    He meant it in a chiding, fun-mannered fashion.
    It wasn’t taken that way.
    “Mr. Worth,” she began, hands on her hips and all simpering artifice dropped from her frame for perhaps the first time that evening, “this is not how I planned for my evening to end. I am meant to be dancing in the great hall right now, before going on to any number of other parties. Not stuck in here with, among other things, fourteen knee-high Venuses, four Caravaggios, two of which are fake, six bas-relief panels, forty-two alabaster nymphs, one Egyptian sarcophagus, and you! And as cramped and horrific as these surroundings, the only one of my company I find wholly objectionable right now is your person. Now, would you be so good as tell me what you want in order to never mention the circumstances of our meeting ever , or give your odious opinion of it, else I will take my leave.”
    She swept past him, but before she could reach the door, he took hold of her arm. Much to his surprise, she didn’t pull away, just turned to face him, blue eyes blazing in the darkness. Beneath the spectacles, his eyes blazed right back.
    “Mrs. Benning,” he said, his voice pitched to a low growl, “make no mistake; this is not the ideal situation for me, either.” At this she snorted, expressing her disbelief. His hand tightened imperceptibly on her arm, a sort of subtle massage. “I have been teasing so far in an effort to make light of our circumstances. However, if you think I give a bloody damn about you and your carryings-on, you are more self-absorbed than I took you for—which is not an easy feat.”
    An eyebrow went up. “What are you saying? That you can’t be bought? I have heard that before, and inevitably it is not true.”
    “I have no use for your money; I have no use for you. What on earth do you propose to purchase me with?”
    She flinched, as if struck. “I . . . I . . .”
    He took the opportunity to lean barely closer. “I have a short lesson for you, and take note. The easiest way to assure my silence—”
    But at that moment, the now-familiar sound of someone fiddling with the sticky door handle reached their ears. Marcus’s eyes shot to the base of the door, where an unusually wide shadow had blocked out most of the outside light.
    Marcus blew out the lone lit candle.
    “Quickly!” he breathed, pulling her back to the center of the room, back to the sarcophagus.
    “What? I’m not going back in there!” She pulled at his grip,