What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens Page B

Barnaby. “No. I caught her .”

3
    B y the time Caxton steered her into his office, Pris had her wits firmly back under control. It helped that, in marching her back to the Jockey Club, he’d done no more than grip her elbow. Even that much contact was more than she would have wished, but it was a great improvement over what had gone before.
    Those moments when she’d lain beneath him welled again in her mind. Resolutely, she jammed them down, buried them deep. She couldn’t afford the distraction.
    He thrust her into the room, in the direction of the chair before his desk, the one she’d previously occupied.
    After hauling her to her feet, with a detachment that, to her in her highly charged, overwrought state, had somehow smacked of insult, he’d tugged loose her kerchief, pulled her arms behind her, and bound them. Not tightly, but too well for her to slip her wrists free.
    She’d borne the indignity only because her wits had still been reeling, her traitorous senses still whirling, leaving her weak—too weak to break away.
    But their plodding journey through the wood had given her time to catch her breath; she was feeling considerably more capable now.
    Halting beside the chair, she narrowed her eyes at Caxton as he came up beside her. “You’ll need to untie my hands.”
    It was the earl’s daughter who spoke. Caxton met her eyes, considered, then reached behind her and tugged the knot free.
    Leaving her to untangle her hands, he walked on; rounding his desk, he dropped into the chair behind it.
    Behind her, Pris heard the door shut and the latch click home. As she sat—noting that Caxton hadn’t waited for her to do so before sitting himself—she glanced at his friend. He limped to the armchair and slowly let himself down into it.
    She managed not to wince. Her confidence in Rus hadn’t been misplaced; there was a bruise on the man’s cheekbone, another on his jaw, and from the way he moved, his ribs hadn’t escaped punishment. He looked thoroughly roughed up, yet she detected a shrewdness, an incisiveness in his gaze; he was still very much mentally alert.
    Shaking out her kerchief, she rolled it, then calmly knotted it once more about her neck. She looked at Caxton, noted he was frowning, then realized his gaze had lowered to her breasts, rising under the fine shirt as she reached to the back of her neck.
    Thanking the saints that she didn’t blush easily, she lowered her arms. “Now that we’re here, what can I do for you, gentlemen?”
    She had every intention of making this interview more painful for them than for her.
    Dillon blinked, then locked his gaze on her face, on her fascinating eyes. “You can start by telling us what you were doing skulking about the wood.”
    Her emerald eyes opened wide. “Why, skulking about the wood, of course. Is that a crime?”
    He didn’t try to stop his jaw, his whole face from hardening. “The man in the wood—who was he?”
    She considered asking what man. Instead, she shrugged. “I have no idea.”
    â€œYou were there to meet him.”
    â€œSo you say.”
    â€œHe’s a felon who’s been trying to burgle the Jockey Club.”
    â€œReally?”
    Dillon could almost believe the arrested look that went with that, as if he’d told her something she hadn’t known. “You know him, because you deliberately distracted me from helping Barnaby—Mr. Adair—apprehend him. You knew he’d overcome one man, but not two. You’re his accomplice—you helped him get away. Presumably you were his lookout.”
    She sat back in the chair, outwardly as at ease, as comfortable and assured as she’d been in her emerald gown. Arms resting on the chair’s arms, she met his gaze directly. “That’s a fascinating hypothesis.”
    â€œIt’s the truth, or something close to it.”
    â€œYou have an