Your Wicked Heart by Meredith Duran Page A

Ripton muttered. “Always one for gloss.”
    The remark made Amanda frown. “Did the bankers tell you that?” It seemed an odd detail for them to know.
    He took a large sip of his wine, then shuddered. “My God. It’s thick enough to chew. I thought the Italians knew their grapes.”
    Noting the evasion, she eyed him narrowly. Now that she did not feel constantly on guard against his accusations, it was dawning on her that something did not add up here. “I thought you passed through Malta before. Didn’t you try the wine then?”
    “I didn’t have time for sightseeing on the way out.”
    He spoke with marked reluctance, almost as though the statement were an admission of some kind.
    Cautiously she said, “You were in a hurry?”
    His eyes fell to his cup, which he turned slowly in his hands. “There was some urgency to it, yes. And I’ve been ailing recently, so I was more interested in sleep than sightseeing.”
    The notion startled her. He seemed so vital that it was difficult to imagine him being sick. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
    “Only exhaustion.”
    “I thought you were a viscount,” she said cynically. “Surely lords do not labor themselves to exhaustion.”
    He gave her a fleeting smile. “It’s true, managing estates does not tax the body. But I’ve a very large and very troublesome family. Managing them could exhaust anyone.”
    Behind them, someone slammed his chair against the floor and snarled. She glanced over her shoulder. It seemed that such gestures were endemic to the local culture, for nobody else at the man’s table looked at all startled by his vehemence. With a smile, he took his seat again and retrieved his hand of cards.
    She turned back. “What was the cause of the urgency?”
    He lifted a brow. “What is the cause of your curiosity?”
    Ah, yes, here came his ill temper again. “I’m making polite talk, to pass the time. We could talk about your family instead, if you like.”
    “Let’s not,” he muttered.
    She felt a stir of irritation. “You’re very lucky to have a family, you know. Some of us are not so fortunate.”
    “Ah.” He studied her. “An orphan?”
    She did not like that word. It suggested a life barren of love, when hers had been the opposite, until recently. “My parents died three years ago.”
    “No siblings?”
    She shook her head.
    “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “My parents passed when I was very young. But my aunt and my cousins never let me feel their lack. For all that they drive me mad, I’m grateful for every one of them. Most of the time,” he added in an undertone.
    “Do they trouble you so terribly, then?” She liked tales of family mischief. As a child, she’d been full of envy when her friends spoke of quarrels with siblings, brawls over dolls and cakes.
    He hesitated. “Well, one of them ran off recently. A cousin. I was chasing him down when I came across this . . . business of the impostor.”
    “Oh!” How shocking! “ Missing ?”
    “Yes. His mother—my aunt—is out of her mind with worry.”
    “And did you find him?”
    He shook his head, and looked so troubled that she could not resist placing a hand over his where it lay on the table. This news put his urgency to find the impostor in a new and far more sympathetic light. “But why are you looking for the impostor, then? Shouldn’t your attention be for your cousin?”
    His eyes had fallen to her fingers over his. “He somehow got hold of my letters of credit. So financing the search has become difficult.”
    “Oh! The rascal!” Horrified, she retrieved her hand. “But surely others are looking for him, too! For your cousin, I mean. Perhaps they’ve already found him, and you just haven’t learned of it . . .”
    “No,” he said. “That is, he has a gift for getting into . . . scrapes. His mother wanted the news kept close, lest the gossip start anew.”
    “Then somebody else from the family should be looking!”
    He laughed.