She was insane, clearly. Alistair studied her in the dim light and knew it without a doubt. This woman had lost her mind. That wasn’t important now, though. What was important was figuring out how much she knew. What was important was managing this situation before this insufferable lady caused any more harm—to him, his family, and most importantly, to herself.

“What will it take to get you to quit your quest?” he asked. “What is it you need? Is it money?”

He hadn’t been serious. He’d wanted to shame her. This woman was too good for this sort of game play. She did not so much as flinch. “That depends, I suppose.”

“On?” Alistair asked.

“On how much you are willing to give me.” She said it as though it were obvious. Who the hell was this woman? She walked and talked like a lady, she smiled like a lady, but she was as ruthless as a crime lord.

He folded his arms across his chest. “Lady Henrietta, I will not be held hostage by some high-class blackmailer.” Yet again, nothing. Not so much as a wince or a flicker of regret. She was as hard as ice.

But not always, not when he kissed her. The temptation was there, to seduce her into submission, or into distraction, at the very least. He shook off the thought. Had she not proven how dangerous she could be? Alistair needed to be rid of her. He needed to drive her away, not hold her close. She was giving him that arch look again, waiting on his response. How much would he give to be rid of her?

The thought tugged at him, making his chest tighten and his gut sink. Safety, that’s what this was about. Her safety mattered. He leaned back with a forced casualness. “Well that depends, I suppose.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “On?”

“On how much you know.”

Her lips twitched with barely-concealed amusement and he couldn’t look away. The blasted woman was enjoying this. He should have known. “Oh Alistair,” she said, her voice like a smooth, purring cat. “You have no idea how much I know. That is the point, is it not?”

“Henri,” he said with a growl.

“Yes, Alistair?” She smiled up at him beatifically, her eyes bright with laughter and her lips—good God, those lips. They were curved upward in sweet temptation. Bloody hell, was she trying to torture him? He acted without thinking. Nothing could have stopped him in that moment. He crushed her to him, his mouth claiming hers as if it was his right. Mine, some base part of his brain was shouting insistently. She is mine.

She pressed herself to him with no sign of restraint. Her low moan was one of mutual need. Wonder spread through him at the thought she wanted this as much as he did. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her closer so their bodies molded together. She arched into him, rubbing against him as if to get closer still. He groaned at the intimate contact and she let out an answering gasp that drove him wild.

Before he knew what he was doing, he’d slid her onto his lap, his mouth slanting over hers to deepen the kiss, his hands running over every part of her he could reach. She moaned her approval when his tongue slipped between her lips, tasting, testing, and exploring as though they had all the time in the world. For a moment there it felt as though they did. When the driver coughed outside the door, she pulled back and they sat there frozen and panting for air.

She’d bewitched him, he was certain of it. What other explanation could there be for the way he’d lost his senses so thoroughly? He’d forgotten what they were discussing and why. He’d lost all sense of where they were. He tilted her chin up, forcing her gaze to meet his.

Satisfaction ripped through him, primal and intense. At least he was not the only one. The cold, calculating woman who sat there and blithely blackmailed him was nowhere to be seen. This vixen on his lap was another woman entirely. Or, perhaps it was the same woman, but another side of her, the side she kept hidden. It had to be the part of herself she never revealed to any man.

Except for him.

Because she is mine.

That possessiveness he’d always felt around her intensified as it threatened to drown him alive. The vulnerability in her eyes was nearly his undoing. He couldn’t bring himself to release her when she looked at him with dazed passion. They sat like that for countless minutes, staring into one another’s eyes as their heartbeats returned to normal. Their breath mingled as their breathing grew even.

The heat was still there between them, but they slowly but surely wrangled it into submission. She leaned against him, allowing him to hold her upright—something he doubted many men had experienced. It was not about the embrace, but rather, her vulnerability. She allowed him to support her, which he knew without a doubt was not in her usual behavior. He knew this in his bones. This woman did not allow many in, and as bizarre as their situation might be, he was one of the lucky few.

She straightened then, her gaze dropping as she shifted off his lap. “So then, shall I tell you what I know for certain about you and your family, or would you prefer I start with my hunches, which I plan to find evidence to support, of course.”

He stared at her in horror as she forcefully reminded him of their situation. What had he been thinking when he referred to himself as one of the lucky few? It was more like he was one of the cursed, should she choose to use that cold mind against him.

“I have nothing to hide,” he said, lying. “I would rather my privateering not be made public knowledge, but I have never catered to blackmail before, my lady. I most certainly shall not start with you.”

She blinked once at his cold tone and he shifted to open the door, signaling the driver to assist her out. “Very well,” she said calmly. “If that is the way you wish to play it.”

He kept his mouth shut, not trusting himself to open it again lest he do something utterly ludicrous like kiss her again. She took the driver’s arm, but turned back to face him once she was on the ground. “What happened here this evening changes nothing, you know.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know.”

“I must do what I can to ensure my family’s stability and freedom.”

He frowned. Did she have any idea how ridiculous she sounded? “Freedom from what?”

She met his gaze evenly. “The Bloomfield family no longer owes anything to anyone, Lord Colefax. I assure you that was not the case when my parents passed, and it would be far from the case if the estate were left to my brother’s devices.”

He leaned forward, intrigued to hear more about her despite knowing the closer he got the more entangled he would become. The more he knew her the more obsessed he would become. Despite all that, he found himself desperate to know what sort of harm had befallen her family before she took over. What claims had been made upon them—upon her—because of their indebtedness?

Whatever hint of vulnerability he’d thought he’d seen vanished in a heartbeat as she gripped the door to the carriage and met his gaze head on. “I will discover your secrets, Lord Colefax, one way or the other. I suggest you give some thought as to what, exactly, you are prepared to give me in return.”

“Is that a threat, Lady Henrietta?” he drawled. He tried to cling to anger, but it was something alarmingly close to admiration that had him studying her anew. He rarely met a man who could stand up to him with such courage, let alone a woman.

On the other hand, there was no doubting her femininity. His traitorous mind chose that moment to recall their embrace in startlingly vivid detail as fire lanced his veins.

“Not a threat, Lord Colefax.” Her smile was more feline than feminine. “Merely a promise.”

“I do believe you’re enjoying yourself,” he said quietly yet firmly.

Her gaze dropped audaciously to his lips and her smile broadened. “Aren’t you, my lord?”

He was. She slammed the door shut, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Heaven help him, he was thoroughly enthralled. Alistair fell back against the carriage seat with a groan, pondering how he might slip away from the Braxton estate unseen, though that, he knew, was the least of his problems.

Marcus and his men would leave port in a fortnight, off to the northern coast of Africa where with the slave-trading pirates he and his brother both abhorred sailed the coast. But that was his brother’s affair. He was the one with the noble calling—or the death wish, depending on who was talking and what time of day it happened to be. He himself had been known to curse his brother’s name for having left him to deal with the earldom upon their father’s death.

“Better you than me, brother,” Marcus had said.

Perhaps he was right. Managing properties befitted him. He was far better suited to be the anonymous donor and informant to a crew of bandits who valued justice over all else. Let Marcus be the one leading the fray, he was content to keep silently in the background. Proper. Stodgy. No humor. He’d heard this all whispered about him on those few occasions when he visited the gentlemen’s clubs. He was happy to fill that role. He was not a pirate hunter, nor a dashing lover with a slew of mistresses, and not even a wicked earl with some unholy agenda.

No, he was merely the keeper of secrets, and he had met his match.

He rubbed at his eyes, unspeakably tired after a week of secret meetings and looking over his shoulder. That stopped now. He had grown weary of being the mouse in this little game of theirs. He was tired about being watched and scrutinized, even if it was by a woman as lovely as Henri.

No, something had to change. The tide had turned, as Marcus would say. If there was one thing he and his brother knew how to do, it was change their course to face the rising tide. This was no different. He dropped his hand as his mind toyed with new tactics and a plan began to hatch. He’d allowed himself to be the prey long enough. It was time to get her in his sights and keep her there where he could keep an eye on her and ensure her safety. It was a job, a few weeks past, he would have never guessed he’d take.

“You cannot seriously be enjoying this?”

Poor Mary paced the drawing room, barely avoiding a cascade of flowers which drooped from the last spare vase that could be found.

“Of course I am,” Henri said, taking a moment to sniff the hothouse roses that had been recently arranged.

“Another one from him?” Mary said. She said it with such disdain that Henri laughed.

“He is an earl, Mary. And a bachelor. Some might say I was lucky to be the object of his attentions.”

Mary pursed her lips and placed her hands on her hips. “Some might, but I know better. I may not know all that you and Rodrick are up to, but I’ve seen enough with my own two eyes to know that there is more going on between you and the Earl of Colefax than meets the eye.”

Henri made a noncommittal sound. While she had no qualms about her own safety—the man might have secrets but he was a gentleman, after all—she had no desire to drag her friend into her intrigues. Poor Mary had enough troubles of her own with a money-obsessed, title-seeking father lurking in the shadows. Certainly he’d been rendered harmless by her sister’s new family, but that hardly took away the sting of having a father who cared more for money than his child’s happiness.

If anyone understood that, it was Henrietta. Had her parents not died when they had, she would have been the sacrificial lamb. In the end, she would have been the one who paid for her father’s lack of financial prowess, which he’d apparently inherited from his father, and he from his father before him. The mismanagement of money seemed to be a shared trait among the males of the Bloomfield line, which was why it had become imperative she step in and end the cycle before Rodrick could make it any worse.

“Come, Henri,” Mary said, her tone cajoling and sweet. “Tell me what is truly between you two.”

“My dear, there is nothing to tell.” Henri lied. Her mind had already drifted back to that night one week prior, to the kiss that had made her forget all about schemes, power, and controlling her destiny. A shiver of fear raced through her at the memory of how thoroughly he had wiped her mind clean. For a moment, she had forgotten what she was about, she’d forgotten what she was doing with him in the first place.

For a moment there it had felt all too real.

She was jarred out of her memories when Mary placed a hand on her arm. Gulping, she forced a smile. Mary frowned in concern. “What does this Colefax want with you?”

Henri’s smile grew more natural and far more rueful. “Really, Mary, you make it sound as though it were entirely impossible that a gentleman might be interested in courting me.” She arched her brows teasingly. “Am I really so firmly on the shelf that such an idea is out of the question?”

Mary widened her eyes. “Of course not!” She narrowed her gaze as quickly. “Do not attempt to distract me, Henri. I know very well that you’re evading the question.”

Henri pursed her lips, stifling a laugh. Perhaps her young charge was learning more while staying here than anyone had anticipated. She met Mary’s curious gaze and sighed. Perhaps it was time to take her friend into her confidence, at least to some degree. It was only fair she knew what she was mixed up in as a guest here.

“You were right, dear,” she said. “I am afraid there is more to the earl’s sudden interest than meets the eye.”

Mary frowned. “So he does not want to court you then?”

Henri found herself frowning before she could force another smile of reassurance. “Of course not. He merely wants to keep me close.”

Mary blinked. “But why, if not to woo you?”

Henri laughed. “Woo me? My dear, you do have such romantic notions. Next you will tell me that prince charming has ridden into town and will sweep me off my feet.”

Mary’s lips twitched with mirth. “Careful, Henri. You sound just like Eliza, and look what happened to her.” They both laughed at that—Eliza had been so opposed to love and marriage, but then she had fallen in love.

“Have no fear,” Henri said. “The same will not happen to me. I will be through with the earl soon enough.” She bit her lip before adding. “Once I know his secrets.”

Mary did not look nearly as shocked as she ought. “Ah, so that is what you are about. You seek to blackmail him.”

Henri’s eyes widened in genuine shock at her young friend’s assumption, which so matched the earl’s. “Of course not. Blackmail, what an ugly term.”

“Then why do you seek to unravel his secrets?”

Power. Safety. Security. Henri was not certain she could explain. “I have never outright blackmailed anyone,” she finally said. “I merely like to know the secrets of the ton so I can gauge their actions.”

Mary nodded as if that made perfect sense. “So you can place bets on them.”

Henri stared at the girl. “You know about that?”

Mary shrugged, her expression entirely too innocent. “Eliza was not exactly quiet when she discovered that there was a wager made about my future husband.”

Henri gasped. “You…er, you knew about that?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Of course. But I have long since forgiven the men in question.”

The men, Henri knew, included Jed, Mary’s new brother-in-law. “Well, that is very good of you.” Mary waved her off. Henri leaned forward and grasped her hand. “Mary, you must know, I was not the one who started that bet.”

Mary laughed and squeezed her hand. “Oh, I know that.” Her smile grew. “You merely profited from it.”

Henri opened her mouth and shut it again, unsure of how to reply since her young friend had stated it so casually, with no sign of offense. She grimaced nonetheless in shame. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

Mary laughed again, the sound light as a bell in the stuffy drawing room. “Do not look at me like that. I was not offended. In fact, I am quite glad that someone I love did well by that bit of nonsense.”

She was in earnest, a fact which made Henri let out an entirely unladylike snort of amusement as she shook her head. “You are an odd creature, Mary Beaucraft. Did you know that?”

Mary nodded, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Indeed, Georgie tells me nearly every day.” They both laughed, but Mary quickly grew earnest. “Now tell me, dear friend. What sort of secrets are you seeking out from that stodgy earl?” She arched a brow. “And what exactly do you mean to do once you find them?”

Henri had opened her mouth to answer the first question with something vague to appease her young friend, but it was the second that made her stop short, words freezing on her lips as she realized she had no answer. For the second time in as many minutes, her young charge had rendered her speechless. “I—I—” she stammered, much to her dismay.

Mary’s expression turned to that of pity as she patted her arm. “It is quite all right. You owe me no explanations.”

Henri clamped her lips shut. That was all well and good, but the question still remained. What did she plan to do with these secrets when all was said and done? Despite her insinuations to the earl, she did not regularly indulge in blackmail or extortion. That business tended to get messy. People got hurt and lives were destroyed. She merely sought out secrets to maintain knowledge, which was power. Leverage was all she desired. But somehow over the course of the last few weeks, it had stopped being about acquiring knowledge for the sake of leverage and had become about something else entirely. Curiosity was part of it. She had always loved a good mystery and this one was too good to resist.

Alistair’s face rose up in her mind’s eye and her entire body responded. She could not deny it, even to herself. It was more than curiosity that drove her now. The more she grew to know the man, the more she wanted to learn. Out of curiosity, yes, but she was also driven by something far more visceral. Something that had nothing to do with her mind or her intellect, and everything to do with her body.

And with her heart.

“Henri, dear, are you all right?” Mary reached out and placed a hand to her forehead. “You look quite ill.”

Henri swallowed down the overwhelming surge of fear and forced a smile that clearly did nothing to assuage Mary’s concern. She cleared her throat and tried for honesty, which was not her first inclination, but her young friend deserved nothing less. “The earl,” she said slowly. “He has secrets, and I mean to discover them.” She met Mary’s gaze. “But once I do? I—” She shook her head. “I know not what I will do with them.”

Mary’s smile was soft and disconcertingly knowing. “Do not fear. When the time comes, you will know exactly what to do with those secrets.”

Henri blinked, astonished at the sudden reversal of roles. She’d never once been the naive ingénue in life. Even when she was young, she was never naïve. Her mother had raised her to know exactly what was going on around her, to take note of the hushed conversations and the underlying meanings hidden in pretty words. It was her mother who had taught her the game of chess—on the board and in the ballroom.

So no, even as a young girl she had not been one to seek advice. Yet here she sat, looking to her younger, far less worldly friend as though she truly did hold all the answers. Would she know what to do when the time came? She thought of Alistair and the way he’d somehow drawn her into his spell with a passionate kiss.

That panicky feeling threatened to rise up again but she squashed it mercilessly with a sip of piping hot tea. To her friend she murmured softly, “I hope so, Mary. I hope so.”

She felt Mary’s gaze on her. “You are not planning to stop, are you?” It was not so much a question but a statement. A reassurance.

Henri met her friend’s stare with a steely look. “Of course not,” she said, sipping her tea again. “Do not be ridiculous.”

Mary grinned. “Oh good.” She leaned back in her seat. “This should be quite entertaining.”