Undoing of a Lady Read Free

tone.
    “But you know where it is.” He let her go, breathing hard. There was some expression in his eyes, something feral, something different. It made hertremble. She remembered for the first time that he was a man who habitually, ruthlessly and coldly hunted down criminals in the course of his duty. She did not think about that often for that was the side of Nat’s life that she seldom saw, but she thought about it now because she could sense the rage in him and the desperation. She remembered that he had said he needed Flora Minchin’s fifty thousand pounds very badly indeed. She knew that he had wanted to restore Water House and provide for his family—his parents were old and his sister Celeste an invalid—but recently it had seemed there was an added urgency to his actions as though something else had happened to make his pursuit of the money even more pressing. She did not know what it was. She had never asked. Perhaps Nat was right that she was always wrapped up in her own concerns. The thought disturbed her.
    She searched his face for the Nat Waterhouse she recognized and saw a stranger.
    It chilled her so much that she teetered on the brink of capitulation and Nat saw her hesitate on the very edge of defeat—and he laughed.
    “That’s right, Lizzie. Act like an adult for once. Go and fetch the key.”
    It was the contempt in his voice that decided her, that and his laughter ringing in her ears. She could imagine him telling his friends Dexter Anstruther and Miles Vickery all about her plan, how she had thought to put a stop to his marriage because she wasso young and immature and spoiled, and because she was harboring a not-so-secret tendre for him. She burned with humiliation to think of him ascribing such feelings to her and laughing over them with his friends because, she told herself fiercely, it simply wasn’t true . She had tried to rescue him and he had scorned her efforts and for that she would make him pay. The need to make him suffer—to make him hurt the way she was hurting—ached in her chest and ran through her blood like poison.
    She drew herself up and stared him in the eye.
    “No. I am not going anywhere and neither are you.” She spun away from him across the tiny chamber.
    “You’re bloody mad.” Nat was furious and had given up any pretence of courtesy now.
    “And you are bloody rude.” She whirled around to look at him, heady with power now. “And arrogant and conceited to think that I care for you.”
    “Don’t you?” His eyes glittered.
    “Of course not. I detest you. Especially now, after all those wicked things you have said about me. What do you think this is, one of Monty’s ridiculous medieval laws?” She flicked him an impertinent smile even though her heart felt, oddly, as though it was breaking. “The droit de seigneur? Surely you don’t imagine that I kidnapped you in order to have my wicked way with you on the night before your wedding?” She allowed her gaze to slide over him with an attempt at the same insolence with which hehad looked at her earlier. It was more difficult than she had thought. She had little experience in eyeing up a man as though he was a commodity for sale.
    “You wouldn’t have the nerve to carry off something like that.” Nat’s arrogant assumption twisted the knife. “Come on, Lizzie. You are out of your depth. Admit it. This is one of your childish games that has gone too far.”
    Don’t dare me …
    Their eyes met. The air between them seemed hot, heavy and pulsing with tension. Lizzie put a hand on his arm.
    “You think I could not seduce you, Nat Waterhouse?”
    His hand closed hard about her wrist, holding it still. Beneath his fingers, her pulse jumped. “Don’t be absurd.” His voice was rough.
    Lizzie stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips inexpertly against his. He remained completely unresponsive beneath her touch even though she knew—she knew —he was not indifferent to her. She could feel the conflict in him