“What are you doing?” he demanded. His voice was cold, how disturbing that he could sound so icy.
Her own voice failed her.
He took a step toward her, and she shot to her feet.
Chapter 13
Lady Catriona scrambled upright, a hand stretched out toward him as if to ward off a wild creature. It briefly stopped him in his tracks.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated, his tone a little calmer. Her face was frozen, like a doll’s. She had been snooping, no doubt about it.
She backed away, into the reception room, and he followed, matching her step by step.
“I should like to ask you the same thing,” she said, her arm still up. “What are you doing here, Mr. Khoury?”
She placed an odd emphasis on his name, drew it out as if it were a question. The penny dropped then. He could practically hear the Scottish burr—Are ye based in France, by any chance? The room suddenly seemed very bright. The outline of her body in her gray dress was unnaturally clear, as if someone had cut her out from an illustration with sharp scissors. Damn your father, Blackstone; damn your entire history. He could deny everything. The trouble was, he had no idea what exactly she knew, and he hadn’t a habit of lying.
He stopped stalking her so that she’d stop running.
“It was careless of you to come here alone,” he said.
She hovered, warily. Her eyes were cool. “A protection officer is just outside in the corridor—a large, mean, ruthless one.”
Not quite so careless, then. He gave her a thin smile.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t deny that you’re guilty of something?”
“I’m guilty of a number of things, Lady Catriona; it doesn’t give you permission to search my chambers.”
Her chin tipped up in defiance. “Your name has been associated with . . . events in France,” she said. “If Khoury is indeed your name.”
Barely a week, and his mission was on the verge of turning to shit.
He took a deep breath. “It is my name, yes. Do you know how many Khourys exist?”
“I’m aware,” she replied quickly. “There’s circumstantial evidence, however, and your arsenal of weapons hardly helps your case.”
“An arsenal,” he said, taken aback. “Every gentleman owns a revolver and a sword—what is so particularly offensive about mine?”
“They . . . seem rather oversized.”
Incredible. He bit back an inappropriate comment about his oversized weapon. Under his indignant stare, her gaze dropped, and caught on his feet. Her expression turned slightly embarrassed, probably because he was only wearing socks.
“Forgive me,” he drawled. “I hadn’t expected visitors.”
He had been on the balcony, smoking and minding his own business, when he had heard something scrape across his bedroom floor.
She touched her glasses, the awkward way, not the about-to-say-something-clever way. “The situation is that a few years ago, a Mr. Khoury took some antique jewels from a French count,” she said with some reluctance.
The count. He knew immediately. She noticed the recognition in his eyes, and a mix of pain and anger chased across her face. Her lips compressed into a tight line. Last night, her mouth had been soft as a rose under his. Nymph and lady had been one, at last. His blood had burned with the urge to taste her, to lick her fine skin from throat to toe, to bury his fingers in her hair and to pull the lush strands free. They could have been anyone in the dark, just a man and a woman indulging in carnal pleasure. Did you like what you saw? It had been the whisky speaking. That was why he had stopped. He had considered it during the train ride back to Oxford this morning, why he had stopped when all he had wanted was to take more, to give more, and it had disturbed him that her intoxication had made him hold back rather than any of the other reasons why making love to her would be a foolish thing to do. Apparently, he hadn’t learned his lesson back in Beirut. Apparently, he’d still take stupid risks for an unsuitable woman.
He studied her, gauging her mood, which was so unnaturally well-contained in her rigid body.
“I could explain about the count,” he hedged. “But what if you decide you don’t like it? You would call your officer, and we would have a mess here.” He indicated a circle on the floor with his index finger.
“Please,” she said, softly now. “Please explain.”
“First, tell me,” he said. “Do you believe that stealing loot back from a looter is theft?”