Leslie Lafoy (40 page)

Tracing her lip, he smiled. “I didn’t forget, Sera,” he said softly. “I very deliberately chose not to bring them into Paradise.”

No woman on earth had ever been happier, more completed than she was. “Thank you.”

His eyes sparkled with devilment. “You’ll have to marry me, you know. The scandal will be horrendous if you don’t.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want your reputation to suffer.”

“I was referring to yours,” he countered, chuckling. “Mine’s already an irredeemable disaster.”

“They can say whatever they like,” she assured him, settling back in beside him, her head in the cradle of his shoulder, her hand lying over his heart. “About either of us. I don’t care.”

He threaded his fingers through hers and whispered, “Thank you for loving me enough to be patient with me.”

“I would have waited forever and a day for you, Carden Reeves.”

Yes, forever and a day. With Sera. With her at his side, anywhere would be Paradise.

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T
HE
P
ERFECT
T
EMPTATION

By Leslie LaFoy

C
OMING
J
ULY
2004

F
ROM
S
T.
M
ARTIN’S
P
APERBACKS

Alex took her seat in the cab, folded her hands in her lap, and sincerely regretted that she hadn’t had the courage to throw something of a dignified tantrum. Barrett Stanbridge was everything that Emmaline had said he was: urbane, gentlemanly, the epitome of professional. His associate, however, was another matter entirely. John Aiden Terrell was a man barely civilized.

His hair was too long and too sun-bleached to even approximate fashionable. And it was unruly, too. Most men combed their locks into a deliberate style of one sort or another. But not Terrell; he simply let it tumble wherever it wanted. Which happened, she silently groused, to somehow perfectly accentuate the most beautiful, intensely green eyes she’d ever seen. In the first moments they’d quite simply taken her breath away. And then she’d noticed the sardonic, knowing glint in them. Combined with his easy, graceful movements and his massive shoulders … She’d thought of tigers, of the danger that lurked beneath the indolent manner, and it had taken every bit of her self-discipline to suppress the gasp. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d studiously ignored him and eventually recovered some measure of her composure.

He, of course, seemed to have spent the rest of the interview trying his best to ruffle it. Positioning himself so that he half-reclined against the desk with his well-muscled thighs within casual glance! It was patently obvious that he had abandoned the major tenets that ruled the public conduct of gentlemen. The man was a rake at best. At worst, an unabashed hedonist.

Yes, she should have spoken up when asked if she had any concerns about or objections to the arrangements Mr. Stanbridge had made. She should have said that she preferred to avoid being in the presence of John Aiden Terrell if at all possible, that he made her feel really quite …

Well, frightened wasn’t entirely accurate. He was so very different from all the other gentlemen she’d ever met that she couldn’t help but be a bit intrigued by him. Her heart skittered when she met his gaze and she held her breath every time he opened his mouth to speak. And the way he moved … Good God, the man was nothing short of a feast for brazen eyes. It was all most unsettling. Yes, Alex decided, unsettled was the proper word. John Aiden Terrell made her feel horribly unsettled. She should have said that when Mr. Stanbridge had asked for any objections.

But she hadn’t said anything of the sort. Terrell had goaded her until stubborn pride and dignity had seized control of her better judgment. Now she was stuck with him for the immediate future. The only recourse was to make the best of the situation, to remember that protecting Mohan came before all other considerations. If Terrell proved himself to be anything short of stellar at the task, she wouldn’t hesitate to send him packing back to his employer. With any luck at all, he’d be on his way before sunset.

The door of the rented carriage opened, and Terrell, his sun-burnished head uncovered, bounded in and dropped unceremoniously onto the opposite seat. “I presume,” he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat, “that you’ve instructed the driver as to your address?”

The vehicle began to roll even as he asked and so she refused to dignify the question with an answer. Instead, having decided that there was no time like the present to firmly establish her authority as his employer, she said, “I wish to be absolutely clear on one point at the very outset, Mr. Terrell. While in Mr. Stanbridge’s office, you referred to my situation as desperate. It’s not. It’s merely vulnerable. There’s a significant difference between the two.”

One tawny brow slowly rose to disappear under the hair tumbling over his forehead. A wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth and dimpled a handsomely chiseled cheek. “The difference, Miss Radford,” he countered dryly, “between vulnerable and desperate is generally about a half second. Which is roughly the time it takes for someone to pull a trigger.”

“No one from India is going to use a firearm,” she replied, struggling to contain her irritation. “A blade of one sort or another would be the weapon of choice. It’s tradition.”

“And does that bit of reality make you feel better?”

“I have been trained in the defensive arts,” she supplied, meeting his gaze unflinchingly.

“Are you proficient enough that you could turn an attacker’s weapon against him?”

It depended entirely on the skill and determination of the assailant. A small child or a cripple might have reason to think twice before launching an assault against her, but no one else would. Still, she wasn’t prepared to share the truth with the likes of the tiger in the opposite seat. “I assure you, Mr. Terrell,” she said evenly, “that I would be able to delay any attacker long enough to afford Mohan the chance to escape capture.”

He considered her as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Finally, he asked, “Would he take it or would he stay to help you?”

The man had all the persistence of a rat terrier. And none of the charm. “Mohan has been instructed to run away under such circumstances.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” he observed with a slight shake of his head. “You have a habit of doing that, you know.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His gaze boring into her own, he firmly asked, “Is Mohan the type of child who thinks of himself before others?”

She had no idea why he considered the matter to be worth such dogged pursuit, but since she also couldn’t see any danger in honesty, she answered, “I suspect that in a threatening situation, Mohan would act foolishly and try to protect me.”

“There’s something to be said for gallantry and bravery,” he countered, settling back into the seat again. “Too many young people today think only of themselves.”

“Mohan can’t afford the luxury of such lofty ideals,” Alex felt compelled to point out. “He’s to be the raja one day. His survival is far more important than being well-considered by others.”

“What good is a raja who’s a coward?” he scoffed. “Who would willingly follow him? Assuming, of course, that he even possesses the strength required to lead.”

And what did John Aiden Terrell know of the qualities of leadership? He was nothing more than an underling to be hired out to anyone who would pay. “Mohan will someday make a very competent and courageous leader.”

The brow inched up again. “Will he be a wise one as well?”

“It’s my responsibility to see that he has the knowledge and experience necessary to exercise his power for the betterment of his people.”

He sighed, compressed his lips, and contemplated the tops of his boots. After a long moment, he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Is it a custom in India to avoid answering questions?”

“I beg your pardon?” Alex asked, genuinely confused by his sudden change in conversational direction.

“There,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You just did it again. You have a very difficult time providing direct answers, Miss Radford. In the short span of our acquaintance, your willing responses have been of three types—half the truth, a truth unrelated to the inquiry, or an overt attempt to change the subject entirely. You aren’t fully honest unless you’re absolutely forced to be. Why is that?”

Because it’s how one survives in a royal Indian household,
she silently answered. Pushing aside the jumble of memories and ignoring the odd and unfamiliar sense of melancholy welling inside her, Alex lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

“I don’t see that my personal behaviors are any of your concern, Mr. Terrell,” she declared in the voice she used to squelch dissension in the schoolroom. “You’ve been employed for the sole purpose of protecting Mohan. And while your duty and mine are temporarily the same, our association doesn’t require the development of anything more substantive than a purely business relationship.”

“A half-related truth. That makes a fourth way you can answer. I’m impressed.”

He had to be the most insufferable man in all of London. In all of England. Perhaps even the entire British empire. The possibility of enduring his questioning and derisive comments for the foreseeable future was more than she could bear. “Is there some particular reason why you have this apparent compulsion to needle me, Mr. Terrell?” she demanded, determined to resolve their contest one way or the other. “Do I remind you of someone you especially dislike?”

“Well, you certainly don’t appear to have any difficulty in asking a direct question.”

“A related truth, Mr. Terrell,” she shot back. “Perhaps even an attempt to change the subject. But not an answer.”

His smile was easy and broad, crinkling the corners of his eyes and sending a hard jolt into the center of her chest. “And you don’t appear to like evasion any better than I do, Miss Radford. Shall we call a truce? Or shall we just continue to verbally fence until one of us actually succeeds in drawing blood?”

A truce? Dear God, no. Not under any circumstances. She needed to keep as much distance as possible between them; he had a way of undermining her concentration, of stirring feelings that she suspected might grow to be uncontrollable.

“I don’t much care for your manner, Mr. Terrell,” she admitted. “You’re disrespectful, sarcastic, and appear to be, at best, only marginally interested in the task to which you’ve been assigned.”

He snorted softly and his smile widened. “I’ve been assigned to the task for less than fifteen minutes. The majority of that time has been spent trying to pry straight answers out of you. And not altogether successfully, I might add. Which means that, to this point, anyway, you haven’t earned my respect.” His smile faded and his eyes darkened to the color of a storm-shadowed sea. “As for sarcasm … I don’t like being treated like a boot-licking minion, Miss Radford.”

“Especially by women,” she clarified, her pulse racing in the face of prodding his obvious anger.

“Mostly by spinsters with an inflated sense of self-importance.”

There it was, the unvarnished truth of it. He’d accurately concluded that she wasn’t the sort of woman who would ever wrap herself around his ankles and beg him to deliver her from evil. And since she didn’t meet his standards of femininity, he wasn’t obligated to meet the expectations of a modern St. George. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d been declared insufficiently female, but that truth didn’t dull the pain. In fact, inexplicably, the barb seemed to have gone deeper this time than ever before.

Summoning every shred of her dignity, Alex found what she hoped passed as a serene smile and said, “It’s apparent that we’re not going to be able to work well together, Mr. Terrell. I think it would be best if we had the driver turn back.”

Terrell settled his broad shoulders into the corner of the carriage, stretched his long legs out, folded his arms over his chest, and grinned. The pit of Alex’s stomach tightened even as her skin warmed and tingled.

“You said that you put the injured guard on a boat for India three weeks ago,” he began. “Given your determination to protect your ward, I’m guessing that you haven’t spent the last three weeks forgetting to hire a replacement guard. I think you’ve made the rounds and went to Emmaline for a recommendation only when the obvious, more publicly known choices didn’t meet your standards. Barrett is a very private investigator. You only know about him by personal reference. So, following the deductive logic to the end … You have two options, Miss Radford. It’s me or go it alone.”

He might actually do a decent job of protecting Mohan. His mind worked with surprising precision and clarity. Not that she was about to share that bit of appreciative insight with him. And not that she was willing to surrender control of any situation to him, either. “What credentials and experience do you have, Mr. Terrell?”

He laughed silently and she knew that he was thinking,
change of subject.
Blessedly though, he found some grace and didn’t torment her. “Relatively few, actually. I was once ten years old and have younger brothers so I do have a basic understanding of what goes through the minds of boys. Beyond that…” He shrugged. “Barrett has decreed that I shall spend my life productively. I’ve discovered that, for the time being, it’s easier to acquiesce than fight him on the matter.”

“Do you always take the easiest course?”

“Rarely, actually. I’m reforming at the moment.”

Alex arched a brow, wondering just how much of an improvement she was seeing.

“No, not happily and not by much,” he supplied, apparently able to read her mind. “But since a child’s life is in danger, I’ll manage to trudge along.”

She understood the edgy resignation she heard in his voice; she’d spent all of her life trudging through one duty after another. Nevertheless … “I don’t find that attitude very reassuring, Mr. Terrell.”

His smile faded slowly and, as they had the last time she’d prodded him, his eyes darkened. “I’ll do what I must to protect Mohan for as long as necessary. How you feel about me in the process really doesn’t matter one whit.”