The Love Affair of an English Lord by Jillian Hunter

evening.”
    â€œTell me, and I might gladly help you.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to tell,” he said curtly.
    There was, and her instincts knew it. For that knowledge alone she would cooperate. Brandon had been more than a brother. He had been her best friend.
    But this man was clearly not in a frame of mind to trust anyone, and Chloe might even have felt sorry for him had he not taken over her life in such an abominable manner. For example, the way he was rifling through her trunk again, diving into her most personal underclothes with no propriety whatsoever.
    â€œWhat do you think you are doing now?”
    â€œLooking for a dressing robe that has a little more substance. Your state of undress is a distraction I do not feel strong enough at this moment to ignore.”
    Chloe paused. She might find the underlying sentiment behind that statement very interesting if she actually stopped to ponder it. He found her attractive. Yet obviously he was not going to allow that to interfere with what he needed to do.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with the robe I’m wearing? It’s less than a month old.”
    He glanced up in exasperation. “Be thankful for the mist tonight. If your idiot admirer had gotten a good look at you, he’d be climbing that tree in a trice. I’d have to take care of him, too, and
not
as nicely as I am dealing with you, either.”
    â€œNicely? I should certainly hate to be in your company when you consider yourself in a bad temper.” She knelt beside him to rescue a favorite fan from his hands. “Anyway, if you hadn’t been leering over my shoulder, I might have had the presence of mind to be properly dressed.”
    â€œWould you have gone down to meet him if I weren’t here to leer over you? No. There’s no need to answer. Your brothers undoubtedly were justified in exiling you.”
    She gripped the fan in a death vise. “I was sent to the country for the health of my lungs. I am prone to coughing ailments.”
    â€œYou were caught kissing. A baron, wasn’t it?”
    Chloe felt suddenly stripped of all her defenses, laid bare before a man it would be impossible to mislead. “I have no idea where you come by this information.”
    â€œSuffice it to say that I have.”

Chapter 6

    Dominic closed the lid of the trunk. He suppressed a feverish shiver; he suspected there was an infection poisoning his body. He needed Chloe’s cooperation for a short time, it was true. He required her discretion if his plans were to succeed, and had he been given his pick of partners in revenge, this rule-breaking exile would not have been his first choice.
    Was she even capable of discretion?
    Could he trust her at all?
    It had been a mistake to mention her brother earlier. She had latched onto his suspicions all too quickly for him to be able to deceive her. Yes, Dominic had evidence that Brandon and his own younger brother had been the victims of a heartless plot. No, he did not accept the Honourable East India Company’s tidy version of the attack by Gurkha rebels. Could he prove his suspicion? Not quite yet.
    Damnation, what
was
he to do with her?
    He rose slowly to his feet, aware that she was watching him warily, as one would a wounded animal. He did not blame her. In the past month he had become more beast than man, behaving on sheer instinct. He took hold of her hands and felt her eyes lift to his. Her fingers were so much smaller than his own, yet warm and strong as she resisted his touch.
    â€œLook at me.” The protector he had once been would have cherished her innocent fire. The devil he had become wanted to stoke her flames until she burned. “Can I trust you?” he asked, his fingers tightening as if to counteract the tension he felt in her hands.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    It was an honest answer, one that filled him with regret. If he could not depend on her, then all he hoped for would turn to ashes.