She stood in the middle of the room, he supposed, waiting for him to tell her where to sit. There was his desk, but it seemed impersonal to sit with about a meter of solid oak between them. Usually that type of advantage appealed to him, but once again this woman’s presence was wreaking havoc on his instincts. He looked to the small settee, decided so much proximity would be ill-advised given the situation, and finally settled on the two armchairs on either side of the hearth.
“Please.” He extended his hand and bowed his head, and after a moment of observing him and probably surmising—accurately—that there was something seriously wrong with him, Marena took a seat.
As he sank into the dark blue velvet cushions, he heard Cyrus’s light footsteps as he wheeled in a tea cart. The next few minutes were consumed with cream and sugar specifications, and debates between scones and slices of ginger cake. But Cyrus was exceptionally efficient at his job, and soon they were alone again, with their teacups acting as shields between them.
He considered what to say for a moment, then another, and decided to go with what had always worked for him in business: bluntness. “I’d like to pay you for your assistance in finding my sister.” She widened those bewitching brown eyes and gave a miniscule shake of her head.
“No.” It wasn’t even a protest, just a statement of fact.
“Yes.” He could issue edicts too.
She shook her head again, eyes on him. “This is important to me, to my family. Delfine is like a sister. More than that.” She lowered her eyes so that her eyelashes seemed to kiss her cheekbones.
He was a fervent admirer of every part of a woman. Over the years, he’d taken pains to learn the best places to make them fall apart with pleasure. Yet he’d never noticed eyelashes. How they curved into a cheek, fluttering over the skin...
For fuck’s sake, Arlo. Focus.
“We want her back safely. She should not be hiding like a common criminal when all she did was save that girl’s life.” Her voice hardened. “All Delfine has ever wanted was to heal people.”
From what he’d seen yesterday, he knew Marena would defend Delfine, would be a true friend, and yet the barely restrained anger in her words cracked something in him. This kind of loyalty was not something he came across often in his world. He looked at her for a moment, sitting tall, her head high. A queen, not because of the finery in the room, or the luxury surrounding her. But because she had the heart of one.
“We can discuss money later,” he said roughly, eliciting an unfriendly look. “I know you have no reason to trust me,” he offered coolly, suddenly self-conscious of what she might think of him. “I also know I have a certain reputation of being irreverent within the peerage, but I assure you my intention is to see…Delfine back home safely.” He almost said my sister, but something held him back. The way she was looking at him made Arlo feel like he had not earned that right yet.
“I don’t care what people think,” Marena responded with a shake of her head. “and I don’t usually take the nobility’s word on anyone’s character, especially someone who challenges their hold on power. If I heeded what society said about my own right to exist…” She scoffed. “Well, let’s just say I would not be running my shop. I don’t pay attention to any of it.” Her tone was impatient, like she had no time for such nonsense as societal norms.
“Then why won’t you let me compensate you for the help you’re providing?” She pursed her lips—clearly irritated he’d used her own words to get one over her—and bloody hell, he wanted to kiss her. More than that. He was becoming increasingly fixated on finding out how she tasted right at the juncture where her neck and shoulder met.
“I don’t want your money.” She paused, as if realizing her tone had been more than a little pointed. “Your Grace.” He smothered the laugh bubbling up his throat at the grumbling deference.
“Arlo,” he said. “It’s only fair.”
She harrumphed and shifted in her seat, her eyes everywhere but him. Marena Baine-Torres had opinions on the nobility. And that thought brought an image of her hissing her less-than-favorable assessment at him while he made his way down her body, kissing and licking every inch of that flawless skin.
“Arlo,” she said, bringing him back from his lustful thoughts. “If you insist on me calling you by your name, the least you can do is respond when I do,” she griped. His cock pulsed in his trousers.
“I find myself distracted today,” he said, looking at her mouth again. That red tinge from yesterday appeared on her cheeks. He put down his teacup, just to have something to do. The air practically crackled between them, and he lost the thread of the conversation altogether.
“She’s in Paris,” she offered jolting him back to the matter at hand.
He considered the answer for a moment. France. “She must’ve been fearful if she’d fled the British Isles entirely,” he said, and Marena quickly nodded in agreement.
“Things were grim, and it seemed like the best option.”
“I need you to accompany me to Paris.”
She looked at him, unblinking. “I can’t do that.”
“Delfine has no reason to trust me, but if you are there with me, it may be easier,” he reasoned, but Marena’s expression was completely shuttered.
“I don’t have any reason to trust you.”
He pressed his lips shut to keep from growling the command on the tip of his tongue. “I will make sure your business suffers no loss. If you know where she is, we should not be gone more than a week. It’s—”
“No. And my business is none of your concern,” she informed him, outrage coming through in her voice. “I can’t travel on my own with you. What will people think, I—”
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought.”
“I don’t,” she snapped, her eyes focused on his face. “But I do care about aristos hearing I’m letting noblemen take me on holidays to Paris, and then having them in my shop thinking they can take liberties. I deal with enough already.” He didn’t miss the barely repressed shudder that coursed through her, and fury ignited in his chest.
“Liberties,” he ground out, barely able to keep himself from demanding she tell him the names of every bastard who had harassed her. He felt bloodthirsty, reckless with the need to hurt anyone who had pestered her. Then he remembered he belonged to the very class of people who’d done that to her. He felt shame settle in his gut like sludge. He needed to stop wasting this woman’s time.
“Delfine needs to know I am who I say I am. I can bring them home, Marena.”
He could see the moment she relented. Her shoulders drooped and she closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. When she opened them, they were flinty. “Four days. Two for travel, two in Paris. And you can keep your money.” She stood then, and ran a hand over the skirt of her dress, her gaze everywhere but on him. “I’ll need the next two days to arrange some things.”
“Do you have a passport? We will need it at Calais.”
She gave a sharp nod in response and with a grimace muttered, “Yes, and I will use it to get to Paris on my own.”