His gaze moved to her lips, as expected, and then dropped several inches to the line of her dress. “What is on the chain?”

She did not reach for the silver pendant that lay beneath the edge of the dress, heavy between her breasts, hiding the key that opened the doors to Chase’s rooms and the passage to the upper floors of the club, where Caroline slept. Instead, she smiled. “My secrets.”

One side of his mouth lifted at the words. “Legion, no doubt.”

She reached for him then, letting her fingers trail along his coat sleeve. “How can I thank you, Mr. West? For being such a tremendous champion?”

He leaned in, and she thought of that feather, the one he’d stolen from her hair. She wondered if it was there, in that interior pocket. Wondered what he would do if she reached into his jacket and slid her hand along his warm chest, searching for it.

He interrupted her thoughts. “I met a woman last night.”

Her breath caught, and she sent up a little prayer hoping that he had not noticed. “Should I be jealous?” she teased.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Georgiana Pearson seems quite the innocent. All white silk and fear.”

“Georgiana Pearson?” She feigned surprise at the name, straightening off the wall as he nodded. “I assure you, the girl is not afraid.”

He stepped toward her, pushing her back. Closing her in. “You’re wrong. She’s terrified.”

She forced a laugh. “The girl is sister to a duke with a dowry large enough to purchase a small country. Of what is she afraid?”

“Of everything,” he said, all casualness. “Of Society. Of its judgment. Of her future.”

“She may not care for those things, but she is certainly not afraid of them. You’ve misjudged her.”

“And how do you know anything about her?”

She was caught. He was too nimble with words, with questions. And too distracting with his long, lean form and his beautiful broad shoulders that blocked out the light, making her nervous and eager all at once. “I don’t. Only what I read in the papers.” She paused. “There was a telling cartoon a month or so back.”

The barb hit true. She heard it in the way his breath caught. Felt it in the way he stiffened, nearly imperceptibly, before he lifted a hand, set it to the wall beside her head. Leaned in. “I did misjudge her. There’s no doubt of that,” he said. “She is not the simpering girl I expected her to be.”

He leaned closer, his lips by her ear, the nearness of him setting her off balance. Making her want to push him away and grab hold of him all at once. “I offered the girl my help.”

Relief flooded through her. “I don’t know why you think I’m interested in what you do with the girl.”

The moment the words were out, she cursed herself, images of precisely what he might do with her flooding her thoughts.

He laughed, low and dark. “I assure you, what I do with the girl will be well worth watching.” He met her gaze, and she resisted the urge to back away. Anna did not back away from men, even when she wished to. But for some reason, few men made her as uncomfortable as this one, with his beautiful, knowing gaze that seemed to see right into her.

She was taller than most women, and wearing heeled slippers that added several inches to her height, but still she was forced to look up at him, to take in his strong, square jaw, his equine nose, the fall of blond locks across his brow.

He had to be the handsomest man in Britain. And the cleverest.

Which made him incredibly dangerous.

He shifted, and she wondered if he was as uncomfortable as she was.

“You should not be alone with me.”

“It is not the first time we have been alone.” They’d been alone the night before. On that balcony. When he’d tempted her just the same.

One of his brows rose. “Yes, it is.”

Damn. She’d been Georgiana on the balcony. Another woman. Another time. She quickly recovered from the mistake, pouting and pretending to think. She let her lips curve seductively. “Perhaps I am merely dreaming it.”

His gaze narrowed. “Perhaps,” he said, the word dark and liquid. “It’s a wonder that Chase allows it.”

“I do not belong to Chase.”

“Of course you do.” He paused. “We all do, in a sense.”

“Not you,” she said. He was the only person who was not beholden to her. This man, whose secrets were as well kept as her own.

“Chase and I need each other to survive,” he said, “just as it seems you need him.”

She inclined her head. “We are all in this boat together.”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “You and I are in the boat,” he said. “Chase may have built it and set it on its course. But it is our boat.” The words were punctuated by the sound of his wool coat sleeve shifting. He lifted his hand and brushed a curl back from her neck, sending a thrill through her. “Perhaps we should sail away. How do you think he would like that?”

She caught her breath. In all the time that they had worked together – in all the time they’d spent passing messages back and forth from the mysterious, nonexistent Chase – he’d never touched her in any way that could be considered remotely sexual. But that was about to change.

She shouldn’t allow it. She’d never allowed it before. Not with anyone.

Not since —

But she’d wondered about it. She’d wanted it.

And if she admitted it, she’d wanted it from this man, handsome as sin and twice as brilliant.